There are many gaming memories of which I am ashamed in life, but none more shame-worthy than my decision to ask my parents to sell my SNES so I could switch to the Sega Genesis. I did so for two reasons, one horrible, and one fantastic.
The first was simple covetousness. My friends from church had a Genesis that I would play while I was at their house, which was a frequent occurrence. My other friends across the road also had a Genesis. Was the Genesis a better system than the SNES? NO! I would argue, however, that one of the real reasons why the SNES was so great was because they had two real competitors, Genesis and Mega Drive in the U.S. and Europe, and the PC Engine was still kicking along pretty nicely in Japan. So it's largely because of those systems that the SNES was able to build so magnificently on the success of the NES. Competition increases quality. But to my mind, at the time, I thought that Genesis was a better system. Simply because I didn't have it, I wanted one.
The second, and far better reason, is that the Genesis had Sonic. Sonic was one of the few examples of another game following the Mario path, adding in a few extra elements to separate it, and almost nailing it. But almost nailing Mario means that you are an incredible game.
So what is it about Sonic that's so great? First, the speed. The parts of the game in which you are on rails, moving too quickly for the human eye as you spin through loops, launch off of plungers, and speed through pipes were completely revolutionary. I don't think they really nailed this concept in the first two, as there were far too many times in which you'd be speeding along and hit an enemy which was intentionally placed there so as to encourage you to slow down. Or perhaps unintentionally and incompetently placed. I'd go with the first, as the game is too well done otherwise to suggest that level of poor design. But even having a pace like that in a video game was, at the time, revolutionary. And certainly it had never been seen before in a platformer (at least by me).
Second, the visuals are incredibly detailed and beautiful. While I love the visuals of Super Mario World and SMW2, I think the edge for best graphics in a platformer in the 16 bit era has to go the Sonic series. The backgrounds are great, the sprites are big and beautiful, everything is colorful, and the objects with which to interact are well designed.
Third, the music and sound effects are superb. The rewarding *boing* you get while hitting a plunger, the great noise when you're moving through the pipes, the music tracks for pretty much every level, the sound of Robotnik's ship blowing up on each level as you beat him...all great.
Fourth, I love how directed the narrative in Sonic is. In the Mario games, you barely see Bowser at all until the final level. In the Sonic Games, Robotnik is constantly hovering around, fighting you at the end of each act, and generally being an irritant. You always feel like you're making progress in the war against Robotnik.
Fifth, the game play is so magnificently simple. For a game as complex and fast as it is, the game operates on one button and a d-pad. It's the perfect example of how deep of a game you can make with a handful of mechanics (see also, Mega Man, Super Mario Bros., Shovel Knight). This game is even simpler in its control scheme than any of the previous examples, however, making it a shining star in simple-yet-deep game design.
Sixth, the levels in Sonic are so long, and really embrace the idea that level design does not have to be linear. There are usually 3 different tracks through a level, which can make every play through unique. This was largely unheard of in a platformer, and has made the game age phenomenally well. What's more, the design of these long levels remains compelling to this day.
It's not without its weaknesses, though. The lack of a save feature was pretty silly by the 16 bit era. Basically all of the platformers on SNES had save features, so it's a bit puzzling that this one did not. They could have really doubled down on experimental and long levels with a save feature (as they did in Sonic 3 & Knuckles). It's an excessively long game to play through in one sitting, although it's doable. The flaws in the speedy portions were noted above, and really do put a blot on the game. They encourage you to slow down throughout the game, contravening the main thing that made Sonic stand out.
All in all, though, Sonic is a great game. There are other great games on the Genesis, but its lineup just isn't as deep as the SNES. But the existence of Sonic was the biggest reason that in the greatest console war of all time, Sega was able to punch it out with the juggernaut, Nintendo. For that reason alone, Sonic will stand the test of time, even apart from how great of a game it is to play til this day.
I'd give Sonic 1 a 9.2 out of 10.
-TRO
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