Sonic the Hedgehog (Chris Dorward)

Blue streak speeds by, Sonic the Hedgehog.  Too fast for the naked eye, Sonic the Hedgehog.

Sonic the hedgehog was the Sega effort to release a new mascot to compete with Mario. No matter what you think of  Xbone vs PS4 stuff today it was nothing compared to the console wars of my youth (many lost their lives as mushrooms and rings were all that remained of their bodies). It is actually then somewhat amusing that this game was inspired by Mario. The developers watched people do speed runs of the original Super Mario Brothers and that became the basis of Sonic a game where you could run really fast.

Each level has multiple different elevations meaning you probably won’t run the exact same way as your friends.  Good at jumping you may end up at the top of the level jumping over moving platforms hovering in the air, or maybe your main focus is just on running really fast on the lower reaches, avoiding spikes and robots.

You play as the blue blur himself, Sonic the Hedgehog as he must race along levels to defeat the robot armies of the evil Dr Robotnik (who himself was one of the pitched mascot characters). Each level splits into 3 acts with the 3rd ending in a fight with the evil Dr Robotnik in one of his machines.

Each level is rather varied as you go from:

• classic green hill zone
• ancient ruins (with lava for some reason)
• a casino-ish area (I say -ish as future games have ones much more casino-like)
• an underwater maze (where you learn to hate water in Sonic games)
• a neo sparkly city – and finally
• Robotnik’s mechanical death base to face Robotnik in the final battle (well right after he dunks you back into the under water maze again, he is evil).

Throughout the levels you will collect rings. Holding a ring saves you from dying should an enemy hit you (and you failing to hit it).  At which point you lose all your rings. Up to 20 fly off from you which you can pick back up.  Get 100 and you get an extra life. Clear a level with 50 in hand and you can jump into the giant ring and play the special stage.

Special stages can only be described as weird psychedelic pinball games where you try to reach one of the 6 chaos emeralds. Get them all for the good ending (there’s not much difference from the normal trust me, they implemented Super Sonic in the next game)

As one of the most important games out there it’s definitely one I recommend picking up. Sonic’s first adventure is fun and whether it’s looking for new paths or secrets, beating your time and score or trying to get all the chaos emeralds –  you will want to come back again and again.

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