Growing up, most of the major consoles were in my house. My dad used to be a pretty avid gamer. In 1989, when I was five years old, my dad and I went to Toys R Us and he purchased a Sega Genesis (model 1, bundled with Altered Beast) with Ghouls 'n' Ghosts. This was a few years before the release of the SNES, so it, understandably, created a long-lasting Sega bias in our household. (We got the SNES on release, but I preferred the Genesis still.)
We got many games over the next several months, Revenge of Shinobi, Phantasy Star II, Castle of Illusion, etc. However, when June 1991 came along, so did my birthday and my favorite childhood game: Sonic the Hedgehog. We had an NES and SMS in our home, and no other platformer grabbed me as much as the original Sonic did.
The game turned me into a diehard Sonic fan (can't say I am now, unfortunately), with the release of each original 2D game turning into something akin to a holiday. I remember the Christmas I got the Sega CD, with not a single game on it, a year before Sonic CD's release just because I KNEW it was coming. (I was satisfied, however, as Sonic 2 came out that same Christmas, so I just played it.)
I had come down with a nasty case of Bronchitis just before our school's Christmas break in 1993, causing me to miss two weeks of school. My parents went ahead and gave me Sonic CD prior to Christmas because I was in bad spirits and super-ill.
We drove to the same Toys R Us we purchased our Genesis from in early '94 to get Sonic 3. The store gave it to me prior to street date, strangely enough.
Later in that same year, my dad lost his job at the steel mill he had worked at since he was 18. My dad tried to secure employment at various places throughout the country, which left me going to Michigan to visit my father during our fall break in October.
My mom took me to Meijer's the day Sonic & Knuckles came out. I was pretty upset about being in Michigan because I missed my friends and didn't really realize that S&K was even out. My mom took me to the game counter, and, to my surprise, actually bought it for me. Even then, I knew we were kinda broke on account of my dad still looking for permanent work. My dad had apparently scrounged up some money and gave my mom strict instructions to buy me Sonic & Knuckles.
We were staying at my aunt's house while in Michigan, my cousin was a just two years younger than me and, thankfully, owned a Genesis. She didn't own Sonic 3, just Sonic 2, so I had to play S&K without saves (or Sonic 2 as Knuckles, eww) until I got back home.
My dad's company rehired him back at home, at an even higher pay rate than before. Our financial woes were more or less behind us. My dad used to always use me as an excuse to buy video games (not like I'd complain) to get my mom off of his back. I remember wanting a Sega Saturn more than the Playstation because it was safe to assume it would receive a proper Sonic game.
The Saturn had it's stealth release and not even I knew it was out yet. My dad picked me up from school one day, and in the backseat of the car, there was a Sega Saturn just sitting there (with Daytona USA and Clockwork Knight). If it weren't for Sonic, who knows if I would have ever branched off into playing the niche Japanese games that the Saturn offered in spades.
While I always thank the Sonic series for helping shape my tastes and Sega fandom, it sort of saddens me to know that the series will never be the same for me again. The only game that ever came close to approaching the hype levels of a traditional Sonic game was Mario 64.
I'll always love classic 2D Sonic for the above reasons.