Sonic The Hedgehog | The Completionist

the blue blur sonic speed sonic boom gotta go fast here are too slow that's no good all these phrases are synonymous with the blue bad boy that rocked our socks for the first time on the original Sega Genesis all those years ago and Empire of games have been built upon Sonic's back but it all started back in 1991 on a little 16-bit cartridge but today I have to admit that I have never played it hey everyone and welcome back to the brand new episode of the completionist and yes it's true I never laid my hands on the original Sonic the Hedgehog I guess just something that I never got around to probably when I was a kid because of the fact that when I finally got my own Genesis Sonic 2 was already out and I was obsessed eventually with Sonic 3 & Knuckles so that said today I'm gonna complete for the first time ever Sonic the Hedgehog let's do this yes [Music] tom kalinske the CEO of sega of america had a vision he wanted Sega to have a mascot to rival Mario a mascot that would be the face of the company a mascot that would be as recognizable as Mickey Mouse or with enough attitude to make your parents shout turn off those damn video games enter Sonic the Hedgehog whose design was purposefully based on Mickey Mouse but with a heavy dose of 90s extreme with a red pair of Michael Jackson shoes and a cute but tough look Sonic's entire persona revolves around the concept of speed Yuji naka the original director of Sonic Team led his group in the development of that first game Sega USA was so blown away when they played an early version of the game that kolinsky went to Sega of Japan to pitch a crazy idea kolinsky wanted Sonic the Hedgehog to be bundled with the Sega Genesis there weren't that many Sega Genesis consoles sold in the States at the time kolinsky thinking was that if they make sonic looks so freaking cool that everyone had to have a copy of the game then people would be willing to buy a Genesis just to do so this move resulted in Sonic the Hedgehog selling over 15 million units you may have noticed that almost every box of Sonic the Hedgehog features a not for resale message on the box that's because at the time Sega forbid retailers to resell the games outside of the bundle and for those who owned a Genesis already Sega offered a free meal and rebate to get the game Wow nice move uncle Sega admittedly as a kid I was very much anti Genesis at first I was a Nintendo Kid through and through you could have given me a Mario army and I would have led the charge on to the playgrounds myself but when I finally got a Genesis I learned that there's room for all kinds of videogame mascots and when I first played Sonic 2 I never looked back since then the original Sonic the Hedgehog may have been ported to every single device Under the Sun but I feel like the appropriate thing is to complete the original on the Genesis and someone who knows about all those sonic ports is turbo drive live I've actually enjoyed a complete song the Hedgehog times over the years with so many different versions of the game made available in different formats including the Mega Drive original here the one on Xbox Live Arcade that gave us achievements as well as the most recent release on the Nintendo switch that's part of the Sega Agis line but with all these ports that Sega made over the years I'm surprised they haven't made a version of the game for this from what I've heard about the original Sonic the Hedgehog it's pretty damn short much shorter than its follow-ups while each zone has three acts there are only six zones total in the game so this could be a short ride since this is the very first song the Hedgehog there is no tails no knuckles no Amy no big the cat no nothing just Sonic versus Eggman which means there got to be at least the Chaos Emeralds right even while making sure to nab all of them I expect to complete this game in one stress-free playthrough I am a sonic connoisseur after all and I'll enjoy this game like a fine wine actually I don't know how to drink wine I don't even like wine wine is kind of gross to me [Music] even though it's the very first entry in the franchise Sonic's charmed the awesome soundtrack and the illusion of speed that the fingertips are all present and accounted for not being said compared to what Sonic is capable of nowadays Sonic 1 is just okay when it comes to the premise it's the same old song and dance we've heard before but for the first time Eggman is after the Chaos Emeralds and he captures all little cute inhabitants of South Island and shoved them into robots sonic has to stop him and that's it aside for a few details from the back of the box and the manual that's it and you know what I love it it still works Mario still fights Bowser every time Sonic can still fight Eggman after all these years simplicity is good a lot of the time and getting right to the gameplay is great even more of the time graphically speaking for the time Sonic the Hedgehog was the future Sonic's success was due in large part to its unique graphical presentation and vibrant world while some of these original zones are some of the weirdest in Sonic's history I buy him spring yard zone is great but there's a lot of weird crap in the backgrounds that seem like you can interact with it but you actually can't and while the music and labyrinth zone is bumping it doesn't really match the sunken underground temple vibe now don't get me wrong everything looks great and everything sounds great they often seem like they don't belong together completing this game felt like I was doing so with the game on mute while I was listening