Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis

"Sonic the Hedgehog degrades to the GBA"

Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis is a remake of the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the Game Boy Advance. The ironic part is that the original Sonic the Hedgehog is actually better than the remake, in my opinion. The graphics are good, the music is great, but the game play is what ruins the whole game.

Story: 6/10
There isn't much of a story to this game. Basically, Sonic has to save animals that have been turned into robots, and stop Dr. Robotnik from turning the animals into robots. As a remake from the early nineties, there is really an excuse of why there isn't much of a story.

Game play: 2/10
The game play in Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis is absolutely terrible, even for the original version. The game for one really is faster like today's Sonic, but it seems a little to fast for the game as you run into some enemies. Also, there are varying jumps throughout the game. One jump may be higher, the next one may be lower, and you really are not sure how to control this. This can mess up some of the key obstacles in the game that must be completed. It also throws off the timing when you are trying to destroy enemies. One time, I could jump over a whole piece of land that included two spikes, while another time, I got killed trying to jump over one spike. After a jump, Sonic may also tend to slide, and this can make you fall. The jumping seems slower when you jump on the computers, and this can also throw off the player. You do get spin dash in the anniversary edition, but the negative game play surely weighs out having the spin dash attack.

Graphics: 7/10
The graphics are ok. They don't bring out the amazement in the game, and they are not awful to make the game hard to play. However, the graphics look much like the original Sonic the Hedgehog. It could have been nice if they were updated, but I don't mind it so much, as it is still playable.

Music: 8/10
Those catchy original Sonic tunes are one of the only great parts of this remake of Sonic the Hedgehog. Again, they don't seem updated, but the tunes are just good music. This I admit I enjoy, but you could always get them from the original game as well. They could have updated the music a bit, and made it even better, but it was still good overall.

Overall, it seems like Sonic the Hedgehog is worse on the GBA than the Genesis mainly because of its bad game play. Nothing was really updated other than saving and the spin dash attack. The saving was not the greatest either, because if you end up losing during a level, you can't continue after a beaten act in the level, you have to do all the level over again. For example, if you lose all your last life on Green Hill Zone Act 3, and you have not beaten the level, you have to start from Act 1 again. This was kind of upsetting, because you actually need to save in this game more than you do in the Genesis version because of its game play. The jumping in Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis is seriously has one of worst jumping skills I have seen in any video game to this day. You need to jump in this game, and if you can't jump accurately, it throws off the whole game. It seems like the jumping is better in the Genesis version than the anniversary edition. The bad jumping (which was actually worse than the original) was worse than the original game. The spin dash, and the saving, was upgraded, but other than that, nothing else was really updated in the anniversary mode. The game play actually seemed worse. The so-called “original-mode” was not the exact Sonic I played with on the Genesis, and the jumping was still terrible.

I would recommend this game to anyone who wants to play a cheaper version of the original Sonic the Hedgehog. Simply put, this game was just a terrible remake. I would recommend people to go out and buy the original Sonic on Genesis (if you find it) or Sonic Mega Collection for Gamecube to see Sonic at his best. The final rating for the game would actually come out to a 5, but instead I would give it a 4 only because the only great things in the anniversary edition were in the original and nothing old was updated (except spin dash and saving which were the only good updates). This game isn't worth a 5, but the original would probably be rated a good 7 or 8.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/07