If you’re a fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, then these last few years have been the stuff of dreams. Between 2022 and 2025, each year has brought a new Sonic game (Frontiers, Superstars, Sonic x Shadow Generations, Racing: CrossWorlds).
A remaster of Shadow the Hedgehog for modern consoles would really be the cherry on top of things.
There are loads of merchandise everywhere, and if all that wasn’t enough, there is not one but three live-action movies that are actually quite good, with plans for a fourth, as well as a fifth movie that’s being described as a “Sonic Universe event film.”
In that spirit, Dengeki Online, a one-time PlayStation magazine that now covers everything from anime and manga to gaming, held a Sonic franchise character popularity poll, where readers could vote for their favorite characters from throughout the Sega franchise so long as they’ve appeared in a “Sonic” title (collaborations don’t count).
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The end result is some rather obvious picks, with a few surprises in between.
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In order, the most popular Sonic the Hedgehog characters, per the readers, are as follows:
- Sonic
- Shadow
- Silver
- Tails
- Knuckles
- Amy
- Blaze
- Metal Sonic
- Cream and Cheese
- Jet
- Espio
- Mephiles
If Shadow wasn’t going to finish as No. 1, then No. 2 feels like the best spot possible for him. We also see the entirety of Team Sonic represented, with Tails, Knuckles and Amy all in order.
Interestingly enough, Silver is No. 3 on the list. Yes, Silver, who only recently regained some prominence in the franchise both in games and in merchandise, is popular enough to crack the top three.
The comments included were written alongside people’s poll submissions. They are machine translated and lightly edited.
“He has the coolness of a classic protagonist, and has the potential to become the face of the series alongside Sonic and Shadow,” a commenter wrote. “I want to see a game with Silver as the main character!”
Speaking of interesting, as one Reddit user pointed out, Rouge the Bat is nowhere to be found on this list. Eggman is also similarly not included, despite his prominence in the franchise.
Other snubs include Vector the Crocodile, Big the Cat, Omega and Mighty the Armadillo. Some of these are a bit understandable, though, if we’re being honest.
As for why Sonic himself ended up at No. 1, allow reader Konbu to sum up why the Blue Blur reigns supreme despite some often stiff competition.
“There’s no other character as cool as Sonic,” they wrote.
Short and sweet and the honest truth. The world of Sonic is filled with a number of amazing characters. None can ultimately match the icon status of Sonic himself.
- Release Date
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February 12, 2020
- Runtime
-
99 minutes
- Director
-
Jeff Fowler
- Writers
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Worm Miller, Patrick Casey, Oren Uziel, Yuji Naka, Naoto Ohshima, Hirokazu Yasuhara
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