Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) – 1 player, supports lock-on with Sonic & Knuckles (for a full Sonic 3 & Knuckles bonus-games mode called Blue Spheres, with passwords to access any possible level). Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog released in 1991, and is one of the great, industry-changing titles, the kind of game that only comes along a couple of times a generation at most, and even most of those don’t turn into franchises as popular as Sonic’s has been. Sega made an incredible game, and then marketed it exceptionally well. The result was a phenomenon that continues to this day, as Sonic is still Sega’s mascot. Sonic created the humanoid-animal-mascot trend in character design, changed platformers with its focus on speed and attitude, and is one of the best-selling game of the 4th generation, too. And yes, I at least think that the game is still fantastic today! This game has some critics, but I love Sonic the Hedgehog. It isn’t the best platformer of the generation, and I do think that its nemesis Super Mario World is the better game and the best 2d platformer ever, but Sonic 1 is outstanding, and one of the next best 2d platformers, along with its sequels, the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, and a couple of Game Boy games (Wario Land 1, Kirby 2). Sonic is just exceptional in almost every way. The graphics are great, the music is iconic, the levels are fantastic beginning to end, the physics engine behind it all was unlike anything seen before in a platformer, and the large levels are a lot of fun to explore, too! The difficulty level is challenging, but it’s a fun challenge, not the crushing difficulty of some other Genesis games. This is a hard game and I only beat it for the first time last month [January 2016], but it’s extremely fun whether or not you complete it. It’s hard to think of much bad to say about this game, really.
But for the zero people reading this who don’t know the game, Sonic is a platformer. Sonic runs and jumps, and rolls in a ball when you jump or hit Down while running. Hitting enemies in normal form hurts you, but hitting them in ball form hurts them. It’s a simple but great system, though this first game doesn’t have the spin-in-place move that would later become a series staple. Your goal is to go to the right until you reach the end of each stage. Each world has three stages, and the last has a boss in it. Levels are huge, have multiple routes, and are better-designed than most in the genre. The physics system is great. You slow down as you run up hills, jump off a slope at the opposite angle, and such. This was a rarely-seen thing at the time, and Sonic’s physics are very solid and well-programmed. It is one of the cores of the experience. The levels are extremely well-designed as well, and the game has a great balance between exploration and challenge. Levels are designed around the physics, and are absolutely full of challenging jumps to optional areas, alternate paths easier than the main one, and more. There are also TVs with powerups in them, usually rings but sometimes invincibility or a shield. In these open-levels platformers blind jumps are a common issue, and they are an issue here, but the game has few instant-death pits. They are rare enough that usually when you jump into space you have confidence that you’ll land on ground… but once in a rare while, you won’t, that was a pit. They are not always marked, so this is one issue with the game, until you learn where the few pits are. Most of the time, though, your main obstacles will be spikes, spike-balls, and moving enemies. If Sonic touches any of these, he drops all of the rings he was holding, but if something hits you when you have no rings you die. Up to 20 rings will appear around you after yout get hit, and you need to try to collect at least one before they vanish. It’s a good mechanic, and the levels are designed to encourage memorization, but also to reward exploration. Some newer, post-Genesis Sonic games go way too far into the trap-heavy school of level design, an this adds to the challenge, but not the fun. The Genesis games are better-balanced: there are traps, but you don’t need to constantly stop in fear of enemies. You do need to be careful, but not inordinately so. Oh, and there are checkpoint posts, for when you die but it isn’t a game over. On game over you restart the level, so long as you have continues left of course.
There is one issue people have with the levels in this game, though, and that’s that later Sonic games emphasize speed much more than this game. Sonic is fast, but only the first world is entirely built around speed. After that the second world is a slow-paced underground stage, and then after that the game has a mixture of faster and slower elements. The water levels are the slowest, and some of the hardest, stages, as Sonic can drown if you go too long without getting an air bubble. I like good water levels in games, but Sonic’s can be frustrating. The water-world’s boss climb is one of the hardest parts of the game. Still, though, I like most of the slower parts of this game. The second world’s great fun, even if you’re not going full-speed most of the time! Maybe it was just including more conventional level-design elements out of uncertainty about how much people would like the speed the game starts with, but I like the results a lot. Each world looks different, and plays differently as well. All are fun. Yes, blasting through the first stage is great, but making your way through the lava pits in world 2 is also great! The one level-design element I will criticize is that you get no rings in the final boss fight, which makes it MUCH harder than it should be. Sadly, both of its sequels on the Genesis, and many of the Game Gear games, copy this particularly annoying design trait. You should not have to fight hard bosses without rings in Sonic, but most of the classic ones force this on you. It’ll cause many game overs right at the end of the game.
Your second goal in the game is to get all of the Chaos Emerald collectibles, which are in bonus stages. In this game, you get into bonus stages by reaching the end of the first or second stage in each world except for the last one with at least 50 rings, then jumping into the giant ring that appears, you will go into the bonus stage. Bonus stages are a rotating top-view maze, and you need to try to get to the center and get the Chaos Emerald in the middle, without running into an exit. In addition, if you get 50 rings in a bonus stage you get a continue. You start with no continues, so getting them in bonus stages is essential! There are ten opportunities to get into bonus stages in this game, and six chaos emeralds, so if you want to get them all and the special good ending screen, you need to do well. I’ve never quite managed to get all the emeralds in one run in a Genesis Sonic game, but it is a fun challenge. The bonus stages in this game aren’t the best in the series, but they are good, and a nice break from the main game. After the first world having to have 50 rings to get in is a real challenge and takes memorization, so it’s satisfying once you finally get into a bonus stage in later levels!
Overall Sonic the Hedgehog is a fantastic game. Innovative when it released and still fresh and fun today, the first Sonic game is a fantastic experience. The game has fantastic graphics, a really good, iconic soundtrack, extremely well-polished gameplay, great levels to explore, lots of replay value, fun bonus stages, difficulty that is just about right, and more! The game doesn’t have saving, and it is a lot shorter than Super Mario World and there are many fewer levels as well, but what it does have has all been done really well. The game doesn’t have Mario’s precision, as the speed and physics system makes things trickier, but what it does have is almost as great. Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the all-time great platformers. Its sequels are even better, but the first one is fantastic as well. This game is available in collections and digital re-releases of Sega’s Genesis games. Sonic 1 has lots of ports on newer systems.
