Sonic the Hedgehog
System: Genesis
Release Date: June 23, 1991
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Action
The blue blur makes his debut on the Sega Genesis with Sonic the Hedgehog! Dr. Robotnik is scooping up the innocent animals of the wilderness and turning them into robots. This is totally uncool and there’s only one dude with enough attitude to stop him. That dude is everyone’s favorite hedgehog, Sonic! You’re going to have to dash, spin, zoom, jump, bounce, and swim your way through 6 stages of 3 levels, in order to save the day.
Sonic runs as you hold the directional pad left or right. His movement is based on both momentum and terrain slope. If you try to go up a hill without having enough speed, you’ll slow to a crawl. While you’re running, you can press the d-pad down to roll into a ball, which has the ability to destroy most enemies that are unfortunate enough to be in the way. Other enemies must be jumped through or landed on precisely. Press any of the lettered buttons to jump. There are TV monitors spread across the land where you can find powerups, such as rings, a bubble shield, super speed shoes, limited invincibility, and the elusive 1up.
Throughout the stages, Sonic will come across a number of rings. These rings are essential to your completion of the game. First, they act as health. As long as you’re holding at least one ring, you can be hit by an enemy and not die. Not only that, if you collect 100 rings, you get an extra life. Most importantly, you want to hold 50 rings by the time you finish each level in order to unlock the bonus stage. You’ll notice a giant ring flying in the sky that you need to jump through. The bonus stage is a constantly rotating affair. There are blocks that speed up and slow down the rotation, as well as reverse the direction. Bumpers will bump you around, and colored jewels will be run into and destroyed. Collect enough rings and you will earn a continue in case you run out of lives. The goal of these stages aren’t to find the Goal blocks, but instead to find the Chaos Emerald. You need to collect six of these and have twelve levels you can make it to the bonus stage in.
Each stage has a different gimmick to it and different paths that can be taken to reach the goal. There’s typically an upper, middle, and lower path. Keeping up high speeds and jumping to avoid enemies and obstacles usually gets you through the middle and lower paths, while the upper path typically has more platforming. Sonic shines when he’s moving fast, but many levels take that away from you. Whether it’s the Marble Zone, where you have to ride slow moving blocks. Or the Labyrinth Zone where you trudge through water at molasses speeds. You also have to be careful to keep your breath in these stages by finding bubble clusters and waiting for a big bubble to gulp. There are many things that slow you down, which is not the strong point of the game.
At the end of the third level is a showdown with Ro-butt-nik himself. He’s in his hovercraft and has a variety of weapons he tries to kill you with. You have to hit him something like eight times while avoiding getting hit or falling into his traps. These battles are pretty easy and if you do get hit, you just have to snag one ring to be fine. The final battle comes down to chance to make it quick, otherwise you have to avoid these sparks and pistons over and over again. Finishing with all the Chaos Emeralds allows Sonic to restore the land to its glory and run off into the sunset.
Graphics: 4.0
Everything looks really good. Sonic is animated well, the backgrounds are nice, and the level scenery is quite interesting, too.
Sound: 3.5
All the music is quite good. I don’t mind the sound effects, either.
Gameplay: 3.0
When Sonic is able to move fast, everything is good. When he has to move slow, it really loses momentum.
Difficulty: 3.5
It’s pretty easy to come across extra lives and continues to get through the adventure. Levels aren’t bad to get through.
Fun Factor: 3.5
It’s hard to go wrong with Sonic at this point.
Overall Rating: 3.5
Sonic the Hedgehog earns an A-. It’s about time we make it to Sonic and it’s as good a time as I remember nearly 35 years ago! Definitely play this and enjoy.