That Persistent Hedgehog

I think I have found that whatever games I find myself enjoying I can't help but think of how I would have liked to make it, or how I would have done things differently. Or at the very least, how it has inspired me to want to make a game of a similar type. This has been true since I owned my very first console. In my parents' house, and my current collection, there are stacks and stacks of notebooks and doodles of the games I wanted to make. And I think I have it all to blame on a persistent, little blue rodent on the Sega Genesis named Sonic.
To say that I liked Sonic would probably be a bit of an understatement. After first getting the Genesis with a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 it's probably safe to say that my childhood was taken over. I had the bedspread, the comics, the t-shirts, the McDonalds toys, the strategy guides, and of course just about all of the core games. No other character was probably ever doodled in the margins of loose leaf notebook paper more than this guy. I would spend whole bus rides home silent, looking out the window, thinking up new levels for the next Genesis title that I was going to make. My friend on the bus and I would make up new sonic characters every day.
My addiction over the years may have waned but it's never completely faded. In fact, recently it's only been reinvigorated. Last Christmas I got a copy of this:

Could you imagine the giddiness of my inner child? Now I'll admit I haven't played a Sonic title proper since Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast, the series I think was left behind due to my age and the lack of quality in many of the entries. But this one, Sonic Generations, this was revisiting the past and it was ever so glorious for me...until-well-uh, until it was done. That is, until the fourth, really the third, level was completed. You see the re-visitation to early Genesis levels pushed all the right buttons in me, but it left me with an insatiable appetite for more. All those other levels, remade from the more recent games, yeah they were fun to play in the 2D style, but really I could give a crap. I wanted to replay every level in this new style that I remembered so well. So thanks a lot Sega you got me doing what I really haven't been able to stop doing again, making up a new game in my head.

Imagine this:

(WARNING, MAJOR NERD-FAN SALIVATION IS ABOUT TO OCCUR.)

A complete title based on the first four Genesis titles (i.e. Sonic 1--Sonic & Knuckles) compiled into one complete saga about the Death Egg and Chaos Emeralds, about Sonic's first encounter with Robotnik (Yes, I say Robotnik, not just Eggman!), about his first meeting with Tails and Knuckles, and all of it with gameplay based largely on the 2D stages of Generations. I'm talking about all the zones on their respective islands being seamlessly connected, a chance to revisit all those scrapped zones from Sonic 2 (Hidden Palace, Wood zone, etc.), an opportunity to show how Sonic started, how perhaps he started as an overconfident jerk but became a hero. My mind has been brimming with ideas lately. And I can't stop. God! I can't tell you sometimes how much I'd love an opportunity to make games like this. Here's a bullet list of some ideas I have currently. What do you think? Any cool ideas you, as a lifelong Sonic, fan have to add? Anyone have the phone number for Sega?

• Sonic 1 through Sonic & Knuckles told as one complete story
• Some background as to Sonic's origins:
• how he starts off cocky, perhaps even annoying, but becomes a hero
• because of his personality, what if he was exiled or sent away to South Island in his plane? Something similar to Flik's exile in a bug's life
• And I can't help but make his home of origin Knothole village, like in the Archie comics, as they were a big part of my childhood fandom, but don't allow it to take precedence over the Sonic games Sega made, but only to enrich it
• What if before Sonic left, a somewhat sad Princess Sally gave Sonic a special bracelet, handed down in her royal family for years, that actually allows him to absorb the power rings later on when he first gets to Green Hill zone
• And what if Knothole were the exiled refuge of Sonic's home, where a supplanted Princess Sally resides after her father's kingdom was mysteriously and suddenly taken over by the machines? Certain royal relics barely taken away to safety...including a certain bracelet?
• This would be where Tails is from too, and where his admiration of Sonic began
• Later, upon releasing animals from prison eggs some of Sonic's friends might have been in it, Princess Sally included...
•  All Zones, on their respective islands would be made up of multiple acts, and interconnected to the other zones on the island. Each with a goal of either the signpost or the prison egg being destroyed/reached
• Each zone's acts could be different aspects to the area (e.g. Green Hill act 1 might be bridges and above waterfalls, whereas act 2 might comprise of the caves and below the waterfalls more.)
• each island, with its share of ruins and the like would have a hidden Chaos Shrine, or Hidden Palace
• South Island has first six emeralds (but missing one, perhaps taken away for protection
• Westside Island has the final seventh (it is here that Sonic and Tails race Robotnik/Eggman for the final one)
• Angel Island has the Master Emerald
• These would be entered periodically through the giant rings, and would take the place somewhat of the special stages for gaining access to the emeralds
• Robotnik has studied the ancient ruins/echidna civilization (?) very closely for the lore on the Chaos Emeralds, and that is why he has built bases on both South and Westside Islands
• the transitions between the zones would be more gradual and the "cutscenes" that were in Sonic 3 and Knuckles would be through out them all and might be more of an interactive cutscene played in the more 3D style of modern Sonic games

Geez, I could go on. Here's the latest additions to my sketchbook. I'll leave it at that for now and see if the fervor continues...