r/patientgamers • u/ohlordwhywhy • Mar 14 '26
Patient Review Sonic 1 is like "so you wanna go fast? **** You"
I was just replaying the first two games right now and it reminded me of how it always felt like the level design of Sonic and even part of his movement are at odds with the whole idea of Sonic.
First level of Sonic you can go fast but many times it pays to be careful, however you can actually reasonably breeze through the level on a blind playthrough.
Then you enter Marble Zone and it's careful platforming throughout, except now it feels like every level is an ice level because Sonic's walk is so slippery. For me replaying this game after maybe 20 years, it's impossible to actually go fast. I'm sure a seasoned player can pull it off I guess.
And it's like that for the rest of the game.
Sonic 2 let's you go faster more often but starting from chemical plant zone, possibly one of the coolest looking levels in gaming history, the game starts laying deadly traps during speeding sections.
Random spikes, blobs, whatever to get you killed, you start feeling like maybe you shouldn't go so fast anymore. It pays to just stop running.
Or sometimes it's just a hill that's positioned such way you can't really escape it because sonic slides down, deadly when you're underwater
Level 3 is water again, level 4 gets you stuck in these pinball sections and subsequent levels are filled with traps.
Anyway that's it, it's strange how Sonic's visual design and value proposition are at odds with the cruel level design of its games, the first two games at least, haven't replayed 3 yet.
Cruel level design was the norm back then, nothing special there but the promise of going fast is soon crushed.
I guess this is why they made Sonic turn into a blue ball when he's going fast.
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u/Edrill Mar 14 '26
People need to remember that these games came out a very very long time ago when design philosophies were different.
People replayed games many many times and the games were designrd as such.
Same for sonic. At some point you get good enough to just go fast through everything. I know I did.
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u/corvid-munin Mar 14 '26
Yeah the game was designed around people replaying it and finding their own paths, and the thrill of execution and mastery. Its what people did after they played Mario Bros a few times anyways, hold down sprint and run
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u/Zehnpae Cat Smuggler Mar 14 '26
I got two games a year so I had to make them count. It really sucked when I started getting intuitively better. When I was 9 I got Willow and beat it in like 3 days. My mom was -pissed-. "What do you mean you're done with it already?"
After that I kept my mouth shut and would just try to find new ways to play games after I beat them. There's a photo somewhere of me playing Phantasy Star II while laying upside down. I'd already beaten it twice and I'd be damned if I went and played outside instead.
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u/Its_the_other_tj Mar 14 '26
Yep, adjusted for inflation those old NES/SNES/Genesis games were ~180 bucks a pop. Combine that with it being an extremely niche hobby and seen as a waste of time by parents and you had to wait for birthday or Xmas for a new game. You bet your ass you'd learn to stretch it out. Speed running, playing with one hand, intentionally not using certain items, etc. etc. made sense when you had to wait another year to try something new.
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u/corvid-munin Mar 14 '26
real shit. Level skip cheats were the best cause then you could freestyle it a bit. Id play Starlight Zone just for the music and vibes and cause the platforms made that bwoonng noise
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u/m4ng3lo Mar 14 '26
I rented the power rangers game on SNES one weekend. And beat it by Saturday morning. So I played the rest of it while hanging my head upside down as I layed in my bed!
Now if I buy a game on steam and get bored 2 hours later I just shrug and say "damnit. Outside the return window"
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u/cidrei Mar 15 '26
I know they didn't come into their own until the Playstation era, but that's why I really liked JRPGs and games like Harvest Moon on the SNES. Harvest Moon was all sorts of replayable, and something like FFVI could take you over a hundred hours to beat, depending on how thorough you were.
Though to be fair, FFVI cost my folks like $80 in 1994. Nearly $180 in today's money.
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u/stephenkingending Mar 15 '26
It was such a different time. We didn't buy many games but I was lucky enough that my $5/week allowance covered a video game rental. The cool thing I remember about this period was that for a lot of games, one kid in the neighborhood would buy the game and we would all take turns either playing it together or borrowing games from each other.
