I got this game around Christmas of 2003 when I was 7 years old and just discovering sega's back catalog of games. I'd already played ristar on the Genesis and adored it to no end. I even remember an older cousin and I popping in the boss rush code from gamefaqs printout I had prior to even having the Genesis game and him just annihilating everything up to kaiser greedy without much experience with the game otherwise. That's how special the game is to me, lol.

As for this 8 bit version, it follows the same philosophy as Sonic 1 8 bit in that it has the same general structure but a handful of different mechanics and levels. Ristar GG features an exclusive pirate ship stage and two exclusive bosses. The snow stages also revolve around picking up bombs and hauling ass to various checkpoints before they explode....not to mention this weird time rabbit boss that is able to freeze time and bounce about while you're stunned.

What makes this version particularly impressive is how much it was able to keep in tact from the 16 bit version compared Sonic's GG outings. Swinging poles were pretty much Ristar's equivalent of the loop-de-loops of Sonic, and they weren't sacrificed in this port. There's plenty of opportunities to swing about and launch yourself at high speeds despite the limited hardware- even in the aforementioned exclusive stage.

Again, I can't say in good spirit that it's the better game over its 16 bit counterpart, but it's still worth a run if you enjoy the source material.

The master system truly was this odd but wonderful system for me as a child. I was lucky enough to get one at a yard sale in the summer of 2003 when I was 7 years old and at the peak of my sonic obsession. Sadly, the lot we got did not include this game but it did include a lot of other games such as Alex kidd and Ghostbusters.

I didn't get to play this until I unlocked the gamegear version on sonic adventure dx around the same age. At that time, I'm pretty sure I got to the jungle zone and gave up at the boss.

As an adult, I've probably finished this version about a dozen times and still enjoy coming back to it. Design wise, I always liked how the emeralds were found within the levels instead of an awkward special stage that feels more like a tech demo than anything (a recurring theme with the mainline genesis installments imo). I also like its arcade approach to scoring...it's really nice to hear that counter ticking down at the end when you manage to finish the game with all the emeralds and 20+ extra lives remaining.

Would I say it's better than the Genesis game? Not really. It suffers a lot due to the slowdown in Labyrinth zone. So much so that I'm such my everdrive didn't just snap in half. Why they chose to recreate this zone in the first place kind of boggles my mind when marble zone would've been a better candidate considering the difference of pace in this version. Sonic 1 8 bit is far more platforming heavy to be sure, and marble garden would've made more sense but oh well.

As it stands, it's well worth checking out and I'd say it's my favorite master system platformer besides the original Alex Kidd.

Haven't messed with the builder portion much, but I've already played some really impressive levels such as Whomp's Graveyard. I also like how star collecting handles like it does in Odyssey- you don't get booted out of the stage at any point for collecting them. It's also a plus that you don't have to deal with slightly altered physics- that was something that always bothered me about mario maker. I just wish the process to download levels was a bit less tedious. For now, you have to go to level share square and manually download them+ drag and drop them into a virtual SD card to get them to load. (It's still worth it tho don't get me wrong!)