Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog's title screen

Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game series by Sega. It started in 1991 with Sonic The Hedgehog on the Mega Drive/Genesis. Sonic would be the reason why Sega dominated the 16-bit market early on and became more popular then Mario. In turn, Sonic often is subjected to pirates as well.

Sonic The Hedgehog

Sonic's first game on the Mega Drive/Genesis which was released in 1991. Dr. Robotnik (antagonist) is seeking the Chaos Emeralds and plans on creating Robotnik Land. He transforms all of Sonic's friends into Badniks (robots for Robotnik). Sonic sets out to go defeat him. The player plays as Sonic goes through 6 zones (Green Hill Zone, Marble Zone, Spring Yard Zone, Labrynith Zone, Starlight Zone, and Scrap Brain Zone) which are split up into 3 acts, the final having a fight with Robotnik. The game became popular due to it's fast-paced action and became the popular pack-in game, replacing Altered Beast. This game alone was the reason Sonic became a popular series to bootleg. This game was ported to the Famicom by Someri Team under Somari where Sonic was replaced with Mario. Later hacks would replace Mario with Sonic and were released under NT. Jurassic Boy 2 by Sachen is based off of Sonic The Hedgehog.

Sonic The Hedgehog 2

Sonic's second game on the Mega Drive/Genesis which was released in 1992. Dr. Robotnik follows Sonic to Westside Island where Sonic ends up meeting Tails. Robotnik begins to search for Chaos Emeralds and turns all the animals (except Sonic and Tails) into Badniks. Sonic and Tails must find the Chaos Emeralds and destroy the Death Egg. One of the prototypes for this game was stolen and was unofficially released in Asia and Brazil. This prototype became known as the Simon Wai prototype. Unlike the first game, this one was never ported by pirates. However, Somari includes the Spin Dash (you're able to stay stationary, rolling until you let go of the button. Then you go off rolling into enemies) from the game and NT's re-release of Somari has Sonic & Tails on the cartridge. As well as this, the otherwise unrelated World Heroes 2 pirate includes Emerald Hill Zone, the music from Chemical Plant Zone (used in Lawrence Blood's stage) and Sonic as a playable character and like Somari, he has the Spin Dash here.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3

Sonic the hedgehog 3 was made in 1994 which starred Sonic and Tails , Also a new character called Knuckles who was tricked by Dr Robotnik by telling Knuckles that Sonic would steel all the Chaos Emeralds. Which means Sonic must get to Robotniks Launch Base Zone in order to once again to destroy Dr. Robotnik. Pirates use the sprites of sonic in this game such as Sonic Jam 6 and Sonic 6 for the gameboy.

Pirates

One of the most infamous pirates based off of Sonic is Somari by Someri Team. Many people have found it impressive that Sonic the Hedgehog was ported to the NES despite not being an exact port. (Level design is different) Jurassic Boy 2 by Sachen is based off of Sonic but you play as a pink dinosaur named Chen. Yong Yong has released Sonic 3D Blast 5 and Sonic Adventure 7 for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. (There is a Sonic 8 which might have been made by them) World Heroes 2 by Cony Soft has Sonic as one of the fighters. His moveset is the same as Blanka's from Street Fighter II. Sonic has appeared in many hacks. 2 of them are hacks of Speedy Gonzalez games (Sonic 6 for the GB and Sonic The Hedgehog 4 for the SNES, the latter being a fanmade hack that was released by pirates). One misconception is Sonic vs Os Mauniks. It's a hack of Psycho Fox where the main character is replaced with Sonic. It later turned out it was just a fanmade hack by a Brazilian who likes Sonic.