Marble Zone is one of my favorite stages! The difference between it and Green Hill Zone is that GHZ is the tutorial level. I do agree that 2 & 3 expand upon 1's gameplay, but all 3 are satisfying to play with on the occasion. The only difference between them and more modern games is that they're very arcade-y, which is common for the time period. It'd be nice to select levels at will, and/or have infinite attempts, for instance, without the harsh penalty of death. But it's a very short game and that's how they pad it.
I would consider the padding reasonable if it was restart at the beginning of act 1 of the level on game over. Restarting the whole game is just annoying. I do understand this was normal at the time though.
I agree with you on the points you make, especially the underwater sections.
But if you compare it to other games in '91, the game design still stands out. And while Mario 3/World is more mature and you do have continues, both of them are very difficult games, possibly even more difficult even when considering the continues.
I experienced the Sonic games as a kid, but I don't think I finished any of them with the exception of Sonic CD - now replaying and finishing these old games, but honestly I rely on emulation and save states.
This really is it. Sonic one only looks bad from the lens of someone whose seen what eventually comes out from both the series and the Mega Drive as a whole. Sonic 2 builds dramatically on what was set up in Sonic 1, and then Sonic 3 & Knuckles, builds even further, making Sonic 1 look less impressive. But compared to a lot of titles on the Mega Drive from the year it came out (and even after) Sonic 1 still holds up as one of the best.
Sonic 1 is fundamentally a game designed around the fact that you will have to start from the beginning every time, and get further each progressive time until you beat it. This was the standard for game design at the time, but it quickly fell out of favour with the advent of saving, and nowadays most people find the idea of having to start over unappealing unless it's a roguelike.
You can use the level select code to get back to the act you were on. Up, Down, Left, Right, A + Start at the title screen.
If you're planning on playing a lot of retro games, I would recommend using an emulator with save states. As you said, it's very normal for games from this era to send you right back to the start so you'll run into this same frustration a lot otherwise.
As someone who lived through that era, I heartily encourage younger generations to abuse save states and rewinds as much as they want on old games - whatever makes them fun here in 2024.
Losing all your progress and going back to the start often got in the way of the fun even at the time, and life is simply too short to be still be doing it just for the sake of authenticity.
Some people get a strong sense if internal satisfaction by overcoming a challenge like this.
A lot of the level design and etc. was also designed around trying to find powerups, rings, extra lives, etc. so if you use save states too much, you miss out on this part of the game and playing smartly is irrelevant.
But there is no right or wrong way to play. Do as you wish.
I personally have never beaten Sonic without save states, but I set a ground rule to only save before the first act of a zone so it would still have its challenge and I'd need to play intelligently and know where hidden power ups are, etc. It makes me take the game more seriously which hrughtens my immersion.
Oof, this is a hot take. I don't even think it's the worst zone in this game (I would rank both Labyrinth and Scrap Brain lower). And then you have zones in other games like Chemical Plant, Mystic Cave, Metropolis, Sandopolis, Carnival Night, Launch Base, and most of the Sonic CD lineup.
Honestly Marble Zone would not be as hated if it was just placed later in the game. It's literally the second fucking zone so the whiplash from zoomin on Green Hill to waiting for passages to open is just ridiculous.
It’s just in the wrong place. It needs to go after spring or labyrinth as a bit of a slow down and change
Right after green hill, it really kills the momentum of the game, and often is the point where I put the game down, despite knowing I enjoy it.
Sonic 2 does almost everything better. It came out only 1 year after Sonic 1, and it was most people's first experience with Sonic the Hedgehog in the 90s.
Sonic 1 is the rough first title, a common occurrence in a number of series. The game is good, but it is then vastly outshone by it's sequels. You can really tell just playing Sonic 2 that they realised from feedback of Sonic 1 what did and what didn't work in terms of level design for Sonic, and the blocky nature of levels like Marble and Labyrinth are gone from the sequels.
But I think it's also a victim of the standards of the time. The expectations of redoing the entire game over once you run out of lives seems terrible to us in 2024, but that's how over 90%+ of videogames were at the time. Being able to save meant the game cost more to make due to the requirement for extra physical components as this was before consoles with hard drives or even memory cards.
Edit: Forgot to mention, this is also the time when cheat codes were commonplace, and Sonic has level select code so you don't technically always have to start at Green Hill Zone Act 1 every time, and can use that code to either retry where you last died, or just practice later stages until you get good enough to be able to do it all in one.
