 |
Sonic the Hedgehog Developer: Sega? Based on: A 16-bit classic. This is like the techno remix of "Eleanor Rigby": Crappy, but you can recognize just enough of the original not to hate it. |
Sonic the Hedgehog. You've probably heard of it; in fact you're probably thinking, "You arse-wit, why are you wasting your valuable 'retro rediscovery' time on the one Genesis game every warm-bodied creature on earth has played at some point or another?" Ah! But there's the rub -- this is actually the Master System version of the game, which much to my surprise is quite a bit different than its 16-bit counterpart.
I'm assuming this is the same version of the game that eventually made its way to Game Gear, but I wouldn't know since I've never been willing to take out the home lien necessary to buy enough batteries to power one.
Of course, it's still Sonic, which means the point is still to run fast and all. But there's not nearly as much breakneck hurtling as I recall from the Genesis version -- sure, you get your little ramps with a curve up at the end a few times per level, but there's never the heart-stopping feeling of "OH MY GOD I AM TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL" that you associate with Sonic. Maybe it's because the level geometry is less ambitious -- no loops. Or perhaps because the levels are much smaller, with fewer tiers and alternate routes.
Whatever the case, I think I actually kind of like this version a little more. The slightly slower pace and staid stage designs make it a more thoughtful experience, more of a traditional platformer and less of a random speed simulation. Oh dear, my Mario bias is showing through again. How unseemly.
Unlike, I dunno, say... Kenseiden, Sonic for Master System takes advantage of the console's strengths without really falling prey to its weaknesses. Not even that godawful controller seems to cause any problems. In fact, the only real complaint I have is that the system's pause button is on top of the console (BUH), but you can hardly blame poor Sonic for a weirdly neanderthal hardware decision made years before Mr. Naka birthed our favorite hedgehog.
(Which incidentally must have been awfully painful, given the diameter of the male equivalent of the birth canal and the razor-sharp un-bugger-ability of your average hedgehog.)
You can see the rough edges where they really had to cram to get the game onto the SMS's fairly humble processor. Besides the lack of loops and the slightly more reasonable pace, the game is sort of letterboxed. Not in the black-matting sense, though... it's just that there are no graphics drawn in the top and bottom eighths of the screen. And of course no 3D or pseudo-Mode 7 bonus rounds -- all you get for your efforts is a short stage filled with springs and bumpers.
(You can sort of make it out in the bottom screenshot there, but, uh... not really.)
And you'd think Dr. Robotnik was suffering a henchman shortage based on the severe paucity of bad guys in each level.
But on the plus side, the sound effects made it across intact -- the screech of Sonic skidding to a stop, the jingle of a ring, the similar but deeply unhappy jingle of rings flying after a collision. Well, OK: a ring flying after a collision. But come on, whaddya want from an 8-bit system. The NES really couldn't have done this nearly as well; at best we would have seen Mighty Sonic the Hedgehog, featuring a super-deformed Sonic fighting through the mean streets of Metro City in a sadly limited fashion. But certainly nothing like this.
No, Somari doesn't count.
I wish I could look forward to every SMS game on my stack being this good, but... ah ha ha. Not a chance. Still, this may be my favorite version of Sonic to date (except Sonic for Game.com, of course!!!111NO), which admittedly doesn't quite justify buying an entire system.
But -- as they say in the (very apathetic) movies -- meh.