Sonic the Hedgehog (1991): First Game Syndrome
Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the most iconic video game characters of all time. During the late 80s, Nintendo completely dominated the video game market and confidently jumped into the 16-bit era after the massive success of Super Mario Bros. in 1985, and the release of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990. Sega, on the other hand, had no such confidence, seeing as they had mostly developed arcade games up until the 80s, and even then were unable to compete with the NES with their own 8-bit home consoles: the SG-1000 and the Sega Master System.
Even with the release of the 16-Bit Sega Genesis, Sega didn't really have any real hits that came close to the popularity of Nintendo's hits, especially, again, Mario. This was prominently due to Sega not having a recognizable mascot. Mario was instantly recognizable as a symbol of Nintendo, a way to market them with a friendly face. Sega attempted to solidify a mascot with Alex the Kidd in the late 80s, but his extremely simple character design, and the horribly redesigned American cover art of Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle in 1989, left him not nearly as appealing as any of Nintendo's wide array of recognizable characters. Sega, of course, knew they needed a recognizable character to shoot them into the 90s.
The late 80s and the 90s, and even into the early 2000s, were a time where having a cool edge (that'll be a fun reference in about nine games) was extremely appealing. An alluring character had to be unique and have a cool, snarky attitude that made them lovably rebellious. Sonic, of course, was designed with this in mind.
Sonic concept art.
Sonic's design is one of the most brilliant character designs of all time. He's simple, but unique in his bright blue fur and bright red shoes, complimented by large, expressive eyes, and a cool, confident expression almost permanently plastered on his face. He's also cute enough to be marketed to children, but doesn't lean too far in to be the cool alternative to Mario. Sonic was just that: the perfect 90's, grungy, radical alternative to what Nintendo had to offer, which helped to birth the slogan "Sega does what Nintendon't".
Sonic the Hedgehog, released to the world in 1991, remains the most well-sold Sega game of all time, and an extremely important part of gaming history. However, as the first game in its series, and really the first of its kind, Sonic 1 has a lot of the problems many first games in a given series do.
Sonic the Hedgehog begins with one of the best first levels of all time: Green Hill Zone. This level perfectly shows all of the elements that make up the fundamentals of the game in a safe environment. It's a beautiful, hilly area with checkerboard ground topped with green grass, and a background (which uses an effect called parallax scrolling, and the foreground scrolls faster than the background, creating a 3-D depth to the environment) filled with water and mountains. This would become a staple of almost all first stages in Sonic games with slight variations and a few exceptions. The flora is very stylized and geometric, very recognizable as palm trees and sunflowers, and bursting with a very 90's aesthetic of bright colors and sharp edges, which applies to a lot of the game's overall appearance, and would be used as an influence to build upon in future titles.
Green Hill Zone.
Green Hill Zone also has one of the most recognizable soundtracks of any game: a very upbeat pop song that reflects the setting and sets the tone of the game, which is a very fast, light-hearted, fun platformer. Most of the music is similar to this, and much based on a given level's aesthetic and general tone. The theme of environmental-based, first-level themes would become another staple of many of the later entries and would be used as a building influence with each attempt.
Green Hill Zone opens the game with a cheery pop tune corresponding with its cheery atmosphere. “Marble Zone” is a slow, mysterious tango with a strong bass drum line that reflects the purple, underground ruins filled with booby traps. “Spring Yard Zone” is a jazzy, upbeat tune reflective of the bright colors, fast pace, and literal bouncy nature of the level. “Labyrinth Zone” is a very tinny, yet almost tribal sounding song, reflective of the water-filled ancient ruins covered in ancient technology. “Starlight Zone” is a calm, bright song fitting a slope-filled urban area on a star-filled sky setting. Last but not least, “Scrap Brain Zone” is an intense, industrial tune theme with a strong bassline, perfectly reflecting the equally industrial factory setting, and being the climax of the game.
