Sonic the Hedgehog also known by various other names including Sonic Arcade, Sonic the Arcade and SEGASONIC Arcade was officially released into Japanese arcades 1993. Versions of the arcade game appeared in limited numbers in western arcades such as Londons Sega World.

The game was Sonic the Hedgehogs first major arcade outing, it featured Segas hedehog mascot with two other characters, Ray The Flying Squirrel and Mighty the Armadillo. Mighty is one of the oldest characters in the Sonic franchise, in fact he was a prototype for Sonic and thus bears an uncanny resemblance to him. A bit like me and Brad Pitt. Mighty would later feature in the low profile Knuckles Chaotix for the Sega 32X console. Ray has not appeared in any other official games, obviously Ray no mates. All three characters have identical controls and abilities.

In the game, Sonic, Ray and Mighty have been kidnapped by the evil Doctor Eggman and must run for their lives to escape Eggman Island, an island littered with tricks and traps that can be activated with the push of a button.

The aim of Sonic is to get to the end of an isometric course without dying (simple huh?). This objective is similar to other Sonic games, yet different in the sense that, instead of a typical platform style game, its entirely centered around running as fast as possible on a linear course from a never-ending barrage of threats, including giant boulders, lava flows, rogue gears, falling stalactites, and others. When the player is hit by a dangerous obstacle or hazard, he will lose health from a health bar which can be refilled with various rings found around the arena. Upon completing each level, the game tallies up how many rings were grabbed, and extra points are received if over half of the level's rings were found. The game only has one boss, who appears midway through the game.

The characters were controlled by one action button, allowing the player to perform a jumping spin attack, and a trackball is used to move around. The use of the trackball has subsequently led to great difficulty in both official and unofficial emulation efforts; in a recent interview, Yuji Naka stated that the reason it was not included on the recent Sonic Gems Collection was because of this. Each of the trackballs and their corresponding action buttons were color-coded (blue for Sonic, red for Mighty and yellow for Ray).

The game is notable for being the first to feature voices and dialog for the characters. It was also the first Sonic game to feature an ice level which would later become a recurring theme in the series starting with Sonic 3's Ice Cap Zone. Some of the tiles from the game are, when finished, used to show the version of 'SatAM Robotnik' from Sonic the Hedgehog. It is unknown what these tiles would be used for, though it is likely that it would have replaced the game's Eggman had the game been localized for the North American market.

The game has seven stages :-

1. Volcanic Vault
2. Icy Isle
3. Desert Dodge
4. Trap Tower
5. Landslide Limbo
6. Wild Water Way
7. Eggman's Tower (final level)

Between stages, brief cutscenes show Dr. Robotnik panicking and plotting the player's demise as he tracks the latter's progress on a map of Eggman Island.