I kind of hate Sonic 1, but I keep coming back to it despite that.

The music and graphics are great, and so is Sonic's sense of speed.

There are some annoying levels, especially the water levels and the special stages. However, I've played the game enough that they don't annoy me as much as they did. That's why I'm conflicted. I don't think this is a good game by today's standards, but I enjoy replaying it. Plus the first couple of zones are super fun.

The game would be good if not for the chaos emeralds, which are required for the true ending and are annoying to get. Thankfully, the Switch version has save states, letting you replay the special stages and making the game a lot more tolerable.

Truth be told, despite being a Sonic fan, I've never beat most of his games. Somewhat embarrassing to admit, but when someone asks me for which ones I truly love, I can only bring up the Adventure games. I've played many of the games several times throughout my life, but never bothered to finish 'em...that is, until today, when I decided that I was going to beat the first Sonic game no matter what. I did, though not without using some of these games handy dandy save states. I just don't have the patience anymore to deal with being booted back to the beginning of the game after a Game Over, though this game was generous enough with the lives and Continues for me to be able to get through most of it without needing to abuse save states. It took until Star Light Zone - the one right before the penultimate world - for me to need to rely on the save states. Scrap Brain Zone took by far the most save states and I did need to use a few on the final boss since it took me a bit to get the pattern.

As far as how this is as a port, its great. I never had a SEGA Genesis, but I imagine this runs pretty much the same as it did back then, if not maybe a little smoother outside of occasional slowdown in Labyrinth Zone. There's some extra features like a challenge mode and some kind of online leaderboard, but I never bothered with any of 'em since I was here just to play the original game. This also adds some nice quality of life features; I very much appreciated having access to the spin-dash, even if it seemed like it broke the level design sometimes since it lets you do stuff like go under enemies you probably weren't meant to be able to go under or zoom past the fans in Star Light Zone (could be wrong but I think that also was not intended). The drop dash also got added, but I've never really known how that mechanic is supposed to be helpful so I didn't use it.

Since this is my first time beating the game, I might as well share my thoughts on the gameplay. Maybe I was just being overly cautious, but I find it interesting how, despite Sonic being known so well for his speed, I felt encouraged to take it slow and steady, and it was actually kinda fun having to slow down. Most levels have at least one platforming section where you need to wait around patiently for something to move your way, with perhaps the most infamous example of this being Marble Zone. It also just generally really helps going slow, since I could react accordingly to the spike traps the game likes to throw at the player. The ring system is really nice and makes you feel much more secure than a Mario game does; so long as you're quick enough to grab at least one ring each time you get hit, you won't die unless you fall down a pit or touch spikes (or get squished by being in the middle of two moving things). I did not understand how the special levels for collecting the Chaos Emeralds work, but they were still great to come across since there's a lot of rings. They were my main source of lives and Continues since I was having a hard time beating levels with 100 rings. As far as the levels themselves go, they're fine and are decently fun to get through. The dreaded Labyrinth Zone wasn't TOO bad as far as difficulty goes, and it helped that there was no real Eggman fight and instead it was just an obstacle course. Labyrinth Zone's main problems imo are some cheap spike placement, bubbles that take way too long to spew out ones you can use to refresh your breath, and the acts of the zone in general just take much too long. Sonic 1 in general has a length issue imo because each zone has three Acts. I'm glad that Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 cut that number down to two (with some exceptions).

Overall, I'm glad to have finally beat this game through this great enhanced port, but the game itself isn't that remarkable and could get pretty frustrating at times. I think I'd go insane if I didn't have save states since I'd need to restart from Green Hill every time I got a game over in the actually hard levels. I've always been more of a Sonic 2 guy, though that's yet another Sonic game I've never beat before...maybe I'll change that soon. Nonetheless, I give 3.5 stars for this particular version of Sonic 1; there's nothing I could ask to be improved as far as an enhanced port job goes but the game itself ain't that great.

It's a beautiful version of Sonic 1. I don't even like Sonic 1 that much (it's cool) but this level of dedication to providing the absolute best version of a single game is something I would love to be more widespread. It would be cool if there were more documentation or something but what you get is a perfect version of Sonic 1 with additional options. Really wish more companies would release respectful versions of their games. I guess these Sega Ages weren't successful since they have discontinued the line, this saddens me.

This is another emulated version of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, but has quite a few features that are worth mentioning.

The most interesting thing about this version of Sonic is the inclusion of the Mega Play version of Sonic 1, which gives a time limit to beat on each level and gets rid of the slower levels – Marble Zone, Labyrinth Zone and the third act of Scrap Brain Zone. It’s an interesting way to play the game, and has a high score mode. Oddly, this is buried in the options rather than being a different mode.

Another new feature is “Ring Keeper” mode (this was originally made for the 3D version of Sonic 2). In this, you start each level with 10 rings and only lose half of them when you get it, making it much easier. There are a couple of challenges: a time trial of Green Hill Zone and high score for the Mega Play with only one life, both with online leaderboards.

The emulation is pretty good, with lots of visual options like scanlines, choosing different versions and letting you use the spin dash from Sonic 2 and the drop dash from Sonic Mania.

I do think it is a shame that this is done on an emulated version, as the Retro Engine version of Sonic 1 was already out. It’s a shame we can’t have these features combined with the Retro Engine version.