Hey I'm Derek, it's me Derek, and welcome to our very first Sonic the Hedgehog video! [cheering]
Hey I'm Derek, it's me Derek, and welcome to our very first Sonic the Hedgehog video! I've never covered Sonic before on this channel, even though I own a stupid amount of Sonic the Hedgehog games, and that's not even counting all the times I own Sonic the Hedgehog 1, technically, just the first one! Saturn, Dreamcast, PSP, PS2, Xbox 360, Genesis... Genesis... Genesis... Master System, I guess, technically? Switch, 3DS, I got it on my phone too! When Sonic the Hedgehog hit the scene, it single-handedly changed the landscape of video games, and I'm not just talking about the character! This game itself was relevatory! It didn't release until the summer of 1991, a year and a half into the decade, but this was the moment that the nineties really started for video games. The console wars! The mascot craze! The Attitude era! Sonic the Hedgehog might be one of the most ported games of all time. I know y'all think it's Doom, but I'm talkin' 'bout like, official ports, like, Sega has sold this game to people again probably more than any other game! I probably own it more than any other game on my collection, probably more than Doom! But why have I never covered it? I dunno. Sega upended the console landscape in the early nineties, but it wouldn't always be good times. Preserving and re-releasing Sonic the Hedgehog in the decades since would have some VERY mixed results. I mean there were some good times, and some legendarily bad times that would actually inspire the good times yet again! But you know what that means, we gotta give the Blue Blur's first outing the Punching Weight treatment, because we love the weird, ambitious and unnecessary around these parts, and friends, strap in, because even when you are just talking 'bout the first Sonic the Hedgehog, buddy, there is a LOT to talk about! And for the record, I'm gonna be callin' this thing the Genesis, I know it's also the Mega Drive, but listen, l- listen to my accent, do I sound like a Mega Drive bloke? I'm just stayin' in my lane! And I'm aware this is literally a Genesis Mini, but... you know what I mean! 's not about Mega Drive and Genesis, 's about Sonic! Let's go. From the start, Sonic 1 actually had a pretty good run! He was shoved into a few Genesis compilations like the 6-PAK here, and even had a clever reimagining on the Master System/Game Gear. This is actually the second Sonic game ever made, imagine that! But his first major post-Genesis release was on the Saturn, with Sonic Jam! Aw man, check out that overworld! Is Sonic Jam the most elaborate mode selection screen of all time? The 3D world of Sonic Jam was made in the NiGHTS engine, and the game was rushed into being after Sonic Team started getting letters from young Sonic fans asking "Who's this Sonic guy?" Woof. The late nineties was not so hot for Sega. But! Sonic Jam did manage to predict the Sonic movie, so there's that! Uuh... I thought the movie was good? I dunno about "cool"... But the port of Sonic 1 on Sonic Jam is great! In fact, since it's based on a later revision of the game, it features some improvements from the version you might have grown up with! There's extra parallax scrolling, like on the clouds in Green Hill Zone, and it fixes the dreaded spike bug so there are now I-frames when you hit the spikes, uh, like it is in most retro games. This actually isn't an emulated port of the game, the original Genesis code was reworked for the Saturn! Even though by then he was a hotshot department manager instead of just a programmer, Yuji Naka himself went in and added the Spin Dash move as a fix to the original, which of course, since Sonic 1 is a slower-paced, more platform-driven game than the sequels, this introduced a few problems: The original version was just not built for it, and that probably explains why the Spin Dash move has only made it into five official ports of Sonic 1. But of course, Naka is a master programmer, and was able to mostly implement the Dash move smoothly, fixing the problem where using the Spin Dash would actually kill Sonic if he outran the screen, because again, Sonic 1 wasn't designed to go THAT fast! Though... my dumb ass still managed to get into trouble though. "I am so, so sorry!" I'm... I'm not good at these games. "But no, what I meant to say is I'm so sorry that you have nothing more important to do in life!" [wild hollering] Naka also redesigned the levels a little, adding two new difficulty modes... I mean honestly, as a compilation Sonic Jam is a slam dunk! The ports themselves are great, it has loads of extras that, at the time, were hard for fans to get a hold of, and hey, it's no surprise, I mean, this was hand-crafted by key members of the original team! It's just a shame that most people probably didn't play it in its time? I