Sky Reflects on His Favorite Game Franchises - The First Half (Sonic, Zelda, Mega Man)

Video games as a medium contain a vast ocean of genres and franchises for people to explore, and inevitably people will find those series. The ones that, for one reason or another, resonate with you above all others. This can be for a number of reasons. Maybe they’ve been around for years or they helped you get through a rough patch in life. As we play and explore, inevitably we find the select series that we become the most attached through. Throughout my life, I’ve more or less established a group of series that I can reliably turn to whenever I’m absolutely positive I need a good time. So to help mark the beginning of this blog, I wanted to reflect a bit about my journey with these series. How I discovered them and why they still resonate with me today. This won’t be a complete history because that’d take way too long and my memory admittedly leaves much to be desired, so think of this more as a general overview for why these series in particular stand out so much in my eyes.  I’ll be discussing these franchises based on how long they’ve been in my life for. From oldest to most recent: Sonic the Hedgehog, The Legend of Zelda, Mega Man, Megami Tensei, Trails, and finally Dragon Quest. Today, we’ll be highlighting the first three.

Sonic the Hedgehog:

Out of all of the different franchises I’ll be discussing in this 2-part series, Sonic the Hedgehog stands as the one that’s been with me the longest. From what I’ve been told, the first time I heard his name was when I was around 2-3 years old, I just kept repeating it happily. Obviously I have no memory of this myself, but when I think about just how long I’ve been tuned into the series I can’t help but relent to the fact that it’s probably true. I’ve played A LOT of Sonic games and have a majority of mainline and handheld entries under my belt. A fully fleshed out discussion of my history with the series would be far beyond the scope of what I'm aiming for today. So for now, I’ll only cover 4 games that basically defined my earliest years and taste in games. 

My First Video Game Ever

Sonic Heroes on the GameCube was my first video game ever. My household had a GameCube before I was even born. My dad was big on Mario, so I guess he wanted to make my older brother and I Nintendo fans from the start. We didn’t have a memory card for the longest time, so I always had to restart the game whenever I booted it up. I didn't mind it much though, I was young and Sonic Heroes was so colorful and fun. The environments were rich in color and everyone was so expressive and cartoony. For a kid around 4-5 as I was, it made a striking impression. Nowadays I’m not very keen on the game unfortunately. The characters are simply too slippery for my liking and it often leads to tight platforming feeling like a chore for the wrong reasons. Plus, I find that the levels for anyone not on Team Rose run for an eerily long time. You certainly got your money's worth compared to how short some modern series stages can run for, but when a level lasts for 8+ minutes I can’t help but feel drained and tired by the end. I’ll still go to bat for the aesthetic any day of the week.

A Truly Special Collection

Heroes served as my introduction to both Modern Sonic and gaming as a whole, and following that up in the Sonic department was Sonic Mega Collection. I had been given the game after I annoyed a relative enough that they outright gave me their copy (I have no regrets). Any person who owned the collection can tell you just how much love was poured into it to sell people on the franchise. Absolutely everything about the collection screams nostalgia and love: its presentation, music, extras, etc. The games included all ran flawlessly and the amount of games included on disc was frankly insane for the time. There was even non-Sonic stuff in there, though I never touched those. I wouldn’t actually beat the 2D Genesis classics until Sonic Origins released, yet again due to my lack of a memory card, but I played Mega Collection so much that I can’t not consider it formulative for me. 

Switching over to the handheld scene, I also owned a Game Boy Advance for a short time, and with it a copy of Sonic Advance 3. Unlike Heroes, Advance 3 is a game that I consider one of my favorite Sonic games. Keeping to the theme of this section, I wouldn’t actually beat Advance 3 while I had my original copy. The game was tough, with the partner mechanic and level design giving me trouble no matter how much I struggled. When I replayed it back in 2022-3, my enhanced experience with 2D side-scrollers as a whole greatly enhanced the experience. Advance 3 seems to have a pretty mixed public reception overall, likely due to the team up mechanic being greatly unbalanced with some pairs over others. Comparing a team composed of Sonic and Amy to one composed of Tails and Knuckles is night and day. But that’s never deterred me from my enjoyment of the game. The team-up mechanic gives it a distinct identity from most other games in the series and it's got some killer presentation. A great game!

