I grew up calling it Sparkles. My wife called it Stars. Anyone have any others?
Stars, but we all knew that meant invincibility.
Star shield, as opposed to shield, fire shield, bubble shield, lightning shield.
Casting another vote for Invincibility
Invincibility!
I just found a scan of the manual for Sonic 1 on the Master System, the first Sonic version I ever played, which refers to that monitor as “Invincible”
Confirmation from the Sega Genesis Sonic 2 manual:
Two images, one of the front cover of the instruction manual for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (giant shadowed Doctor Robotnik head and arm in the background, reaching for and clutching a giant checkered numeral 2 in the middle ground, with Sonic and Tails in the foreground, with game title and the text INSTRUCTION MANUAL below them, with the console logo at the top with stylized text reading SEGA GENESIS / 16 BIT CARTRIDGE.
Second photo: the manual opened to page 10 (greyscale), title text Super Items, description text: Spin, bash or bounce to break open monitors any way you can – to get the Super Items inside.
Five square pixelated images are arrayed in a row beneath the text: a shoe, a ring, Sonic’s face, three four-pointed stars, and a circle with a horizontal gradient.
Beneath these is a bulleted list of names and descriptions:- Power Sneakers make you run like the wind!
- Super Rings give you ten rings at once!
- One-ups give you 1 more Life. (You also earn an extra Life when you collect 100 Rings and 200 Rings.)
- An Invincible protects you from attacking enemies, but only for a short time.
- Each Shield protects you from damage 1 time only.
Under this list is a cropped screenshot of Sonic in a shield sphere, with Tails behind him and a mechanical preying mantis in front, the latter of which has launched small curved blades at Sonic’s shield.
The following page is visible in the photo but is outside of the scope of this post. It’s about Star Posts.Power Slippers? Red Shoes for sure.
I always thought of it as the “go super fast straight into a spike” power up since that’s how it usually worked out.
Bro, the alliteration was right there!
Speed shoes!
Sneakers
sneakests
Speed boots
Hedgehog juice
That is invincibility to me.
This is the way.
Subaru
Another one who called it “invincibility” checking in
Sparkles as well.
Sparkly Star Juice. It even comes with a little song.
You cannot touch me, I’ve got sparkly star juice.
You cannot touch me I’ve got sparkly star juice.
STAR JUICE
STAR JUICE
sparkalilly sparkalilly sparkalliy sparkalily… repeat
I heard this perfectly in my head to the theme tune.
Also, the lyrics to Chemical Plant Zone are “I took a job would you pick up Bob? I took a job, would you pick up Ba ba ba ba bada Bob?” And the ones for Metropolis Zone are “He’s just a FATASS MAN!”
I love these. I’d make songs like this all the time, though never made one for this game.
I can’t take credit for Chemical Plant Zone, that was Smooth McGroove.
Stars.
Quick get the stars get the get the star no over ahhh you missed it it’s ok
Sir/Ma’am, did you bug my brother and my room during my childhood?
A trap. It always runs out right when I need it.
Stars
Or star (singular)
We had all played Super Mario Bros first though.
Huh, I never thought of naming it. I guess I thought they looked like a TV a little… so I’m going to go with that lol.
The manual for the game calls them “monitors” so yeah. But I think we mean the specific power-up inside this one.
Nobody ever talked to me about Sonic lore as a kid, so I never had a word for it. I was too busy playing Cyborg Justice and wishing I was good at it. That game pulled me in with the cool vibes then dashed me to bits with bad controls.
Cyborg Justice was great. I only learned recently that no, pits were not just a death sentence if you didn’t have the pneumatic legs, you can transition out of a jump into a forward lunge to get the distance you need.
Pulling robot pieces off and attaching them to yourself was an amazing mechanic. Same as kicking legs back upright and slamming torsos on to resurrect enemies (and possibly allies?)
And the music is peak Genesis music.