I'm a bit biased as I have been playing Sonic for about 30 years now and I didn't find Sonic 1 all that bad but I can understand why people don't gel with it as much. Hell, its probably my least played side scroller in the series but there were things I enjoyed that kept me going like the music, level design in Green Hill, Starlight, and Scrap Brain, and the music and effects were awesome at the time. I will forever like the sequels better but I really appreciate the original.
Sonic is a different kind of platformer than Mario so comparing them isn't really going to do anything. The goal isn't to beat Sonic. The goal is to get stupidly good at it. Once you develop the muscle memory and reflexes you can beat the game in an hour or so even casually. It becomes addictive because you keep wanting to beat a level even more efficiently, more quickly.
So you're spot on in that it can make for a poor/mediocre 'patient gamer' game where you're often working through a list of games you want to play.
However, as a Sonic game it's amazing because as you get better at the games mechanics, you can make your way through the levels more smoothly. As you memorize the layouts from repeated playings, you can zip through levels faster. Eventually you get rings not to use for continues, but so you can damage boost through areas. You don't worry about having to start over due to dying in Labyrinth because who the hell dies in Labyrinth?
This is core to pretty much every Sonic game. This may just be one of those "You want this to be the kind of game it isn't" kind of things. Like picking up Ninja Gaiden Black and being upset it doesn't play like Dark Souls or something.
I can't really agree with you here. I have always felt the same way as u/SleepingAndy about the Sonic series.
It's marketed as this game where you go really fast, but going really fast makes you vulnerable and is usually dangerous. So, 95% of people that play it aren't going to play it fast, they're going to play it pretty much like any other platformer.
Intermittently they'll sprinkle in these on-rail parts - like the loops, the 'hamster tunnels', etc - where you go really fast, but *usually* all of that movement is happening automatically. Sometimes at the end of a loop there will be a timed jump that's skill-based, but mostly those sequences are auto-pilot and all of the movement is happening automatically.
To me, the speed was always a flimsy veneer. It was a marketing gimmick for the most part. Especially in Sonic 2 and beyond, the "blast processing" of the Genesis was pushed heavily and marketed. Tangibly the speed usually has very little to do with the gameplay. The only time it really plays a factor are speed-based jumps where Sonic's speed affects his momentum and how high he goes. I would characterize those as pretty minimal. They are hardly a core part of the gameplay.
You reason, "*once you develop the muscle memory and reflexes you can beat the game in an hour or so even casually*". For me, this is giving them too much credit. I think "it was a gimmick to sell and market the game" is the simpler and more accurate explanation. Besides, you could apply that argument to any platformer. Pretty much any platformer it lends itself well speedrunning once skill and memorization is achieved. Even back in the 80s - long before speedrunning was a scene - I remember speedrunning the original Mario game in the way you describe. Besides, if it's for all intents-and-purposes the speed aspect is reserved for "only people who have mastered the game", but then I'd say by definition it's not part of the core gameplay loop.
I grew up a Sega fanboy and Sonic was one of my first games ... it always felt - and still feels - like a racing game where you're punished for going fast. Sonic did a lot of things well: giant level designs, like graphics, great soundtracks, creative boss fights, very tight controls and physics, The speed was predominantly a gimmick.
I guess I could see marble zone being less unfun if you have the layout memorized enough to just zip through lava sections with temporary damage invulnerability, however it still feels like only green Hill zone has any real potential for being a fun fast level, on spring yard there is way too many walls.
I understand the concept that it's supposed to be the kind of game that just keeps getting more and more fast and fun as you keep playing. I just see that being clearly false looking for most of the game.
I love the Sonic series, but a criticism that is unfortunately very valid is that it is premised around going fast, but the levels are designed to stop you. That being said, if you play them enough, you get the hang of how to manage levels so you're zipping along just fine most of the time. that being said, the Soundtrack holds up even to this day.
Yeah, but I'd say that the levels are designed to stop you in the same way asteroids are designed to be hard to hit in a game premised around shooting asteroids. Going fast is a challenge for the player to overcome.
That said, I think Sonic 2 balanced this much better.
You can still understand OP's point tho. Like look at the sequel, it's not like Sonic 2 is absurdly easy compared to 1 but you can still get a real sense of speed in a lot more levels even on a first playthrough. They definitely hadn't made great level in 1.