The boss theme, that of Dr. Ivo Robotnik (or Dr. Eggman, as he was known in Japan, and would come to be known worldwide seven years later) isn't as intimidating as it is very egotistical and royal sounding, reflecting his not-so threatening presence, and very imposing air of superiority. The final boss theme reflects this as well, being a very climatic loop that shouts finale, despite the otherwise not-so-high-stakes story, being your average platformer at the time where an evil-doer (Robotnik) does something bad (uses animals to power robots), and the hero has to save the day (free the animals). The first game's music is wonderful, and a perfect way to start off a series that has, if nothing else, consistently fantastic music, and it could only go up from here as the stories improved as well.
Returning back to Green Hill Zone, a first level's job is, first and foremost, to teach a player how to play in a less dangerous environment, such as 1-1 from Super Mario Bros. or a thematically/narratively significant area, such as the Tutorial from Demon's Souls, that is returned to later when you become stronger. Green Hill Zone falls into the former category. Sonic the Hedgehog is a game based on momentum as a means to gain speed at its core, which, from the second game on, would be much more artificial and simplified. This makes them definitely a lot more of a fun spectacle, but less technically impressive, which is exactly what Sonic 1 is: technically impressive and well thought out as a game entirely based around momentum physics, but not particularly flashy or fun, although fun is subjective.
Green Hill Zone is a fantastic first level because it fully takes advantage of the game's physics. Sonic's levels are based around an arcade-like basis of short, fast, and replayable stages where the fun of replaying a level was simply to get better and faster. This level is laid out in layers of different heights. Even though the middle path is the one you're most likely to run through first and will get you to the end without much challenge, it will still require you to pay very good attention. The lower path is generally slower and requires you to know where to fall down and remember the traps that inhabit that layer in exchange for some bonuses, such as power-ups and lives. On the other hand, the upper path is much faster, but requires much more skill and focus to get through without falling to a lower level.
Green Hill Zone Act 2’s level layout showing all the different layers you can take.
The first Act (the name for stages) can be beaten in under 30 seconds if you're good enough. The whole game is possible to beat in a little under 20 minutes, the glitchless world record being 19 minutes and 41 seconds, and that runs with the philosophy of the game: the better you get, the faster you get. However, this gameplay philosophy is roadblocked by two gameplay decisions: making levels 3 Acts, and the sharpest left turn of a second level in history.
The first two acts of Green Hill Zone are a blast: two fun, fast stages, a perfect introduction. Act 3 breaks a lot of the pacing of the game's so-far breakneck pace by adding a third stage that is as long as the first two acts combined. It starts with a spike pit followed by a straight line into a nearly unavoidable spike wall, if you're not paying attention. Also, due to the sprite work being too zoomed in, the screen may not be able to keep up with how fast Sonic can go at maximum speed, although this was a fairly common problem with the classic games.
The level ends with a very easy boss that shouldn't take much more than half a minute to beat, if that. A boss stage generally isn't a problem in platformers (most Mario games have a short lead up stage to a boss and Megaman as a series is essentially based on the idea of a stage leading up to a boss), but it doesn't serve any sort of purpose in a game where the goal is to get to the end as fast as possible.
Bosses in Sonic games are a roadblock, never a goal, and the third act simply makes the roadblock longer. The flawed pacing of this first game was improved on in Sonic the Hedgehog CD, in which the whole third act is the boss, and fundamentally changed for the better in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, in which there are only two acts, the second act being longer and ending in a boss. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles builds even further by having a miniboss at the end of Act 1 and has entirely remixed music and a major boss for Act 2. Sonic Mania takes the same structure and perfects it with gameplay improvements and remixed older bosses. This is both the greatest strength of the true 2-D games, and the greatest weakness of Sonic the Hedgehog being the first game in the series: everything in the game is built upon moving forward, improved, or done better in later games, except, of course, the skill-based momentum. Until Marble Zone, that is.
Marble Zone is in no way a bad level, and far from it. It has lovely music, one of my favorite tracks in the game, and it looks beautiful, the runic setting and purple ruins are a great setting. The issue is, it's very, very slow, and not in a positive way that is fundamentally part of the gameplay style, like the mech stages in Sonic Adventure 2 or the Werehog in Sonic Unleashed, in a way that makes it an important change of pace because it's completely different in terms of gameplay. Marble Zone's slow pace doesn't compliment Sonic's excellent momentum, in fact, it heavily goes against it.
