This was one of my first games as a kid and the first game I beat (only thanks to level select, shhh), so I decided to go back and try to beat it legitimately this time. Did it hold up to my childhood memories? Kinda.
The graphics were fantastic for their time, and the art style/aesthetics of each level were great. If I put myself back in the shoes of my kid self in 1991, the game was quite the spectacle to play through.
The core of the gameplay, though, was rather flawed. Every great action game has a certain core mechanic that it builds the game around (as a quick example, Bionic Commando and the character's inability to jump). Sonic's core mechanic is ostensibly its blazing speed, but 'speed' alone is very difficult to build a game around. The issue lies in the challenge. Green Hill Zone is rightly considered one of the most iconic levels in gaming, because of its wide open spaces, multiple paths, loop-de-loops and terrain that allows you to build up speed easily. But of course, if the entire game was Green Hill Zone eight times over it would be braindead easy! So of course some challenge has to be added to the game...but if the challenge isn't implemented just right, then gamers will move slowly and tentatively and the game's core mechanic is no more.
I didn't quite like the implementation of the difficulty; much of the later stages feel like a prototype of a Cat Mario level in which traps are placed exactly where you will jump. Many of the hazards (for example, fans in Starlight Zone that blow you directly into an enemy or torrents in Labyrinth Zone that wash you away while you're waiting for air bubbles) are placed just offscreen so you have no way to react to them, or are plain difficult to see (grey spiked balls swinging against grey backgrounds) so that getting hit by them feels like the game is cheap rather than it being your fault. Hindsight is 20/20 but if could make a change to the game without altering the difficulty I would either make the camera more zoomed out so I would have more time to see and react to hazards, or would make Sonic's controls tighter and less slippery.
Another way the game literally hamstrings itself is by making you wait. Outside of the Green Hill Zone, every stage has a hazard that necessitates waiting - the crushers in the Marble Zone, the slow-moving spiked balls in Scrap Yard, etc. The Labyrinth Zone drops all pretense and just sticks you underwater for half of it slowing down your movements. These wouldn't be out of place in a more deliberate platformer, but not in Sonic.
I enjoyed going on the grand tour of all the different stages, seeing how differently they were designed and experiencing the different gimmicks they had to offer. But rather ironically, the further I got and the more interesting the designs and gimmicks became, the slower I was forced to play and the less it felt like a Sonic game.
The graphics were fantastic for their time, and the art style/aesthetics of each level were great. If I put myself back in the shoes of my kid self in 1991, the game was quite the spectacle to play through.
The core of the gameplay, though, was rather flawed. Every great action game has a certain core mechanic that it builds the game around (as a quick example, Bionic Commando and the character's inability to jump). Sonic's core mechanic is ostensibly its blazing speed, but 'speed' alone is very difficult to build a game around. The issue lies in the challenge. Green Hill Zone is rightly considered one of the most iconic levels in gaming, because of its wide open spaces, multiple paths, loop-de-loops and terrain that allows you to build up speed easily. But of course, if the entire game was Green Hill Zone eight times over it would be braindead easy! So of course some challenge has to be added to the game...but if the challenge isn't implemented just right, then gamers will move slowly and tentatively and the game's core mechanic is no more.
I didn't quite like the implementation of the difficulty; much of the later stages feel like a prototype of a Cat Mario level in which traps are placed exactly where you will jump. Many of the hazards (for example, fans in Starlight Zone that blow you directly into an enemy or torrents in Labyrinth Zone that wash you away while you're waiting for air bubbles) are placed just offscreen so you have no way to react to them, or are plain difficult to see (grey spiked balls swinging against grey backgrounds) so that getting hit by them feels like the game is cheap rather than it being your fault. Hindsight is 20/20 but if could make a change to the game without altering the difficulty I would either make the camera more zoomed out so I would have more time to see and react to hazards, or would make Sonic's controls tighter and less slippery.
Another way the game literally hamstrings itself is by making you wait. Outside of the Green Hill Zone, every stage has a hazard that necessitates waiting - the crushers in the Marble Zone, the slow-moving spiked balls in Scrap Yard, etc. The Labyrinth Zone drops all pretense and just sticks you underwater for half of it slowing down your movements. These wouldn't be out of place in a more deliberate platformer, but not in Sonic.
I enjoyed going on the grand tour of all the different stages, seeing how differently they were designed and experiencing the different gimmicks they had to offer. But rather ironically, the further I got and the more interesting the designs and gimmicks became, the slower I was forced to play and the less it felt like a Sonic game.