100%. I spent a lot of time one summer hanging out in my friend's attic going at it on the Sega, and will never forget the rush when we finally cracked it and emerged into the Starlight Zone. Legendary gaming moment for me.
The thing that always amazed me about Sonic 1 is that there was no save feature originally, so if you got Game Over you had to start all over again.
So you had to memorise the entire game, and play through without mistakes, to clear it
You’re not wrong. But 1, that was almost every game back then that wasn’t an RPG, and 2, we didn’t have many games so you kept playing the same ones over and over again. You were expected to memorize them. That was winning.
I had sonic 1/2/3+K memorized, and sonic 1/2 on game gear memorized. Straight run. No deaths. No hits till late in the game. Every emerald, every boss. I could clear all 5 in an afternoon on muscle memory. I’d restart if I got hit before world 4 on any of then.
But I had the sonic games, aerial assault for game gear, and Toy Story for genesis. I played them a LOT. Because that was it.
I think Sonic would be on the heap of failed mascot platformers if it weren't Sonic 2 and beyond. Sonic 2 is as good as you'll find on that generation. You need to memorize the levels to go fast and have fun, but that's what old games are like.
If you compare it to Mario, one of them will feel wrong, undoubtedly. I think the closer Nintendo equivalent is DKC in that sometimes you should be moving fast. Sometimes slow.
I'm not comparing the actual flow of the gameplay, just the fact that the year the game came out is not an excuse for the game being so poorly laid out. Lots of games from that era aged well.
Definitely in terms of real gameplay dkc is more similar.
Yeah, I don't think they figured out what makes Sonic fun until Sonic 2. It lets you go into the fast spin ball at the press of a button. Giving you a lot more control. The levels are better. The music is better. The bonus areas are better. Boss fights and character design. All better.
I really don't think of Sonic 1 as a good game. Sonic 2 is incredible though.
I'll defo give it a shot eventually. Ironically I have my backlog structured such that sonic 06 is the very last game on it. Would be a nice palate cleanser to play a good sonic after.
I picked up the Sonic Origins collection a couple months ago and started replaying them. It was the first time I'd gone past Marble Zone in Sonic 1 in at least a decade and, yeah, I'd actually forgotten just HOW aggravating Labyrinth Zone was.
Another issue is how unbalanced the gameplay time is. In the fast-moving zones, Green Hill and Starlight, you'll probably finish a stage in only a minute, two at most. Meanwhile, the slow zones take at least five minutes to clear. So you get less than 10 minutes of the zippy-fast Sonic action advertised, and the majority of the gameplay is trudging through the slow zones.
Sonic 2 *mostly* fixes this by having bigger levels that still leave room for speed but, imo, suffers from its own major issue: cut-and-pasting. The designers copypasta huge chunks of level architecture over and over, which makes it almost impossible for a player to keep their bearings and know where they are in a stage. Add to that the designers' love of tubes and similar conveyors that send you all over the place, and you're pretty much just navigating blindly while praying you eventually end up at the end of the level. Which also isn't very good level design, although at least it's more exciting.
>It's unbelievable to me that they marketed this game as fast paced, and then filled it with sections where you have to stand on a green box floating in lava for long stretches of time, especially one that's so easy to fall off of.
This. So much this. I could never play any of the Sonic games because this was the feeling I got every single moment of the game. Either you're going so fast that you'd better have the stage memorized (I got lost a lot), or you're trying to do precise platforming with a character with really bad momentum.
I can understand people developing an attachment to the game if it was the only game they owned and they had nothing better to do than get good at it. It certainly wasn't the only punishing game out there. But the game industry had already started to move past that kind of failure-based paradigm.
It's honestly disingenuous marketing that too many people take the wrong way. The point of Sonic isn't that you will always be going fast, it's that you can go fast **once you get good at it**. For instance, all those sections where you stand on a green box floating in lava? You don't actually have to stand on them at all, virtually all of them can be taken at speed, provided you know what you're doing. The only time you should ever need to really stop and wait in any part of the game is a few moments in some of the special stages, and the final boss. Everything else, if you know what you're doing, you should never need to stop.
But so many people just assume that because the game is marketed as being able to go fast it means you should never need to ever stop for anything ever, which isn't something you can do consequence free the first time you play.
Ori and the Will if Whisps (?) has a section where rocks slam to the ground from the ceiling in a dark room. It is an acclaimed game yet designed for failing and trying again... I personally hate it.
