35 Years Ago Today, Sega Released One of the Greatest Video Games of All Time

Travel back to 1991. If you were a gamer, more than likely you were busy at work finding every last secret in Super Mario World. Maybe you hadn't bought an SNES yet and were working on your backlog of titles on the NES. Nintendo was the dominant company in the industry and the gold standard, no matter what system you were playing its games on.

Everything changed on June 21. Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis, and gaming was never the same again. The original platformer with the Blue Blurr offered a daring alternative to Nintendo's "cleaner" gameplay. Sonic's personality was brash and confident, and the game in which he launched himself into the world matched that status.

Sonic the Hedgehog is erratic. It required less precision than Mario's games, something that made both Sonic and his ensuing franchise somewhat of a rebellious heel turn from Nintendo's mascot.

Sega knew it had to develop something that copied just enough of the general platforming concepts from Super Mario Bros., but it needed to be "better". Whether they actually accomplished that feat is irrelevant. Sonic the Hedgehog encapuslated everything the company wanted about the era they were in and where they were headed.

The Sonic games were enough for Sega to compete for top dog of the industry throughout the 1990s, but it was the decision to fold its console division and become a third-party developer that saw enduring success for the company.

Now, Sega's games are often published on Nintendo consoles. Mario and Sonic are both rivals and friends. They appear alongside each other in Super Smash Bros. games, and Sonic is more popular now than he has been in quite some time.

All of that is owed to the ingenuity of the original Sonic the Hedgehog. Here's the another 35 years of racing through the Green Hill Zone and trying to stop Eggman!

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 21, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published June 20, 2026 at 9:00 PM.