Its incomplete, so I'll be lenient; its an alright educational game with Sonic in it. You answer math or spelling questions racing against animals. Theres quite a bit to do, and the games sprites are decent enough for an 8 bit game. Its very repetitive with not much in terms of progression, you basically just do the same thing over and over, although again this may be in part to the fact its incomplete. It does offer a bunch of difficulty options, so thats neat I guess. But yeah, not really worth playing for any reason nowadays at all.

Its funny how one of the worst Sonic games ever made released the same year the blue guy was conceived. For the longest time I thought this was just an unreleased prototype, but no this game was actually released, and it sucks.

The aesthetics are a mish mash of random generic crap, the music is some of the worst stuff the console has to offer, and the gameplay starts off fine, until you get hit by your opponent and literally just can't do anything but pray, as it randomises your pieces and limits your movement for a few seconds, oh what fun! Even sonics sprites look messed up, although it is funny when the sonic clone runs up to the other sonic clone and just punches him in the gut for no reason.

Its bad.

The improvements to the physics make this game much easier to play, although the vastly improved controls do make the relatively simpler platforming segments feel a bit lackluster as they were obviously designed with the more finicky controls in mind.

The entire games colours are much more vibrant, which looks distinct from the original, but good in its own way. The new levels are OK, they do standout as obviously seperate from the orginals, but they look brilliant even if the level design is a tad hit or miss.

The new characters are cool, although I did stick with Sonic for most of my playtime.

One thing I did find very strange is the way they changed collecting the chaos emeralds, reverting the game to have a special stage system similiar to the 16bit version. I was never crazy about needing to find the emeralds in the original version, but it was something unique to this game, and was quite satisfying once you had figured out the spots they were hiding in, so I find it very odd they stripped that away from this remake for a more boring traditional system.

If you want an easier time, this is the way to go, but it is honestly different enough from the original where I wouldn't say its an immediate replacement.

This game is more a traditional platformer than its 16-bit counterpart, however it still brings a feeling of speed to the table unlike many other 8-bit games. The controls are a bit wonky especially when jumping around but for the most part the platforming is understanding of this. The level design is pretty good, the levels are short sweet romps that allow you to rather easily breeze through them, although the weird jump often prevents me from having the balls to try much. Although why they decided adding AUTOSCROLLING levels to a SONIC GAME was a good idea, I will never understand.

The bosses in this game are quite poor, unlike the 16 bit version, these bosses are promoted from an end of level challenge to take away your rings, to a full on level within themselves. So, how do we design around this? As the original boss design was made to be quick and simple if you forfeit your rings or time, but here there is no prior level to build up rings nor time. Well, they decided to keep the boss design the same, but to remove all rings to mandate that you play carefully, masterfully, or die. This change rules out your ability to forfeit your rings to blast through the boss, which some may praise as now the boss is "harder" but it simultaneously makes it so for the most part I'm not even going to try to do anything cool or satisfying, im just going to slowly make sure I cautiously get each hit in as to not die, especially considering wonky hitboxes and jump controls. In theory if you learn the boss you can approach them the same as in any other sonic game, but the immense punishment is to much, and this is not a spectacular solution to the issue they were presented with in the desire to draw out the bosses. Conveniently however most of the bosses are complete pushovers anyway, I assume due to the fact that they were aware how frustrating this new design philosophy would be with a boss that took any amount of brain power, but again while being A solution to the problem created, its not exactly a great one as now the bosses are either annoying (because you die at the touch) or boring (because theyre mind numbingly easy), and even with the mind numbingly easy bosses, they still end up taking awhile, because Im too much of a pussy to actually go full ham on them incase one misinput is gonna kill me and mandate I start this easy and boring boss from the start.

The music is brilliant, I love how we got a wholly unique soundtrack rather than simply a worse version of the 16 bit tracks. The graphics are also stunning for the hardware, dare I say some levels may even stylistically look BETTER than there 8 bit counterparts? Specifically Labyrinth Zone.