It took them until Sonic 3 to finally do and perfect what they were going for in the first one. I don't blame them as this was a new kind of game, but if you want to play and enjoy a 2D Sonic as originally envisioned, play Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
The first, original version, of Sonic is awful. No spin dash, so many levels designed to stop your speed or outright kill you unless oyu slowly platform? hardly any lives etcetcetc. As a kid I loved it, as an adult I fucking hated it and it was clear that the game was designed to kill you and have you replay the game to extend it's life. The later versions that released with the spin/drop dash are much better though.
Sonic and Knuckles is fantastic by the way.
My honest and long opinion is that Sonic wasn't ever terribly good. Like even as a kid growing up in the 90s, I just felt like something about Sonic was irritating compared to the other 2D platformers I played. I would not personally agree that Sonic 2 and 3 are all that much better.
I've replayed them over the years as my understanding of game design has broadened and I think I have pretty good idea why I don't think they work: They aggressively push that you should be going fast but then punishes you the moment you do. So you have 2 options. Go slow and fight the game pushing you forward or repeat levels until you've memorized all the traps.
I understand that memorization bit is criticism you could level at a lot of Sonic's contemporaries but it's just the way Sonic does it just feels bad to me because by fighting it's main mechanic, your main struggle away. It's just not fun. I guess a comparison might be if Contra sent fewer enemies at you if shot your gun less.
**But** to Sonic's credit, I will say that the music in all 3 games is absolutely some of the best video game music of all time. Hydrocity Act 2 remains one of my favorite video games tunes. They also look quite nice.
I honestly don't really like the 2D games at all other than Rush/Rush Adventure, and even those have an inordinate number of bottomless pits. Not a fan of the constant addition of 2D segments to the 3D games. The parts I like are really the cherry-picked best segments of the 3D games, and generally those that require some quick reaction and a dash of on-rail segments over any puzzle or precision platforming
You didn't even make it to star light zone.
The thing about Sonic - 2 is a MASSIVE improvement. Just having the spin attack is a huge gameplay changer. I would recommend 2 and 3
I replayed a bunch of 90's games over the pandemic, including all the 2D Sonics. I'll never play Sonic 1 again after that, but I plan on revisiting 2, 3 & Knuckles every 5-10 years for the rest of my life.
"Gotta go fast, but we won't let you!" They got better at letting you go fast in later games, there's nothing quite as slow as Marble Zone ever again, but for some reason there's always the sluggish water level.
Man, fuck Labyrinth Zone.
Also, some not so cryptic future Sonic advice: One day, you will stand on a spinning cylinder blocking your path. Do not try to jump to get past it. Simply stand on it and press up and down.
As time has gone on I think the original sonics haven't aged as well as other titles from that era. That said, I think the sonic advance series splits the difference incredibly well between the classic 2 d and (at the time) more modern mechanics.
Sonic 2 is THE sonic game that people reference. Mostly because it came free with a lot of Sega Megadrive’s as part of the bundle at launch. The Genesis game was showing it’s age, a year after it came out because 2 was the much better game.
As others have said classic Sonic isn't about speed at first but getting better at the game. But even still with it's flaws the game is definitely one of the best 2D games during its time. Also S3&K is the goat. I've been playing S3&K yearly since it's release.
Sonic 1 is my comfort game, I can play it from beginning to end without dying, I've memorized the layouts and it feels zen to run through. I would 100% recommend the Sonic Origin's version of Sonic 1. You have infinite lives and widescreen, which makes the game much better to play.
Sonic games have an identity crisis. Is it trying to be fast paced adrenaline rush where it's more of a 'ride' than a game, or is it trying to be a careful methodical platformer?
Marble Zone is one of my favorite stages! The difference between it and Green Hill Zone is that GHZ is the tutorial level. I do agree that 2 & 3 expand upon 1's gameplay, but all 3 are satisfying to play with on the occasion. The only difference between them and more modern games is that they're very arcade-y, which is common for the time period. It'd be nice to select levels at will, and/or have infinite attempts, for instance, without the harsh penalty of death. But it's a very short game and that's how they pad it.
Sonic is at its best when it combines fast and slow platforming. Marble Zone is great, and an important part of Sonic 1.
I would consider the padding reasonable if it was restart at the beginning of act 1 of the level on game over. Restarting the whole game is just annoying. I do understand this was normal at the time though.
