My Played Video Games Review: Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis
Sonic the Hedgehog is a platform video game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega of Japan for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. It was released worldwide in 1991.
Personally, I prefer Sonic over Mario. I find it takes less effort with Sonic to go through levels than Mario where I must hold a damn buton all the time just to run/dash in early Super Mario platformers.
The Story
Break that video game speed barrier wide open with Sonic the Hedgehog! Blaze by in a blue blur using the super sonic spin attack. Loop the loop against gravity. Go down the tunnels. Then dash to safety with Sonic's power shoes. All at a frantic pace.
Help Sonic escape lava pools. Swim through exotic waterfalls. Scale shiny green mountains. And soar past blinking city lights. There's even a circular rotating maze. You haven't seen anything like it.
Sonic has an attitude that shows guts. He's flip and whacky, yet tough as steel as he dashes to free his friends from evil. So you just wait. Sonic may be the world's next platforming SUPER hero.
The Graphics and Sound
During the early 1990s time, this game was a jaw-dropper. There were scaling and rotating effects and all the sprites are detailed and well-animated. I was blown away by this since I was used to Mario Bros. 1 and 3 from playing NES games. I was amazed that many different colors exist on the screen at once.
The music and sound effects are great. The developers gave it catchy and upbeat music. All of the sound effects are very clear and crisp and are still used today in some future Sonic games.
The Gameplay
This game introduced the speed and style that made Sonic a legend. It is what separates Sonic from Mario. On top of the basic jump attack, Sonic can spin, where you can roll through enemies as a blue ball of spikes.
The levels are unique and designed especially to show Sonic's speed. This means you can blast through the level as fast as you can. Get the gold rings on the way, because rings are your life supply. Get hit by an enemy and your rings spill out. You're dead if an enemy hits you and you got no rings with you.
The bosses are big, wacky, and challenging but Sonic's speed is your best friend. Sonic moves and responds very well, and stops quickly when you need him to. Because he moves damn fast, making jumps is not a problem in this game.
The replay value is good. If you could beat a level with 50 or more rings, you can go to the Special Stage, which is a big rotational maze. Trying to beat that is fun.
My Verdict
This game is a great 2D platforming classic! Don't miss out on it if you are a die-hard Mario fanboy. I still go back and play Sonic whenever I get sick of the over-hyped and "all-graphics but no gameplay" crap that today's modern video games have become.
Go play this on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive or play on emulators. You can thank me later.
Red Letter Media’s Jack Packard and Rich Evans reckoned it was impossible to play Sonic The Hedgehog in the way it was intended to be played. They reckon that if you try and race through the stages, you are not able to react in time to oncoming enemies. So the only way to really advance is to creep along. The one exception is those stages where you run along a course of loops and stuff. But, they say, these stages are really just parts of the game where you don’t really control Sonic. Are these fair comments? It does not sound like you found Sonic impossible of you made him go fast!
Those are good arguments. IMHO, the key is to memorize the stage and the layout/location of enemies. Speedruns uploaded on Youtube show it can be done.