Sonic the Hedgehog Remains an All-Time Classic!

I love Sonic the Hedgehog, a sentence I’m sure will trigger many a reader’s fight or flight response. But I do love Sonic the Hedgehog. Not the movie, it’s okay. Not the character, I’m unsure how to feel about him. Not the franchise, I’m even less sure how to feel about that. Not the 2006 game although it would be both funny and on-brand for me to be into that one. Not the bizarre GBA port, that one isn’t even bad in a funny way. Not the SatAM cartoon although that one gets a high recommendation from me.

No, today’s subject is what you saw when you clicked this piece, the 1991 Mega Drive classic, or I suppose Genesis if you’re from the land of the eagles or the leaf. I think Sonic 1 is a great game, although saying that ever so nonchalantly is sure fireway to have a few red crosshairs on me, but I do, genuinely. To make matters worse (for you), I don’t love it in spite of its flaws and I don’t love it because of its flaws either. I just love it in general, fullstop, if Sonic 1 was a person, I’d ask it out on a date (after I make sure they didn’t escape from an asylum, it’s Sonic after all).

Time to burst a few bubbles and make enemies out of everyone here… I really don’t think Sonic 1 is that flawed to begin with.

Okay, okay, let’s dial back a bit. Obviously “love” is the operative word here, and not some hill I’m willing to die on, especially for a series I largely still feel indifferent about. But you know what’s funny? Going against the grain. You know what’s even funnier? Sincerely going against the grain. Yes, by some richid, twisted miracle, I happen to have all the Sonic opinions that freely grant me a one-way ticket to fandom World War IV.

I’m not even doing it on purpose, I’ve just always been this bad. Perhaps it comes in with the package. Maybe I should’ve read the fine print when I signed up for this. But in all seriousness, I’m not here to defend some silly blue rat’s honor, you’re gravely mistaken. I’m solely here to express genuine appreciation for a game I just happen to think is neat. Believe me, you’ll find out soon enough I’m not some crazed sonic fan, I’m just crazed in general.

It was difficult to come up with a format I like here but I believe I settled on one I’m comfortable with, so without further ado, let’s not waste anymore time.

Green Hill Zone​

We start off with Green Hill, which is known for a variety of things, like the fact that it nostalgia panders so hard, it’d make Pokémon Gen 1 blush. But when removed from those retroactive negatives (that are frankly not the fault of the stage itself), Green Hill is a wonderfully crafted set of levels that greatly showcases the strengths of Sonic’s platforming and physics. To go into more detail however, we move on to Marble Zone.

Marble Zone​

Did you know you could skip this whole section with a few precise jumps? Shows the true beauty of these physics!​

Now we’ve established Green Hill as a zone that a lot of folks can agree on, both for its positives and its negatives. Evidently however, Marble Zone is a definitive division point for Sonic 1 critics. People who prefer the stage design of 2 tend to dislike Marble Zone while others like myself who prefer stages with a bit more meat on their bones tend to find a lot of joy in Marble.

As a matter of fact, this is where I actually fell in love with StH1. Earlier, we expressed how Green Hill demonstrates the beauty of classic Sonic’s physics, but it’s Marble Zone where I truly began to appreciate them. You don’t begin to love a physics system unless it’s put to the test, and the various tight jumps I had to make at the end of Act 3 made me realize just how much potential these physics hold. The tension rises when you play Sonic 1 with no cheat codes, which is how it’s intended anyways. More on this in the Labyrinth Zone section.

Spring Yard Zone​

To this day, no one knows the mystery behind the enigmatic “COPE” text!​

Now there’s not much that can be said about Spring Yard. It’s understandable how this zone gets lost in the shuffle of Sonic 1 discourse, it falls into the kind of middle where it neither pleases speed-obsessed freaks nor platforming connoisseurs like myself. Not going into either extreme can be a good thing, but in Spring Yard’s case, it causes it to be more of a transitional zone with seemingly only two or three memorable segments.

Second Opinion​

Now, you're likely still skeptical about all this. Rest assured, as this review isn’t carried by one Sonic psycho-nerd, but two! @Gorse is a fellow writer on this site as well as a gigantic Sonic 1 nerd like myself so with great honor, I shall now ask you to take the stage, Gorsemeister!

Gorse wrote:

The genius of Sonic 1, in stark contrast to many lesser platformers, is that it’s a very focused game. There’s no extraneous side nonsense to interrupt the action. No annoying gimmicks to make progression tedious. It’s a game about movement – about navigating obstacles and overcoming challenges by tackling or avoiding them – and that’s all it’s about, so you never get distracted. Instead, you’re able to place full concentration on navigating the game’s tight-yet-open level design, and interacting with a host of immediately-understandable enemies and mechanics. Sonic isn’t just “fast” because he has a high speed attribute – he’s fast because the game is designed to let skilled players advance quickly. That’s what makes it fun!

