Welcome to Modojo, Join the Party!Welcome to Modojo, Join the Party!
submitted by Robert Falcon
posted November 16, 2006An insult to the Sonic legacy and the fans alike.
Read the Modojo Review
submitted by LusterPurge94posted 3 months ago"The original Sonic The Hedgehog that busted the speed barrier wide open on the SEGA Genesis is coming to the Game Boy Advance with exciting new features! For the first time, you'll be able to save your high scores and progress as you rocket through the seven gravity-defying stages that started it all."
Yeah, right.
Advertisements, movie trailers, and more advertisements all emphasize only the positive things about the content they created. Such is the case with this game.
Right now you're probably thinking, "Whaaaat? They remade the classic game that started it all for a handheld and you're dissing it?" This remake for the Gameboy Advance is nowhere near the classic game that "busted the speed barrier wide open." I don't really know where to start, so I'll start anywhere.
Sure, it's true that this game does have "exciting new features:" the ability to save your progress, and the ability to use the Spin Dash. That's the positive thing about this game. The negative stuff is what Sonic Team didn't want to talk about in the above advertisement.
First of all, the screen size is smaller. Everything is closer than it was in the Sega Genesis version. This is due to the Gameboy's significantly smaller screen, but would it have been too much to ask for the sprites and landscape and everything to be smaller? To make up for the smaller screen? Also, the color palette used for Sonic is several shades to bright - Sonic is a mid-blue hedgehog. This game depicted him as a LIGHT-blue hedgehog.
In this game, Sonic is not worthy of his name. There's a glitch where and several points in the game the game will ssuuuuddenllly sssllloowww dooowwwwnnnn,,,, aaannnd wwwheeennnn yoouuu'''''rre leeeaaassst expeeeccccttiiiiing iiittt, ttthheeee ffffrraame rrratte jumps back to normal. But even without the slowdown glitch, the game is slow. IT'S SO SLOW!
And when you use the Speed Boost Shoes item, guess what? NO SPEED BOOST! Only the music speeds up; in fact, the Speed Boost Shoes make Sonic even slower!
Aside from that, the music and sound effects. First the sound effects. In the original classic game, there were different sounds used for destroying things - a slight explosion-like noise. In the GBA version, every single time you hit something, whether it's a robot or the evil Dr. Robotnik or shattering floor tiles, it's one single sound every time. And it's a different sound. A sound that should not realistically be produced by that action.
And the music. The original soundtrack of Sonic the Hedgehog 1 was pretty sweet - cool synth-sounding parts and an awesome digitally-enhanced snare drum. But here, the music is performed differently - using strings, piano, a BASS drum, and the worst part is, there's an annoying, whiny, high-pitched trumpet noise that plays most of the main parts. The result is a terrible soundtrack that insults the original.
There are also a few minor glitches that are present that make it seem like SEGA just doesn't care anymore. For instance, in the Labyrinth Zone, the underwater robotic fish are purple, instead of being red. Also, in the Scrap Brain Zone Act 3, the underwater gargoyles are gray-colored, as though they are outside of the water. When they aren't!
There are many more problems with this game, but I won't write about them.
My overall opinion on this game is - it is a disgrace to the original Sonic 1, to SEGA, to the Gameboy Advance, and to any poor gamer who plays it. It's just another terrible Sonic game to add to the landfill of bad Sonic games.
It's much better to play the Sonic Advance series if you want a Sonic handheld game. In fact, I would reccomend that.
