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 completely playable under a second player's control, as well as adding the option for players to utilize Tails' flying ability in levels. It also introduced the character, Knuckles the Echidna, who served as an additional antagonist with Doctor Robotnik for the game. "Sonic & Knuckles", another platform game in the "Sonic series", was released later in 1994. The game featured Knuckles as a playable character with gliding and wall climbing abilities and allowed gamers to plug in "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" to the top of the "Sonic and Knuckles" cartridge as part of the game's "lock on" functionality. This allowed