Like 1991. At this time, Nintendo had taken the world by storm with their new Super Nintendo, bringing Mario to the next generation with Super Mario World and making it known what their new sixteen-bit system could do. Sega, the creators of the Sega Genesis, a sixteen-bit system that preceded the SNES by two years, was foaming in the mouth that they had created a powerful system before Nintendo and was still being outsold. Sega studied what made Nintendo popular with the kiddies and realized something. "They have a successful mascot." Sega said, "They have a Mario, and they get money. So what would happen if we got a Mario?". So they went to work. They looked back at their previous creation, Alex Kidd, and started thinking of a new mascot for the Genesis, and Sega. Designs were thrown left and right, with sketches for a rabbit, an armadillo, a hedgehog, and Theodore Roosevelt in a pair of pajamas. Seriously.
Original sketch of the character.
At the end of the day, however, Naoto Õshima's design of a hedgehog won out over all the others, and the character was born. Blue hair to match the Sega logo. Shoes inspired by Michael Jackson and colored like
Santa Claus. An inability to swim when father of the character Yuji Naka had an idiot moment and thought all hedgehogs couldn't swim. The character was designed and a team of 15 people went to work on his game. His name: Mr Needlemouse. No not really. His name: Sonic the Hedgehog. Blue Hedgehog with a "get it done" attitude and speed taking advantage of the Genesis' blast processing, and the mascot now known for having a roller-coaster of a career. And we love him for it. Sonic's first game was released in 1991, and it was a major success. So lets see if the game still holds to that success over 22 years later.
The title screen with a tune everyone remembers.
The story in this game is simple, much like many mascot platformers. In the world of
Mobius, Dr. Robotnik (a character based upon the Theodore Roosevelt in pajamas design pictured above) decided "You know? I feel like taking over the world today.", and went to work om turning all the local animals into robots and tracking down the six Chaos Emeralds. With all of the animals turned into hamster-wheel powered death machines, its up to Sonic to rescue all the animals, locate the six Chaos Emeralds, and track down Robotnik and stop his plans.
Better get started then.
Sonic the Hedgehog is a 2D Platformer where your goal is to guide Sonic through all of the obstacles and get to the end of the level. The game is divided up into Zones, with three Acts in each. The third act of every stage always contains a boss fight with Robotnik, before moving onto the next Zone. There are six acts, meaning there are 18 levels in this game, so it'll take some time to finish the game, especially if you go for 100%, but more on that later.
Sonic is quite the versatile hero.
Sonic himself is able to do quite a bit. First, like all platformer heroes, he can jump to get from place to place, proving useful when up against bottomless pits. But we all know what Sonic is known for, and that's his fast speeds. Sonic can go quite fast, and getting speed could mean the level ending very fast if you know just where to jump and know the level design just right. But one thing that the game doesn't advertise but does so right, is its physics, and how the sense of speed adjusts with it. Sonic, realistically, cant run up hills and maintain consistent speed. He will slow down when running up an incline. Likewise, he will gain speed when going downhill, getting faster and faster regardless of directional input from the player. Sonic's rolling ability, besides helping him take down enemies, can also be used on slopes, allowing Sonic to gain even more speed when going downhill, and maintain more of his speed when going uphill. And that's the challenge of navigating levels in Sonic the Hedgehog. Sure you can take it slow and explore these well designed levels, IF YOU'RE A LOSER. If you want to gain major speed and plow through the level like an expert, you'll need a good slope, some well timed jumps, and a whole lot of luck. And that's what separates this from the other mascot platformers. Of course, as mentioned, the speed is completely optional in every case, and if you want to take it slow, you have that option. Sometimes it required to go slow however, but more on that later.
Get hit once, and Sonic loses his life savings.
Now Sonic may be able to do a lot in terms of movement, but his defenses are terrible. One hit from any hazard, and Sonic's down a life. This means one hit from the typical enemy, touching a spike in the middle of the forest, any hazard and Sonic's out of here. If you don't have any rings that is. Floating rings hovering inches above the ground are all over this world, you see, and Sonic can collect them to stay alive. And getting 100 of them gives Sonic another life. Getting hit with a ring will just make Sonic jump back and lose all of his rings. Most of the lost rings can be recollected, but so long as you have one ring, you're safe from instant death. Expect from bottomless pits and the infamous spike glitch, but thats what the invincibility power-up is for.
Computers with rings in them are also in the forest. Mobius is wierd.
Speaking of which, there are different power-ups that can be found in monitors throughout the levels. First and foremost, is the ring monitor. Break this and you receive ten rings. That's a whole tenth of a life. Next is the life monitor. Break this and you get an extra life. That's a whole life. There's the shield that not only makes Sonic bluer, but also allows him to take a free hit without losing any rings. There's the speed shoes monitor that make Sonic run even faster then he could before. Just watch yourself though, because you can still get hit when your running that fast. It's not quite the invincibility power-up, which temporally turns Sonic into a fast, blue death machine free to destroy everything in his path. Except for bottomless pits. Nothing will save you from those.
AHHHHHHHHHH
Now remember back when I mentioned 100% completion? Well that takes the form of Special Stages. These can be accessed by reaching the end of an act with 50 rings and jumping through the giant ring that will appear. Do that and you access the Special Stage, a giant rotating maze with a ton of rings and a Chaos Emerald hidden inside. You have to make your way through this maze by hitting the reverse buttons, jumping to get in the right direction, and avoiding the goal buttons. Yeah, don't touch the goal buttons because that will end the special stage without getting the Chaos Emerald. You will make that mistake unless someone tells you. Find the emerald in the maze, and the spoils of a Chaos Emerald and all of the rings you found go to you, making this a great place to grind for continues and lives. There are six Special Stages in the game, and you have to beat all of them in order to get the best ending. The best ending isn't that spectacular though, so don't be too hard-pressed to get it.
Now something that should be pretty obvious at this point based on the pictures is that this game looks pretty good. Colorful, sixteen-bit graphics fill this game, and it look fantastic. And if this blows your mind any, this game is the weakest Genesis Sonic game in terms of graphics. It'l only get better from something that already is pretty good. Just let that sink in. And I feel that talking about the music is pretty pointless, but its pretty fantastic. From the opening tune, to Green Hill Zone, to Star Light Zone there's good music everywhere here, leading to a fantastic soundtrack rounding out this game's presentation. And the music will remain a constant plus for this series. Just a heads up.
Ready to slowly push a block into lava and slowly ride it to the other side? You bet you are.
One problem with this game is the inconsistent sense of speed. Now Green Hill Zone is a good World 1-1 letting you get used to the different power-ups and get used to the way of picking up speed. Next up is Marble Zone, where you're pushing blocks and riding them across lava. Then there's Labyrinth Zone, the water level where you naturally move slow. In neither of those levels are there any areas where you can gain any speed. Now all of the other levels are good with letting you go faster, but for a game where the speed is advertised everywhere, all levels should be like the fast Green Hill Zone.
Of course, the lack of speed in a few levels can't damper the rest of a very fun, fast experience. It looks good, plays great, uses great physics, and is just a great game to play. The other Genesis games are better, as I'll get into much later, but this game serves as a good starting point in a good series. It's worth playing, and the best part is that this game is literally available on everything for really cheap, so there's no reason not to play it. No, seriously. It's on everything.
Everything
The Silent Protagonist is made up of sixteen-bits of BLAST-PROCESSING.
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All images used in this review are the property of their original owners. I know this because I can't draw or do sprite work.
