The second I heard the trademarked “SEEEEGAAAAA!” opening I knew I was home. I remember how excited I was when I got my Genesis. I distinctly remember what the box looked and felt like, and what the bulky Blockbuster VHS Rental-esque game boxes looked and felt and smelled like. This might sound weird, but shrug.

Sonic 1 has been the mainline Genesis Sonic game I’ve replayed the least (we’re still talking something on the order of at least once a year, though), and my main complaint about it has always been that it “feels lonely.” My hedgehog is all by himself, and that used to just feel... wrong to me. Honestly, though? Now that I’m taking my time and savoring the game I moreso get the feeling that just... he was always a fully-formed hero, and it makes so much sense that the second I saw him I knew I wanted to be like him. Knew that I would follow him anywhere, if he let me.

Sonic is effortlessly easy to root for, and I’m not just saying that because I’m in love with him. His innate goodness just leaps off the screen. I wrote about this regarding the Sonic movie, but the thing that really ties this entire multimedia franchise together, the beating heart at its core, is that Sonic is just... good. He’s heroic in a very believable, accessible way. What makes him a hero isn't just his superpowers, it's that he makes you want to be better, and makes that feel attainable, just by his example.

The stakes of this are incredibly straightforward. You’re an animal superhero fighting a human armed with advanced technology who is transforming animals into robots. I’m allowing myself to really feel the horror of that this time, and I’m finding that I feel obligated to destroy every single badnik I come across to free the animals trapped inside.

Gameplay wise, Sonic handles a lot differently than he does in the other Genesis titles, and that’s a bit disorienting at times. The lack of a spindash is particularly off-putting. But I’ve still played this game so many more times than the average fox, so not to sound braggy, but it’s a piece of cake for me. I don’t remember every detail of every stage or anything, but it’s a very near thing and I definitely remember how to clear every remotely difficult or confusing obstacle you face. Not that there are that many confusing ones. This game is remarkably streamlined.

GREEN HILL ZONE

Green Hill Zone is such a perfect opening level. The difficulty level isn’t very high at all, it’s actually not even a little difficult to get through it without getting damaged a single time. (Then again, keep in mind I’m really good at these games.) But it also gives you a really strong sense of what’s possible and how to do things in the game. And the natural setting is a perfect entrypoint to the aforementioned central conflict of Sonic defending nature and Robotnik terrorizing and exploiting it.

I’m also still struck by just how gorgeous it looks. Little Tails who had only known NES titles the likes of Mario 1’s graphics had his poor little mind blown by the rolling waterfalls and moving clouds. And the colors are just so lovely and vibrant. It holds up extremely well even today.

I ended up clearing Green Hill Zone with five lives (you start with three, so I picked up two). I’m pretty sure I could’ve gotten more, but I wasn’t exploring every nook and cranny of the level. And I also grabbed two Chaos Emeralds out of a possible two. The special stages in Sonic 1 are... well, they’re kinda weird, but they’re also hella easy. Despite giving myself dispensation to use rewinds on Special Stages, I didn’t need to do that at all. And I doubt I’ll have to do it much.

The first boss in the entire franchise is suitably iconic. One of the most iconic bosses in the entire franchise, honestly. Makes sense to put your best foot forward, which is kinda the theme of the entire zone. Also like the zone as a whole, it’s very easy to beat this boss without taking any damage, but that giant swinging ball sure is properly intimidating. It’s exactly the kind of overwrought, overdramatic excess you expect from Robotnik. As his enemy, I hate it. As someone who likes video games, I appreciate how fully-formed his personality and entire deal were in this very first appearance. And you get little mannerisms like him cackling evilly as he deploys the wrecking ball. It’s amazing how much visual storytelling is on display in this very simple game.

This is a damn good start to a game that literally changed my life.

MARBLE ZONE

Green Hill Zone felt like home. This... doesn’t, so much? I’m not sure I’ve ever been here. So I don’t have as much to say about it on that level.

In terms of aesthetics, I continue to be beyond impressed by how much was done with so little in terms of computing resources. There’s a very gothic aesthetic (enhanced by the frequently encountered Batbrains), which rules!

