Using Math to Calculate Which Sonic is the Fastest

Today, we're diving into Sonic's history and answering one simple question, When is Sonic at his Fastest? We're going to use math to calculate which Sonic is the fastest by using different science terms like acceleration, speed, and distance! Sonic has had a lot of different abilities like the boost, speed break and ring count to increase how fast he runs, but which of these abilities will come out on top? Watch the video to find out!

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Here is the whole equation for how I calculated the speed written out. Let's use Sonic Advance's sprite as an example.

Let's say Sonic Runs 500 pixels in Sonic Advance over the course of 2 seconds. We need to figure out how far 500 pixels is so we can do the calculation for speed, distance / time = speed.

Sonic's sprite in Sonic Advance is 33 pixels (p) tall, and we know that Sonic is 100 centimeters (cm) tall. If we take 100 cm and divide it by Sonic's 33 pixels, we see that each pixels is (roughly) 3.03 cm. We can calculate the distance Sonic ran.

If we know each pixel is 3.03 cm, we can take our 3.03 cm number, and multiply it against the 500 pixels Sonic runs on to get 1515 cm. We can then change this number to kilometers (km) by dividing our number by 10000 and we get that Sonic runs 0.01515 km per second.

In order to change a number from km per second to km per hour, we multiply it by 3,600 to get 54.54 km per hour.

After that, we divide the number by 1.608 to change the number to miles per hour and we get 33.92 miles per hour.

So that means in this example and THIS example only, Sonic would be running at 54.54 km per hour, or 33.92 mph.

I did this same equation for every single game by the way.

Hopefully this makes sense!
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Songs used throughout the video:
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Time Stamps
0:00 Intro
1:34 Calculating Sonic's Speed
3:58 37th-30th Fastest Sonic
5:39 29th-20th Fastest Sonic
8:29 19th-16th Fastest Sonic
9:20 Counting Rings and 15th Fastest Sonic
10:27 Pythagorean Theorem and 14th Fastest Sonic
11:57 14th-10th Fastest Sonic
13:35 9th-6th Fastest Sonic
14:51 Top 5 Fastest Sonic
16:35 Sonic Trivia
16:55 The video is done but please subscribe (:

[llennoxyt]

Crud I forgot Sonic Dream Team

Also check the description if you want an example of how I calculated Sonic's speed for every entry (:

ALSO a lot of people have talked about how Sonic outruns a black hole in Sonic Colors. Looking at his IN GAME SPEED he is slower than the black hole and should’ve been sucked up by it. I’ll make a video on it eventually (also he does get sucked up by it in the end so I mean I’m still right. Definitely. Totally)

[SSL_]

Technically, Sonic's max speed is actually way higher in Unleashed, Colors, Gens, Forces, and Frontiers, as Sonic's speed can actually be multiplied monumentally by simply doing the Quickstep. He moves to the left or right in near an instant WITHOUT losing any forward momentum, meaning that in that moment, he's moving diagonally at a SUBSTANTIALLY higher speed all together. Likely exceeding the speed of sound

[toopienator]

Bro has the math skills to be an engineer but instead he's calculating Sonic's speed in every game

And honestly this is the best form of entertainment for me so thank you

[spark]

i find it funny how people complained about frontiers being slow when in actuality it has the second highest top speed and highest speed code wise

[VirtuaMaster]

Tails' flying height! which game has he flown the highest? Has he reached the highest of heavens? I. MUST. KNOW.

[CodeStew]

Small addition to your stairs explanation. Texturing is one way of doing it, another way is to use 2 seperate meshes. One for the stairs which has no collisions and the other being the slope mesh that is invisible and has the collisions.
Both these methods are still used in modern game dev, we can use stuff like IKs to hide the fact that we are using slopes.

[marcxworld]

The fact that sonic is going at less than 300 mph in the games makes me extremely curious on what a game would look like at sonics true speed (like at the speed of sound)

[Vivacy]

Power scalers holding back from saying sonic runs at irrelevant speeds in sonic generations

[spark]

just making sure, for frontiers you had all the physics sliders in the settings maxed, right?

[reggielacey]

Bro. I thought you were gonna bring up feats and ACTUAL scaling and stuff stuff. But no. Its just limited gameplay

[Blue_Velocityy]

The fastest sonic in a game is unleashed sonic

[mtckptck]

In Sonic Mania, Sonic can run 3 times the speed of sound (mach 3) which is 2301.807 miles per hour, or 3704.4 kilometers per hour, and the light speed dash ability that Sonic has in Frontiers (not sure if it's in any other games but probably) most likely moves at the speed of light due to its name

[huseyinemreeken]

Idk Lost World? I kinda not like that game tbh

[MrRatchet]

I knew from the start Unleashed Sonic is the top dog in the game but it was still interesting to see other measurements.
I for sure did not expect 06 Sonic to be even remotely fast.
I think it just shows that all that matters is good controls, feel, level design and the pace make all the difference.

[yellowflame]

Thank you so much for measuring the fact classic sonic has a different height then modern. In showcases of sonic in comparison to eggman (modern) it’s clearly shown that its modern who is 3’3- but in multiple videos people say its classics too and skip over it.

[thatguy]

There are some i have to disagree with like Sonic CD where he travels through time with his sheer speed, Secret rings in which he traveled an infinite distance in a finite amount of time, Generations in which he can freely move in white space, a place where time and space don‘t exist, and restore time just by running fast and Forces in which he escaped Null Space, another dimension where time and space don‘t exist and it‘s also closed off from all other dimensions.

I love yapping about Sonic‘s speed

[titanumtitan]

I've got quite the question. Frontiers is the only sonic game I've played, but I'm wondering if you used his maxed out boost speed or his drop dash speed, since his drop dash is significantly faster by a long shot

[gabinestir-tbel]

Ok really gameplay thing really ok may i asked WHY?!

[allet]

I know this is an old-ish video at this point, but I just wanted to share that my guess for 13th place was a toss-up between Adventure 1 and Adventure 2, and then I find out that Adventure 1 and 2 sandwich the actual 13th place game. Goddamn it.

[PatrykKałążny]

Adventure Sonic is shorter than Modern Sonic.