Autism and Sonic the Hedgehog

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I can relate to the comments. My 13yo son plays a lot of Sonic, he even made this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIcZnVZ2u7M

I think he finds it good to talk..he is pretty quiet in the real world. If you like his video then please 'like' his channel or subscribe, he sends all day recording his games and has so few friends or followers.

BlueMax

When I was little, Sonic the Hedgehog was a huge part of my life.

The very first game I played was Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on PC, as my dad had downloaded it from a games website for my sister and I to play. Since then, I played a lot of the games (both classic and modern) for countless of hours everyday such as Sonic and Knuckles, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2, Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut, Sonic Mega Collection and Sonic Heroes. The catchy music, the gameplay and the colourful characters who I felt like I had a connection with was what had drawn me into it. Tails was particularly my favourite character.

I remember going to the video shop with my mum several times a week to rent the video cassettes of The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog as well as the original movie, which I would watch over and over again.
And when the Sonic X series first came out here in Australia, I got up very early each morning to watch it (like five to six o' clock early) and then I went on to collect the Sonic X: Season 1 DVDs in shops while ordering DVDs for the second season online afterwards.

In other words I was very, very obsessed.
Although I am intrigued by the idea that this interest could be related to autism in some way. I've been reading other people's posts and agree with most of the reasons people have given.

As a matter of interest after my son became obsessed with all variant of Sonic on multiple Platforms, he then discovered Kingdom Hearts, and since then has all variants including special additions, on both PS2 and PS3. He says he likes it because its similar..not sure how. Anyone else think there are similarities?

BlueMax

I've often wondered what the connection was myself. I mean, I enjoyed Sonic Adventure 2 as a kid, and I've also played a bit of the Genesis games, but the newer games hold almost no interest to me whatsoever. Really, I think the connection has something to do with the series prominent focus on anthropomorphic animal characters, as well as Sonic's faux-edgy "2 kewl 4 school" attitude, which makes him seem "cool" without being threatening.

Much like parts of My Little Pony's fanbase, parts of the Sonic fanbase do tend to be cringeworthy, but really I think it's just a vocal minority who ruin it for everyone else. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with being a Sonic fan, though to me Sonic is just a corporate mascot who was designed from the get-go to be "cool", and as such he doesn't really seem genuine to me. I'm not trying to bash on anyone who's a fan, I'm just personally not a fan.

I'm not overly familiar with Kingdom Hearts, though I did play a bit of the first game over 10 years ago. I think the main similarities have to do with both series featuring a large cast of colorful cartoon characters, as well as a good dose of nonthreatening faux-edginess. Even though Kingdom Hearts is more RPG-oriented, I can see some gameplay similarities between it and the newer Sonic games as well.

I cannot explain it but it is what it is- the blue hedgehog is my lifelong friend.
It's his attitude and spirit I guess...

It's so weird that I actually came across a post like this. I knew someone in college on the spectrum who was WAAAAY obsessed with Sonic. He was a pretty awesome guy, but a lot of our classmates thought he was a bit obnoxious. He also really like the web series "Man at Arms," and kinda got me into that. Anyways, I was wondering if it was unique to him, or if it really was a broader autism thing (what's "Minecraft" for that matter as it relates to autism?)

Minecraft is a first person sandbox/survival game with a distinctive "blocky" artstyle that takes place in these procedurally generated environments where you can carve out parts of the terrain, and use the blocks you carve out to build things in three dimensions. It has some neat concepts, but I've never really gotten much into it. I actually find it somewhat odd that it has a reputation for being popular with people on the autism spectrum, because there's no real structure to it. I myself prefer games that do have a degree of structure, games that actually have win/lose conditions and/or a clear indication of progression. That's not to say I don't get any enjoyment out of "sandbox" games, but without an obvious goal to work towards I tend to get bored kinda quickly.

Back on the main topic, for some reason I kinda feel like loading up SA2 again. It had awful camera controls and cringeworthy voice acting, but some parts of the gameplay were actually pretty enjoyable. I even played through the story a little over three years ago, though I didn't run through all the different side missions for each level. There's so many of them. O_O

Yeah, I'm usually that way with games too. This used to drive one of my closest high school friends nuts, but I loved video games based off of films (like The Matrix: Path of Neo, or Peter Jackson's King Kong, or even the Lego: Star Wars series).

Sonic is so god damn overrated.

Overrated maybe, I cannot comment as I don't see it that way.
Sonic is part of my own private universe so I really don't concern myself with the ratings outside of that universe.

Have the game on Steam- I play at least once a week. The camera was pretty bad on SA1, but on the Steam ports they've done a lot of work to fix that, with the added benefit of 1080p eye-candy.

I owned one of the games for Sega Genesis way back in the '90s, but that's the fullest extent of my relationship with 'Sonic the Hedgehog'. Never had any interest in it whatsoever.

I have no idea what the link between 'Sonic' and the ASD community is, either. Some things are just better left mysteries to me.

When and if I figure it out I will let you know.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact it's a colourful world with larger-than-life characters. No subtleties that it's difficult for us to get. Similar to why many aspies like Thomas.

Likely that yes.
Anyways the forum responses inspired me today to do some updates to my site.
sonicthehedgehog.co.za

I really can't disprove the stereotype of being autistic and loving Sonic, as well, I love sonic, alot. ive grown up the series, i watched the tv shows. I didn't even play a mario game till I was 14 almost 15. where as my first Sonic game was when i was 5 years old (i could never get past the first two levels). I dont mind that its a stereotype to be honest, because whenever someone says "so you must love sonic right?" its basically....yeah.....yes i do, so whats the problem?.


of course my favorite character is Tails, and I could go on and on and on about it but then i think we'd need another thread. I think the reason it appeals is because it has more friendly looking characters, and something to do with them being animals, as I can guarantee i wouldn't be a fan if all the characters were humans. it'd be boring and kind of generic then, and they wouldn't have the same charm.

yeah! thats what i was trying to think of in my post. not only has that stopped the annoyance of trying to remember what i was gonna say, but i think this words it perfectly. sonic is a straight forward, no non-sense kind of show series/game series. it was and has been more appealing because even when i was a kid i never got more complex shows. my parents always wondered why I never read any books or watch tv shows (apart from sonic tv shows...and kirby's right back at ya). they always figured it was because i was more into video games. but its actually because I can never follow the plot of a book so get bored half way through or even earlier. and the more "adult" and "complex" tv shows just go round in circles and feel random.


Id say this theory would extend to all of nintendo's games series as well (plus sonic might as well be owned by them haha). as just about all of their game series have the similar formula of straightforwardness and no subtlety, which is what makes them great (apart from their fantastic gameplay and content too)