Sonic the Hedgehog (1991 video game)

Sonic the Hedgehog
File:Sonic1 box usa.jpg File:Sonic The Hedgehog -EUR-.PNG
Developer(s)	Sonic Team
Publisher(s)	Sega
Designer(s)	Naoto Ohshima (character design) Hirokazu Yasuhara (game planner) Yuji Naka (programming)
Platform(s)	Mega Drive/Genesis, iPod, Mobile phone, Virtual Console, Game Boy Advance, Xbox Live Arcade See also: Compilation releases
Release	June 23 1991 June 24 1991 July 26 1991
Genre(s)	Platform,Adventure
Mode(s)	Single player

Sonic the Hedgehog (ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ, Sonikku za Hejjihoggu) is a platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Mega Drive/Genesis system. It is the inaugural game in Sega's flagship Sonic the Hedgehog video game series, and was the first title developed by Sonic Team. It was first released on June 23 1991 in North America, and the next day in Europe. The Japanese Mega Drive version was released on July 26 1991.

This game propelled the Genesis into mass popularity in North America. After it was released, it eventually replaced Altered Beast as the game bundled with the console, and was later replaced with its first sequel, Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The game featured many novel elements which contributed to its popularity and helped to promote the uptake of 16-bit consoles. The game is widely considered to be one of the greatest games of all time, even placing 51st on IGN's 2007 list.

Sonic the Hedgehog added the element of speed to the standard platform formula and introduced other unique elements as well, such as the loops, springboards, high-speed devices, and the rings now permanently associated with the game series.

The game was both a critical and commercial success. As of November 19, 2007, the game has sold 4 million copies, the second-highest amount for a Genesis game, behind Sonic 2, which has sold 6 million copies.

Gameplay

Movement

Sonic's method of attack was also novel. As a hedgehog, he can curl up into a ball by either jumping or by rolling along the ground, a state in which he can damage most enemies by simply colliding with them. This was a change from most other platform games, where the player could damage enemies only by shooting or jumping on top of them. While rolling along the ground, Sonic can roll down slopes, gaining speed as he goes. Most slopes are irregular, as opposed to the fixed angles seen in previous platform games, and the game has the physics to match. Sonic's acceleration down a slope depends on its steepness; if traveling fast enough, he can run up and around 360° loops; and he suffers from drag underwater.

Features

A typical in-game screen-shot of Sonic the Hedgehog, taken from its first level, Green Hill Zone.

Essential to the gameplay are the golden rings the player collects along their way in each level; a feature which would become one of the defining characteristics of the series. These items are regularly placed around the level map and serve multiple functions. First, the player collects rings to protect themself. As long as they have at least one ring to their name, the player will not lose a life when injured. Instead, when hit, up to 40 of the rings the player has collected will fly outward and scatter around the immediate area, some of which can then be retrieved before they disappear. If the player runs into an enemy without a single ring, they will lose a life. If the player collects 100 rings they will gain a life, and gain an additional life for every 100 rings after that, provided the rings are not lost.

If the player has at least 50 rings at the end of an act, a giant golden ring will float above the finishing sign which can be jumped through to enter one of the special stages. At the end of each act, the total number of rings the player has is multiplied by 100 and added to the player's score. During the score-tallying, the player can also jump through the air to find hidden emblems which can range from 100 to 10,000 points. This was the only console Sonic game until Sonic Adventure where the player could get more lives by collecting over 200 rings (acquiring 300 rings in the later 16-bit titles resulted in no additional lives).

Also scattered throughout each level are monitors which, when broken by the character, reward the player with one of a variety of bonuses. These include a shield which will protect Sonic from a single hit, a 10-ring bonus, an extra life, temporary invincibility (accompanied with a temporary change in music), and "Super Sneakers", which give the player a temporary speed boost (and increase the tempo of the music for the duration). The item monitors have become another long-lasting feature in the series, though they have been changed to bubble-like containers in later games.

Despite the various types of protection available, neither the shield, rings, or invincibility will prevent the player losing a life if Sonic is crushed (by a trap or between a wall and a moving platform), drowning, running out of time (each act has a ten-minute time limit), or falling into a bottomless pit.

Progress through the game is made easier for the player by lamp posts that act as checkpoints. When Sonic passes a lamp post, its color changes from blue to red, and the next time a life is lost, gameplay will restart at that point rather than at the beginning of the act. However, unlike later 16-bit Sonic games, if a checkpoint is activated and a life is lost as a result of running out of time, the time at the checkpoint will reset to 0:00.

Hazards the player experiences include a wide variety of "badniks" - these appear as animals trapped inside mechanical bodies which are released the moment the player hits them. Each badnik takes one hit to destroy, but they vary greatly from Zone to Zone; some will walk in a set path, others will try blasting the player, and some cannot be avoided at all. The player must also avoid rows of sharp spikes, cliffs, and elaborate death traps. There is also the threat of drowning, as the player can only survive 30 seconds underwater (locating air bubbles can extend this).

