OVERVIEW
 
The very first Sonic the Hedgehog game to bless the fans of the Sega Genesis and with this game, Sonic became the newest and permanent mascot of Sega. Sonic is an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog whose friends have been kidnapped by the evil Dr. Ivo Robotnik aka Eggman in Japan and in later Sonic games. Sonic is billed as the fastest thing alive but that has been rendered as BS thanks to Robotnik who always managed to outrun Sonic no matter what. He even outruns Super Sonic in the sequel, Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Along the way you need to collect six Chaos Emermalds in order to see the true ending of the game or else you will be told to Try Again with Robotnik juggling the Chaos Emeralds that you missed.
 
GRAPHICS - A
 
The 16-bit era was still in its infancy at the time of this games release and this game took full advantage of what the graphics had to offer at the time being. Let's start with the Green Hill Zone for example, the place has wonderful scenery of grass, palm trees and in the Japanese version, clouds that move. The water sparkles real nicely. Marble Zone does not get its name from marbles you play with. It is named after the fact that the majority of the stage is made out of marble. If you look closely at the pillars you will almost see Mario's face imprinted in there. It is also filled with molten lava that can erupt and the graphics from it doing so is oh so amazing. Spring Yard Zone pits you inside of a giant pinball machine without the flippers but they don't make their debut until the next game. There are a lot of sparkling background effects that spells out words. In fact, the original name for the Spring Yard Zone was going to be called Sparkling Zone. Labyrinth Zone's graphics take advantage of physics graphicwise. Whatever is underwater whether it be land, enemies, or even yourself will change color to match its color filter. I also love the cave atmosphere of the level as well. Star Light Zone is like going on a roller coaster without the cart. The level is filled with loops, blinking lifts, and heavy pitfalls. The levels are extremely shorter compared to other levels as you can complete the first two acts in under a minute. Scrap Yard Zone shows a wonderful industrial power plant background in Act 1, a gear factory in Act 2, and somewhat of a Labyrinth Zone Act 4 for Act 3 with the water being purple this time and the background being gray. Again the water changes the color of the objects behind it. This was originally going  called the Clock Work Zone but the W would not render. The Final Zone pits you against Robotnik for the last time and even the background will fight against you as Robotnik will try to squish you with it.  However, all those zones pale in comparison to the oh so lovely Special Zone where the graphics are so beautiful it literally takes a dump on all the zones, it is that good. The bubbles, the fish, the birds, the sky in the background. All the way down to the foreground itself which is made out of shiny jewels that will leave you lost in euphoria.The final bit of detail I will discuss is the ending. If you get all the emeralds you will see Sonic toss them up as they vanish and flowers appear followed by Sonic jumping into the screen in excitement. Let's also not forget the very end where Robotnik stomps on the END sign which you can tell he is using his cartoon catchprase, "I hate that hedgehog" 
 
CONTROLS - A
 
One positive thing to say here is that you only need to things to play the game, the control pad and whatever button you want to use. That's right. You can use any button besides the start button to jump onto obstacles and enemies but do not jump on the spikes or spiky enemies unless you can land on their faces then you will come out okay. One thing I like about the controls is that it takes advantage of real time physics in concerns with the way the environments can affect your movements. Labyrinth Zone and Scrap Brain Zone Act 3 will make you move a bit slower than usual as well as jump slower. Holding down when going down a half pipe will make you boost higher than normal. You also have the ability to curve your jump if you think you jumped wrong but be quick about it. Another ability Sonic has is that he can turn into a ball while running by hitting down during a run and he can look up or down to see what is above or below him. That set the tone for other games to include that feature like Bubsy in his game series.
 
GAMEPLAY - A+
 
You go through six zones of gameplay with various degrees of difficulty. If you happen to input the stage select code at the title screen (up, down, left, right, hold A and press start) then you may see that the zones are out of sync. The reason for that is it was going to be the original order of the zones before they got switched around so as you can see Labyrinth Zone (fourth zone) was originally going to be the second zone but SEGA didn't want to make the game too difficult early on so it got bumped back to fourth and Marble Zone was made the second zone instead of third and Spring Yard Zone went to third from fifth and Star Light Zone went from fourth to fifth. With the exception of the last two songs, the ending medley actually played the original zone lineup in order.
 
Just like any other game Sonic also got its share of bugs that can hurt you. For example, in the US version of the game, spikes were ultimately lethal as you were provided no invincibility from them if you got hit. This would be addressed in the Japanese version of the game. I guess Sonic caught the same syndrome that affected another blue character in his debut game. I'm looking at you Mega Man/Rockman. Another thing that people associate as started off with Sonic but actually happened in other games was being killed instantly by being smashed. It's a tough way to go out but even the slightest touch was a killer.
 
SOUND/MUSIC - A+
 
The music is totally off the chain and a wonderful soundtrack. Some of the tracks were most likely inspired by songs by real music artist. Marble Zone sound similar to "Watch the Girls Go By" by Andy Williams, Spring Yard Zone sounds so much like "Every Little Step" by Bobby Brown, and Labyrinth Zone sounds like "Too Be Real/Best of My Love/If You Do For Me" by varying artists. The Special Zone music sounds soothing but it got changed into a lullaby in Sonic 4 Episode 1.
 
REPLAYABILITY - A
 
Sonic 1 has been ported lots of time and it will never grow old unless you played the GBA port which was a piece of garbage. The original Sonic set the stage for speed and accuracy and graphics and some companies took note of that to make their games look better even though others went down the drain with their games.
 
OVERALL - A
 
This game may have had its flaw here and there but it was a wonderful masterpiece for Sonic's first game out the blocks. Too bad SEGA decided to pull the plug on Alex Kidd and Wonder Boy like that. They were every bit of a SEGA mascot as Sonic was. Guess they must have run their course and at least Sonic is guaranteed to keep his spot as their mascot.