User blog comment:SilverthehedgehogMan/Who do you think is the worst Sonic character ever?/@comment-3445303-20110620203509/@comment-1669199-20110622002432

It probably did in terms of platforming, because Sonic was supposed to incoperate fast elements into a platformer, which is very well succeeded at. Speed is a crucial formula to the series, but its not the only thing that built it. If you wanna know what was the first true kind of game that brought speed into the gaming genres, it's those old arcade games where you get in this vehicle-like machines and drive around as fast as you possibly can in a virtual world. This attracted people because it gave them a sense of thrill and speed, which is why racing games became so popular when they're introduced. So I guess you could say that the first Sonic games are a combination of a racing game and a platforming game.