Sonic the Hedgehog

It took me ages to finally get to Sonic. I've been wanting to try his 2D games recently, but for the longest time before that, I just had no interest. My first Sonic game was Sonic Rush back on the DS, and I really wanted to like it back then, but the water stages put such a sour taste in my mouth that I pretty much gave up on the Blue Blur's mainline titles. I still enjoyed the Olympic crossover titles with Mario, and he was one of my favorite characters in Smash Bros, but it wasn't until Sonic Mania became such a phenomenon that I thought about giving his origins a second chance. Going into this Sega Genesis original, I was expecting "gotta go fast," but I ended up getting the much less exciting "gotta land precise jumps with slippery controls," and I'm a bit disappointed by the whole thing.

Sonic's first outing sees you controlling the titular blue hedgehog as he races through increasingly mechanized locations in order to stop the evil Doctor Eggman, who has been kidnapping little animals and encapsulating them in robots on his quest to collect the six Chaos Emeralds. To reach the final confrontation with Eggman and stop him in his conquest, Sonic will travel through seven zones, freeing animals and thwarting the evil doctor's plans in each location.

While you're technically supposed to earn all of the Chaos Emeralds yourself if you want to truly defeat Eggman, I wasn't committed enough to getting good at the secret stages. Instead, I opted to just get the "bad ending" by playing through the normal stages without worrying too much about how many rings I was collecting. I blame that lack of motivation almost entirely on Marble Zone though. The first couple of levels take place in Green Hill Zone and they do an incredible job of demonstrating Sonic's speed to get you excited for the rest of the game. Immediately after that, you are thrown into Marble Zone and everything falls apart.

It's just the second zone in the game but you are already being punished for going fast. Instead of ramps and loops for Sonic to speed through, you have spike traps and pools of lava. Now, you need to walk slowly, make precise jumps, and do a lot of waiting. In fact, you are required on multiple occasions to just stand on a block as it floats from one end of a lava pool to another, with only a few obstacles to jump over in the meantime. I actually stopped playing the first time I tried this game because I was so frustrated with Marble Zone, but I was optimistic on my second try that it was just a fluke and the rest of the game would be more fun. Unfortunately, while later zones do incorporate more of the momentum-based platforming of Green Hill Zone, the Marble Zone philosophy that I find so contradictory to the idea of Sonic permeates the whole experience.

I know loads of people love this game, so maybe I'm letting my expectations sour my time with it a bit too much, but it was difficult not to be disappointed when I wanted a unique speed-based platformer and ended up getting something that seemed confused about its identity. Don't get me wrong, the set pieces, the non-linearity of the stages, and the rings mechanic all make Sonic feel like a fresh and exciting option amongst its peers, I just couldn't pay attention to any of that as much as I wish I could have. There are definitely worse ways to start off a series, and I'm still optimistic that the later Sonic games can scratch the itch I had coming into this one, but I still wish Sonic 1 was more than it is. Ultimately, I'm glad I played it, but I don't anticipate ever revisiting.

The game is available for Steam here (as of 10/27/23): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1794960/Sonic_Origins/
The game is available for Switch here (as of 10/27/23): https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/sega-ages-sonic-the-hedgehog-switch/
The game is available for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S here (as of 10/27/23): https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/sonic-origins/9mz9d58rndtf
The game is available for PS4 and PS5 here (as of 10/27/23): https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0177-PPSA05324_00-SONICORIGINS0000
The game is available for Android here (as of 10/27/23): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sega.sonic1px&hl=en_US&gl=US
The game is available for iOS here (as of 10/27/23): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sonic-the-hedgehog-classic/id316025912

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