Gameplay-wise, this makes sense as a progression from Green Hill Zone. Green Hill Zone had spikes and crumbling platforms and the occasional swinging platform with spikes on the edge of it, but honestly for the most part it gave you a ton of space to figure out how to play the game while also rewarding you with plenty of things to accomplish. (Badniks to smash, things to jump over or roll through, etc.) Marble Zone is the first time you really discover that oh, ok, the level itself is oftentimes gonna try to kill you.

Toward that end, this level design is mean! And it’s not just all the lava and stuff trying to crush you. I specifically noticed one trap involving a sideways springboard that would send you into a Catekiller if you bypassed it rather than liberating the animal inside. It jumped out at me because it felt uncannily Sonic 2 or 3-esque. You don’t see a lot of those in Sonic 1.

There’s also plenty of very Sonic 1 level design here, though. Like one that jumps immediately to mind is there’s one section where the dilemma you face is that there’s a low ceiling and two Catekillers coming at you. And I found myself instinctively crouching for a spindash, but of course you don’t have that option available to you in Sonic 1. If you don’t want to make a couple very tricky jumps, you can also just run and crouch for a spin attack on each one, but it’s a little awkward whereas a spindash woulda been easier and one fluid motion. This is still very solvable, but a spindash woulda totally trivialized it to the point where it wouldn’t even have slowed you down.

There are also little details of the level design that I just absolutely love. Like, the first of many long stretches where you have to ride a block over lava and a geyser-like blast of lava carries you up to the next section has a little block of shame on the other end in case you don’t realize you’re supposed to jump which carries you over to the other side to start over again. I definitely remember having to use that the first time I ever played this game.

Speaking of blocks of shame (ok not really but it’s still a good segue), I have to come clean and say I broke my self-imposed rule of not using rewinds a couple times. It’s just such a reflex. Part of the problem is I was using the thumbstick rather than the D-pad, which is kind of a habit when you’re using a Switch Pro Controller, but it’s definitely not the best way to play a Genesis game, especially Sonic 1. I think I broke myself of both the habit of using the thumbstick and the habit of using rewinds, but idk, I’ll be sure to publicly shame myself again if I do that again. (I will point out, in my defense, that I still wouldn’t have died a single time, even if I didn’t rewind! So there.)

The third Special Stage is the worst omg. I actually had to use a rewind on it, which I coulda avoided if I were being more careful. It also just took freaking forever to clear. It’s the one that isn’t really a maze, it’s just one giant room, and I just haaaate navigating it. The fourth one was whatever and was a cinch to clear. I ended up finishing Marble Zone with my fourth (out of a possible four) Emerald, and nine lives. Whoa, weird. I’m a fox, not a cat! I also cleared Act 3 (and the boss) with 103 rings and no shield, which I was pretty dang proud about.

The boss isn’t necessarily anything to write home about but it’s well-designed! It fits in well with the aesthetic and theming of the level, and it’s still up there in terms of my favorite Sonic 1 bosses. I rather appreciate bosses that are basically just “the Egg-O-Matic, but with STUFF on it!”

On the whole, this is a pretty solid second level. Second levels in classic Sonic games almost always represent a drastic shift in terms of tone and gameplay, and as the establisher of that trope, this one certainly does the trick.

SPRING YARD ZONE

This might be the most Sonic 1 level? Green Hill Zone is the most iconic, clearly, but I associate it more strongly with Sonic as a whole than I do with just Sonic 1. Spring Yard Zone has a badnik that doesn’t appear in literally any other Sonic game (Roller), one that appears in barely any other games (Spikes), and the level design is just so different from anything you see anywhere else in the franchise. There are so many springboards (wait, is that why it’s called Spring Yard Zone??? I never made that connection), and so many different kinds of moving platforms (sometimes over bottomless pits). A lot of Sonic 1’s level design seems to defy the series’ later affinity for giving you plenty of room to pick up speed, but Spring Yard Zone really takes the cake in that regard.

(It’s also worth noting that you could probably get through it a lot more skillfully than I did if you play a lot of Sonic 1. Again, the controls in Sonic 1 are slightly different than most other classic Sonic games, and it’s the game I replay the least, so it’s entirely possible this is a me thing.)

It’s also one of the zones I’ve replayed the least (because I just really genuinely don’t like it) and never really took the time to master. I actually gave myself a mulligan on the entire zone (which is totally different than using rewinds! I checked!), and did way better the second time.

