Sonic The Hedgehog Longplay (Game Gear) [60 FPS]
43Developed by Ancient and published by Sega in 1991.
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Al82_Retro
Add me on Google+: http://bit.ly/1tPwL1u
Released in the December of 1991, Sega brought everyone's favourite blue hedgehog to both the 8-bit Master System and Game Gear handheld consoles.
As always, Sonic is out to prevent Dr Robotnik and his army of Badniks from achieving world domination. This time, Sonic is attempting to save South Island and he must defeat Robotnik and recover the Chaos Emeralds to do so.
Instead of trying to replicate the 16-bit version of the game on 8-bit hardware, Ancient developed this game to cater specifically for the slower hardware and did an admiral job.
The game is broken up into a series of levels, each sub-divided into three acts. Acts one and two typically involve Sonic collecting rings and trying to locate the level exit whilst the third involves a boss fight with Robotnik in one of his deadly contraptions.
A Chaos Emerald is hidden in each series of level, but it's up to the player to learn which act and how to reach it; some are easier to find than others. If Sonic manages to collect all six emeralds then the player receives the full ending sequence.
If Sonic collects fifty rings then he gains access to a bonus stage at the end of the level. The bonus stage contains a large number of rings, a bonus continue and one or more extra lives. Of course, collecting one hundred rings also adds an extra life, so the player must move quickly to collect all the goodies and reach the exit before the timer runs out. This can be tricky as there are many bumpers and obstacles that Sonic will ricochet from, thus making the traversal of the level trickier than one might expect.
Although the Master System and Game Gear versions share many similarities, the main Sonic sprite has been redrawn with brighter colours (possibly to take advantage of the portable system's improved colour palette).
The game attempts to capture the same sense of speed as the 16-bit version and, for the most part, succeeds. However, the game does incur some pronounced slow-down when three or more moving sprites appear on screen at once. The slow-down makes the controls sluggish and can make achieving precision jumps somewhat difficult. Despite these niggles, the game is still very playable and the bonus stages in particular demonstrate the capabilities of the system.
Perhaps the one disappointing thing about the game is the fact that getting hit by enemies doesn't result in a cascade of rings. The fountain of rings always seemed to be one of the most iconic features of the Sonic games and the fact that this game didn't have it made it feel like something was missing. Fortunately, this feature was added in subsequent games.
Yuzo Koshiro produced some great chip-tune music for the game. Some of it remixes tunes from the 16-bit version, whilst majority are original compositions.
I remember my parents buying me a Game Gear with this game to take away on holiday one year. Needless to say, it was opened and played well before any packing was done!
I also remember it being frighteningly expensive at £20, which was a lot for a handheld game. Fortunately, the game packs in a decent number of levels and the game is reasonably challenging if you intend to hunt for all of the Chaos Emeralds.
8-bit Sonic is great slice of platforming fun and proved that the game was able to live up to the lofty expectations set by it's 16-bit sibling.
#retrogaming
Other Videos By AL82 Retrogaming Longplays
Other Statistics
Sonic the Hedgehog Statistics For AL82 Retrogaming Longplays
AL82 Retrogaming Longplays currently has 143,081 views spread across 6 videos for Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic the Hedgehog has approximately 4 hours of watchable video on his channel, less than 0.45% of the total video content that AL82 Retrogaming Longplays has uploaded to YouTube.