I have been told many stories about how incessantly my mom played this game when it first came out, and she made sure that this was one of the first games I played on her inherited Genesis.
Well, she bought another Genesis at a garage sale to give to me because she didn't have her own anymore. Why you may wonder? In a time before saving was commonplace in gaming, any time she would get to Labyrinth Zone she would not turn the console off for days or even weeks at a time so when she had time to play the game again after work or whatever she could pick back up and not have to play through the first three stages of the game like usual. Apparently this was not good for the system and the cartridge actually melted inside of it, rendering both the game and console unusable. Because of this when I got my first console, the Playstation 2, she made sure to give me plenty of extra memory cards with it because she just thought they were phenomenal inventions.
I guess this sorta speaks to both of our desires for save states. I commend her for getting as far as she did, in terms of the soundtrack the only one she didn't recognize was the Scrap Brain Zone and Final Zone meaning she never beat the game and this was likely because of the all or nothing nature of the level design, but she crushed it back in the day in my opinion. Even with save states, I struggle to get more than one or two chaos emeralds due to the randomness of the Special Zones which is really a shame because I put in a ton of work and effort to beat this game only to be shown a "Try Again" screen that I will probably always see when I go back to beat this game again. Even with save states, this game just is not as fluid or water-tight as it really should be, despite its fantastic sprite-work and soundtrack.
I do quite enjoy this game though, even if it is just replaying the first few levels because I really do think they are that fun. Clearly my mom thinks so as well because when she saw me playing this game she smiled and said "I love Sonic". Beating the game is almost secondary to having fun with the aesthetics and level design, even when they are a bit uneven. This game has definitely made its mark on my family's life and I cannot bring down the hammer on its massively glaring flaws as hard as I probably should, but that's ok. I love Sonic.
Well, she bought another Genesis at a garage sale to give to me because she didn't have her own anymore. Why you may wonder? In a time before saving was commonplace in gaming, any time she would get to Labyrinth Zone she would not turn the console off for days or even weeks at a time so when she had time to play the game again after work or whatever she could pick back up and not have to play through the first three stages of the game like usual. Apparently this was not good for the system and the cartridge actually melted inside of it, rendering both the game and console unusable. Because of this when I got my first console, the Playstation 2, she made sure to give me plenty of extra memory cards with it because she just thought they were phenomenal inventions.
I guess this sorta speaks to both of our desires for save states. I commend her for getting as far as she did, in terms of the soundtrack the only one she didn't recognize was the Scrap Brain Zone and Final Zone meaning she never beat the game and this was likely because of the all or nothing nature of the level design, but she crushed it back in the day in my opinion. Even with save states, I struggle to get more than one or two chaos emeralds due to the randomness of the Special Zones which is really a shame because I put in a ton of work and effort to beat this game only to be shown a "Try Again" screen that I will probably always see when I go back to beat this game again. Even with save states, this game just is not as fluid or water-tight as it really should be, despite its fantastic sprite-work and soundtrack.
I do quite enjoy this game though, even if it is just replaying the first few levels because I really do think they are that fun. Clearly my mom thinks so as well because when she saw me playing this game she smiled and said "I love Sonic". Beating the game is almost secondary to having fun with the aesthetics and level design, even when they are a bit uneven. This game has definitely made its mark on my family's life and I cannot bring down the hammer on its massively glaring flaws as hard as I probably should, but that's ok. I love Sonic.
2 Comments
she is pretty cool, thanks for the comment!!
FallenGrace
1 year ago