The original Sonic is also a game that’s, by design, inexorably linked to the Mega Drive. Playing Sega console games made around the 1986-1991 period, it becomes clear that Sonic is the culmination of a common design philosophy. By the time of Sonic 1’s development, its programmers, designers, artists, and musicians had cut their teeth on many, many Sega titles before, and now had the instruction to make the best damn game they could to represent their brand as effectively as possible. Simply put: it’s the game that these young men had built up to creating, and the game that only they could make.

Sonic’s caught on because it was a high-quality product in all areas, which is something only a strong sense of focus can allow.

- Gorse


Lovely piece, I do agree with a lot of it. It’s interesting you mention a lot of the points you bring up, as it further emphasizes how incredible that Sonic 1 got so much stuff right on its first try. It’s worth noting that the dev team was quite experienced with Phantasy Star in advance, so they were already veterans by the time they begun working on their new passion project; Sonic, which would explain the game’s immediate degree of excellence and absence of amateur programming.

I’m glad you bring up the point about speed, as I find it rather reductive to flandarize Sonic’s gameplay as being purely just momentum, it’s the element of skill that truly elevates it. Without tight jumps, there would be no Sonic.

I also find it fascinating you mentioned the point about the devs being experienced with other projects immediately as I thought of it, freaky same wavelength thinking! I would also add how evenly distributed the team efforts were, each member contributed equally. “Sonic Team” wasn’t just a catchy name after all!

It was fantastic having you onboard! Thanks for sharing your expertly-written thoughts!

Labyrinth Zone​

Did you know there’s a shortcut here? Press the button here and follow after the floating brick underneath it, make your way to the top and you’ll find a new platform that wasn’t there initially! Ride it to skip a large portion of the Act. It’s so cool how many little things Sonic 1 was packing!​

I feel really bad for Labyrinth. No, truly. It’s stage with an interesting gimmick, interesting use of water, nice way to test your understanding of the physics halfway through, cool visual design and a nice tune. Is there anything you’d want more? Well, the Sonic fandom, being the impossible-to-please fanbase that it is, thought this was not it, and I beg to differ, because not only do I think Labyrinth is a great zone, but I’d easily put it higher than Green Hill.

One thing to highlight here is how Labyrinth Zone continues Marble’s theme of shortcuts, something the best three zones in this game (Marble, Scrap and this) all have in common and it’s one of the coolest things about Sonic 1. They’re all completely discoverable if you know where to look or get lucky. I found the shortcut in Scrap Brain Act 3 completely by myself, a feat I’m still proud of to this day.

Starlight Zone​

I’ll admit, it’s hard to resist the temptation of leaving this empty, mainly because it would be really, really funny to say absolutely nothing about the other only popular zone from Sonic 1. Frankly, I don’t get it. It seems as if Sonic fans have over-exaggerated their dislike for Marble and Labyrinth so hard that anything that doesn’t resemble those is good by default, when in actuality this is a fairly average zone carried mainly by its superior tune to every other tune in the game.

It’s really just another transitional zone, similar to Spring Yard. There’s so little going on platforming-wise that you blast through it without much thinking, which I do find to be the worst kind of level design if I were to be honest here. It’s almost too reminiscent of Sega’s failed mascot, Alex Kidd (yes, I’m dying on this hill because I did actually play that series and it gets old quite quickly). Luckily, the next zone gets nothing but thumbs up from me.

Scrap Brain Zone​

I love this sequence of fight platforming! The true beauty of Scrap Brain can’t be appreciated if you played it with the spin-dash on. ​

If it were up to me and was allowed to rank Sonic zones purely based on music, then Starlight is easily on top, full-bias mode despite spending the last segment saying not-very-nice things about it, but if we remove the element of music (which is frankly the only thing Sonic has going for him these days), then Scrap Brain would my number 1 Zone in the entire game as it contains everything I’d want from Sonic 1 and 2D Sonic in general; tight platforming, challenging sections that test your understanding of the physics, rewarding high risk jumps and so on.

It’s a frantic zone from start to finish, and it’s satisfying to master. Shoutout to anyone who’s actually playing Sonic 1 the way it’s intended; with limited continues and no spin-dash, then you’ll truly appreciate how this zone tests your skills with its anxiety-inducing jumps that occasionally borderlines on pixel perfection! Fantastic tune too, by the by.

Final Thoughts​

All in all, I wanted to propose a different outlook on this game. It’s fine if you prefer Sonic 2 or 3, 3&K is in my top three favorite Sonic games (although if you believe for a second that assures some semblance of sanity within me, I’m afraid to tell you the other two games are Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Unleashed), so I’d understand there. But I did want to offer a different perspective, two different perspectives! I believe the game is a fantastic physics test, so it’s completely understandable that Sonic 1 was designed the way it was.