The level is blocky and largely linear, with moving platforms requiring patiently waiting until you get wherever it delivers you. Sonic's appeal is his character, his non-stop, always-looking-forward attitude. Sonic's complete lack of patience is even expressed in his idle animation: glaring at the camera and tapping his foot. While Sonic games have no reason to be exclusively fast (they'd have difficulty differentiating the series from one title to the next eventually), but for the first game in a series presenting itself as the cool, fast alternative, the second level does a pretty awful job presenting itself as such.
Sonic’s foot tapping animation in all the classic 2D games (Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Knuckles, and Mania from left to right)
Sonic the Hedgehog has an odd level pacing problem that begins with Marble Zone, and it's only made worse by the three-Act structure. Marble Zone's first Act alone can be nearly as long as the first and third Act of Green Hill Zone, including the boss. After this is Spring Yard Zone, which is more along the lines of Green Hill. It's fast, based heavily on physics and momentum, with many half pipes, and the titular springs. Beyond the previously discussed third Act, it's a very well-paced level. It is then IMMEDIATELY followed by Labyrinth Zone.
Labyrinth Zone is a nightmare. Yuji Naka, the lead programmer on the game, thought that hedgehogs couldn't swim. Thus, the water physics in the game are as heavy as a boulder. Sonic jumps extremely slowly, cannot accelerate, and drops like a rock as soon as he touches water. Not only that, Sonic can, in fact, drown. Labyrinth Zone is exactly what it sounds like, a labyrinth. It's a claustrophobic, trap-ridden maze, and most of it, of course, is underwater. It's by far the least enjoyable level in the game. It has all the pacing issues of Marble Zone with none of its charm and all of its annoyances, such as crushing traps, nearly impossible to avoid enemies, inconveniently placed spikes, and a very lackluster boss, even by this game's standards. It was originally supposed to be the second level, and it's a blessing it isn’t.
This is THEN followed by one of the best levels in the game: the excellent Starlight Zone. Like Spring Yard, it's very fast, with even more slopes. But rather than being more of a physics playground, it focuses a lot on building up speed, with more slopes and loops than any other level in the game, and doesn't really have many enemies, with most you just have to get past as fast as possible. It ends with probably the most creative boss, in which you have two options: use yourself to launch Robotnik's bombs back into him, or to use the bombs to launch yourself into the boss. It's not much, but it's about the most complex the boss design gets, and would be built upon in the following games. All around, a very fun, well-paced level.
The game's final level is Scrap Brain Zone, and it starts off great. It's a very difficult level, easily the hardest in the game. As all last levels should, it requires all the skills you've learned over the course of the game, and with the game's general theme of environments being overtaken by technology, the effect of a place fully taken over by Robotnik serves as a climactic point of knowing why you have to stop him. As for the level itself, it's fast, but doesn't revolve around speed, but rather having good enough reflexes to get through the level quickly. The name of the first game is using speed to your advantage rather than speed itself being the focus as it would be in later titles. The first two Acts of Scrap Brain Zone perfectly encapsulate this, and are the two most well-designed levels in the game, being very challenging, but balancing the challenge with a sense of speed and tension. It takes Green Hill's teachings, and sets you in the most deadly environment possible. Scrap Brain Zone would be a perfect final level if it wasn't for the third act.
Labyrinth Zone Act 4, or Scrap Brain Zone Act 3, as the game likes to call it, is a recolored, shorter, but even more difficult Act of Labyrinth Zone. This stage was originally intended to give you a feeling of fighting your way up to the finale, but there were time and space constraints, and new assets couldn’t be created. All around, it's a really sour final note on an otherwise fantastic final level, seeing as it's a harder version of the already intense Labyrinth, but it's short and includes a shortcut, so it's not insufferable, and it doesn't have a boss at the end, instead saving the final boss for (technically) its own level, but it does break the pace the finale was going at.