to some other bands music which kind of makes sense considering that the soundtrack was composed by Masato Nakamura the lead bass player for a j-pop group called dreams come true tight but weird you know it's kind of difficult looking at this game in 2018 the narrative is comfortably familiar the game looks awesome for the time and the music is definitely kick-ass but it's clearly an early take on what we all know and love it's apparent to me now how much Sonic's success came down to pure marketing Sega made Sonic look and feel cooler than Super Mario Brothers even though Sonic 1 was shorter than all three original Mario games and Super Mario World that's the craziest part Sonic the Hedgehog was competing with Super Mario World the little dude bluffed his way into video game history Wow played I just want to preface that this game is super hard to talk about when you know what comes after it after years and years of turning a blind eye to where it all began I can confidently say without a shadow of a doubt that Sonic 1 is exactly what I thought it would be not bad not good just fine and I recognize that this is mostly because of some of the glaring improvements made to the game with its sequels and all my true complaints I had with this game almost immediately got fixed with Sonic 2 so forgive me as I try to find my footing on where I stand but I think I'll start with this the most bizarre thing that I was kind of blown away by was how in fact slow I thought Sonic actually was I didn't even think about it but the minute I booted up the game I realized that I have no Spin Dash at all in fact if I wanted to kill enemies with Sonic I had to either jump on enemies that clearly looked killable or I had to strategically curl into a ball at the right moments but that glaring feature of the Spin Dash being gone went even further when I realized that Sonic 1 is more a puzzle platformer than actual speed platforming there are several moments throughout the game where you just kind of stop and you're expected to look at what's going on and figure out what to do that's not a bad thing but Sonic's kind of been toted as the speed guy for a very very very long time we start Sonic the Hedgehog off with what has become one of the most iconic first levels in videogame history Green Hill Zone this level is so iconic that's been remixed to death and included in some variation in some of the more recent games it's fun to see the original vision of what this game is compared to everything else this stage has become because well the original is kind of boring maybe it's more the idea that I am burnt out on Green Hill Zone but I will say yeah these levels do feel way shorter than I would thought they would be had to be speaking there's 18 different levels but really it comes down to is that there's six levels that got cut into thirds this gives the idea and feeling that this game is way bigger and you feel rewarded for plowing through the game but to say this game is easy out of the gate would be misleading after Green Hill Zone the game stiffly starts to go up and up this is the beginning of songs career which means we got to go over the basics unlike his counterpart Mario where you need a mushroom or power up the sustained hits all sonic ever needed was golden rings these beautiful pieces of gold seemed so much cooler it always felt good to get 100 rings till this day it still feels really good but one of the more eye opening things about Sonic 1 is that it's actually somewhat difficult to get a hundred rings safely enemies and death traps appear everywhere and they are not as welcoming as you think this is a problem that got kind of worse as the Sonic games went on but Sonic Team tried to counterbalance this with more power-ups lives and more rings in stages but for now Sonic can get a blue shield which gives him one extra hit and rings which will keep you going as long as you don't get hit and if you lose the Rings you can just get one and be ok lives and continues are a must for your success with Sonic 1 but they're hard to come by sometimes you'll find lives and boxes but for the most part your lives and continues will come from the big ring bonuses at the end of each stage now these actually become a huge factor in the game because they're not just bonus levels they're the levels where you get the Chaos Emeralds if you beat a stage with 50 rings in hand as you hit the Eggman sign jump into that big golden ring you will then you transported to the bonus room where Sonic is constantly falling into this weird maze thing in the middle of each maze is one of 6 Chaos Emeralds and these are actually pretty simple you'll roll and jump your ways to protect the Chaos Emeralds and then most of the time Sonic just kind of rubs up against the blocks protecting the Chaos Emeralds and then you get it's pretty simple all the while getting lives and continues from collecting rings and raising your score following that trend of a short game comes the need to put in obstacles and enemies everywhere and man oh man does that come really through towards the end of song the Hedgehog holy moly there are several sections where there's just so much going on even surprise that'll make you tear your hair out especially when you're trying to reserve 50 rings for those Chaos Emerald bonus rooms boss pies are simple and easy even for people who don't really have that much knowledge of Sonic Eggman is pretty slow and predictable throughout each fight and he seems to get even easier with the final boss of the game being one of the many fights from Sonic mania newcomers may struggle on one or two of these