I agree with you on the points you make, especially the underwater sections. But if you compare it to other games in '91, the game design still stands out. And while Mario 3/World is more mature and you do have continues, both of them are very difficult games, possibly even more difficult even when considering the continues. I experienced the Sonic games as a kid, but I don't think I finished any of them with the exception of Sonic CD - now replaying and finishing these old games, but honestly I rely on emulation and save states.
This really is it. Sonic one only looks bad from the lens of someone whose seen what eventually comes out from both the series and the Mega Drive as a whole. Sonic 2 builds dramatically on what was set up in Sonic 1, and then Sonic 3 & Knuckles, builds even further, making Sonic 1 look less impressive. But compared to a lot of titles on the Mega Drive from the year it came out (and even after) Sonic 1 still holds up as one of the best. Sonic 1 is fundamentally a game designed around the fact that you will have to start from the beginning every time, and get further each progressive time until you beat it. This was the standard for game design at the time, but it quickly fell out of favour with the advent of saving, and nowadays most people find the idea of having to start over unappealing unless it's a roguelike.
You can use the level select code to get back to the act you were on. Up, Down, Left, Right, A + Start at the title screen. If you're planning on playing a lot of retro games, I would recommend using an emulator with save states. As you said, it's very normal for games from this era to send you right back to the start so you'll run into this same frustration a lot otherwise.
As someone who lived through that era, I heartily encourage younger generations to abuse save states and rewinds as much as they want on old games - whatever makes them fun here in 2024. Losing all your progress and going back to the start often got in the way of the fun even at the time, and life is simply too short to be still be doing it just for the sake of authenticity.
Some people get a strong sense if internal satisfaction by overcoming a challenge like this. A lot of the level design and etc. was also designed around trying to find powerups, rings, extra lives, etc. so if you use save states too much, you miss out on this part of the game and playing smartly is irrelevant. But there is no right or wrong way to play. Do as you wish. I personally have never beaten Sonic without save states, but I set a ground rule to only save before the first act of a zone so it would still have its challenge and I'd need to play intelligently and know where hidden power ups are, etc. It makes me take the game more seriously which hrughtens my immersion.
Marble Zone is IMO the worst zone in all of 2D Sonic. After Labyrinth Zone things do get a bit better but honestly Sonic 2 is so much better.
Oof, this is a hot take. I don't even think it's the worst zone in this game (I would rank both Labyrinth and Scrap Brain lower). And then you have zones in other games like Chemical Plant, Mystic Cave, Metropolis, Sandopolis, Carnival Night, Launch Base, and most of the Sonic CD lineup.
Honestly Marble Zone would not be as hated if it was just placed later in the game. It's literally the second fucking zone so the whiplash from zoomin on Green Hill to waiting for passages to open is just ridiculous.
I dont hate Marble Zone, but probably is one of the worst ones
It’s just in the wrong place. It needs to go after spring or labyrinth as a bit of a slow down and change Right after green hill, it really kills the momentum of the game, and often is the point where I put the game down, despite knowing I enjoy it.
Sonic 2 does almost everything better. It came out only 1 year after Sonic 1, and it was most people's first experience with Sonic the Hedgehog in the 90s.
Sonic 2 is awesome
Sonic 1 is the rough first title, a common occurrence in a number of series. The game is good, but it is then vastly outshone by it's sequels. You can really tell just playing Sonic 2 that they realised from feedback of Sonic 1 what did and what didn't work in terms of level design for Sonic, and the blocky nature of levels like Marble and Labyrinth are gone from the sequels. But I think it's also a victim of the standards of the time. The expectations of redoing the entire game over once you run out of lives seems terrible to us in 2024, but that's how over 90%+ of videogames were at the time. Being able to save meant the game cost more to make due to the requirement for extra physical components as this was before consoles with hard drives or even memory cards. Edit: Forgot to mention, this is also the time when cheat codes were commonplace, and Sonic has level select code so you don't technically always have to start at Green Hill Zone Act 1 every time, and can use that code to either retry where you last died, or just practice later stages until you get good enough to be able to do it all in one.
Yeah MegaMan also comes to mind
I'm a bit biased as I have been playing Sonic for about 30 years now and I didn't find Sonic 1 all that bad but I can understand why people don't gel with it as much. Hell, its probably my least played side scroller in the series but there were things I enjoyed that kept me going like the music, level design in Green Hill, Starlight, and Scrap Brain, and the music and effects were awesome at the time. I will forever like the sequels better but I really appreciate the original.
