Awe! the first Sonic game, the first video game I ever played as a kid at the tender age of seven. At least, the first game I remember physically owning when I received my shiny new Sega Genesis for my 7th birthday. Truth be told, I wanted an NES, but what I got instead was something I will always go back to and play even to this day. The Genesis came bundled with the first Sonic game, and I played it for years. The main goal was not only beating the game but collecting all of the Chaos via the bonus stages at each levels end. Of course, I needed fifty rings to cash in to do it.
My first memories of playing it, I was hooked. The feeling of speed, like I was playing a racing game but with a little blue hedgehog instead of a car. I hadn’t played Mario yet at this point, so I had nothing to compare Sonic to. All I know is that I liked racing around each stage, hearing the clanking of me picking up rings, jumping on animals’ heads before I later figured out that they were all robots created by the main villain of the game and series, Dr. Robotnik.
I can remember at the end of each zone what that meant, that I must beat the evil scientist with my speed and my perfect jumps. Each encounter was different and fun figuring out the strategy to hit Robotnik’s hover pod enough times to advance to the next zone. Those were good times indeed, but is the original Sonic the Hedgehog still worthing playing today? I think it is, and here’s my reasons why.
After not playing Sonic the Hedgehog for about eight years, I decided in my mind that yeah, that would be fun to play again. I have played the game numerous times on numerous systems that released the game. On the PS2 Sonic Mega Collection Plus for PS2 and the SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics for Steam. But after getting into emulation in recent years, I thought, hey, what’s a good first game to see if my emulation setup works. So, I fired up Retroarch on my PC, looked through my Genesis library and found Sonic the Hedgehog among the games that start with the letter s.
Starting off seeing Sonic wagging his finger back and forth followed by my entrance into Green Hill Zone Act 1. Seeing the game’s color especially the greens of the hills and the blue Sonic popping off the screen. Also, the background parallax of the waterfalls as water streamed down steadily into a large lake. I literally sped through each level collecting rings but slowing down at times to gather more rings in hopes of getting the big bonus ring at the end of each stage. In the bonus ring, the music goes from a cheerful, but cool 16-bit Genesis sound to a mesmerizing electronic rift that transported me to another dimension.
Sonic in full spin mode bounces off round and hard sounding stones that propel him around like a pinball. Hitting a certain stone orb reverses the direction that the screen is spinning. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the screen slowly rotates around clockwise or counterclockwise and hitting the stone orbs with the big R on them reverses the direction of the rotating screen. The goal here is to find the Chaos Emerald among all the other gems that surround it. Each one takes multiple hits to break and with rotating screen it becomes increasingly difficult through the various zones. These are fun and challenging, yet the one big drawback is that even with all seven emeralds you can’t turn into Super Sonic in Sonic 1. I’m sure there must be a hack out there that brings the transformation into the game, but honestly just collecting all seven is an accomplishment in itself, so I can’t complain too much.
Playing through each stage, I’m not thinking as much about collecting the emeralds, just cruising through each stage like a car ride along the coast. Not to say that Sonic 1 isn’t hard, it’s just not as frustrating as some Sonic games can be on certain stages. That said, I would say that Scrap Brain Zone is overall the toughest. Any stage that has things that can electrocute you scattered throughout are generally a pain to deal with. Also, figuring out where to go if you don’t know the game can be tough.
The enemies in Scrap Brain aren’t too bad, like those snails from the earlier Marble Zone and the explosive bomb bots from Star Light Zone as well as these gummy bear looking bots that throw explosive candy, at you, at least that’s what it looks like to me. The main enemy here are the things that fall, spikes, fire, and electrified obstacles, and not as much the recycled foes from other levels. The first two stages are in a machine-like factory, whereas the third stage goes underwater like another more difficult area, Labyrinth Zone. After that, there is a final stage where you fight Dr. Robotnik for the last time in the game. For a final boss, he’s quite easy. Just avoid the mad doctor’s slow moving laser shots and hit him whenever he pops up from one of the tube system looking shoots that he is in.
There are six zones in all, each with three levels a piece. To me and I am sure to many other people, three stages is just one too many. That’s why in Sonic 2 and games thereafter, Sonic Team cut off a third level, just having two. This meant that each stage didn’t have to be so short. This was especially true in Sonic 3 which introduced the ability to save your progress if you got a game over. And that came in handy as Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic and Knuckles were much tougher, at least in my experience than the first two Sonic games for the Genesis.
My favorite zone I would say is Star Light Zone. I just like the stary night backdrop that felt different than the other zones which were primarily in the daytime. The enemies were mostly the little bomb guys that explode if you get too close. This meant you had to run like hell past them to avoid taking damage. As with the other zones there are plenty of loops to run around, and fans that push you back meaning that will need to find another route to the goal. The music reflects the nighttime stary atmosphere perfectly and I really felt like I was at an evil base on the moon when playing. The boss fight with Robotnik consists of jumping on seesaw like contraption to fling either bombs or yourself up high enough to hit his hover pod. It’s pretty easy, but fun, nonetheless.
End Credits:
Overall, I think Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis is a game from my childhood that still holds up today. Despite certain things like no spin dash, although if you play Sonic Origins for any of the modern consoles like the Switch you get to choose from Sonic, Tails, Knuckles or Amy, and each of them can perform the spin dash which makes things easier. The game is already one of the easier ones, even easier than the Sega Master System version of the game, something I will be posting about at a later date comparing the Genesis and Master System versions of Sonic 1 and 2.
If anything, the game is a fun joint down memory lane for me that I will always go back to on occasion. The game is short too, about an hour and a half roughly so most can complete it in one sitting without too much trouble. Maybe next time, I’ll finally get all the Chaos Emeralds. That’ll be the day.
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