The final game I’d like to touch upon when discussing Sonic is Sonic Colors, the Wii version. It was a surprise gift from my mom, and I played the hell out of it. The aesthetic was (and still is) a sight to behold, with just how varied the environments are. Aquarium Park, Tropical Resort, and Starlight Carnival to this day are so vibrant and beautiful to me. To this day, I believe the Interstellar Amusement Park stands as the most visually pleasing setting in the series. If I ever design a game or story, I absolutely want to include something like this in it. The Interstellar Amusement Park just has so much to love about it. Gameplay wise, I admit that it can feel a bit platform heavy, but the levels are still genuinely fun to get through. I’m a sucker for the boost formula, and this game along wit Generations are why. The style is just so appealing to me gameplay wise and visually, just blowing through most obstacles in your way cause you’re the fastest thing on the planet. I know Colors gets a lot of flack these days for its tone and humor but I’ll always stand by my opinion that it’s a solid game. 

These are just 4 of the many games in this franchise. A franchise that has been with me for basically my entire life. I was there when people were disappointed with Sonic Lost World, confused at Sonic Boom's mere existence, giving unending applause to Sonic Mania’s reveal, frustrated with Sonic Forces, and worried for Sonic Frontiers. All the ups, the downs, the triumphs, the backlash; I saw it all at some point. Sonic’s basically seen it all at this point, and for 20+ years (god…) I was right there with him. I may not be the Sonic Ultra Fan I was when I was 7 anymore, but this series will always hold a special place in my heart. Here’s to the next mainline entry, whenever and whatever it may be.

The Legend of Zelda:

Growing up, Mario was always the Nintendo franchise that I had the most access to, yet Zelda always stood out to me visually, and eventually became my preferred series between the two as I slowly began to explore the series. The Wii U marked the start of the journey for me. I predominantly played A Link to the Past, Wind Waker HD, and Majora’s Mask. Of those three, Majora’s Mask was the only game I ended up beating as a child. Not the greatest look for someone claiming to be a big Zelda fan, but MM was one of my favorite games period for the longest time. 

Art for the 3DS Remake of MM

A distinctly oppressive game even by today's standards, MM’s premise of being trapped in a groundhog day-like 3 day cycle as you slowly work towards preventing the moon from wiping out all of Termina remains one of the best set-ups for a game I’ve seen. Having an in-game timer constantly beating down at the players neck as they do everything they can to make progress in Termina really shows one of the unique strengths of storytelling through video games. It’s stressful and absolutely not for everyone, but also really satisfying to beat if you power through. Especially if you go out of your way to get the Fierce Deity Mask, the 100% mask collection reward. To this day, it remains my favorite version of Link. Majora’s Mask would be the only Zelda game I completed for quite a while, with the rest of my admiration for the franchise coming from much later on. 

One of the Most Celebrated Games in Recent History

Breath of the Wild would be the next game I tackled when I got a Nintendo Switch in late 2020. BotW was the first open world game I ever bothered to see through to the end. Normally I don’t really like games that are completely open ended. I like a set structure, and while I may deviate from the path occasionally, I've never been too fond of games that are completely hands off with the player. But BotW ended up being the exception for me. Everything catches your eye in this version of Hyrule, mainly because if you see it there’s a path there and a secret waiting for you. Exploration was engaging, and everyone’s got a unique story to tell upon finishing the game. The Divine Beasts stand as a major weak point in my eyes unfortunately. They were completely uninteresting as dungeons for me. All of them have the same central mechanic of moving different parts of the beast which gets old fast, and visually they’re pretty bland (though I understand why it’s like that). Aside from that, I still hold my time with BotW rather fondly. I often think about those early days with my Switch, finally discovering this game that has become so notorious in the public consciousness. I wouldn’t put it in my absolute favorite games list, but Breath of the Wild certainly gets a thumbs up in my book. 