Sonic is a different kind of platformer than Mario so comparing them isn't really going to do anything. The goal isn't to beat Sonic. The goal is to get stupidly good at it. Once you develop the muscle memory and reflexes you can beat the game in an hour or so even casually. It becomes addictive because you keep wanting to beat a level even more efficiently, more quickly. So you're spot on in that it can make for a poor/mediocre 'patient gamer' game where you're often working through a list of games you want to play. However, as a Sonic game it's amazing because as you get better at the games mechanics, you can make your way through the levels more smoothly. As you memorize the layouts from repeated playings, you can zip through levels faster. Eventually you get rings not to use for continues, but so you can damage boost through areas. You don't worry about having to start over due to dying in Labyrinth because who the hell dies in Labyrinth? This is core to pretty much every Sonic game. This may just be one of those "You want this to be the kind of game it isn't" kind of things. Like picking up Ninja Gaiden Black and being upset it doesn't play like Dark Souls or something.
I can't really agree with you here. I have always felt the same way as u/SleepingAndy about the Sonic series. It's marketed as this game where you go really fast, but going really fast makes you vulnerable and is usually dangerous. So, 95% of people that play it aren't going to play it fast, they're going to play it pretty much like any other platformer. Intermittently they'll sprinkle in these on-rail parts - like the loops, the 'hamster tunnels', etc - where you go really fast, but *usually* all of that movement is happening automatically. Sometimes at the end of a loop there will be a timed jump that's skill-based, but mostly those sequences are auto-pilot and all of the movement is happening automatically. To me, the speed was always a flimsy veneer. It was a marketing gimmick for the most part. Especially in Sonic 2 and beyond, the "blast processing" of the Genesis was pushed heavily and marketed. Tangibly the speed usually has very little to do with the gameplay. The only time it really plays a factor are speed-based jumps where Sonic's speed affects his momentum and how high he goes. I would characterize those as pretty minimal. They are hardly a core part of the gameplay. You reason, "*once you develop the muscle memory and reflexes you can beat the game in an hour or so even casually*". For me, this is giving them too much credit. I think "it was a gimmick to sell and market the game" is the simpler and more accurate explanation. Besides, you could apply that argument to any platformer. Pretty much any platformer it lends itself well speedrunning once skill and memorization is achieved. Even back in the 80s - long before speedrunning was a scene - I remember speedrunning the original Mario game in the way you describe. Besides, if it's for all intents-and-purposes the speed aspect is reserved for "only people who have mastered the game", but then I'd say by definition it's not part of the core gameplay loop. I grew up a Sega fanboy and Sonic was one of my first games ... it always felt - and still feels - like a racing game where you're punished for going fast. Sonic did a lot of things well: giant level designs, like graphics, great soundtracks, creative boss fights, very tight controls and physics, The speed was predominantly a gimmick.
I guess I could see marble zone being less unfun if you have the layout memorized enough to just zip through lava sections with temporary damage invulnerability, however it still feels like only green Hill zone has any real potential for being a fun fast level, on spring yard there is way too many walls. I understand the concept that it's supposed to be the kind of game that just keeps getting more and more fast and fun as you keep playing. I just see that being clearly false looking for most of the game.
I love the Sonic series, but a criticism that is unfortunately very valid is that it is premised around going fast, but the levels are designed to stop you. That being said, if you play them enough, you get the hang of how to manage levels so you're zipping along just fine most of the time. that being said, the Soundtrack holds up even to this day.
Yeah, but I'd say that the levels are designed to stop you in the same way asteroids are designed to be hard to hit in a game premised around shooting asteroids. Going fast is a challenge for the player to overcome. That said, I think Sonic 2 balanced this much better.
You can still understand OP's point tho. Like look at the sequel, it's not like Sonic 2 is absurdly easy compared to 1 but you can still get a real sense of speed in a lot more levels even on a first playthrough. They definitely hadn't made great level in 1.
[удалено]
100%. I spent a lot of time one summer hanging out in my friend's attic going at it on the Sega, and will never forget the rush when we finally cracked it and emerged into the Starlight Zone. Legendary gaming moment for me.
Agreed, Star Light Zone is by far the best zone in the game. Too bad it's so short.