The game features no game saves or passwords. This means that the game has to be restarted from the beginning when the player runs out of continues or turns off the system.

Graphics and sound

At the time of its release, Sonic the Hedgehog boasted impressive 16-bit graphics, with richly animated sprites and varied colors, fully utilizing the Mega Drive's enhanced color palette. Flowers moved, rings spun, lights blinked, and water shimmered in the background.

The game also takes full advantage of the on-board Zilog Z80 and Yamaha synthesizer sound chip, and is filled with sound effects, chimes, bops and beats following the player through the levels. Many sounds play on top of one another and most of the game's sounds were unique and of higher quality than earlier 8-bit sounds.

Besides detailed sound and animation, Sonic the Hedgehog is especially known for its dynamic music, composed by Masato Nakamura, a member of the popular J-Pop band, Dreams Come True. Using 8-bit stereo sound, the music is rich and varied throughout each level. Particularly notable are the game's recognizable main theme and the music to Green Hill Zone. Sonic the Hedgehog's soundtrack is still highly popular in remixing communities on the Internet, such as OverClocked ReMix. Similarities to the Green Hill Zone theme can be found in "Dreams of an Absolution", the theme for Silver the Hedgehog in the 2006 Sonic game, also called Sonic the Hedgehog, though the song's composer Lee Brotherton claims that this was an unintentional coincidence.

Development

Development for Sonic the Hedgehog began in April 1990, after Sega ordered its AM-8 team to develop a game featuring a mascot for the company. After choosing a hedgehog as the main character, the 15-man group changed its name to Sonic Team and started working on Sonic the Hedgehog. The main minds behind the game were character designer Naoto Ohshima, game programmer Yuji Naka and designer Hirokazu Yasuhara.

The game was originally intended to feature a sound test menu, with animated graphics based around Sonic break-dancing to the music of a "Sonic Band" consisting of Sharps Chicken (guitar), Max Monkey, (guitar), Mach Rabbit (drums), and Vector the Crocodile (keyboard/synth); Vector was later re-designed and re-used for the games Knuckles' Chaotix and Sonic Heroes. The development schedule meant that the feature had to be scrapped, and Yuji Naka decided to replace the test with the "SEGA!" chant used in TV advertisements, which took up 1/8 of the 4-megabit cartridge. A text-only sound test option remained in the final game's level select cheat menu.

This is the only Mega Drive/Genesis Sonic game made entirely in Japan. Although Sonic the Hedgehog CD was made in Japan as well, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and Sonic & Knuckles were produced in North America at Sega Technical Institute, albeit with almost exclusively Japanese staff members. Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball, however, was produced almost entirely by Americans, the only Sonic game to date to do so. Sonic 3D featured Japanese staff, but much of the work was done by the UK-based video game company Traveller's Tales, who also produced Sonic R.

Levels

The game features six levels divided in three acts: Green Hill Zone, a jungle environment with checkered hillsides; Marble Zone, a set of ruins filled with lava; Spring Yard Zone, a city filled with pinball-like bumpers and slopes; Labyrinth Zone, an aquatic maze; Star Light Zone, a roller coaster-like urban level with fans and see-saws to help propelling; Scrap Brain Zone, an industrial complex; and Final Zone, consisting of only one act, featuring the battle with Dr. Robotnik.

Special Stages

If Sonic finishes the first or second act of any of the first five zones with at least 50 rings, a large, spinning ring will appear. If he jumps into it, he will enter a "Special Stage" that hides a Chaos Emerald. In these stages, Sonic, in ball form, falls through a series of rotating mazes. If he can avoid the "GOAL" signs along parts of the stage's walls, he will eventually find the Chaos Emerald encased in colored diamonds; touching the diamonds repeatedly will cause them to change color and eventually disappear, allowing access to the Emerald. The stage will end when Sonic either touches the Emerald or hits a "GOAL" sign.

Acquiring all six Chaos Emeralds will allow the player to view the game's "good ending" upon defeating Robotnik in the Final Zone. The good ending is a shot of Robotnik angrily jumping on the words "THE END". The bad ending is a shot of Robotnik happily juggling the Chaos Emeralds the player did not obtain, over the words "try again".

