This is, hands down, the objectively best way to play the original Sonic the Hedgehog. The changes this game makes are VITAL to enjoying the original Sega Genesis classic, and once you play this version, you won't be able to go back. To start, the first thing you may notice is that the game is zoomed in. This gives the game a bit of a challenge, preventing the game from being a cake walk like that "Super Mario Brother." Sonic's physics have also been tweaked, and now he controls better than ever! They made him heavier, and slower, giving the game a bit of realism. Much better than the original game. Sometimes, especially when there are a lot of sprites on screen, the game will slow down and give you time to assess the situation and prevent unfair deaths. "Gamers" would call this lag, but I would call it a blessing. The music has also been improved, now sounding like a midi file. And who doesn't love generic midi instruments? This game also adds aniversary mode, which adds a new way to play this classic. You're probably thinking, what does it add? You see, anniversary mode makes one major imrpovement that makes the game infinitely better. The spindash! If you're a loser who hates cool things, then you can just play classic mode which doesn't have the spindash. Yep, I know. Totally warrants its own game mode. Overall, I'd recommend this game to everybody and their grandma. Truly the best way to play this classic.

holy shit. I had heard the rumors about this game. How it is one of the worst ports of all time, absolutely butchering the original game by plaguing it with slowdown so bad, it makes sonic labyrinth seem like an unleashed daytime stage. In a way, I kinda prepared myself mentally for what I was about to play well in advance, and having been someone who can easily clear sonic 1 on mega drive with all the chaos emeralds without even breaking a sweat or using a continue, I thought this was going to be an easy clear of sonic 1 as I go through the ropes as I do, just slower thanks to the slowdown. I was so, so wrong to underestimate sonic genesis there. The slowdown is there. It is exactly as bad as everyone says. going in any area where more than like 2 sprites are on screen will slow things down by what feels like half speed, and levels like labyrinth zone or scrap brain become bigger tests of patience than they already were. What I wasn't prepared for was how they very slightly but visibly changed how sonic controls. His jump is higher than usual, allowing you to do various skips that you definitely shouldn't be able to. Sonic also has more advance-style movement where he starts slow and then builds up to a sprint, which is bad when the level design doesn't compensate for that whatsoever which makes slow precise platforming so much significantly harder as sonic just doesn't reach the platforms he so very clearly easily should be reaching with his jumps. The screen crunch is also horrible here as now enemies can easily blindside you from offscreen. All this leads to a sonic 1 experience where I was much more cautious and afraid than I have been playing sonic in years. In a sense, it felt like I was a kid again, playing through sonic 1 without the comfort of familiarity assisting me through the levels. In that sense, this was actually a very interesting and different play. The only way you could ever see me even consider reccomending this game is if you have already played sonic 1 to death and want a fresh new way to experience the game, for better or worse. Otherwise please play literally ANY other release of this game out of the many many dozens that exist.

A lot of people are asking "who, how and why?", and unfortunately I can't get a concrete answer for who actually did the port job (barring one guy on Era who said it was Digital Eclipse, but that's literally about as reliable as some rando on the street). But the reason it was so shit was because they had to bang it out in a month and only had the shitty mobile port code to work with, and obviously they knew it was trash and kept their name off of it.

2006 was doomsday for Sonic fans. Embarrassing, awful awful awful.

Ok look, I get it. This is an absolute travesty of a port, no denying that. The screen crunch is atrocious, the music is borked, the slowdown is horrific, collision is messed up and there are bugs and glitches galore. I recognize how bad it is…and yet, I literally just cannot get mad at this game. This was my first ever Sonic game, the one that got me into the franchise (shocking that I stuck around afterwards I realize), but darnit, 7 year old me thought it was the coolest thing ever (and yet I never questioned why the version on Mega Collection was so much better 🤔). Point is, I have a HUGE nostalgic bias towards it. It may be a dumpster fire, sure, but it’s MY dumpster fire.

This game is abominable in every right. You all know that. Instead of sounding like a broken record and talking about how awful this game is, why don't we talk about trivia instead?

> Did you know that turning off the sound and music in-game actually improves the performance overall? The Game Boy Advance does not have a soundchip of any sort, so all sounds and music are straight from the CPU of the little handheld.

> Did you know that this game released the same day as Sonic 06? Both this game and that one released on November 14, 2006. Don't trust Backloggd. Look it up for yourself.

> You are now breathing manually.

> Did you know that this game runs on the same engine of the Sonic Advance games? Vastly superior games running on the same engine as this nonsense.

> Did you know that there is a homebrew port of this game on the GBA that looks and runs exactly how it's supposed to? One to one sound and performance. The screen crunch is still a problem but it's leagues better than whatever the hell SEGA and Sonic Team put out.

That's all. Thanks for reading.

I beat this game. I'm sitting here wondering exactly why I did that, but oh well, no use in regretting it now.

This game is, well, I don't want to say "unplayable" but it has the same energy as playing a badly made scratch game more than anything else. The physics are EXTREMELY janky, you can spindash into a wall, and when you go above or under you'll still be flying from your previous speed. While this is definitely objectively bad, I did find it somewhat entertaining to blast across parts of the stage. However the other two awful parts of the gameplay aren't nearly as enjoyable. There's very bad screen crunch here, screen crunch is a problem games made for the GBA have so it should go without saying that a platformer intended to be played on a TV would definitely have it bad. The other issue is kind of funny because it actually makes the previous one better a bit, but it does so in the worst way possible. This game has slow down more times than it doesn't, which DOES technically help the screen crunch since you'll feel less like you have no time to react but you'll feel like that because the action of jumping and landing can take multiple seconds at times.

Ignoring the issues the levels are ripped from Sonic 1 which means they are in a vacuum good, and the physics are vaguely reminiscent of the original, so I didn't dislike playing the game necessarily but there's one huge problem. This game simply is not nearly as good as Sonic 1, and it's trying to be. I think you can enjoy this one if you don't take it seriously and can laugh at something being broken, but if you come at it with even the slightest hint of objectivity it absolutely falls apart.