Electronic Gaming Month 13, Oct 1990
Sonic’s first appearance in EGM notably pre-dates the name of the game’s genre. It was described as an Action Adventure, and then simply as a “Mario-style,” two months later in EGM 15. In 1990 games with humanoid protagonists all basically took the same form -- side-scrolling and 2D, so there was no specific need for the term at the time. Splatterhouse for TurboGrafx is described in terms of being different than a “side-scrolling shooter” in the same issue. Personally I would not hear the term until ~1993 when it was used by a US Gold or Domark staffer downplaying two of their forthcoming releases for Super Nintendo (”Honestly, they’re just platformers...”)











