I didn’t think Sonic Genesis was going to be as bad as everyone says it is, but boy was I wrong. Sonic Genesis is not only the worst version of Sonic 1, but it’s one of the worst ports I’ve ever played in my life. It’s so horrible and incompetently programmed that it makes Sonic Heroes’ garbage GameCube port look good by comparison.
Before I get into all of its flaws, I should start with some positives. For one, the game does retain the colorful visuals of the original and the addition of a save feature and the spindash is pretty nice.
That’s pretty much it for positives because literally everything else about this has been screwed over big time. The first and most obvious problem is how huge the sprites are. It’s just as bad as Rockman & Forte’s screen crunch. Simple platforming segments have been made significantly harder and more stressful because now you’re never sure where to land. It also ends up making special stages and the final boss more difficult because you can’t see enough to get by.
The sound design is absolutely retched. While some tracks sound pretty decent like the boss theme, Star Light and Marble, the rest sound like ass. I think a large part of that is because of the weak drums and the crappy 8-bit sounding instrument. The sound effects are also pretty terrible too as they all sound like they came from different games.
But the worst aspect of Sonic Genesis have to be the physics and slowdown. Good physics are pretty much essential for Sonic 1, and yet here’s this crappy GBA remake failing miserably with the physics. Sonic’s running speed increases so sporadically and sometimes he’ll keep his momentum after jumping from behind a wall. The special stages have no physics whatsoever, Sonic just falls down at one speed, and bumpers have so little effect on him. The controls feel extremely unnatural and sluggish. As for the slowdown, it is extremely terrible. I normally don’t care about framerates in my game, because they usually don’t impact the experience that much, but Sonic Genesis’ framerate is constantly slowing down every 2 seconds and will sometimes go so slow that it makes certain sections unbearable to get through. The most egregious example is in Labyrinth Zone. What was already a slow stage has been made even more sluggish and is now an unpleasant experience all around. Because of the screen crunch, the boss is nearly unbeatable as well, since all you have to defend yourself with is a shield, and if you get a game over, you lose all your emeralds.
Speaking of which, you can also unlock a sound test by beating the game normally and listen to those “lovely” sound effects after beating the game with all the emeralds. I actually managed to do so and not only does it get some sound effect names wrong, but some “unused” ones are actually used in-game.
I think it’s safe to say how atrocious Sonic Genesis is. It’s one of the worst excuses for a remake I’ve ever played. There is absolutely nothing here that you can’t get from much better versions, which is literally anywhere else but here. The funniest part is that Sonic 1 got another rerelease around the same time, that being the Sega Mega Drive Collection on PS2 and even PSP. So at the very least kids in 2006 weren’t completely screwed over by Sonic 1.
If there’s one good thing I can say, is that this is still a better experience than Sonic Advance 2.
Before I get into all of its flaws, I should start with some positives. For one, the game does retain the colorful visuals of the original and the addition of a save feature and the spindash is pretty nice.
That’s pretty much it for positives because literally everything else about this has been screwed over big time. The first and most obvious problem is how huge the sprites are. It’s just as bad as Rockman & Forte’s screen crunch. Simple platforming segments have been made significantly harder and more stressful because now you’re never sure where to land. It also ends up making special stages and the final boss more difficult because you can’t see enough to get by.
The sound design is absolutely retched. While some tracks sound pretty decent like the boss theme, Star Light and Marble, the rest sound like ass. I think a large part of that is because of the weak drums and the crappy 8-bit sounding instrument. The sound effects are also pretty terrible too as they all sound like they came from different games.
But the worst aspect of Sonic Genesis have to be the physics and slowdown. Good physics are pretty much essential for Sonic 1, and yet here’s this crappy GBA remake failing miserably with the physics. Sonic’s running speed increases so sporadically and sometimes he’ll keep his momentum after jumping from behind a wall. The special stages have no physics whatsoever, Sonic just falls down at one speed, and bumpers have so little effect on him. The controls feel extremely unnatural and sluggish. As for the slowdown, it is extremely terrible. I normally don’t care about framerates in my game, because they usually don’t impact the experience that much, but Sonic Genesis’ framerate is constantly slowing down every 2 seconds and will sometimes go so slow that it makes certain sections unbearable to get through. The most egregious example is in Labyrinth Zone. What was already a slow stage has been made even more sluggish and is now an unpleasant experience all around. Because of the screen crunch, the boss is nearly unbeatable as well, since all you have to defend yourself with is a shield, and if you get a game over, you lose all your emeralds.
Speaking of which, you can also unlock a sound test by beating the game normally and listen to those “lovely” sound effects after beating the game with all the emeralds. I actually managed to do so and not only does it get some sound effect names wrong, but some “unused” ones are actually used in-game.
I think it’s safe to say how atrocious Sonic Genesis is. It’s one of the worst excuses for a remake I’ve ever played. There is absolutely nothing here that you can’t get from much better versions, which is literally anywhere else but here. The funniest part is that Sonic 1 got another rerelease around the same time, that being the Sega Mega Drive Collection on PS2 and even PSP. So at the very least kids in 2006 weren’t completely screwed over by Sonic 1.
If there’s one good thing I can say, is that this is still a better experience than Sonic Advance 2.
SwitSwat
1 year ago