[This post is part of a collaborative Sonic retrospective based around the games on Sonic Mega Collection Plus. To read more, please head over to the central post!
This one is written by David C James, whose previous posts include State of Emergency and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. You can find David at pixelhunted.com and on twitter as @PixelHunted.]
Press start button
Sonic the Hedgehog on Game Gear is the first game I ever owned. Sure, I’d played games on my Dad’s Amiga and at my friends’ houses, but Christmas ‘91 was when I had a system and game that was actually mine.
I don’t think I’d even asked for a Game Gear but my Dad, who remains enthusiastic about new tech to this day, was seduced by Sega’s promise of the most powerful handheld ever released. He would later regret this gift given the amount of AA batteries needed to fuel the thing, but that was the cross the parent of a Game Gear owner had to bear.
I remember many happy nights playing it under the bedsheets when I was supposed to be asleep, it making long car trips disappear in a flash, and simply being curled up on the sofa in the corner lost in the Green Hill Zone. I eventually finished it with every Chaos Emerald and felt the now-familiar pleasure of beating a game for the first time.
Soon afterwards I’d get a Mega Drive and experience full fat Sonic the Hedgehog, and the 8-bit version was played less and less.
Thirty years pass…
Returning to games you haven’t played since childhood is a disconcerting experience and for me, there’s nothing older than this. And yet, as soon as the title screen flashes up and those 8-bit beeps and boops begin something starts happening in my brain.
Somewhere deep within my skull are a set of neurons that have been patiently storing information about Sonic the Hedgehog on Game Gear for three decades, and now it’s their moment in the spotlight. While the game isn’t especially hard to beat, it’s just not right to do it without getting the Chaos Emeralds. Here they’re hidden around the levels rather than in bonus stages, so those dusty old memories are key.
The further I get into the game the hazier things become, but I still know what to do. In Scrap Brain Zone I’m standing over what looks like a bottomless pit. I don’t consciously know why it’s significant, though somehow I’m sure that this one won’t kill me. I dive down and – boom – it’s a secret passage leading to one of the emeralds. Thanks brain.
I’ll never be able to remove my rose-tinted glasses and evaluate Sonic the Hedgehog objectively, but I think it’s an excellent 8-bit platformer. A lot of the gee-whiz loop-de-loop action of the 16-bit game is absent, but Sonic retains his trademark speed – to the point where it’s possible to go faster than the max scrolling speed and zip off the screen. But the game is defined by a slightly slower and more exploratory pace than its Mega Drive cousin. This isn’t a criticism – I prefer hunting for emeralds in the stages rather than dealing with frustrating bonus stage mechanics (I’m looking at you, Sonic 2).
All that good stuff made it a nice surprise when I discovered the lead developer was famed Streets of Rage composer Yuzo Koshiro. After turning out some all-time great soundtracks he asked Sega if he could make a game himself, was assigned the job of porting Sonic, and soon roped in his sister and mother to aid in development.
Koshiro is also responsible for some serious toe-tappers here, with Bridge Zone being generally considered among the best Sonic chiptunes of all time and going on to feature in Sonic Adventure as Tails’ theme. I’m also partial to the jaunty bop of Jungle Zone, which I’ve now had stuck in my head for three days and I’m still not sick of it.
Sadly Koshiro wouldn’t stick around for the Game Gear Sonic sequels, with Sonic 2 a disappointingly tough and unfair experience. Any Game Gear game is going to be fairly obscure in 2021, but I’m glad Sonic the Hedgehog hasn’t been totally buried by Sega and is included as a bonus on various compilations and is available on the Nintendo eShop.
Sonic the Hedgehog is destined to forever live in the shadow of its 16-bit brother, but it holds a special place in my heart and head.
Forty years pass…
It’s 2061 and I’m a half-demented resident of some futuristic nursing home. A kindly nurse hands me an emulation device and I’m back jumping and rolling through those green fields. Even if I can’t remember my grandkid’s names anymore, I’ll be able to find those Chaos Emeralds.