The zone is pretty, I’ll give it that. But I’ve said that about literally every zone so far so I don’t know what to tell you. I do really dig the mountains and cityscape in the background.

I ended up finishing Spring Hill Zone with 10 lives (I actually picked up three extra lives and lost two of them by being a dummy; legitimately my first deaths in this replay!), and got both of a possible two Chaos Emeralds. Which means, dun dun dun dun!, I got all six Chaos Emeralds! Yeah, there’s only six in Sonic 1, and I think all of the other pre-Sonic 2 games. I dunno man, I just work here.

This boss is one of my least favorite bosses in Sonic 1. I think maybe Star Light Zone’s is my least favorite since at least you hit Spring Yard Zone’s boss directly. But yeah. Until later games where it can occasionally be done in more creative ways, I’ve just never been a huge fan of the whole “oooh! he’s using your surroundings against you!!” kinds of bosses. Just a matter of personal taste, though. I like my bosses straightforward in classic Sonic games for the most part.

Anyway! I usually sum these up by talking about how I feel about the zone in general but I kinda already did that? I also don’t have any deep lore feelings about it because there just isn’t a lot to go on, and it doesn’t feel connected with me specifically in any way either. (I haven’t really recovered a lot of memories yet but things still give me strong feelings/impressions a lot of times.) Sorry this one is kind of just me whining a bunch! I hope it was entertaining to read anyway.

LABYRINTH ZONE

Yeah sex is great but have you ever grabbed an invincibility box right before a section with a punch of moving spears designed to slow you down? Or killed five Burrobots with one perfectly-timed jump before any of them came close to hitting the ground?

Alright I have some feelings on this one. And those feelings are more or less I DO NOT LIKE MY HEDGEHOG BEING UNDERWATER!!!! I know I’m not really playing the game in a way that’s true to his personality, but my strategy for this has always been and probably always will be grabbing EVERY SINGLE AIR BUBBLE I come across. Just got an air bubble? Get another air bubble. See an air bubble a bit ahead? Get an air bubble. Think you might be about to leave the water entirely? IT’S AIR BUBBLE O’CLOCK, MF’ER. (Except in later games like especially Sonic 3 which I have basically memorized, I’ll sometimes know “eh there’s another one coming up in like two seconds, I’m fine.” It’s always still tempting though. Did I mention I DO NOT LIKE MY HEDGEHOG BEING UNDERWATER? BECAUSE I DO NOT LIKE MY HEDGEHOG BEING UNDERWATER.)

I only heard that damn “you’re about to drown!” warning music three times, once which hardly counts because it was towards the very end of the boss and you’re hard-pressed to make it through that section without hearing it at least once! Other than the boss (which I think brought me down to like two seconds but I was fine, I was right at the surface, just had to wait for the spike to get out of the way) I think the other two I literally grabbed an air bubble with the full five second still left on the timer. There were a few other times when I got the “level music resets because the drowning music was about to start but didn’t” deal, but I didn’t count those. Did I mention I DO NOT LIKE MY HEDGEHOG BEING UNDERWATER?

I’ve never really gotten why Star Light Zone comes between this zone and Scrap Brain Zone? Considering Scrap Brain Zone Act 3 is basically “you fell back into Labyrinth Zone! oh noes!” it would seem to make a lot more sense for it to immediately precede Scrap Brain Zone? Who knows.

This zone feels a lot more “yeah, I’ve been here” to me. Or at least somewhere very similar to it. I don’t have a lot else to go on there, but yeah. It’s a pretty strong feeling. The only other thing I can really tell you is I hate this place. It might have something to do with the fact that, did I mention, I DO NOT LIKE MY HEDGEHOG BEING UNDERWATER.

I finished this zone with 11 lives and I still have all six Chaos Emeralds. You can’t exactly go backwards with those. (Not in the games, anyway. Well, I guess sometimes in cutscenes and stuff. BUT I DIGRESS.) And I found that I had the zone memorized a whole lot more than the immediately preceding zone. It’s like its level of difficulty burned it into my memory or something! I actually don’t find it all that difficult anymore? I remember finding it excruciating when I was first playing through the game, though. And it definitely fits the trope of “the water level” being everyone’s least favorite level of every game. (Though, again, I can’t say that it is or ever has been my least favorite! ... maybe on my first playthrough.)