mean, the Saturn sold BAD, like, "worse than the Virtual Boy" bad. But at least Nintendo didn't bet the farm on the Virtual Boy and could cut it loose when things got bad. ANNOUNCER: "There's only one problem: It needs your eyes." I mean, that's why I have the Japanese version, it's a lot cheaper and easier to get the import. It's probably true that more Americans played Sonic Jam on the Tiger Game.com than on the Saturn. Oh, which, by the way, the Tiger Game.com port technically doesn't have Sonic 1 on it! I mean, it's questionable it has ANY real Sonic on it? But technically, I cannot talk about it in this video. [ding!] If you were like me, you instead turned to the Dreamcast to rekindle your Sonic nostalgia with Sega Smash Pack Volume 1! (There was only ever a Volume 1, by the way) This is an important game for me personally, not only because it features an amazing port of Virtua Cop 2! See this guy right here? That's all you're buyin' it for! But also, some LOUSY Genesis emulation that wrecks what should've been a rock-solid compilation! I mean, take a look at this! [boopy off-key version of the Sonic 1 title screen theme] Oh, what is up with that music? And Sonic! What's wrong with your arm?! And just listen to the special stage, oh my god! [special stage theme with off-key synths and loud chimes] There were a lot of reasons for this port being so bad, not the least of which was the crumbling of Sega's console empire. The port's developers were so upset about the conditions they had to work in, they literally hid a secret message telling pirates how to steal the game's emulation architecture! "That's no good!" I mean, it's a decent port, it'll do in a pinch, this one's just personal for me because I got this with my Dreamcast in 2001, and it was so upsetting, it pushed me deeper into game collecting. My thought was, if game companies aren't gonna preserve their own games, I'd have to hunt down the originals for myself, so you can say it inspired me with its awfulness. In the wake of Sega leaving the hardware industry, Sonic 1 found its way onto numerous compilations, and as a bonus onto other Sonic games! and by most accounts, these were fine ports! And at first it seemed like that lousy Dreamcast port was just a misstep, it was a li- it was a little blip, it's okay, it's history! But then in 2006 came the GBA port. Friends, let me tell you, I play a lot of trash, but even I was not prepared for this one. The GBA port of Sonic the Hedgehog is infamous for being one of the lowest-rated games of all time, and until Sonic Boom on the Wii U, was the single worst Sonic game in terms of critical reaction. But these numbers do not tell the whole story. Seriously, everyone watching this, everyone who can hear my voice right now: You NEED to play this game, it is SO unbelievably terrible! It's stunning, it is genuinely impressive how busted this port is! I mean, don't... don't pay money for it? Though I might have to own a copy for my own sick enjoyment. This is one of the great things about emulation, I can't imagine playing this game without savestates, but with the savestates... mwah! Where do you even start?! Well, how about where the game starts? Even the Sega logo is messed up! [lo-fi Sega jingle] Yeah, audio, especially the music, sticks out most for me. To borrow a phrase, the music is Performance Art-levels of bad. I've heard better MIDI covers, and this was sold in stores! The music had me crying tears of laughter and sadness. I mean, let's not pretend that the GBA didn't already have troubles in the sound area for most of its ports, that Mario World port, in terms of the audio, weren't no spring chicken, but Sonic? Wow! First off, the instrumentation's like, all wrong, in some places the mix is off too, there's almost no percussion at all, across the board, and the Genesis audio was fine in the Smash Pack that came out on 2002, so it's not like the GBA wasn't capable of handling this? And there's a jukebox mode when you beat the game!! Who?! WHO?!? Me, that's who! Hold on... Let's look at a couple of, uh... couple o' dingers, so, Green Hill Zone... [Green Hill Zone theme with high-pitched bassline] Like, what's goin' on with that bass?
[Green Hill Zone theme with high-pitched bassline] What is that bass?!
[Green Hill Zone theme with high-pitched bassline] [Green Hill Zone theme with high-pitched bassline] That is so terrible!
[Green Hill Zone theme with high-pitched bassline] Oh, and Spring Hill Zone... [off-key Spring Yard Zone theme with loud chimes] What's goin' on...
[off-key Spring Yard Zone theme with loud chimes] [off-key Spring Yard Zone theme with loud chimes] Yeah... I mean,
[off-key Spring Yard Zone theme with loud chimes] it's not bad until you hear the bells in the background?
[off-key Spring Yard Zone theme with loud chimes] And it sounds like... it's like, creepy...
