by Today we’re going to talk about the Illusive and Somewhat Nostalgic Sonic the Hedgehog: The Screensaver.
(ORIGINS)
Before we talk about the actual Screensaver, we got ta talk about HARMONY.
HARMONY was an Official Magazine (and a newsletter of sorts according to the sonic wiki) that was distributed
internally to SEGA employees in Japan somewhere around the 1990s. The Issues were Distributed irregularly
but most of them came out in a span of 1-2 months apart.
There is not much information about the Magazine aside from the fact it has Exclusive Sonic Related
Artwork that would later be used in Sonic Jam, Sonic Gems Collection, Sonic Rivals 2, Sonic Classic Collection and the Topic of today-
Sonic the Hedgehog: The Screen Saver is a program made by SEGA in 1997 for PC. It allows the user to
personalize the user’s Windows environment with art, animations, music, icons, and so on
It was most popular in Japan as it was sold separately there. In North America and Europe it was sold
bundled with the Sonic & Knuckles Collection.
(CONTENT)
As mentioned before, the Sonic Screensaver contained 100% Original Sprites for Sonic, Tails, Knuckles & Dr.Robotnik
Aswell as Several Icons
It also included music from Sonic the Hedgehog (1991), Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3,
Sonic & Knuckles & Sonic CD (the last one only has OSTs from Present and Past Levels.)
Finally, the Screensaver contains over 90 Pieces of Art, mainly from SEGA ‘S HARMONY Magazine, Boxarts & Artwork from the Games.
(LEGACY)
The Sonic Screensaver was quite an Obscure Piece of Sonic Media for many years until the artwork presented on it became more popular.
With the main culprits being wallpaper websites, obviously with a few flaws, like bad resolution, but that is to be expected, things stayed like this.
for years until Popular Youtuber: CyberShell made a Video on 30/8/2017 about the Screensaver making an analysis on each of the images with a comical twist later in the
On the same year, on the 18th of December of 2017, Reddit user SMPTHEHEDGEHOG posted a Download Link to HD Images of the Screensaver Artwork on the
r/SonicTheHedgehog Reddit Further increasing its popularity, unfortunately, the download link can no longer be found, but you can find the
original Reddit Page as it was Archived.
You Could Argue the Screensaver is still relatively obscure, but HARMONY’s artwork is definitely well known at this point.
even if a good chunk of the fanbase doesn’t know where it comes from exactly.
(CONCLUSION)
In conclusion, the Sonic Screensaver is a nice little piece of sonic media that is fun to research due to its interesting history.
and the fact that artwork was added in multiple games makes it all the more enigmatic. The artwork in said screensaver also has some
strange “nostalgia” vibes, but that is probably just me.
(DOWNLOAD)
As a little extra, here is a download link containing ALL Images of the Sonic the Hedgehog The Screensaver in HD.
so you can enjoy these works of art at the best possible quality.
credits to SMPTHEHEDGEHOG since some of these HD Images were recovered from his original reddit post.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HFaHFnpPDx_vdWu682potq2cqjgmTCbd?usp=sharing
nice!