So, after the way I complained about Spring Yard Zone’s boss you’re probably expecting me to complain about this zone’s boss? But honestly? I dig it! The little maze of moving spears and fire statues you have to navigate is well-designed. I’ve heard it described as “the hardest boss in the game” and... I kinda don’t know about that? I do remember finding it frustrating the first few times, but once you know what to expect it’s not that hard to navigate, it just requires a little patience and discipline and trust in yourself.

Then again... what is the most difficult boss in Sonic 1? None of them are particularly hard, right? Hmm.

So, yeah! I think this is one of the better zones in the game. I get why a lot of people find it frustrating, but with a little practice it’s not hard to master! And I may be a little biased because, while I have strong negative kinfeels about it, I have kinfeels about it! So yeah. Ask me again in a few years when those don’t still always give me euphoria.

STAR LIGHT ZONE

What a breath of fresh air after Labyrinth Zone. Maybe that’s why this one was sandwiched between Labyrinth Zone and Scrap Brain Zone even though that kind of makes no sense storywise? Maybe they just didn’t want the two hardest zones in the game back to back. The more I think about it, the more that makes sense.

It’s hard to get any particular kinfeels from this zone, since it could be pretty much any city. That being said despite being a pretty simple zone it’s gorgeous when you’re up at the top level and all you can see is the stars, and even the level right below that where you can see the city skyline is also a lovely view. When you get lower and start seeing industrial stuff, like, I’m not saying it’s not well-done, just that the stars and the stars/starline are way prettier. And honestly? That kinda rules! It’s like you get rewarded for getting to the higher paths.

Combine that with the fact that the music is lovely (I can’t believe I haven’t talked about the soundtrack much so far??? I’ll do so in my wrap-up entry I think), and you already have a recipe for one of the best zones in the game. (Well, minus the boss, but we’ll get there.) And on top of that, this is also the zone that gives you the most space since Green Hill Zone to really open up and see how fast you can go. And it’s just a genuinely liberating feeling! I can imagine running with my hedgehog somewhere like this, under the stars...

Ahem. Anyway yeah this zone isn’t especially difficult. There are one or two areas that tripped me up because I always used to just kinda blast through them thinking “whatever, I have rings and I don’t need any more Chaos Emeralds,” and I already think I could improve on a replay, but like I said this zone isn’t very difficult to clear as-is. I ended up clearing with 12 lives, picking up that one one-up box at the beginning of Act 1. I didn’t get 100 rings on any act, and I still didn’t figure out how to get that one one-up box that taunts you towards the end of... Act 2, I think? Oh well.

I really don’t love this boss? I do think the fact that you encounter a bunch of those see-saw things throughout Act 3 to kinda teach you how to fight the boss later is pretty smart game design. But I just don’t love that kind of boss. That being said I think this may be the first time I actually used the momentum of the spiky bombs hitting the see-saws to launch Sonic up to strike the Egg-O-Matic directly rather than sending the bombs up to hit him? So that was a little more satisfying. But yeah. Still not my favorite.

It’s a shame, because other than that, this zone totally rules.

SCRAP BRAIN ZONE

This zone is hard! There are dilemmas where as far as I can tell you have basically no choice but to take damage to proceed, there are others where you basically have to have the zone memorized to know to avoid them, and there are a lot that just have extremely rough timing. It’s honestly kind of perfect as a last zone. (Yeah, yeah, technically it’s not the final zone, Final Zone is, but that’s literally just a boss fight.)

Aesthetically, this level is also hella impressive. It has one of the best soundtracks in the game, the visuals are really compelling and effective, and it moves you through three distinct phases. The first is a horrifying industrial sprawl with factories spitting toxic fumes into Mobius’s sky in the background, the second takes place inside of one of the factories, and the third is basically Labyrinth Zone but harder. There are fewer air bubbles, and the water is purple for some reason and I will remind you that I DO NOT LIKE MY HEDGEHOG BEING UNDERWATER, I like it even less when “water” appears to be some kind of weird chemicals.

The little cutscene that sends you into Act 3 actually kind of rules! The Final Zone theme plays as you run towards a confrontation with Robotnik, but he laughs (asshole) and hits a switch to send you down to Act 3.