Incredibly fun, simple arcade game. The way everything is maintained to one screen however the camera follows the character makes the scope of the levels feel much larger while allowing you to still understand and perceive all the necessary elements of the map at once. The simple intermission bonus game helps divvy up the levels and also serves as a helping hand in gaining points or lives when you're desperate, its a nice booster to have between levels.

The sprites are quite good looking for the era especially with the rotating appearance of the level themes. The music can be a little grating after awhile but its still catchy, as are all the jingles.

Sonic 1 is near perfection. Many people scold this game for its emphasis on platforming and lack of speed, although I would like to think if you're reading this you are already aware of the most obvious rebuttal to that complaint: speed is not something merely handed to you in these games; it serves as a reward for your aptitude towards the level design. Rather than death, you are often faced with time loss as a punishment, so on replay, you are greatly rewarded with a smooth flow state as you improve, allowing you to breeze through the levels. The momentum physics of Sonic are truly amazing to utilize, and the lack of a spin dash makes it all the more satisfying when you truly nail the levels and zip right through them, hopping into loops and curves to maintain that speed and blasting to the finish. For the most part, this design aspiration I just laid out is met expertly. Almost every level does this really, really well (yes, even some of the more maligned levels such as Marble, Labyrinth, and Scrap Brain). However, there are some head-scratcher moments in a few of these zones that mandate you come to a complete halt for seemingly no reason. Examples that come to mind are the moving blocks in Spring Yard and lava sections in Marble. What's even more baffling about the sections in Marble Zone is that some of those sections actually do allow for nimble movement across them, skipping the waiting, while others do in fact have no other solution than standing around, but these moments are rare.

The boss design is excellent. None of the bosses are slogs that mandate you waste any time. If you want to wait it out, play it safe, and maintain those rings, go right ahead. If you don't care for your rings as you've already lost them, go ahead and blast through it without a care, and in doing so, you'll hopefully recover enough time to make up for some of that ring loss with a time bonus. And if you're really skilled, you can blast through the boss, take all those risks, and secure the time bonus while also keeping your ring bonus. The only boss that breaks this design philosophy is, well, the final boss, as it's designed as a finale to the game and a level within itself rather than an end-of-level challenge. It works alright, nothing mind-blowing, but it isn't too long, nor too easy or frustrating.

The special stages are not great, they are often frustrating and feel like a gambit even after you have learned their layouts and how they work. They aren't ball bustlingly frustrating or anything but upon beating the harder ones it never feels like a triumph over a challenge, its usually more a sigh of relief that some bullshit bumper didn't knock you right into a goal. They're honestly fine, but nothing to write home about, they are not worth worrying about getting on repeat playthroughs in my opinion.

The music is top-notch, along with beautiful graphics. The way the story is portrayed through the industrialization and time shifts through the day is genius (although somewhat undermined by the movement of Labyrinth, although the construction of Scrap Brain above it somewhat makes up for it).

There are sparse platformers or games in general that scratch the exact itch that Sonic The Hedgehog started with this game. There are indie-inspired titles and clones, ala Freedom Planet or Socket respectively, but these games are only similar to Sonic on a surface level. I dare say no game franchise or clone has ever gotten even remotely close to replicating the feel and flow of 2D Sonic, as it's a hard thing to even set out to do due to its somewhat controversial nature if even a single misstep is made.

As I mentioned, the main criticism of this game is the lack of instant gratification. This is something Sonic 2 sought to correct (and somewhat overcorrected). However, I feel it primarily comes from a mindset of people who seek a game to be played one time, then put down. If that's how you wish to play games, that's fantastic. However, this game is one clearly designed to be played to mastery, and I don't mean literally min-maxing every detail, but for the player to play each level over and over, gradually improving. The fundamental inspiration of Sonic was that feeling of running through 1-1 in Mario over and over, trying to get through as fast as possible, and that is the gameplay loop of Sonic. Do not mistake this as me forgiving the poor level design and stating, "You just need to learn it." No, it's more so that the level punishes you for playing poorly with time loss and suboptimal routes. So if you wish to even begin to experience the game as intended, it is paramount that you play the levels multiple times over or enter the game with an already exceedingly high capability at playing the game. This can understandably be off-putting for some, but for others such as myself, it creates a truly captivating game that can be replayed infinitely.