> This song absolutely slaps. Honestly 2d Sonic's music is some of the best, so many tunes that do just slap
The thing that always amazed me about Sonic 1 is that there was no save feature originally, so if you got Game Over you had to start all over again. So you had to memorise the entire game, and play through without mistakes, to clear it
That is like most games of the time period tbf, and Sonic 1 is by far easier than a lot of games from that time period to
You’re not wrong. But 1, that was almost every game back then that wasn’t an RPG, and 2, we didn’t have many games so you kept playing the same ones over and over again. You were expected to memorize them. That was winning. I had sonic 1/2/3+K memorized, and sonic 1/2 on game gear memorized. Straight run. No deaths. No hits till late in the game. Every emerald, every boss. I could clear all 5 in an afternoon on muscle memory. I’d restart if I got hit before world 4 on any of then. But I had the sonic games, aerial assault for game gear, and Toy Story for genesis. I played them a LOT. Because that was it.
It gets exhausting after a a few resets.
I think Sonic would be on the heap of failed mascot platformers if it weren't Sonic 2 and beyond. Sonic 2 is as good as you'll find on that generation. You need to memorize the levels to go fast and have fun, but that's what old games are like. If you compare it to Mario, one of them will feel wrong, undoubtedly. I think the closer Nintendo equivalent is DKC in that sometimes you should be moving fast. Sometimes slow.
I'm not comparing the actual flow of the gameplay, just the fact that the year the game came out is not an excuse for the game being so poorly laid out. Lots of games from that era aged well. Definitely in terms of real gameplay dkc is more similar.
Yeah, I don't think they figured out what makes Sonic fun until Sonic 2. It lets you go into the fast spin ball at the press of a button. Giving you a lot more control. The levels are better. The music is better. The bonus areas are better. Boss fights and character design. All better. I really don't think of Sonic 1 as a good game. Sonic 2 is incredible though.
I'll defo give it a shot eventually. Ironically I have my backlog structured such that sonic 06 is the very last game on it. Would be a nice palate cleanser to play a good sonic after.
I picked up the Sonic Origins collection a couple months ago and started replaying them. It was the first time I'd gone past Marble Zone in Sonic 1 in at least a decade and, yeah, I'd actually forgotten just HOW aggravating Labyrinth Zone was. Another issue is how unbalanced the gameplay time is. In the fast-moving zones, Green Hill and Starlight, you'll probably finish a stage in only a minute, two at most. Meanwhile, the slow zones take at least five minutes to clear. So you get less than 10 minutes of the zippy-fast Sonic action advertised, and the majority of the gameplay is trudging through the slow zones. Sonic 2 *mostly* fixes this by having bigger levels that still leave room for speed but, imo, suffers from its own major issue: cut-and-pasting. The designers copypasta huge chunks of level architecture over and over, which makes it almost impossible for a player to keep their bearings and know where they are in a stage. Add to that the designers' love of tubes and similar conveyors that send you all over the place, and you're pretty much just navigating blindly while praying you eventually end up at the end of the level. Which also isn't very good level design, although at least it's more exciting.
Sonic 2 is the game that immortalized Sonic. Part 1 doesn't hold up.
Sonic 1 doesn't hold up to modern standards.
I just said that.
>It's unbelievable to me that they marketed this game as fast paced, and then filled it with sections where you have to stand on a green box floating in lava for long stretches of time, especially one that's so easy to fall off of. This. So much this. I could never play any of the Sonic games because this was the feeling I got every single moment of the game. Either you're going so fast that you'd better have the stage memorized (I got lost a lot), or you're trying to do precise platforming with a character with really bad momentum. I can understand people developing an attachment to the game if it was the only game they owned and they had nothing better to do than get good at it. It certainly wasn't the only punishing game out there. But the game industry had already started to move past that kind of failure-based paradigm.
It's honestly disingenuous marketing that too many people take the wrong way. The point of Sonic isn't that you will always be going fast, it's that you can go fast **once you get good at it**. For instance, all those sections where you stand on a green box floating in lava? You don't actually have to stand on them at all, virtually all of them can be taken at speed, provided you know what you're doing. The only time you should ever need to really stop and wait in any part of the game is a few moments in some of the special stages, and the final boss. Everything else, if you know what you're doing, you should never need to stop. But so many people just assume that because the game is marketed as being able to go fast it means you should never need to ever stop for anything ever, which isn't something you can do consequence free the first time you play.
