Sonic the Hedgehog Sonic the Hedgehog Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game franchise produced by Sega centering on a series of high-speed platform games. Sonic, the protagonist, is an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog with supersonic speed. Typically, Sonic must stop antagonist Doctor Eggman's plans for world domination, often helped by his friends, such as Tails, Amy, and Knuckles. The first "Sonic the Hedgehog" game, released in 1991, was conceived by Sega's Sonic Team division after Sega requested a mascot character to compete with Nintendo's mascot Mario. Its success spawned many sequels and helped Sega become one of the leading video game companies during
Sonic the Hedgehog collect one of the Chaos Emeralds. In "Sonic the Hedgehog 3", if all Emeralds have already been found, touching them rewards the player fifty rings. In most games since "Sonic Adventure 2", these giant rings serve as the end level marker, which ends the level upon touching it. Checkpoints are items placed throughout the stages in "Sonic" games which serve mainly as progress markers. If the player runs through one, their progress through a level is "saved". If the player then loses a life on the same stage, they will start over at the last checkpoint passed. Checkpoints also serve