Being experimental to the max is something I find commendable, especially when it gives us a smooth experience in the end. This game could’ve been a lot worse, it could've been another Alex Kidd game, a fate worse than death.

Lastly, some housekeeping…​

Special thanks to World of Longplays for the Sonic footage. Mega Man pics are from the Rockman 3 commercial.​

Eid Mubarak, everyone! This article was not actually planned to be published on Eid particularly, it’s just been in the works for a while and it just happened to be ready for publication today so it made sense to have it out today. Funny how things work out sometimes! Honestly, it’s been so long since I published a big scale article that it felt kind of nostalgic to do so again, in a way. Almost like revisiting my roots. IRL stuff and newfound mod and repo curation essentially quadrupled my lack of free-time for writing, so this feels quite great! You can say this had been a mini passion project, considering how long I’ve been working on this article.

It was a great honor featuring @Gorse here, I couldn’t have been more grateful that he accepted joining in on this little passion project. My last article was almost a month ago, so it was hard not to be a little rusty. It would be wonderful to work together again, as this was incredibly joyful. Perhaps in a Sonic 2 review maybe? *wink wink*

Having this come out on Gorse’s birthday was also a big coincidence. We’re on a roll here! Speaking of which…

With that said, I’d like to make an announcement…​

Mega Man 3 Review has now officially entered production! Contrary to popular belief, I can count to 3! It’s been in the works for a while. It has not been forgotten, and will likely come out some time in the future.

It’s healthy to note these reviews take time, this very Sonic review you’re reading has actually been in production for three weeks, with me making small tweaks almost literally everyday until I was happy with it. I really wanted this to come out as perfect as can be, same with the Mega Man reviews, so I truly appreciate everyone’s patience.

Stay tuned!

​

 

[fake-kun]

Mega Man 3 Review has now officially entered production! Contrary to popular belief, I can count to 3! It’s been in the works for a while. It has not been forgotten, and will likely come out some time in the future.

Finally! I've waited twelve years in Azkaban for this!

 

[Ícaro Oliveira Santos]

Very good review, Sonic 1 is a good game, but its sequels are way better, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is by far the pinnacle of the series and one of the best 2D Platformers of all time, I also love the first Sonic Adventure a lot, even though it hasn't aged that well compared to other games that were released at the time (like the first Metal Gear Solid and The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time). I actually like it more than its sequel simply because I find Sonic's movements much better in the first Sonic Adventure than in its sequel, and also the Treasure Hunt stages (or the Knuckles stages as they are called in the first Adventure) are less boring compared to its sequel (simply because the radar detects several emerald fragments at the same time instead of just one).

 

[Yousef]

Very good review, Sonic 1 is a good game, but its sequels are way better, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is by far the pinnacle of the series and one of the best 2D Platformers of all time, I also love the first Sonic Adventure a lot, even though it hasn't aged that well compared to other games that were released at the time (like the first Metal Gear Solid and The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time). I actually like it more than its sequel simply because I find Sonic's movements much better in the first Sonic Adventure than in its sequel, and also the Treasure Hunt stages (or the Knuckles stages as they are called in the first Adventure) are less boring compared to its sequel (simply because the radar detects several emerald fragments at the same time instead of just one).

Nice to see a fellow adventure fan. Loved both adventure games. The variety in gameplay is something I appreciate. I’ve loved almost every sonic up until adventure 2, after adv2 the series became messy for me but I still enjoyed some games (like unleashed)

 

[Ícaro Oliveira Santos]

Nice to see a fellow adventure fan. Loved both adventure games. The variety in gameplay is something I appreciate. I’ve loved almost every sonic up until adventure 2, after adv2 the series became messy for me but I still enjoyed some games (like unleashed)

Have you ever played Sonic Mania? it's a phenomenal game, possibly my third favorite game in the series.

 

[DunkeyKong]

Holy, 3 weeks? That's a great dedication man, respect

Anyway, Sonic The Hedgehog is still one of the best game for the 16 bit era of consoles, one that have also started one of the biggest rivalry in videogames history. Great mascot, level design, music composers and a memorable looking sprite work visuals to make it a great and memorable game to even rival its competitors. Despite not having the level of greatness that the sequels have, it was still worth a try even with all of its flaws. Because without the first, they wouldn't have the foundation for the greater sequels, Sonic The Hedgehog

 

[Ícaro Oliveira Santos]

I also love Sonic CD a lot, even with its flaws, it has by far the best art direction in the franchise and the game's soundtrack (both Japanese/European and the American soundtrack) is wonderful.

 

[Stingy Perry]

The OG Sonic was the first game I ever played. This game made into the gamer I am today.

It’s a great article, with this it reminds me of how fun this really is.

 

[Yousef]

Have you ever played Sonic Mania? it's a phenomenal game, possibly my third favorite game in the series.