fights but with 1 or 7 rings in hand you'll do just fine Sonic the Hedgehog did a ton for the gaming space it gave Nintendo and Mario huge competition gave life into a two-year old console at the time with her Oh Boston new face and built an entire empire for Sega to grow from and those are all awesome and game-changing things for what they did but if you told me they did it with Sonic 1 today I would be pretty confused I feel so disconnected from this game that I belong on an episode of the fine brothers reacting to something about video games for the first time thank you again so much for coming in uh huh we're going to be showing you a commercial for a video game okay love for you to be reacting to us sure so I'm gonna react to the video game yeah commercial you will be react okay I'm gonna react not gonna play I'm gonna react to it yes okay cuz I don't know what a video game is so I'm nervous okay okay so pretty good music I like that music you know whoa he was that fast serious game I've seen all morning check this out brand-new city about you guys I would not buy things from that guy he is creepy so based on this commercial would you be interested in playing this game Sonic the Hedgehog um I would play Sonic the Hedgehog but I don't own the thing you play with it right so if you were to buy a Sega Genesis you would get the game Sonic the Hedgehog packaged in okay yeah well I don't have enough money to buy Genesis so I would not play it No oh um well I mean a Genesis isn't that much right but like I I'm just a teen gamer and I don't hold a kid hahaha [Music] when it comes to completing Sonic the Hedgehog it's actually pretty simple but also somewhat disappointing the only true completion bonus in this game is getting the six Chaos Emeralds and even getting them all gives you the true ending where Eggman is mad and is stomping on the side if you don't get all the Chaos Emeralds you get a screen that says try again with the remaining Chaos Emeralds you need while it is fun to get all the Chaos Emeralds the true ending is pretty tame no Super Sonic that's no good second was all about their secrets and Sonic the Hedgehog has a ton of cheat codes in the game if you desire to go that extra mile level select messing with in-game assets the works back in the day cheat codes were such a fun novelty I kind of swish companies did them some do but it's been treated for a more modern approach of achievements and trophies instead ah nostalgia but not for this game for Sonic 2 in my playthrough of Sonic the Hedgehog there were two full campaign playthroughs 18 acts dominated six Chaos Emeralds obtained 12 deaths followed up with three continues and game overs seven-and-a-half total hours of playtime and a handful of times I didn't know if I should dance while playing this game or kind of just let my emotions take over and confuse me I don't know it was a smorgasbord of feelings Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the coolest gaming icons out there and this is where he started despite the ups and downs he would go on to experience I am glad we can look back and enjoy where Sonic started where he went and where he's going and in this case I don't think you look at Sonic 1 ever again it's not bad but from here everything gets better for whatever it's worth I think Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis is important to the history of gaming too Sega's history to everyone really but looking at it objectively or I guess I can't say attractively because I'm spoiled by the future of Sonic this game is all right the music is excellent the graphics and presentation pretty freakin solid gameplay is OK you know no spin - no drop - extra power-ups everything after Sonic 1 was incredible and I'm glad that we got a little clay mold here to play with inside the Hedgehog 1 completing this game however is fine not hard pretty easy in fact but there's not really a true payoff of having the 6 Chaos Emeralds other than avoiding a message from Eggman to bothering you to do it again or do it better rather so but that of my guys I get this game my completionist rating of finish it that's all time we have today guys so please as always let me know what you thought about today's episode it's somewhere on the internet if you like the show hit the like button be sure to subscribe and click the bell to hit all notifications on I promise we won't overwhelm you with too much stuff we do stuff on Wednesdays and Saturdays we do community posts and polls and teasing throughout the week I promise to be respectful in your YouTube feed please respond in the comments below we're trying to engage all the time with you guys you're important to the show as much as I am so that's it guys have a great weekend and I'll see you next week for the brand-new episode bye

Channel: The Completionist

Views: 286,831

Rating: 4.9232221 out of 5

Keywords: sonic the hedgehog, sonic the hedgehog 1, sonic the hedgehog game, sonic the hedgehog gameplay, sonic the hedgehog review, sonic the hedgehog 1 review, sonic, sonic forces, sonic mania, sonic boom, sonic generations, genesis, sega, sega genesis, eggman, dr. robotnik, hedgehog, sega genesis sonic, sega genesis sonic review, sonic 1, sonic review, sonic gameplay, game review, video game reviews, the completionist, jirard khalil, completionist, mega drive, sonic mega drive

Id: 230hArZd5G4

Length: 16min 37sec (997 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 03 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Werdsworth21]

Yo, don't think I didn't notice that little crouch at 5:42 where you wished you had the spin dash.