Sonic the Hedgehog is one of those franchises that you are either a fan or not. There is not a lot of wiggle room for anything in between. Gamers either love the high speed gameplay or they loathe it. Going by sales, and sequels to capitalize on those sales, it is safe to say there are a lot of fans out there.

Sonic was a risk

Sega took a lot of chances with their consoles, Sonic and Knuckles being one of them. Before this title, there was no real “add-on” option for cartridge based titles. Sure there was the Game Genie which used similar technology, that was not an add-on option, it did not add anything new to the titles attached to it. Sonic and Knuckles does.

Knuckles was also a risk

The main draw for this title was that it offered up a new character, Knuckles, for players to enjoy familiar territory with.  We did not see this type of technology again in gaming, probably because it is harder than it looks to create interlockable games.  There were rumors when Street Fighter II hit the Super Nintendo that it would use something similar to the Sonic and Knuckles method to update the game with access to the boss characters as player controllable but that obviously never panned out.

Fans keeping the flame alive

Fans are awesome. They will work tirelessly on projects for no money just to have something companies will not release. For instance, ports to consoles that are far gone by now. Want to see Sonic the Hedgehog on an Amstrad? The Game Boy? Someone either has done it or is likely working on it.

In console gaming so far, there was only one other title that offered an expansion.  Can anyone name it?

Grab your copy of Sonic and Knuckles from our friends at Amazon or eBay.

Carl Williams

It is time gaming journalism takes its rightful place as proper sources and not fanboys giving free advertising. If you wish to support writers like Carl please use the links below. https://www.paypal.me/WCW https://www.patreon.com/CarlWilliams