the early sega era of platformers was near nonexistent, before sonic the hedgehog. alex kidd was a thing, i guess, but… let’s be honest, if alex kidd is your primary platformer, something is very wrong. when sega was looking for a new mascot, they wanted something to compete with nintendo and mario, and thus, the edgier, cooler sonic the hedgehog was born.

the game behind the star was much faster than nintendo’s offerings, with sonic’s moveset and general acceleration putting a focus on speed, speed, speed. in theory, that change in philosophy would’ve made for an incredible counterpart to the mario series.

let’s take a trip back to 1991. there was nothing like it, not to this level of speed. platformers at this point were focused on precision and dodging obstacles. whether those be fire bars or enemies, that was the goal. in ol’ sonic, half the battle is spent controlling your character. the most fun sonic levels hover the line of allowing you to have everything under control… but just barely. it’s funny that mario and sonic were pitted against each other so heavily, because their styles of gameplay are so different at their core. different era, i guess.

by its release, though, sonic was 6 years behind. sega had to start strong, or else it would fall to the wayside, left to be forgotten with the alex kidds and wonder boys of the world. luckily for us, they did!

the vast majority of the sonic “feel” is here already. as a whole, sonic controls blissfully; the speed feels fast, yet manageable. the levels seem to almost fly behind you, but you still have absolute control over your actions. you hold just enough momentum to fly, but not too much to feel slippery or unresponsive. crushing enemies gives you a satisfying bounce, aided by some immaculate sound design. stringing together combos of enemy bouncing is a feeling unseen in any other platformer of this time. the controls and physics as a whole are absolutely incredible.

aesthetically, it also absolutely nails everything it’s going for. the music bangs, the characters have attitude, and everything feels cohesive and works together. it is one of the most authentically 90s experiences out there. throw on some speakers and play this on a CRT in the shittiest room in your basement, and you’re basically taking a time machine back to the early 90s.

there’s so much character imbued in every element in this game. sonic is so expressive, so vibrant. his animations are smooth, his colors are bright and beautiful, yet he remains cool. the stupid sign flipping to a photo of sonic at the end of every act shows his general boastfulness. he’s impatient and easily angered but commits to his actions.

the backgrounds are really nice for this era of the genesis as well. starlight zone stands out, with the deep black night sky pairing with the beautiful stars with a city skyline below. green hill’s iconic island-studded background is so recognizable for a reason.

with all this praise, you may be expecting me to say this game is great, or at the very least, decent. well, unfortunately, this game has one flaw. one flaw so major that it ruins so much of the joy i had, that i can’t in good conscience say this game is anything above average. and that flaw… is the level design.

green hill is great throughout. the winding paths and speed-gaining tunnels help sonic maintain his speed, even throughout the trickier platforming segments. enemies are placed in a way to push sonic further forward, and running through the acts as a whole feels really cohesive.

but marble zone… man. this level is atrocious. think about everything that makes sonic fun to play: speed, cohesive level design, fun movement in general. marble zone says “fuck that” and throws everything i just said out the window. the entire zone is a maze of slowly moving platforms and spikes, just made to force you to play as slow as possible. it’s a true travesty of level design, and it baffles me that something like this even made it past the drafts.

spring yard zone is bad in a different way, filled with springs and random crap to throw you off. what makes the speed manageable in sonic is the amount of control you have. so sonic team thought, “lets get rid of it! let’s throw all of that control away!” atrocious.

labyrinth zone. same fucking thing as marble zone! this time it’s in water, and it’s worse! instead of having slow obstacles, now you’ve got slow obstacles and you move slower than a snail! woohoo! it almost feels like they designed the levels first, then realized that the character they created had an entire schtick of going fast, and were too far gone to replace their designs. it’s sad.

star light is a breath of fresh air. small portions take away the speed for a second, but in general, all of the speed is yours to keep. it’s not quite as good as green hill, but it’s so far ahead of third place that it doesn’t matter. after labyrinth zone, i’ll take anything.

and scrap brain is basically marble zone 3. more segments spent waiting and waiting, for obstacles that require extremely basic timing. any open area that could be fun to play has some sort of saw or fire or plasma beam or falling platforms scattered throughout it that take away any potential that area had. oh, and the last act is just more labyrinth zone. even better.

each zone has a boss at the end, and they’re… fine. totally okay, decently fun but not much more than that. there’s a couple of cool ideas, but every boss is so easy that they don’t matter. outside of labyrinth zone’s final boss, which is a complete shitshow where you escape the zone with steadily rising water chasing behind you, they’re all quite similar in concept, with you just finding another way to damage eggman. sometimes it’s spikes, sometimes you just hit him directly, and all the time, they’re piss easy.

there’s also secret stages scattered throughout, which aren’t particularly fun. to get the true ending, you need to beat all 6, but they’re dreadfully random-feeling. the entire stage spins while you’re in it, and sonic has to jump to reach the center, which contains a chaos emerald. when i say these stages feel like complete chaos, i mean it; if the stage doesn’t spin in the right way, you just have to wait, and even then, your jump might just send you to narnia instead of where you want to go.

… and that’s it. it ends on a terrible note, with a rather boring final boss. you see what i mean when i said all the joy is sapped, right? there’s very little fun to be had here, with only a third of the zones being even worth a playthrough at all. i can’t understand why on earth the levels were designed this way, because it uses the complete opposite philosophy of how sonic’s physics and controls were created. it just doesn’t make sense to me.

sonic 1 is a great shell of a game. it’s like a poorly filled pie; the crust may be gorgeous, but if your filling sucks, you can only enjoy that crust so much. there are levels here that show that the creators sort of knew what they were doing, but the other stages clash so hard with how sonic controls that it’s just impossible to have fun. it’s fun at times, but in its entirety, i just can’t get behind sonic 1.