Sonic the Hedgehog

The Good
"Wow, so why can't the Super NES do this?" Those were my exact words back in September of 1991. The new school year had started, and one of my friends had gotten a Sega Genesis over the summer. He invited me over to check it out, and he said that he had gotten this game that was so fast that you almost couldn't keep up. With that, he plunked a cartridge into the system and flicked it on. The next thing I know, this blue hedgehog appears on the screen, and he hits Start, and tosses me the controller.

He was damn well right about the speed part. I uttered those words above to him, and he says, "Because Nintendo doesn't know anything about the word 'fast'."

Yep, that's what Sonic is all about: speed. He's a blue hedgehog with a cool attitude, a pair of wicked red sneakers, and enough speed to make even a Nascar driver blush. But that's not all he was. He was also a real showcase for Sega, as both a technical achievement (no other system can run a game this fast!) as well as establishing just what Sega needed...a mascot with the same cool attitude and demeanor that the company had back in the days of Genesis. And he's also one of my favorite mascots ever. Period. Sonic is just plain COOL, dammit! You do not question Sonic! ^_^

Anyway, onto my review.

It seems that this evil scientist named Dr. Eggman (speaking of which, I hate his American name, Dr. Robotnik) is capturing all these cute little forest animals and using them to control his army of robots. So Sonic's gotta go save the day and kick Eggman's fat egg butt outta town. And he's got it all: super speed, a wicked Spin Roll (complete with spines extended), and a cool, cocky grin on his face. Controlling Sonic is dead easy: D-pad to move and all of the buttons make Sonic jump. That's it. Sonic can jump onto certain enemies and destroy them, freeing the animal inside. But he'll need a little extra help, and he gets them in the form of Power-Ups. Grab a pair of Sonic Sneakers to make Sonic run twice as fast, or grab a Star Barrier for a burst of invincibility. But there's also one other thing that Sonic can grab...scattered all over every stage are Rings, which will protect Sonic from dying when he is hit by an enemy. Every hit that an enemy gives him makes all of his rings scatter, so you've gotta grab some back to keep yourself protected. Don't worry though. As long as Sonic is carrying at least one ring, he's safe. Grab 100 rings, and you'll gain an extra life. Grab at least 50 and make it to the end of the stage with them, and Sonic can play a bonus round, where he must find and collect the six Chaos Emeralds...sources of unbelievable power that Eggman is also after!

So how are the graphics, sounds, and music? The graphics are excellent for the Genesis, despite it having less colors on screen than the Super NES (64 on the Genny compared to 256 on a Super NES), and really showcase what the system is capable of, with large sprites and plenty of bright colors. Sonic looks really damn cool, and his animations are really well thought out! He even starts to get impatient if you don't move him for a while, tapping his foot and looking at you as if to say "Did you fall asleep out there? HELLOOOOO???" The sounds are for the most part rather good, but there's only so many times you can really hear the same "Boing!" sound every time Sonic jumps. But don't mute that TV yet, because you'll miss out on some wonderfully composed music from the Japanese rock group Dreams Come True. All of the music is wonderful, from the peaceful sounding Labyrinth Zone to the Green Hill Zone, all the way up to the Final Battle.

The Bad
The bonus rounds were a pain to play. Also, the Labyrinth Zone got to be rather confusing in some parts.

The Bottom Line
Sonic the Hedgehog is a true Genesis classic. If you own a Genesis, this is one game that should definitely be in your collection!

The Good
In Sonic The Hedgehog you play as the now famous Sonic the blue hedgehog and must save your animal friends who are being turned into evil robots for the mad scientist Dr. Ivo Robotnik and was Sega’s major and successful competition for Mario and helped boost sales for the Sega Genesis and also contributed to it’s overthrowing of the Super Nintendo and also evolved the modern platformer now mascots always are portrayed with a attitude and usually the gameplay mimics this game’s speaking of which.

Gameplay in this game has Sonic running through the level destroying robots at top speed and jumping on platforms and avoiding various obstacles like spike beds and lava in order to keep sonic alive you have to keep collecting rings and if you reach the end of the level with 50 or more rings you enter a special stage where you go through a maze to find the chaos emerald if you get all six in the sequels 7 when you beat the game you get a better ending with adds replay which otherwise a game like this doesn’t have there are three acts per stage at the end of the third act you face robotnik and have to defeat him.

The graphics are very impressive some of the best visuals for ‘91 for console games anyway cause at this point arcade looked much better and computer games anyway with the bright visuals and well designed characters and lush backgrounds.

The Bad
There are some problems this game has some stupid hard levels like labyrinth zone and scrap brain zone and why is the final boss the easiest boss in the game? Getting all the emeralds can be quite a chore considering how it hardly changes the ending its more so you can say you’ve done it and no spin dash makes some obstacles difficult to get past but its more forgivable since it’s the first one.

The Bottom Line
All in all this game is a fun one with some fantastic music particularly Starlight Zone and if you played the other ones first it will be hard to get used to the lack of spin dash but an instant classic.

The Good
The console wars! We are currently witnessing world war 3 in terms of consoles.. Lets pause a second..........., and think back to 1991...

Nintendo has THE most popular console (thought of at the time like people thought about the ps1 at its time) and SEGA were thought of as just another contender. Mario seemed to be the only guy jumping around on t.v (ok, and maybe timmy mallet) at that time and SEGAs future seemed to be underlined at that very moment Nintendo slapped down its sales profits for the year. Suddenly, SEGA had a mascot..

OK.. and the rest is history... yeah, pretty obvious I know. Sonic started the life of the Megadrive/Genesis and spawned the famous 'console war' !

This game was seen as a complete opposite of Mario, Super fast, dazzling graphics and spot on gameplay, Sonic the hedgehog set the standards of what people saw the SEGA console was capable of.

Yeah, years later Mario 64 won an award and Sonic adventure didn't, and, Nintendo's GAMEBOY is THE most successful console EVER.. But this is the game, this is the character which set the future of games and how they are distrubuted to the public forever. GO SONIC GO!.

The Bad
Sonic is nowhere near as popular now, and this game is rarely played! But whoever owns a copy of this, surely likes it's charm and style. (even though its a bit easy)

Playing this game now, gives me such a good feeling about gaming as a whole. This game cannot be compared next to games of today. It is so strange to rate this cool little game after playing Silent Hill 3 etc, which is why it should be regarded as an instant classic.... I mean, who HASNT heard of Sonic the hedgehog?

The Bottom Line
Its basically a platform game! Many platform games were made for the Megadrive and this type of game proved to be the most popular. The general size of games when this was made was not to the scale they are made today (even though they cost just as much and more!) and to play it through now wont take you long if you are into your games.

This game is cool, beyond which some games today will never achieve. Many great 'follow-ups' to this very game were made. Sonic is now going for an all console domination! I know Sonic will still be around in another 5 years, take this time to enjoy this fast, fun platformer. Enjoy!

The Good
Back in the days when the Sega Master System was still popular, two platform games that were worth playing were Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Wonder Boy. The former was a pack-in title that starred a monkey boy named Alex who must save the city of Radactian and defeat Janken. Alex was Sega's mascot all through the mid to late Eighties, but as the early Nineties came, Sega was getting ready to drop their official mascot and replace him with someone with a bit more attitude, in time for the release of their new machine, the Genesis. The company renamed their AM8 development studios to Sonic Team, whose purpose was to design the mascot and handle the numerous Sonic titles that followed.

The first time I got a glimpse at Sonic the Hedgehog was at a Kmart store, in which the character sped through the first three zones (courtesy of his red shoes) and the special stage that showed off the capabilities of the new machine. Mostly everyone in my school class wanted a Genesis because of that damn hedgehog, but not me. I was happy with the PC I just brought that year.

The story takes place on South Island, where Dr. Eggman (or Dr. Robotnik in North America) kidnaps the entire animal population and uses them to fuel robots, and marking the zones as his territory. Doing what other video game protagonists must do, Sonic must race through the six zones while turning the animals back to their normal selves by jumping on their heads. Move the joystick down while moving and you'll also “spin attack” any approaching enemies. There are also power-ups that can help you speed through each act or become invisible for a certain time.

Rings scattered around each of the acts play an important part in the game. Not only do they serve as protection against most enemies, but they also gives you a good chance of earning extra lives and possibly a chance at reaching the bonus stage. This bonus stage is a rotating maze that showed everyone what the Genesis was capable of, and the main goal is to gather the six chaos emeralds in each maze needed to unlock the good ending, while avoiding crashing into red goal signs. The backdrop, which consists of a bird morphing into a fish, is pretty neat.

At the end of each act, you'll come face to face with Eggman, who uses a variety of vehicles that come with their own unique weapons. I like that the game is consistent when it comes to these boss battles. To defeat him, you hit somewhere on the vehicle, the same way you jump on enemies to turn them back.

Each zone has an unique layout with some stunning backdrops. The first zone, for instance, has rolling hills and “loop-de-loops”. The second contains marble structures and lava pools/waterfalls, while in the Labyrinth Zone, Sonic spends most of his time underwater. Although the developers encourage you to speed though each zone, I prefer to take it easy as not to collide with enemies or traps, and still manage to conquer each zone in under ten minutes.

The soundtrack for Sonic the Hedgehog is brilliantly composed and is unique to each zone. The music for Scrap Brain Zone is reminiscent of Vangelis' theme music for “Blade Runner”, complete with drums at the end of each verse. I like hearing the warning tone in the Labyrinth Zone when Sonic needs to go up for air.

The Bad
Getting fifty rings to get access to the bonus stage becomes irrelevant as you enter the sixth zone, where it is then a matter of finding the right exit out of the acts. Also, the developers encourage you to speed through each act, but try to do it for a long time and you will likely bump into an enemy or trap.

The Bottom Line
After serving as the official mascot for Sega for quite a while, it was time for Alex Kidd to hand the reigns over to Sonic the Hedgehog, whose cool attitude and shiny red shoes helped him get inside people's households the world over. Sonic has great graphics, an excellent soundtrack, as well as mechanics that weren't introduced in a game before this one. It certainly sold well enough to warrant a sequel.

The Good
Sonic the Hedgehog was the game that really launched the Mega Drive & was one of the first games that I brought with my own cash. It took me a while to save up for but it was more than worth it.

Playing the game Hero, Sonic, a blue hedgehog who can run extremely fast you have to run & jump across several levels, split into 3 'acts' to defeat Dr Robotnik, who represents in a different form every time the final guardian of each level.

He has enslaved the cute little animals of Sonics home planet Mobieus via the power held in the Chaos Emeralds, which he has unceremoniously stolen. The premise of the game to defeat him and collect them in order to replace them.

The main selling power of this game was the pace at which it was played. With the emphasis on speed it allows for a greater arcade experience. This is what a gamer truly wants, at any age. A fun game with pacy, well detailed action.

The difficulty could be said to be to easy, but I think that is just about perfect. It means that any gamer can enjoy it as they will be able to progress without feeling robbed.

All that accompanied by excellent in game music, top graphics & pleasant sprite animation this game was a joy to play.

The Bad
There were some minor graphical glitches which can be irksome.

The Bottom Line
The game that re-ignited the platform genre. A must play.

The Good
Great graphics, character designs and music. The bonus stages look cool. Gameplay is simple, yet fun that anyone can play because it only uses the d-pad and one button.

The Bad
Getting hit results in losing all your rings, which can be frustrating if you are getting close to the end of the stage to play the bonus stage and being close to getting 100 rings to get an extra life. Some stages like Labyrinth Hill Zone and Marble Hill Zone feel like a chore to play because it doesn't let you run fast throughout the level. You can't save your progress.

The Bottom Line
You have no excuse not to play this classic because it's virtually on every game platform.

The Good
The classic of classics, Sonic the Hedgehog was, and still is, for Sega what Mario was for Nintendo in the late '80s, early '90s. He's cool, he looks awesome, he's got the spines and he's BLEEDING FAST!

Sonic the Hedgehog is one of those classic killer apps that made people buy the hardware. Like Mario or even VisiCalc, people rushed to the stores to get the machines that could run this amazing game. Ask just about anyone in just about any modern country about Sonic, and they'd at the very least know what you're talking about - it was that big.

And with good reason to boot! Sonic looks absolutely gorgeous, despite obvious technical inferiourity to its chief rival, the SNES. The game is bright, colourful (though never too much), and most importantly: it runs faster than you can shake a stick at! I was absolutely stunned at the frame rates the machine would spit out at the television, and that was only the beginning; the awesome SEGA logo, the terrific music and the blaringly fast, easily controlled action made for hours and hours of furious, enjoyable gameplay. Though I never had a Genesis, it definitely made me want to buy one (though I couldn't afford it at the time...), and to this day I still occasionally play the slightly inferiour Game Gear version of the game, wishing I had a Genesis when I was a kid...

The Bad
What? Who? Where? I think not.

The Bottom Line
One of the greatest platformers in history, an amazing game that pretty much made Sega what they are (were?) today.

The Good
I have always loved sonic...hes cute hes cuddly and hes got additude!sure it might be a little tinny...but thats expected...it would be better with tails....but...there realy is no need for the lil' fox....it was the 2nd sonic game i played...i think it is allot harder than sonic 2....and i like it that way! my personal favorite parts of this game is the graphics,music,and the LAVA MONSTERS!! hehehehehehe...

The Bad
some parts of it were confusing....and some parts were to much of a puzzle for an action/adventure game...

The Bottom Line
id say buy it....i would buy sonic 3 1st though...

The Good
Everything. This was my first game i've ever played in my entire life, so you can see how I got so darn hooked. This game has a good story, time-worthy AI, good graphics for the Genesis, and just a great experience that'll leave you wanting to play again. Dr. Robotnik is a real pain in the ass with a new invention at the end of each stage, but you can beat him, can't ya?

The Bad
Nothing. I loved this game and every single cell of silicon and plastic that makes it.

The Bottom Line
If you've never heard of this game, I wouldn't even talk to that person to describe it to them.

The Good
When I first started playing Sonic the Hedgehog, I was so excited that I played the Green Hill Zone so fast that I made it to the second zone. The music in the game was pretty good for its time. The Green Hill Zone tune was the first of the classic video game songs.

The Bad
1: The third act in the Labyrinth is hard because you're trying to chase down Robotnlk, the water rising, and spikes coming out of the walls. 2: The Special Stage where you're trying to get a emerald and you ended in the GOAL line which is pretty lame.

The Bottom Line
The game was pretty good for the year of 1991, so I'm trying to think about the other games for Sega Genesis? Sonic the Hedgehog is the best game with the best music EVER! So pick this game and put it in your collection.

The Good
Well this game rocks. I even play it now and it still seem fresh. The level's are great and it's the start of the sonic themes. The bosses are good the the egg-o-matic sprites are not that good. The music is so good and I even hum the tunes. My best level is Scrap Brain Zone. The graphics kicks ass. It stuffs Mario's face in and make the rest of the games look crap.

The Bad
The boring level Green Hill.

The Bottom Line
The game just the best. Don't play it and you are SO SAD!

The Good
Sonic is one of those games that are neither hard nor too easy. the difficulty is just about right for me because it starts off easy and the difficulty progresses at just the right speed, for me at least.

The Bad
The bad dudes are perhaps a little TOO easy to crush, if it be a ground unit or an air unit all you have to do is spin attack them and they're history. Also the levels are pretty much the same. Spin attack a few dozen units and you're done!!! You could also get a little dizzy from all the spinning.

The Bottom Line
a pretty o.k game if you're a fan of sonic.

The Good
This is one of the games you would be hard pressed not to love. Everyone who has played this often can easily say they have a favorite level by far because they're all distinct and vibrant, each with music to match. Ask any sonic fan their favorite level and they could tell you in an instant. And can hum the theme from at least one level, as well!

Add to that, the gameplay is as addictive as it is simple.

It also has, quite possibly, THE most iconic character ever, if not, damn does Sonic come close.

The Bad
Hmmm... this could take forever to figure out.

The Bottom Line
The game of games of the era, if you have not played this, you're not a retro gamer, and unfortunate if you have not.