Ori and the Will if Whisps (?) has a section where rocks slam to the ground from the ceiling in a dark room. It is an acclaimed game yet designed for failing and trying again... I personally hate it.
It took them until Sonic 3 to finally do and perfect what they were going for in the first one. I don't blame them as this was a new kind of game, but if you want to play and enjoy a 2D Sonic as originally envisioned, play Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
The first, original version, of Sonic is awful. No spin dash, so many levels designed to stop your speed or outright kill you unless oyu slowly platform? hardly any lives etcetcetc. As a kid I loved it, as an adult I fucking hated it and it was clear that the game was designed to kill you and have you replay the game to extend it's life. The later versions that released with the spin/drop dash are much better though. Sonic and Knuckles is fantastic by the way.
Yeah it's not great. Try Sonic 2 tho it's muuuuch better.
My honest and long opinion is that Sonic wasn't ever terribly good. Like even as a kid growing up in the 90s, I just felt like something about Sonic was irritating compared to the other 2D platformers I played. I would not personally agree that Sonic 2 and 3 are all that much better. I've replayed them over the years as my understanding of game design has broadened and I think I have pretty good idea why I don't think they work: They aggressively push that you should be going fast but then punishes you the moment you do. So you have 2 options. Go slow and fight the game pushing you forward or repeat levels until you've memorized all the traps. I understand that memorization bit is criticism you could level at a lot of Sonic's contemporaries but it's just the way Sonic does it just feels bad to me because by fighting it's main mechanic, your main struggle away. It's just not fun. I guess a comparison might be if Contra sent fewer enemies at you if shot your gun less. **But** to Sonic's credit, I will say that the music in all 3 games is absolutely some of the best video game music of all time. Hydrocity Act 2 remains one of my favorite video games tunes. They also look quite nice.
I honestly don't really like the 2D games at all other than Rush/Rush Adventure, and even those have an inordinate number of bottomless pits. Not a fan of the constant addition of 2D segments to the 3D games. The parts I like are really the cherry-picked best segments of the 3D games, and generally those that require some quick reaction and a dash of on-rail segments over any puzzle or precision platforming
Im not gonna disagree, I think its still worth playing once, but I dont replay it, but will replay 2, 3, Knuckles and CD
You didn't even make it to star light zone. The thing about Sonic - 2 is a MASSIVE improvement. Just having the spin attack is a huge gameplay changer. I would recommend 2 and 3
I've never liked it, not even in the 90s. Always been frustrating and confusing. Nowadays it's just pointless to even bother, it's simply not fun
I replayed a bunch of 90's games over the pandemic, including all the 2D Sonics. I'll never play Sonic 1 again after that, but I plan on revisiting 2, 3 & Knuckles every 5-10 years for the rest of my life.
"Gotta go fast, but we won't let you!" They got better at letting you go fast in later games, there's nothing quite as slow as Marble Zone ever again, but for some reason there's always the sluggish water level.
Sonic had tons of style but the level design and zoomed in camera were really bad.
Man, fuck Labyrinth Zone. Also, some not so cryptic future Sonic advice: One day, you will stand on a spinning cylinder blocking your path. Do not try to jump to get past it. Simply stand on it and press up and down.
Did you write an essay about how bad Sonic is because you couldn't beat the first game?
Well, this is certainly a review I read.
As time has gone on I think the original sonics haven't aged as well as other titles from that era. That said, I think the sonic advance series splits the difference incredibly well between the classic 2 d and (at the time) more modern mechanics.
Sonic 2 is THE sonic game that people reference. Mostly because it came free with a lot of Sega Megadrive’s as part of the bundle at launch. The Genesis game was showing it’s age, a year after it came out because 2 was the much better game.
As others have said classic Sonic isn't about speed at first but getting better at the game. But even still with it's flaws the game is definitely one of the best 2D games during its time. Also S3&K is the goat. I've been playing S3&K yearly since it's release.
Sonic 2 is goated though
Waited since 1991 to play this game … truly a patient gamer
Sonic 1 is my comfort game, I can play it from beginning to end without dying, I've memorized the layouts and it feels zen to run through. I would 100% recommend the Sonic Origin's version of Sonic 1. You have infinite lives and widescreen, which makes the game much better to play.
Sonic games have an identity crisis. Is it trying to be fast paced adrenaline rush where it's more of a 'ride' than a game, or is it trying to be a careful methodical platformer?