After that Zelda has slowly become much more active in my life. I’ve now played and beaten Link's Awakening, Skyward Sword HD, Twilight Princess, Ocarina of Time 3D, and A Link Between Worlds. There’s definitely a glaring bias towards the 3D entries with this list, but that’s because the 3D titles interested me more than the 2D ones. In terms of specifically 3D Zelda, I only have Wind Waker and Tears of the Kingdom left. Along with that there’s still a large amount of 2D games for me to try at some point too. My journey with this franchise is far from over, and I look forward to the memories I’ll make with it now and in the future.

Mega Man:

My love for the Mega Man franchise in its entirety (meaning every sub-series) is one that snuck up on me. I had only 1 MM game as a kid, Mega Man: Powered Up, a remake of the original game (though I didn’t know that at the time). Not many people really talk about Powered Up, and it’s a shame because looking back it’s a pretty stellar remake. Mega Man, Roll (and her 13 costumes), Protoman, and every robot master had a playable campaign. I remember discovering that you could play as the robot masters by complete accident (Dr. Light talking about repairing them went over my head) and was blown away. The game also had bonus challenge stages to beat and a level editor like what Super Mario Maker would put out years later. I put A LOT of hours into the game in my youth. I sucked at video games as a kid though, and only ever beat the game using Protoman after downloading him for free like everyone else who didn’t want to play all the challenges. You’d think that Powered Up would’ve marked the start of a lifelong journey between me and Mega Man, but honestly after Powered Up the series fell under my radar for a bit. I simply never got around to any other game in the series. That all changed one fateful day when I asked my mother to buy me Mega Man X…the IOS port.

Desperately Want A Re-release

I didn’t have any real basis for comparison between the IOS version and the SNES original, so the downgrade in quality didn’t mean much to me. I really enjoyed my time with that port of X1. So much so in fact that I fully completed it, hadouken and everything. The game was so cool to me; the high energy soundtrack and fast-paced gameplay of just mowing down every enemy in your path was awesome. The story went completely over my head as an idiot child, but that didn’t really matter.  I enjoyed the experience. Then, as if history decided to repeat itself, I once again wouldn’t touch the Mega Man franchise again for a few more years. In fact, the next time I’d return to the series was around 2019, when I bought Volume 1 of the Mega Man X Legacy Collection.

This would mark the beginning of a multi-year long endeavor. The Legacy Collections had been a huge boon in my journey to experience the MM franchise, and every other year or so I would pick up one of them and play through each game included. Currently, I own at least 1 version of every single collection released on various platforms, with the only games that I haven’t touched yet being Mega Man X7, Mega Man X8, and Mega Man ZX Advent. Alongside the legacy collections, I’ve also emulated the first 2 Legends games and played the fan-enhanced port of the first Mega Man Star Force game known as Mega Man Star Force DX. In the span of a couple years, I’ve gone from only a handful of games under my belt to practically the entire series. My journey with Mega Man has been an incredibly fruitful one.

Current Favorite MM Game

My favorite series in the franchise currency has to be the Mega Man Battle Network series. They’re deckbuilding JRPGs that use a 3x3 grid battle system and it’s some of the most fun I’ve ever had with the genre. Creating a well made deck of battlechips and watching how the synergy between chips absolutely decimates the enemy brings a tear to my eye. For JRPGs, the stories of each entry are generally nothing special. Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue has the most solid story, though I’d say Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Gregar is my favorite overall entry. The Cross-System in combination with Beast-Out transformations made the game addictive to me. The Star Force trilogy of games serve as a sequel series to Battle Network, taking place hundreds of years after them. After experiencing the BN games as well as the first SF, I can safely say I’m immensely excited at the prospect of playing the other two SF games on the Legacy Collection come March 27th.