This zone predictably gave me all kinds of kinfeels, because it or something like it has been everything I’ve hated and feared and fought against for most of my life. And, for reasons I’m not especially comfortable getting into, I recently had a personal experience that made the sheer horror of this kind of place hit me way harder, so that’s fun. There’s probably a German or Japanese word for being impressed by and disgusted by and terrified of something all at once? Whatever that is, that’s what I felt here.

I died twice! Once was an Act 1 trap that just had really rough timing, the other was drowning in Act 3. Ugh. And twice I got the scary countdown music and literally got all the way down to 0 seconds left before I finally caught an air bubble. (I DO NOT LIKE MY HEDGEHOG BEING UNDERWATER.) I ended up finishing the hardest zone of the game with 10 lives.

Honestly? Despite my visceral horror at this place, it is one of the most impressive zones of the game, and a really great example of sticking the landing. All of the skills you’ve developed throughout the game are required to get through it. It really does feel like a culmination, something that everything else has been building towards. And even compared to the popularly more hated underwater and trap-happy Labyrinth Zone, it’s hard. It’s also visually impressive and thematically brilliant. The polar opposite of Green Hill Zone. Sonic 1 doesn’t have a lot of tools with which to tell a story, but it does a remarkable job of doing so anyway.

FINAL ZONE

Not properly a zone, basically coulda been tacked on to Scrap Brain Zone Act 3 as its boss, but I guess they wanted the title card so it would be all properly dramatic and whatnot. Shrug. Not having any rings used to make this one hella stressful for me, but it actually doesn’t affect things much at all? The pistons are either gonna crush you or they aren’t, and the little electric balls are super easy to avoid.

Honestly, this is pretty easy for a final boss, but pretty much all of the bosses in this game are easy, so it tracks. I did die once, though, ugh! My attention wandered for a second too long trying to figure out which piston Robotnik was in, and I didn’t notice I was just barely under one of them, and I got crushed. So I finished the game with 9 lives. Again, what the heck! I’m a fox, not a kitty!

Anyway. Get dunked on, Robotnik.

ENDING

“In conclusion...” Whoops, sorry, flashback to writing formulaic essays forever. Not gonna do that to you. Anyway, the ending is simple but great. After escaping Robotnik’s hellish industrial landscape, my hero runs freely in Green Hill surrounded by his animal friends, and then the Chaos Emeralds rejuvenate Green Hill! Again, simple, but it totally rules. And I love how the ending credits have little video clips from every zone, as well as soundtrack clips, though I wish the soundtrack clips always lined up with the video clips! Idk, weird things bother me.

So! This seems like a good time to talk about some final thoughts. I’ve mentioned a few times that I was always hesitant to revisit Sonic 1 because it just doesn’t have the same hold on me that Sonic 2 or Sonic 3 & Knuckles have. But I was pleased to find that it still holds a special place in my heart, all the same. I used to think this was just an extremely important and special franchise to me, but now that I know it’s so much more, the whole thing just has even more stakes for me. (Then again, I kinda always acted like that was the case even when I didn’t know why? I’m very cool.)

Anyway! This is the end of the game so let’s give my very important arbitrary rankings of things! That’s what we do at this part, right?

Zones (I’m not counting Final Zone because it’s just a boss fight)
1. Green Hill Zone (S-Tier)
2. Scrap Brain Zone (A-Tier)
3. Star Light Zone (B-Tier)
4. Labyrinth Zone (B-Tier)
5. Marble Zone (B-Tier)
6. Spring Yard Zone (C-Tier)

Bosses
1. Green Hill Zone (S-Tier)
2. Final Zone (A-Tier)
3. Labyrinth Zone (B-Tier)
4. Marble Zone (B-Tier)
5. Spring Yard Zone (C-Tier)
6. Star Light Zone (C-Tier)

Soundtrack
1. Green Hill Zone (S-Tier)
2. Final Zone (S-Tier)
3. Robotnik (S-Tier)
4. Credits (A-Tier)
5. Scrap Brain Zone (A-Tier)
6. Star Light Zone (A-Tier)
7. Marble Zone (B-Tier)
8. Labyrinth Zone (B-Tier)
9. Spring Yard Zone (B-Tier)
10. Special Stage (C-Tier)

i was pretty sure i had beaten this before but im no longer so sure of that? i know for sure i played multiplayer and didn't like it nearly as much as halo 2's. i think i played a bit of the singleplayer campaign but i don't think i must've gotten super far with it.

