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.
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.