Sonic The Hedgehog

Many of the hardcore Nintendo fanboys and girls out there in Zentendoland will remember the rivalry between two of the best videogame characters of all time in the 1990s: Mario VS Sonic. The war was raged across the SNES and the Megadrive (known as the Genesis only in the United States), and there was no real clear victory for either side. Both franchises were hugely successful shifting millions of copies, year after year. As we are in Zentendoland, many probably only had one console, and that was likely the SNES. This is a shame, as Sonic 1 on the Megadrive is arguably one of the best games of its generation, but it’s now available on the Virtual Console for everyone to enjoy.

The basic plot for Sonic is that Dr Robotnik (before he was named Eggman) has taken over the world, taken control of all of the animal inhabitants and then turned them into evil, metal, killing machines. He’s managed to do this as Robotnik is in control of all of the Chaos Emeralds, and our hero Sonic has taken it upon himself to not only defeat Robotnik, but to release as many of these little civilians from their metal shells as possible.

With a simple premise, all that is required is for Sonic to actually go through all of the levels and defeat Robotnik each time. With seven separate Zones, and three levels to each Zone, Sonic 1 is fairly lengthy, especially considering when it was made. At the end of each of these Zones, it’s Sonic’s duty to attack Doctor Robotnik, and depending on what sort of machine Robotnik is in, the tactics that the player would employ change. However, two things did remain constant: Robotnik was always fairly wimpy and only took eight hits to kill, and at the end of each level Sonic would set free the animals of that Zone.

Sonic is all about speed -- as all gamers know, Sonic is a super fast hedgehog and with Sonic 1 on the Megadrive, all the player needs to do is push the right button the D-Pad and use one of the buttons to jump, and the basics of Sonic is complete. Owing to this simplistic and effective system, controlling Sonic is very easy. After a little while, it becomes apparent that if you hit the down button whilst running Sonic will turn into a ball and do a spin-dash. This move is helpful as Sonic can usually kill the enemies around him with this move. It also allows him to break through some of the lesser walls in the earlier Zones. Sonic 1 is a pleasure to play, with with distinct character design and brilliant level design helping to create that pleasure. All of the characters are bright and well animated and all of the backgrounds, although sometimes repeating, are unique to each level.

Sonic 1 was also the start of the Golden Ring concept. If Sonic is attacked whilst he is in possession of any number of Gold Rings he will simply drop all of the rings and watch them scatter everywhere, but he does not die -- something very different back in the day. However, if he doesn’t have any rings, he’ll simply die and lose a life when hit. This is important as there is no Save function on any of the early Sonic games, and this mechanic enabled players to stay alive longer as long as they were skilled enough.

Fortunately, on the Virtual Console, as we all know, if a player simply exists the Virtual Console game, it’s saved at the point of exit. This makes playing Sonic even more pleasurable as there’s no need to worry about whether or not the player should complete the entire game, or just turn it off.

It’s also fairly difficult -- if a player has never played it before, it’ll take some getting used to, especially as certain enemies can only bit hit in certain places and at certain times. Not to mention that although the game was built around speed, patience is a virtue and slowing down pays dividends in some levels. This was especially true when it came to the Special Zones, where if enough rings were collected, a player could jump into a giant Ring and go to the Special Zone where they were able to get a Chaos Emerald if they were good enough.

Buy It!

Overall, Sonic 1 is a fantastic game, and it’s recommended to anyone and everyone. With addictive gameplay, great music and great level design, Sonic is simply a pleasure to play. And at only 800 Wii Points, it’s a steal too.