I played mania, but only one playthrough, so I can’t write a lengthy comment about it other than that I liked the bosses and music.

I also love Sonic CD a lot, even with its flaws, it has by far the best art direction in the franchise and the game's soundtrack (both Japanese/European and the American soundtrack) is wonderful.

CD is amazing! Always fun to replay.

 

[Ícaro Oliveira Santos]

Nice to see a fellow adventure fan. Loved both adventure games. The variety in gameplay is something I appreciate. I’ve loved almost every sonic up until adventure 2, after adv2 the series became messy for me but I still enjoyed some games (like unleashed)

I really love the first Sonic Adventure, even though it is a very unpolished game. I really like that Sonic's spin dash in the first Adventure game is incredibly broken, busted and overpowered, leading to lots of incredibly fun shortcuts.

 

[Dakarus]

Every time I play Sonic 1 I always stop playing when I get to marble zone, can't stomach the rest of the game when I could just play 2 or 3 instead

 

[Cu-Neo]

Your first sentence was so powerful that I had to start a Fight , but more seriously I always liked more the aesthetic of Sonic 1 more than the one in 2 and 3, I always had this feeling that some zones are telling you something like "this is what going to happen if you don't stop Robotnik" Scrap Brain Zone for example a zone that is more of a Oil platform than a tropical island, and besides some levels having a lots of cheap deaths, I love Sonic 1 and Great Review as always .

 

[MemeAlert]

Something I notice in Sonic the Hedgehog 1 that Zones 1, 3 & 5 are the fast paced levels while 2, 4 & 6 are more platforming levels. Similarly to Spyro 1 where Worlds 1, 3 & 5 are magical levels while 2, 4 & 6 are more down to earth. Also those are your top 3 Sonic games, whats 4-10?

 

[Ícaro Oliveira Santos]

Very good review, Sonic 1 is a good game, but its sequels are way better, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is by far the pinnacle of the series and one of the best 2D Platformers of all time, I also love the first Sonic Adventure a lot, even though it hasn't aged that well compared to other games that were released at the time (like the first Metal Gear Solid and The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time). I actually like it more than its sequel simply because I find Sonic's movements much better in the first Sonic Adventure than in its sequel, and also the Treasure Hunt stages (or the Knuckles stages as they are called in the first Adventure) are less boring compared to its sequel (simply because the radar detects several emerald fragments at the same time instead of just one).

Don't get me wrong, I really like Sonic Adventure 2, it's a great game with a good story, but I find the first Adventure more fun to play.

 

[Cheela]

Of course you like Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone … but after soo many dogshiting on those zones is nice to seeing a review that does a fair retrospective with those zones without repeating what angry videos in Youtube said like for more than 10 years. Lovely review as always my dear It may not be my favorite sonic game (Sonic 3&K will be always be one of my favorites games of all time) but Sonic 1 is definitely one of the dankiest games of all time and everyone that disagrees can go eat shit in Minecraft(jk) :3

 

[Jeff]

Back in early 1993, I played Sonic the hedgehog for the first time when the Sonic series' popularity became huge. I had a Genesis with Sonic 1 bundled in and I couldn't stop playing it, I just had too much fun running around and have played it over 1,000 times on my 3DS and I still play it today. I find Marble Zone not too bad. The game is letting players know that its a platformer and a platformer needs a level with lava to avoid and yeah Labyrinth Zone can be a pain, but with the help of the debug code, players can skip through the level or look through it to understand it's layout. Sonic 1 is definitely one of my top 5 Sonic games next to 3&Knuckles, CD, 2 and Adventure.

 

[Nelson2001]

I must admit that the first Sonic the Hedgehog was a good start to the saga but it was not perfect because it had a basic and simple gameplay that is to say that there were no mechanics that would come later like the spin dash + A or B or C and the spiral attack that consisted of pressing the jump button twice. On the other hand, Sonic 1, despite having a basic and simple gameplay, is one of the most iconic SEGA Megadrive/Genesis games in history and is due to its ingenious level design (except for the Marble Zone which consists of platforming and avoiding being crushed even if the zone is not so difficult to complete, yes. and Labyrinth Zone that are criticized due to how mediocre they were and it was due to an oversight of the testers, especially the Labyrinth Zone that Sonic is unable to swim and can only survive in the water with bubbles and in addition Sonic moves slowly underwater making it tedious to complete the acts in the said zone), the colorful graphics even for the the time due to the limitations of the console's color palette that were 61/512 selectable colors and the color selection of the scenarios is well thought out and the iconic soundtrack that many of them are unforgettable. But it's also almost impossible to continue if you lose all your lives unless you get 10000 points in the bonus stages and get a continue successfully. By the way, very good review.

 

[ThatOneLum]

the land of the eagles or the leaf.

Pure poetry.

 

[Konatalzumi]

He still haunts me.