(Review) Sonic the Hedgehog: the Breakfast cereal
Sonic the Hedgehog and food have a strong association that is a bit uncommon for a video game character. Older (and more likely American) Sonic fans will instantly think of Chilli Dogs when it comes to the Blue Blur and food, while the rest of Sonic fans will probably think of the infamous gumball eyed popsicles when they think of Sonic foodstuffs. Like most billion-dollar franchises, Sonic is no stranger to having his likeness slapped on the label of all sorts of products found in the grocery store. Sonic’s food history is multi-faceted and almost as old as the franchise itself. Continuing in this long-standing tradition of edible engagement, Sega and General Mills have partnered to release a Sonic the Hedgehog themed breakfast cereal for the upcoming movie: Sonic the Hedgehog 2, now streaming and in theatres.
Sonic the Hedgehog (the cereal) is a honey-flavored cereal that features Sonic themed marshmallow shapes. The main cereal pieces are golden honey-flavored pieces which are very conveniently ring-shaped to represent the main collectible throughout the Sonic games: rings. Circles/rings are one of the most common shapes found in all of breakfast cereals, making this cereal’s shape choice a no-brainer. General Mills could have easily used the already available ring shape from any number of other cereals, but they at least made the effort to make unique pieces that are larger and thinner than most ring-shaped cereals. I am assuming that this was done to better match the in-game appearance of the rings, instead of just repurposing something from the Cheerios line of products.
Golden-Honey Rings adorned with green chaos emerald marshmallows and blue spin dash marshmallows
The secondary component of the cereal comes from the marshmallow pieces. These marshmallow pieces come in two shapes: Green Chaos Emeralds, and Blue Spin Dash shapes. Like the inclusion of the honey-flavored rings, the Chaos Emeralds are a good choice for an icon to represent the Sonic franchise. Besides collecting rings in the Sonic games, the Chaos Emeralds are the bigger, more important item in the Sonic universe. Unfortunately, I can’t say that the same good choice was made by including the Spin Dash pieces, as they make no sense when you really think about it. The Spin Dash is an action performed by Sonic, making it a verb. I’m not usually the grammar type of nerd, but the idea of a cereal marshmallow being shaped like a verb is funny and confusing to me. Imagine if you had to design a cereal piece shaped like a punch? You’re probably thinking of a fist, because punch is the action, but you can’t really have a marshmallow shaped like a punch. Odd naming conventions aside, these pieces just don’t look like what they are supposed to. These blue pieces tend to look like nothing besides the star of David. What they should’ve done to include Sonic himself as a marshmallow would be to simply use a silhouette of Sonic’s head. The silhouette can be found in the logo for long-time series developers Sonic Team as well as being the default icon used to represent Sonic in the very popular Super Smash Bros. series since 2008 amongst other appearances throughout media. Despite a questionable shape inclusion, the color pallette of these pieces feel like it was plucked right out of the Sonic universe. These wonderful colors combine and clash in an odd way that just screams “Sonic”. The only downside to the choice of colors here is that they end up turning your milk a very weird blue-green, but weird milk is to be expected with this tier of Saturday mornings favorite meal.
The box design of the cereal is basic but effective in letting you know what it is. The top half of the box features Sonic coming right at you in a classic action pose, and the bottom half features close shots of a bowl of the cereal. Dividing the box horizontally in the middle is the Sonic logo, and it’s a very clean design. The only thing that’s a little off about the box layout, is that it mixes both of the current Sonic designs. Sonic’s current design for most media has been standardised for a long time, but the movie design is a little more textured and realistic - which is fine when they are apart. Seeing the two sonic’s side-by-side can be a little jarring, as it makes the movie Sonic look not quite like a cartoon but certainly not “realistic” either. I figured that Sega would be a little more sensitive about which versions of Sonic appear where, given the whole fiasco surrounding Sonic’s original movie design. The modern movie version of Sonic only appears in a little square on the top right corner saying “Sonic 2 only in theatres” begging the question, why include the second Sonic at all? When that could’ve been text.
A closer look at the blue marshmallow…stars of David?
The most important part of any cereal review isn’t the shape of the pieces or the design of the box but the flavor. As stated before, there is supposed to be honey flavor present via the ring pieces. The problem with the ring pieces is that they don’t pack much of a honey flavor at all…rather the faintest suggestion of honey. The rings taste more like unflavored cereal than anything else, which is disappointing. It’s a shame that there’s not more of the honey flavor, because from what little bit of it I detected, it wasn’t bad at all. This honey flavor would probably be great, if there were just enough of it. If the box wasn’t telling me that this was honey flavored, I’d really have to make a guess at what I was tasting.
Despite the disappointing lack of honey, these rings do pack a nice crunch! I noticed that the rings didn’t get as soggy and mushy as most other cereals would after a few minutes in the bath. The crunch wasn’t as mouth-cutting as that sea captain’s brand of cereal, but it wasn’t as soft as we’ve come to expect from most cereals. I would say that the crunch and overall texture are actually the strongest point of this cereal. The marshmallows are perfectly on par with what expectations should be for breakfast cereal: they’re firm, very sweet, but also melt away in your mouth. These marshmallows didn’t get slimy like some marshmallows tend to get, which is always a plus. Since the honey flavor is so weak, the sweetness from the marshmallows end up taking over as the main flavor in this cereal. General Mills should’ve marketed this cereal as a “marshmallow crunch” as those are the only things you’ll taste in this bowl.
Sonic the Hedgehog (the cereal) is more fun to look at than it is to eat, which is a shame because there really could have been a great cereal here if there was just more flavor. This cereal ends up being a collection of textures, but not a fun breakfast. If you want this cereal, you gotta go fast! As it’s a limited time release, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you were a collector of all things Sonic and you wanted to put the box on the shelf. With just a few tweaks, I think that we really could’ve had something here but it seems like this was just released to be a quick and easy movie promo.
Sonic the Hedgehog (the cereal) ends up getting a ranking of:
