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The beginning of a gaming icon.
“Sonic the Hedgehog” or also known as "Sonic 1," came out in 1991 for the Sega Genesis by SEGA's Sonic Team. It was SEGA's flagship mascot for the console to rival Nintendo at the time, who was dominating the video game industry.
Sonic succeeded, becoming an iconic character to this day, but it’s time to see if his first outing still holds up.
I'll be playing the "Sonic Classic Collection" on the DS to play "Sonic 1." I did play "Sonic 1" as a child with this game collection, but I never beat it and I barely remember much about the game.
Story (C)
Dr. Robotnik, also known as Dr. Eggman, is turning a bunch of animals into robots for world domination. Sonic the Hedgehog must stop him. It’s barebones, but it does the job.
Presentation (A+)
“Sonic the Hedgehog” was amazing visually and musically back in 1991 for its beautiful visuals and iconic music, and still holds up today.
All the levels are vibrant, colourful, and memorable. There are even some cool details, like the grass in Marble Zone being set on fire whenever it touches lava.
The backgrounds also help to add depth to the levels. For example, in Spring Yard Zone, when going to the higher area there are purple skies and clouds. In the lower parts, there’s a forest and the city.
The designs of the enemies are nice looking. The animations are all smooth too.
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However, the levels aren't perfect. While it's minor, it's odd that the sky in Green Hill Zone is too dark of a blue.
A bigger problem is that the third act of Scrap Brain Zone is a recoloured Labyrinth Zone.
Not only is this lazy, but a huge middle finger to the player because Labyrinth Zone, the worst zone in the game, technically has four acts.
The music and sound effects are all around gorgeous, there’s a good reason why it’s iconic. The music from Green Hill Zone to Scrap Brain Zone is amazing, the latter being my favourite track in the game. Sound effects also have a good punch to them that’s satisfying to hear.
Gameplay (C)
“Sonic 1” is all about speed. Speed and regret.
Sonic gains momentum when he runs. The longer he runs, the faster he goes. Obstacles usually require his speed to get past them, such as loop de loops or ramps.
Sonic can also jump, going into ball mode when he does. This makes him destroy enemies he touches unless they are guarded by something like spikes.
Sonic can also go into ball mode by pressing down when running. Although, this slows down Sonic's momentum, which is a worthwhile sacrifice to not, y’know, run into an enemy and die.
Sonic’s abilities are overall good, they feel nice and lead to fun and challenging platforming.
In the levels, Sonic can collect rings. These act as an extra hit, if Sonic gets hit carrying rings, he loses all his rings as some scatter on the stage. Sonic can recollect any fallen rings, but they disappear after a while.
The number of rings that drop depends on how many Sonic has when he's hit. If Sonic is hit without any rings, he dies. If Sonic only has one ring, only one ring will drop when he gets hit. Getting 100 rings gives a 1-up.
The ring mechanic is solid. It adds a lot of value to collecting rings with worthwhile rewards, such as a higher chance of getting more rings back when getting hit. It’s perfect game design.
There are also power ups to be obtained in boxes. They can contain rings or 1-ups, but also a speed boost and invincibility. The speed boost makes Sonic pick up speed quickly, indicated by the tempo of the level music increasing.
Invincibility has Sonic surrounded by sparkles and Sonic won’t be able to die outside of falling down pits. Both do have time limits, so it’s important to not get cocky.
There is also the shield which has no time limit and can protect Sonic from being damaged when he gets hit.
These power-ups are great and can be a massive help, especially the shield.
There are also special stages. To reach them, Sonic needs 50 rings when at the end of the stage. There will be a giant ring and if it’s jumped into, the special stage begins.
To get the six Chaos Emeralds, Sonic needs to traverse and break through crystals guarding the Chaos Emerald in the six special stages. He must do all of this in ball mode.
The stage itself also rotates left and right and can change directions if he lands on certain blocks, among other things. This means Sonic is constantly moving and can be a tad frustrating to control.
There are also goal spots that take Sonic out of the special stages without the Chaos Emerald. Which adds to the frustration since you don't really want to touch these.
However, collecting 50 rings in special stages is the only way to get a Continue. A Continue gives the player a second chance if they run out of lives, getting a game over without a Continue means starting all the way back from the beginning.
The special stages are not fun, they’re frustrating. The Continues are a decent incentive to go into them though.
Finally, each stage has checkpoints. If Sonic dies with lives remaining, he’ll spawn back at the last checkpoint he touched.
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There are some annoying things in general, like how despite there being invincibility frames, landing on more spikes after being knocked back by spikes gets Sonic killed.
There was also an odd jump Sonic would make where he wouldn’t go into spin ball form, it’s weird.
One thing I’ve noticed is that my opinion of the Classic Sonic games is often affected heavily by the zones. The game has good all-around mechanics, minus some missteps, but without good level design it’s fruitless. “Sonic 1” overall has decent level design.
Levels like Marble Garden Zone and Star Light Zone are excellent with challenging platforming without feeling unfair.
Labyrinth Zone and Spring Yard Zone on the other hand, do not spark joy. They have annoying enemies, aggravating platforming, and frustrating gimmicks.
Labyrinth Zone is particularly infamous for its underwater physics. Sonic moves so slow and can even run out of air, it becomes headache-inducing.
I think the overall zone structure has pacing issues, like going from Green Hill’s fast and open stage, to Marble Zone’s slower and linear design.
The pacing is all around inconsistent. For a game, whose selling point is going fast, having half of the levels be slow. While it's possible to go fast, the obstacles makes it suicidal to try. That's not to say without memorization it can't be done though.
Another thing that can drag down the zones is that they all have three acts, which can be tiring by the third act.
As for the bosses of these zones, they’re alright. Some like Green Hill’s and Star Light’s really shine. The others range from okay but easy to Labyrinth Zone’s boss, which is a mix of unfair and not technically a boss.
Overall (C)
The best way to describe “Sonic 1” is that it has an amazing and stylish foundation, but not the best utilization of it.
The mechanics with Sonic and the presentation is amazing all around, especially for the time. However, the levels mainly don’t utilize these mechanics the best or make them a chore to use. This is on top of some questionable level designs.
It hasn’t aged too well but considering it was the first game in the long running “Sonic the Hedgehog” franchise, that’s to be expected. It can’t be denied that Sonic succeeded in his first outing and would go on to get an even better sequel.
"'Sonic 1' is a game about speed. Speed and regret" LMAO accurate.
Loving the review mate. Comprehensive and fun to read! Keep em coming!