Sonic the Hedgehog platforming of the main levels. The 16-bit "Sonic the Hedgehog " consisted of a giant rotating maze, which many considered a major technical achievement. The most common special stages, however, were segments with the character running through a long tunnel to collect certain items. 3D "collect item" levels, as in "Sonic 3" and "Sonic & Knuckles", used the same perspective but had Sonic collecting all the blue-colored orbs on the surface of a giant sphere. Finally, "Sonic Advance 2" employed a 3D ring-collecting stage, and "Sonic Chaos" ("Sonic and Tails" in Japan) used a variety of gimmicks for its levels.
Sonic the Hedgehog as Wave Master, have composed the majority of the music in later games. Jun Senoue, a member of the band Crush 40 and sound director of the series, has written and performed the main theme tunes of both of the "Sonic Adventure" games, "Sonic Heroes", "Shadow the Hedgehog", and "Sonic and the Black Knight". Since the mid–2000s, the overall sound direction of the series has been handled by Tomoya Ohtani, who has served as the lead composer on "Sonic the Hedgehog", "Sonic Unleashed", "Sonic Colors", "Sonic Lost World", and "Sonic Forces". On several recent games, other non-Sega musicians have contributed