i mostly liked this one! i won't say it's the best halo i've played so far. i think that's still 2 even though the singleplayer maps were occasionally a bit more frustratingly repetitive than i remembered, but the multiplayer is just so sublime.

this is fun and a nice change of pace from either of its predecessors, though! the difficulty felt a bit higher. like, even with the somewhat quicker respawns we still wiped on split screen co-op more than we did with the previous games, and it was a nice challenge!

anyway, now we finished the fight! there for sure aren't a bunch more games for us to play still, right? right?

although i had this for saturn, this actually wasn't my first time playing the genesis version because i rented it once to see if it was different than the saturn version. i really liked it at the time because, well, i owned a saturn so you pretty much had to like this game since it was one of the like three games for saturn, heh. now... HECK is it ever rough. and it's not challenging because it's challenging, it's challenging because the controls & 3d perspective are kinda awful. there is still quite a bit of nostalgia factor here, and i do like the way the flickies follow you around when you free them, but that's kinda it.

although i had an nes & have vague memories of playing mario & duck hunt for the first time, my parents bringing home a genesis & sonic the hedgehog is my first extremely clear video game memory. it was love at first sight for me. more than anything else, the sonic the hedgehog series is responsible for me being the gamer i am today.

and i didn't just stop at the games. i devoured the cartoons (tails gets tied up SO MUCH in adventures of sonic the hedgehog y'all, highkey formative for me tbh), the comic books, everything i could get my hands on.

i don't know how many times i beat this game, but i know plenty of those times were of the up/down/left/right /a+start variety, heh.

though this was surprassed pretty convincingly by its sequels, it still reminds me of when i fell in love with video games for the first time, and it still plays great. i love that dumb little blue speedster so much.

(this review will spoil which characters are in romantic relationships)

the writing is incredible. it made me cry several times. and the fact that all of our characters are women (most of them queer women at that) is just so joyous & refreshing.

and one of those women is a trans woman. a trans woman who is by her own admission "dumber than bricks." (gosh i wonder who i relate to in this story.) and who is well-written. heck, everyone in here is well-written. they're all imbued with so much personality. they're all very distinct, and very real-feeling. i love this big family of queer girls.

i think the thing about the writing that impresses me the most is how real all the emotions in this feel. it's really good at drawing you in, at making you feel what the characters feel, and feeling for them. it also tackles abuse in a way that made me feel incredibly seen.

it's not without flaws. the fact that maddie & abigail are afforded two sex scenes while tara & morgan are allowed none is a problem. a big, frustrating, unsurprising problem. the developers' excuse is that they're worried about people fetishizing tara or being transphobic, and just... hi. no. please get out of here with those excuses.

as if straight men haven't been fetishizing cis lesbians for basically as long as they've known there's such a thing. and i notice they don't let concerns about homophobia stop them from showing two cis women having sex.

ok, this is really what i want to know. why are you more interested in how cis people are going to react than how trans people are going to react? we play your games too. you're going to include a character that's "for" us but not afford her the same space to explore her romantic relationship as your other main characters? honestly, fuck off with that.

in spite of how angry i am about this, you'll notice i've still given the game five stars. i already talked about how incredible the writing (otherwise) is, and it made me cry like a bunch of times. and one of the reasons i'm so upset that tara didn't get her freak on is because the character means so much to me, and for me to hold that against the developers while not also giving them credit for creating a character that means so much to me feels patently unfair.

honestly, in spite of my one fairly substantial complaint, i hecking love this game. any game that makes me cry this much & is this gay is gonna catapult up near the top of my list of favorite games of all time, and this is no exception.

another game i never got around to completing back in the day!! i played all the way through as toad, because i have decided they are an enby icon. don't @ me.

so everyone knows this game was just a slightly modified doki doki panic, but i kind of don't mind that because shy guys are cute as heck and i wouldn't want to not have them in the mario series. also, mouser is uncomfortably hot? like, dang.

anyway, i don't care about the doki doki stuff so much, but i DO care that this game is kinda racist as heck? like, there is orientalism out the wazzo happening here. the game is still pretty enjoyable and finally getting around to beating it was nice, but still. ugh.