[off-key Spring Yard Zone theme with loud chimes] It sounds like I'm fighting Mergo's Wet Nurse, in- in Bloodborne?
[off-key Spring Yard Zone theme with loud chimes] [off-key Spring Yard Zone theme with loud chimes] Like, you could use this in your Sonic creepypasta!
[off-key Spring Yard Zone theme with loud chimes] [off-key Spring Yard Zone theme with loud chimes] [stammering] Top to bottom, it's all bad! Oh my god... it's amazing. So that's what stuck out the most for me, I just love/hate, uh, hearing these songs sound like this, but the gameplay is also just all wrong, movement top-to-bottom feels sluggish, Sonic's got those Adventure 2 Soap shoes, I guess, because speeding up and slowing down is all off, he even stops differently, when you just let go of the D-pad, he just keeps walking! For like, a really long time! It's like Sonic's in a hurry to get out of his own game! "I'm outta here!" Sonic jumps like he's on a different planet that defies science, you feel this most in Spring Yard Zone, and it's never worse than in the special levels. Think you've mastered the special levels? Well not until you played 'em here, you haven't! And the hit detection, that's all sloppy as hell, slamming into enemies and boxes is all wrong, and THAT is just when you can see the things you wanna hit! Your field of vision is WAY too small in this version because they didn't resize the screen resolution from the Genesis. And this actually makes the final fight with Robotnik WAY harder, because you can't see if he's about to squish you from above, and because of them awful controls, you can't really move out of the way fast enough! It's good times! Again, savestates! Don't play this game normally! Whoof! For what it's worth, this port features an Anniversary mode which includes the Spin Dash, and at least once you get up to speed, it feels good, I mean, it's Sonic, right? That is until the framerate hits! Actually, it's not even when you go up to speed like, sometimes this game is just slow, like, for example, basically all of Labyrinth Zone is a slideshow. The drowning music, by the way, stops when there's still like, two seconds left. It's hilarious. I mean, Super Monkey Ball Jr., a full 3D game, runs smoother than Sonic the Hedgehog, a 16-bit Genesis game, I mean, it couldn't get any worse! It gets worse. This port was released day-and-date with Sonic 2006, the PS3/360 game. November 14th should be celebrated as like a national day of remembrance, I cannot even imagine the heartbreak of the Sonic fan buying both of these games on launch day. And by the way, what is the full, official name of this game? "Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis". Why? Because this is the only Sonic the Hedgehog game that is exclusive to North America! ♪ I'm proud to be an American! ♪ And Canada too, I think. But AMERICA! We did it! We got the worst one! Of course we did! But out of all of this though, the single craziest fact about this game is that... ... no-one knows who made it! The game just credits Sega and Sonic Team at startup, and the ending is just the one that you see in the Genesis original. The sync for the audio, by the way, for the ending, just falls way off, it's... it's hilarious. So people had to solve the mystery themselves, and naturally, there are tons of rumors for who is responsible for this mess. I've seen claims that it was made, uh, with the Sonic Advance engine, which could implicate Dimps, but I actually couldn't find any evidence of this, I think it's just an internet rumor that just became fact. I've also heard that Digital Eclipse, a.k.a. Backbone Entertainment, were responsible. But that's only because they handled the Xbox/PSN arcade ports that came out the following year, and the 2009 iOS port. But let's be frank: Digital Eclipse, they do good work! They've definitely put out some duds, but they have never been afraid to put their name on a game before. And it's not like Sega just forgot to update the credits, I mean, the people who made the new manual for this port, they got credited! It is my personal belief that the answer is right there. This game was made in-house, falling victim to a rushed Holiday 2006 release mandate. And even if that IS what happened, which... I've no idea, it doesn't really answer the bigger question: How? How did this happen?! Whatever the case though, whoever made it must have known it was awful and didn't want the credit, which is equal parts tragic and hilarious. I'd be lying if I didn't say I had so much fun playing this game, it gave me a headache in the best possible way! And you could probably fill an encyclopedia with all of the things wrong with this port, so I highly recommend you see it for yourself! "But Uncle Derek, why'd you spend so long dunkin' on this game?!" Well like I always say, Punching Weight is about weird, ambitious and unnecessary, and while you can probably slot this game in the "unnecessary" column, what really makes this Punching Weight is that it was a rock-bottom moment for the series, one that actually became a focal point that would finally right the Sonic ship! "Let's drop this increasingly humiliating topic of conversation." Sonic