Sonic the Hedgehog

I never understood Sonic games and popularity.
This port of the first Sonic game looked like the perfect way to start experiencing the series again, now that I'm an adult, but I just find myself bored of a game where the developer clearly didn't know what to pursue.
Surely, the game has a great pixel art and a good soundtrack (despite the fact that only the first three stages are really remembered by most), and the overall game physics is spectacular if we think most games, during the time Sonic came out, had little to none of it.
The problem is the core of the game itself.
Sonic was always meant to be a way to show how fast SEGA console could operate in comparison to Nintendo's, hence they created a game were the playable character can run faster than your everyday italian plumber and gain momentun to show kids how powerful the console is. Basically, a tech demo which was sold as a full game.
That shouldn't bother me that much if it wasn't that the game does not live to those premises. Surely, you can speed through the first level, but after that, the game has an average level design, something I'd expect to see in a more tradional 2D platform: running fast in basically every level which isn't Green Zone 1-1 means certain death. And thus, the fun stop.
Sonic controls aren't as easy to get accustomed to as Mario's one, and the game does not offer such a different experience from any other game of this genre, leaving the whole "fast paced" part of the game only to the first level and then asking the player to play the rest of the game as if it was any other "normal paced" game.
So, what does Sonic offer to the player, compared to Mario? Better graphics, sure.
Anything else? Absolutely not.

The bosses (Dr. Eggman for every world) are as basic as they could get, even more than Super Mario Bros. 2, and most of the levels aren't even fun to get around in. Rings are always placed in useless ways and, at least in this version of the game, touching one single enemy leaves you with 0 Rings; touching an enemy with 0 Rings means death.
I can only save the soundtrack and great graphics of this game, nothing else. I get the feeling most people who call this game "a classic" never got past the second level.

Most of sonic 1 isn't as good as later games. The only good zones are green hill and star light zone. The music is great no bad song in the entire game. The special stages aren't very good it's just a game of luck if you get the chaos emerald or not. There are three playable characters in this version of sonic 1, sonic is the most bland character in the game he has no unique abilities that the other characters don't already have and is where the games flaws show the most. Tails is much one fun then sonic as he can fly for a short period of time. Knuckles is by far the best character in the game as he can glide and climb up walls which feels works well around the level layouts (despite not being playable in the original version) there's also a time attack mode where you try to get the best time on any of the games levels.

It's sonic 1, can't go wrong with it

Insert criticism about how the game peaks in the beginning

I HATE LABYRINTH ZONE!!!

Pretty nice
The spindash was a great add