Game:

Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)

Duration: 8:20

1,527 views

11

Please pick the 720p60 or 1080p60 resolutions to play back in 60 frames per second. (Internet Explorer, surprisingly, appears to be the best browser for playback.)

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR47VruYvM9_JVL3mKR2XN44N

The Bridge Zone is exclusive to the Master System/Game Gear version, and has a pretty cute tune, too! Folks say that Tail's theme in the Adventure games, "Believe in Myself" is based off of this one.

There's an autoscrolling level, here, which is pretty rare in a Sonic game 'cause it limits his speed potential, but its a fun way to mix things up, I think. You'll see the game lagging here and there, though, and it's surprising this is as bad as it gets, considering how much the system needs to do to keep up with Sonic. (No "blast processing" yet!)

I don't think I've mentioned chaos emeralds or special stages yet... This game is odd compared to most sonic games in that the chaos emeralds are not collected from the special stages! They are simply strewn about the zones, one for each. The special stages are for bonus lives and the continue monitor "power up". I believe it's the only way to get a continue!

You may notice at the end that I avoid a line of rings; this is because if you collect 100 rings, the counter rolls back over to "00". You are awarded an extra life, but you are blocked from entering the special stage because the counter has to read 50-99. Simply a limitation of programming, I think, rather than intent.

And here you begin to see some of the trial and error you'll face against Robotnik battles. You only have ONE hit in these fights, so you have to make the most out of your chances to learn the attack patterns! (The jolly boss music more than makes up for these setbacks.)
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Hey, there! This is a new series I've been wanting to do for a looong time: Sega Genesis (and Master System!) at 60 frames per second! Why? Well... have you ever watched an older game on YouTube and noticed the main character turn invisible when hit, or some other such nonsense? That's because some older games use some ridiculously high speed flicker effects to achieve those crazy hitflashes on bosses or that "ouch I'm hurt!" flicker! These are not displayed properly at 30 fps, but now that we're able to upload at 60 fps we can see all the special effects that older games would use! (They'll be smoother, too!)
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Master System Sonic the hedgehog is pretty different in feel from the Genesis version. It's essentially "8-bit Sonic", but cool in its own way. You still got all the running and spinning (love the little "tweeee~" sound it makes!) and badnik-bashing you can handle, but with a more simple and clean look to it!

Even though some levels bear the same name as the genesis version, these two are entirely differnet games. It also bears mention that the Game Gear version of this game is essentially the same as the Master System game.
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Some additional notes for those technically inclined:

Sega Genesis is built off'a the same hardware as a Master System and is capable of playing Master System games with an attachment. I'm playing and recording off an original Sega Genesis system via composite output along with stereo sound to get as authentic a recording as possible. The Genesis used is one of the "good" models with proper sound and video output. Genesis can also output an RGB signal which is clearer, but I vetoed the idea because it breaks the dithering effect (color blending and transparencies) as seen here:
http://retro-sanctuary.com/comparisons%20-%20differing.html
Also, the vast majority of people could not use the RGB signal even if they wanted to, so the experience they remember would be the composite signal as shown in this video.

There are a couple things to note about the quality of the video, however. Sega Genesis has a very dirty video signal that often "breaks" attempts to capture it with a capture device. The capture device I use is considered one of the most capable when it comes to older systems, but the Genesis' video signal still introduces some inconsistencies. These usually manifest where there are extremely thin lines in game, mostly the text, and in some other places as well. As a whole, it is more than manageable, but it is worth noting.

Also, the original sega genesis resolution is, in essence, 240p at 60 frames per second. To take advantage of YouTube's higher bitrate offerings and to enable 60 fps I need to upscale that resolution to 1080p. There is also a step of video deinterlacing before that to create crisp video. That is a significant amount of video processing to the image, so I want to note that here as well.

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