Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog

Genesis - USA - 1st edition

Developer Sega Publisher Sega Published 1991-06-23 Platforms Arcade, BREW, DoJa, Game Boy Advance, Genesis, J2ME Genres Action, Platformer Themes Action, Cartoon Series Sonic the Hedgehog Distribution Commercial

Sonic the Hedgehog is a platformer developed and published by Sega and first released for the Genesis on 1991-06-23. It is the first game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series.

In the game, Dr. Robotnik has kidnapped countless woodland creatures and turned them into robots under his control and is planning to take over the world. You play as Sonic the Hedgehog, a totally rad rodent who has super sneakers that let him run hyper fast. Your goal is to free the animals from the robots and defeat Dr. Robotnik.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes.
Finished	2023-12-28.

I had seen commercials for Sonic the Hedgehog long before I played it. My middle school friend Kevin got a second-hand Genesis and I first played the game at his house. The SNES hadn't yet been released, and I remember being very impressed with the way the game looked and sounded, but I found it to be quite difficult. I tried running through the game at top speed and kept crashing into enemies, spikes, and various other hazards. I made it to the Marble Zone, where the tight spaces, lava, and spikes ended my run. Despite being impressed with the technical aspects of the game, I didn't enjoy the game play. When Genesis emulators matured in the early 2000s, I tried the game again, but didn't have much interest in it, and didn't make it much further. In the late 2010s, I watched my friend June make short work of the game which gave me a bit more appreciation for it. After decades of having a negative opinion of the game, I finally tried playing the game in earnest and beat it in 2023, but with only three chaos emeralds. In the process, I learned to appreciate the game more, but still feel it's overrated.

Review

5	3	7	7	6

Best Version: Genesis

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The game has fantastic background graphics, sprites, and animation. There is a lot of attention to detail in the pixel art, and the themes are cartoonish and fantastical. It makes good use of parallax scrolling, and CRT bleeding.
• Masato Nakamura's music is very enjoyable, and the sound effects are great. Alternating the ring sound effect between the left and right speaker was a nice touch. The music when you're running out of air is quite nerve-racking.
• The evolving boss battles are pretty good. Nothing too impressive, but different enough to give a steady increase in challenge.
• In the few areas where it's safe to run fast, it's wonderful to watch Sonic moving at top speed, and it really showcases the powerful Genesis hardware.
• Sonic dropping all his rings is a cool graphic effect which was pretty impressive for the time.
• Having alternate routes through every level gives the game some additional replay value.
• The bonus stages are a nice break from the platformer levels, and another good showcase of the hardware.
• It's fairly easy to rack up a lot of extra lives and continues through the game, so, even though you'll frequently die as you get used to the maps, you'll get a lot of chances before you see your final game over.

Bad

• Getting a 1-up from accruing 100 rings, and, the idea of rings themselves, is awfully derivative of the coins mechanic in Super Mario Bros.
• You only have 10 chances to get enough rings for all six chaos emeralds, and, once in the special stage, if you fail to get any of them, you won't be able to see the good ending. So, if the good ending is your goal, and you make a single mistake near the end of the game, you will fail and will have to restart from the beginning.
• The plot doesn't make sense. Why is Dr. Robotnik turning woodland creatures into robots when he's really interested in obtaining the chaos emeralds? And, why is it, you can wreck all of his robots, but it means nothing unless you also gather the emeralds? If he needs the robots to collect the emeralds, and you destroy all his robots, he can't get them. The manual doesn't go into much detail on any of this.
• Being invincible doesn't reset your air counter when underwater, so, even though you can't take damage, you may find yourself drowning the moment the flashing goes away, which is rather annoying.
• Labeling the undesirable exits in the special stages "goal," is a bit mean.

Ugly

• Sonic is very slow to change direction, and even slower to walk uphill. His movement is also difficult to predict when jumping on a hill, and you don't have much control over his jump in general. Overall, he's just difficult to control unless walking along flat ground.
• A lot of the level design is based around beginner traps. Want to know what's down there? It's a bottomless pit. What happens if you hit that spring? It sends you into spikes. Want to explore that underwater grotto? No air down there, sorry! You're just expected to die a lot until you memorize the levels.
• The game's main gimmick is that you can run fast, but, in reality, running fast will get you killed. Since Sonic is centered on the screen, you have only a split second to react to hazards as they appear, not nearly enough for most humans. To stand a chance of success, you must slowly make your way through each section gently, avoiding the many hazards, until you memorize the safe areas; it's quite tedious.
• Near the end of the game, there are checkpoints with no rings after them just before the bosses. So, if you need to retry the boss, you'll have to do it where a single mistake results in death. More cruel level design.

Media

Box Art

• 

  Genesis - USA.

• 

  Genesis - USA - Promotional.

• 

  Mega Drive - Europe.

• 

  Mega Drive - Japan.

Documentation

• 

  Manual - Game Boy Advance - USA.

• 

  Manual - Genesis - USA.

• 

  Manual - Mega Drive - Japan.

• 

  Ad - Europe.

Maps

• 

  Green Hill Zone - Act 1.

• 

  Green Hill Zone - Act 2.

• 

  Green Hill Zone - Act 3.

• 

  Marble Zone - Act 1.

• 

  Marble Zone - Act 2.

• 

  Marble Zone - Act 3.

• 

  Spring Yard Zone - Act 1.

• 

  Spring Yard Zone - Act 2.

• 

  Spring Yard Zone - Act 3.

• 

  Labyrinth Zone - Act 1.

• 

  Labyrinth Zone - Act 2.

• 

  Labyrinth Zone - Act 3.

• 

  Star Light Zone - Act 1.

• 

  Star Light Zone - Act 2.

• 

  Star Light Zone - Act 3.

• 

  Scrap Brain Zone - Act 1.

• 

  Scrap Brain Zone - Act 2.

• 

  Scrap Brain Zone - Act 3.

• 

  Special Stage - 1.

• 

  Special Stage - 2.

• 

  Special Stage - 3.

• 

  Special Stage - 4.

• 

  Special Stage - 5.

• 

  Special Stage - 6.

Screenshots

• 

  A checkpoint in Green Hill Zone, Act 1.

• 

  Sonic is indestructible with a shield.

• 

  Getting a game over.

Fan Art

• 

  Fan art by Chris McGuire.

• 

  What if Sonic ran like an idiot?

Videos

Review - Segaiden.

Postmortem.

Longplay.

Tool-assisted speed run.

Play Online

Arcade, Game Boy Advance, Genesis, Mega Drive

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are no women.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There are no women.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	The only human character appears white.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Sonic the Hedgehog
Japanese	ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ	Sonikku za Hejjihoggu	Sonic the Hedgehog

Links