Early version

File:Sparklingz.jpg

The Sparkling Zone

It is not generally known if there was ever a beta version of the game, but if so it has never been released on the Internet in the form of a ROM dump. However, early publicity for the game shows some key differences between early versions and the final commercial release:

• The "RINGS" gauge was originally named "RING".
• Instead of leaving the screen at the end of each act Sonic would jump around and punch his fist into the air with joy.
• At first, in Green Hill Zone the sky was much darker than in the commercial release, the mountains looked different in the background, and a WELCOME sign was visible. However, this was in very early stages and only old magazines have similar shots.
• The "spike bug": landing on one set of spikes and bouncing to another would cause Sonic to die, ignoring the usual invulnerability that he has after injury. This made it through to the final (commercial) version, but was fixed in a later edition.
• The Green Hill Boss's ball once had an orbiting sparkle on it as shown in a Portuguese Mega Drive commercial.
• Marble Zone featured strange UFO-like objects in the sky. These objects can be seen tilting in the film Wayne's World during an advertisement for Noah's Arcade (shots of Sonic the Hedgehog are shown in the background while he talks to the camera). Also, according to one early image, the zone included badniks that are only present in other zones in the final version, such as a snail-like badnik from the Spring Yard Zone.
• Spring Yard Zone was originally named "Sparkling Zone" and featured a slightly different background and neon signs (which were possibly the inspiration for Collision Chaos in Sonic the Hedgehog CD)
• Scrap Brain Zone was originally named "Clock Work Zone", although due to the lack of a W in the title cards, the only existing Beta screenshots show it as "Clock ork Zone". It also had a different background in Act 1 and had diagonal conveyor belts.
• The original order of the zones was Green Hill Zone, Labyrinth Zone, Marble Zone, Star Light Zone, Spring Yard (Sparkling) Zone, Scrap Brain (Clock Work) Zone. Early versions of the game showed this order in the level select (see Versions below).
• In early development stages, before programming began, the main character was going to be a rabbit who used its ears to pick up objects and throw them at enemies, similar to Super Mario Bros. 2. This sort of gameplay was later revisited with Ristar. The character Silver the Hedgehog ended up using psychic abilities in a similar manner.

Versions and releases

The first version, released in North America and Europe, lacked some graphical enhancements that were added to the later Japanese release. The Japanese version included clouds that moved independently of the scrolling background (even when the main character stands still) in the Green Hill Zone and two water graphical effects in the Labyrinth Zone, which consisted of a rippling effect on the foreground and a swirling effect on the background. This effect was only applied to the areas that were under the water line. Also in the Japanese version, all levels of the game had many more layers of parallax scrolling in their backgrounds.

The first version also gave the player an enormous 250,000 point bonus if a stage was cleared in less than 30 seconds. Subsequent revisions cut the bonus down to 50,000.

The later Japanese version 2.0 fixed the "spike bug" (a bug in which Sonic would instantly die if he "bounced" from one set of spikes to another due to him not gaining temporary invincibility until his feet touched the ground). Also fixed in both Japanese versions is the level select cheat, which listed the game's levels in an erroneous order.

In addition to this, due to differences between standard PAL and NTSC refresh rates, the European version of the game played at about 83% speed of the NTSC version (which also slows down the music to the point of notice), a problem that has been fixed for the remaining Mega Drive Sonic games, but not for Sonic the Hedgehog's appearances in some of the collections (e.g. Sonic Jam) or the Wii's Virtual Console version of the game.

8-bit version

Sonic the Hedgehog
File:Sonicmastersystem.PNG Master System version box art
Developer(s)	Ancient
Publisher(s)	Sega
Designer(s)	Shinobu Hayashi (Programming), Ayano Koshiro and Takefuni Yunoue (Design), Masato Nakamura and Yuzo Koshiro (Sound and music)
Platform(s)	Master System, Game Gear
Release	Master System October 25 1991 Game Gear December 28 1991 December 1991
Genre(s)	Platform game
Mode(s)	Single player

Title screen of Sonic the Hedgehog on Game Gear.

There was also a version Sonic the Hedgehog released for the Sega Master System and the Game Gear, which loosely followed the design of the 16-bit version, although with new stages, some different zones and a level map. Noticeable differences were that Chaos Emeralds had to be found within certain stages, instead of in Special Stages, bonuses are awarded from the end panel, given some conditions, and there are no rings available in boss levels (with the exception of Scrap Brain Zone which, coincidentally enough, has no actual boss). The Sega Master System version was the final title for the console released in the U.S.

The Game Gear version has a lower screen resolution, but a larger color palette, and more sensible control (i.e. Sonic can accelerate and decelerate more easily, and can jump higher). Some gameplay changes were also made from the Master System version, such as warning signs added near pits such in Green Hill Zone, because of the narrow screen and high speed; different level design on Labyrinth Zone, including location of the Chaos Emerald; falling in Jungle Zone Act 2 doesn't lead to a bottomless pit and loss of a life; and some bosses are different.

File:SMS Sonic the Hedgehog.png

Green Hill Zone in the Master System version

Two zones have differences to traditional Sonic levels, Bridge Zone Act 2 which scrolls independently of Sonic’s progress, forcing the player to work at a fast pace, and Jungle Zone Act 2, with a vertical level map as opposed to horizontal.