for the GBA was so bad that a man named Stealth, a.k.a. Simon Thomley, took it upon himself to prove that it could be done! THIS is his fan version! It is just a mock-up, so it only contains Green Hill Zone and two special stages, BUT it includes high-quality music, a decent framerate, and Tails and Knuckles as playable characters! It is a free download, and the perfect palate cleanser after playing the version they sold in stores! Thomley had been an important part of the Sonic scene for years before this, of course, and his work on various other romhack projects made him an expert on breaking down and rebuilding Sonic's first game, so it's no surprise that, once again, the fans are the real heroes, and Thomley is NOT the only talented member of Sonic's incredibly active fan community. There's another fan project you need to know about, which is Retro Sonic, developed by Taxman, a.k.a. Christian Whitehead. Inspired by fan projects like the ones made by Thomley, Retro Sonic had been in development in some form since at least 2002, and over the years, after breaking down and rebuilding the engine several times, Whitehead had created a flexible engine called Retro Engine, tailored for 32-bit-or-below games. In 2009, after Sega put out middling Sonic 1 and 2 mobile ports from Backbone Entertainment, the company put out a call asking for what mobile ports fans wanted next! Thomley and Whitehead went a step further, developing a demo for an iOS version of Sonic CD. It made a splash online, Whitehead pitched it to Sega, and then, amazingly, it became the official released version in 2011! And while that's just a wild fact in its own right, it's all just a setup for our next port of Sonic the Hedgehog: THIS is a completely re-engineered game by Whitehead and Thomley, for Android and iOS, released in 2013. That's right, these maniacs rebuilt this game from the ground-up, instead of emulating! And since they were already rebuilding it, why not add the changes they knew hardcore fans wanted? Changes they already knew how to implement from their own fan projects! Now, this is one of those ports that's in a grey area, because I think it's more of a remaster than a port, but it's just so impressive! This baby is smooth 60 frames a second, fully widescreen, and thankfully has Bluetooth controller support! I usually dunk on smartphone ports because even I can't get behind touch screen controls, but this is the real deal, man! It doesn't look and sound exactly like the original, but there's really nothing to complain about! That widescreen is nice, and the special stages especially look silky smooth! The option to have the Spin Dash is present, but turning it on or off also toggles the spike bug, which is a nice touch. New portions have been added to levels for Tails and Knuckles to explore, and oh yeah! This is an official release that allows you to play Tails and Knuckles! It's like you can finally plug in your Sonic 1 into your Sonic & Knuckles! There's even more original content, with the inclusion of a ridiculously challenging seventh special stage, and seventh Chaos Emerald, which allows for Super Sayan Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, which... whoo, makes Labyrinth Zone so much easier! The Debug mode has been expanded with extra items, plus, if you go into a special stage with Debug mode on, you can customize special stages too! Via the level select, you can design your own special stage, which saves as the new seventh one. It's not quite a backdoor version of Sonic Maker though because I don't think there is any way for you to share your new special stages with friends? Uh, but that's okay! This game was released as a free update to the Backbone version, which was honestly a pretty classy move from Sega! It's now free-to-play, so there's really nothing stoppin' you from trying it out! There's a fee for removing ads, but it was only two bucks for me, which is cheaper than any other standalone Sonic out there! Whitehead and Thomley are also responsible for a stellar port of Sonic 2, but if you're not interested in all this old Sonic, well, you can try this original game they helped make, It's a little game called Sonic Mania. Yes, there is connective tissue that ties Sonic Mania all the way back to the giant-airquotes "amazing" GBA port! Seriously, you need to know who made this port, it is genuinely an important part of Sonic history! Oh man, that game! And this is not even close to every Sonic port! Let me know if you want to hear more about Sonic, it was a deep, deep rabbit hole that I would happily dive into again! Stop Skeletons From Fighting has officially been a Patreon-supported show for five years now, the Monster Party video was five years ago, you have all helped us grow and improve, held us down every time YouTube did something ridiculous, so thank you to every name that has ever graced one of the ends of our videos, hey, join their ranks, for only a dollar you get on the Discord, you get your name in the credits, you get to live chat during the podcasts, vote for new topics, or hey, just keep watching, tell a friend, please subscribe, and we will see you again real soon!
