Sonic the Hedgehog is perhaps one of the most influential series out there regarding people's childhood.

For many of us, it was a game from this series that made the first video game that we played, or that marks one of our earlier encounters with such a product.

Sonic over the years has gone under many different changes, while remaining somewhat true to it's core. It has been shaped by the changing times, as well as a maturing audience. Some people have come to expect one thing from the series, such as speed, simple fun, and lighthearted action. Others have come to enjoy the blaring rock guitars of City Escape, All Hail Shadow, and many more of the darker elements in the series.

What is it that makes Sonic to you? What sort of category of fans do you believe that you'd fall in?

That cake in the pic looks very much like the cake in Kid Icarus: Uprising.

Sonic, to me, is best defined as a super-fast protector of that which is good. The gameplay is fast and as fluid as the gamers make it out to be. Sonic is super confident, and trusts in his friends. Perhaps he is overconfident at times, but this is resolved well.

I perhaps enjoyed Sonic's depiction in Secret Rings the most. I enjoyed the gameplay of Sonic Generations the most. I've probably spent the most time playing Sonic 2.

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 was my first Sonic game I believe. I still remember the stupid commercials they had for it.

I have a lot of memories of various Sonic games such as 3D Blast, 3, Sonic & Knuckles, and Spinball. However I personally don't care for any Sonic games anymore aside from 3D Blast and Chaos. Still, it will always hold a special place in my memories of my childhood. I played those games so much as a kid...

What it means to me is a good deal of memories, but what it is to me now is a platformer with a great concept that I feel is poorly executed especially in the earlier titles (it's name implies that it's all about speed, but half of it's mechanics seem geared toward slow play such as scattered rings and secret areas/items and split levels that require backtracking to 100% while the other half encourage speed instead of completionism), and a good direction change in newer titles that suffer from poor 2D to 3D adjusting.

I would love to see a straight forward speed-only side scrolling Sonic released today. That would be a lot of fun.

Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the coolest video game characters of all time. He's the fastest thing alive after all, and he's got the best sidekick in gaming history Tails on his side. He's also defeated the evil Dr Robotnik/Eggman so many times. Unfortunately for him, he's seen far better days. His newer games haven't been very good (though Sonic Colors and Generations are 2 exceptions). Sega needs to start making great games for their mascot again and restore his reputation, though after their latest debacle Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, that task will be much harder...

Sonic is a fast-paced platforming game, but it seems to keep falling short on the speed department lately, and I have not been interested in Sonic Boom from the lack of good reviews.

A supersonic somewhat arrogant  anthropomorphic hedgehog in shoes who always manages to save the day.

Since the first real console I had (I don't consider early computers or Coleco) was a Sega Genesis, Sonic represents my introduction to the video game world.

I had played Mario games in the past (1 and 3, mainly) but I found Sonic to be more enjoyable because of the quality of its graphics (much more colorful), the fact that you could actually play two players at once (and therefore help each other) and because the music was better. To this day I still think that Sonic was superior to Mario up to the 16 bits era. Too bad Sega was bad at marketing and let its franchise die...