The Game Gear version was featured in the compilation Sonic Mega Collection Plus and was an unlockable in Sonic Adventure DX. A conversion for Palm Tungsten handhelds was also released in 2003 by Sega Mobile

Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis

File:Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis.jpg

Game Boy Advance box art.

A version of the game, which was entitled Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis, was released for the Game Boy Advance in November 2006 as part of the celebrations of the original game's 15th anniversary. The game is a remake of the original game as opposed to a port, but this title was supposed to named it "Sonic Advance 4." It includes a new save feature and a special "Anniversary Mode" featuring the Spin-Dash move that was added in later games. In addition, the view is slightly zoomed in and adapted for the GBA's widescreen aspect ratio,and the level select and debug codes have been left out, the former due to the fact that there is already a zone select screen. Despite the popularity of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game, Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis is widely considered to be very poor, due to the high amount of lag, poorly-remixed sound, broken physics and numerous other glitches, including the collision detection and slow frame rate. It should also be noted that some game stores don't sell this game anymore because of the poor reviews and negative news about it.

See also: Video games notable for negative reception

Compilation releases

Compilations that include the game are Sonic Compilation (1995) and Sega 6-Pak (1996) for the Sega Genesis; Sonic Jam (1997) for the Sega Saturn; Sega Smash Pack (1999) for the Sega Dreamcast; Sonic Mega Collection (2002) for the GameCube; Sonic Mega Collection Plus(2004) for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC, and Sega Genesis Collection (2006) for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable.

The Sonic Jam version, like all of the four games included in the title, was given "easy" and "medium" options (as well as an "original" option, the game as it was) that removed acts, bosses, enemies, spikes, traps and pits. These "easy" and "medium" options were not included with any other versions of the game. In addition, the Spin-Dash, a move that did not debut until Sonic 2 the following year, was implemented in the first game. It is interesting to note that the spike bug from earlier versions of Sonic the Hedgehog can be triggered if Spin Dash is turned off.

Sonic Mega Collection and Mega Collection Plus feature all three revisions of the game. The GameCube PAL edition of Mega Collection for the GameCube supports a 60 Hz option, which not only allows the game to be played full-screen and at its original speed, but also allows either the US or Japanese version 2.0 iterations to be played via a cheat code (the first Japanese version is the default). If the 50 Hz option is selected, these cheat codes do not work and only the PAL edition of the game can be played.

In Sega Genesis Collection, the US and European releases of this collection contain the US version of Sonic the Hedgehog; the Japanese release is the only one to contain the Japanese version of this game.

Releases on other platforms

The original game was converted into a Famicom game called Somari by a group of software pirates in Hong Kong. The game, which is mostly playable, replaces Sonic with Mario wearing Sonic's shoes.

A J2ME conversion for mobile phones running Java was released by I-Fone in 2006. This version, Sonic the Hedgehog Part 1, includes only the first three zones, with the remainder to be released as Sonic the Hedgehog Part 2 at a later date. This version mostly follows the Mega Drive version, but some features have been removed, most notably the Special Stage. There has also been a second, not as widely known version the game for Verizon phones, that has everything the original version did, although strangely removing all sound effects from the game. The mobile phone version also came bundled with some Panasonic cell phones in Europe and Japan.

In 2006, Sonic the Hedgehog became available for Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service from launch, costing 600 Wii Points ($6), and in 2007 entered Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade, under the title Sonic the Hedgehog Arcade. The 360 version does not allow the use of cheats to prevent undue earning of Achievements. It also has options for graphic smoothing, saving and loading current progress in-game and to resize the gameplay window.

The game was also present on the Danger Hiptop's Sidekick 3, Real Arcade and (along with most classic Sonic games)GameTap.

In 2007 the game was made available on the iTunes store as a game for the iPod nano with video, the iPod classic, and iPod with video.

Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog

In the development of Sonic & Knuckles, Sega tried to implement Knuckles the Echidna into the original game, but decided to leave him out. According to several programmers and hackers, the reason why Knuckles could not be placed into Sonic the Hedgehog like he was in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was that the palette colors of Knuckles' sprite would have, in fact, completely altered the palette scheme of the entire game. Therefore, instead of a Knuckles in Sonic 1 feature, fans were treated to a full version of the Blue Sphere game. Hackers, however, succeded in making a game called "Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic 1"[1].

Credits

• Game Plan: Hirokazu Yasuhara (credited as Carol Yas)
• Program: Yuji Naka (as YU2)
• Character Design: Naoto Ohshima (as Bigisland)
• Design: Jinya Itoh (as Jinya), Rieko Kodama (as Phenix Rie)
• Sound Producer: Masato Nakamura
• Sound Program: Hiroshi Kubota (as Jimita), Macky

External links

• Sonic Central Official American website
• Sonic Channel Official Japanese website
• Sonic City Official Europe website