Final Zone, or really just the final boss's room, is just one room. It's just you and Robotnik squaring off for the first last time. However, there's a catch: you have zero rings. The ring system in Sonic games works similarly to the coin system in Mario, where if you collect 100 of them, you get an extra life and more points at the end of the level. However, Sonic innovated, and rings allow you to take an extra-hit as long as you have one. When you take a hit with a ring, they get knocked out of you, and you have a few seconds to recollect them. Without a ring, or a shield or invincibility power-up, you die in one hit.
The final boss, as a result, is very tense, if a bit simple. You're trapped in a small room that seems empty for a few moments before the ceiling and floor breaks, revealing four pistons. These pistons come out of the walls at random two at a time and will crush you instantly if you stay still. One of these pistons will have Robotnik in it, and you have to hit him before he retreats back into the walls. In between hits are a turn where Teslas on the side of the arena shoot electric balls, and you have to jump over them. It's nothing really all too complicated, but it's more challenging than most of the other bosses in the games. The music adds to the grandness of the finale as previously mentioned, but visually it's more of Scrap Brain's backgrounds, with less of the imposing industrialization of said level.
Sonic 1’s psychedelic special stage.
After you hit him 16 times (normal bosses take 8 hits), Eggman's machine explodes, and he tries to escape in his Egg Mobile. You can hit him if you feel like it, but it doesn't change the ending, of which there are technically two. Sonic returns to a Green Hill Zone now filled with animals and jumps up victoriously and the credits roll, playing a great medley of all of the game's level themes. Following the credits will be a short scene that separates the good and bad ending. In the good ending, Robotnik hops on the end card in frustration, and extra flowers bloom in Green Hill Zone. In the bad ending, Robotnik instead juggles the mystical stones that would become critical to the series by Sonic 3 and Knuckles: the Chaos Emeralds.
Throughout the game, if you have 50 rings by the end of the level, a giant ring will appear that you can jump into. This will transport you to what's known as a special stage, in which you have a chance to collect one of the six emeralds. These special zones are a physics-based labyrinth in which you can only jump while the maze constantly rotates. There are bumpers that will change the rotation of the maze if marked with R or up/down, or exit you from the stage if marked with Goal. In the middle is the emerald. These special stages are beautiful, once again reflecting the colorful, surreal 90s aesthetic, with a sort of kaleidoscopic background of birds or fish. However, the actual zones don't control very well. You don't have a lot of control, and what controls you do have feel very stiff and there isn't a whole lot of strategy beyond jumping and hoping the nearly uncontrollable maze doesn't shoot you out into an exit.
If you manage to get all of the Chaos Emeralds, the ending cutscene in Green Hill has the Chaos Emeralds rising out of Sonic and causing the bloom of the flowers before disappearing, much to the frustration of Robotnik. If you don't, no flowers bloom and Robotnik gets the remaining emeralds. It's nothing significant in the first game, but they become much more significant in the future, as well as the addition of a seventh emerald. The first game never really explains them or their powers, giving them an air of mystery and setting them up nicely for later.
Sonic the Hedgehog is an important game. It began one of the most iconic, yet rocky video game series of all time. For a first game, it's fantastic, setting the basis for the entire series. It has excellent music, beautiful visuals for its time, and a great physics engine. However, as an individual game, it has a lot of problems. Its level pacing problems are the most significant, not letting the character show off what he's known for, for half of the game. Every level overstays its welcome with the three-Act structure of the levels, which was immediately changed just a year later with the second game. Bosses are either underwhelming or somewhat frustrating, although that wouldn't change for a few games, and the final one can be a bit tedious. The special stages are especially frustrating with their relatively slow nature and otherwise poor control, and special stages in future games would be vastly different and vastly improved.
Overall, Sonic the Hedgehog is a fairly good platformer bogged down by issues that would be fixed in later entries, and that's really the issue with the first game: it's mediocre in comparison to its predecessors, in the end being brought down by First Game Syndrome.