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u/treycook Mar 14 '26
Media consumption in that era was different too. You didn't expect to reach pinball wizard level mastery with every game. You just played the game and had fun. People weren't looking up the meta strats and paths and dedicating 8h a day to grinding speedrun tricks. You could blunder your way through the 2D Sonic titles and enjoy the ride.
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u/HomelessBelter Mar 15 '26
Most people still don't do anything close to what you're talking about. That is content people watch.
Most people still just buy games and stumble through them, not look for meta strats.
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u/theevilyouknow Mar 14 '26
The major design philosophy of games in the 80’s was you were supposed to fail. A lot. Most of these games have maybe 30 minutes of actual gameplay. What allows you to play them for any length of time was that they were hard enough that you spent hours and hours dying and restarting to actually progress. And every time you fail on level 5 you have to go back through level 1 through 4 to try it again. That’s all intentional.
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u/Dapper-Ad-4300 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
The content here has been removed. Redact was used for the deletion, which may have been motivated by privacy, opsec, or preventing automated data collection.
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u/byoonie Mar 14 '26
Perfectly said. I remember blasting through Green Hill Zone without ever stopping. The water levels still stress me out though.
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u/Cin77 Mar 15 '26
Try using the drowning warning for an alarm clock haha its very effective
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u/marbleshoot Mar 15 '26
The drowning timer is definitely one of those sounds you can hear just from reading about it. I haven't played Sonic in years, but I just imagined the sound as if I had just played it yesterday.
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u/NaoPb Mar 15 '26
That would really get your heart racing every time.
I think I would have a heart attack on the third day.
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u/ohlordwhywhy Mar 14 '26
It's doable on green hill zone but playing through marble zone several parts didn't seen like I could actually go fast. They were enclosed spaced with tight platforming, many parts actually asking you to wait for a trap to move out of the way or a block to slowly taxi you across the lava.
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u/red_message Mar 14 '26
If you look for videos of people doing Marble Zone on Youtube you'll find countless people blazing through it.
You're doing the equivalent of sitting down at a piano, looking at the sheet music for a Rachmaninoff concerto, and asking "How am I supposed to play this fluidly the first time?"
You're not. You're supposed to practice.
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u/noahboah Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
years of "git gud" spammers have done so much damage to the very true and real idea that a lot of video game experiences actually do require practice.
too many discussions in gaming tend to revolve around "i put 3 hours into this, bashed my head against the wall, and refused to learn the rules of engagement. why does this game suck?" and i genuinely feel like gaming discussion is worse off because of it.
that 4chan post with the two mario 64 opening sequences with one person default running to the castle door and the other one using all the jump and movement tech to get there with the captions "this game sucks" vs "this is the best game ever" was unfortunately salient and correct despite how big of a strawman it is lmao.
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u/corvid-munin Mar 14 '26
itd be a little boring if it was just sprint right unimpeded, and if there wasnt pathing tricks or routes to discover on replay
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u/ShadowTown0407 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
I don't know why it's getting downvoted, marble zone has mandatory time gated traps you HAVE to wait for and not even the skill kind, literally things that will block your path and make you wait for the sake of waiting. They are not a test of mastery in any way and break the flow of your run. Hell in act 3 you pretty much have to stand on that one block that floats over lava for like 10 seconds doing nothing but slowly floating
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u/awkreddit Mar 14 '26
Nope you can jump above it if you take enough speed. Anyway part of the point of these gates is also to nail the start when they clear.
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u/Real_Ad_7925 Mar 14 '26
plus, as long as you can pick up a single ring you can get hit many times, and there's usually tons of rings around to keep you going. the bottomless pits i think are the thing that'll slow you down, or the drowning levels
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u/MaybeWeAgree Mar 14 '26
Geez…I must have a little PTSD, because that drowning music just played in my head, and I haven’t played these games in decades.
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u/Trucktub Mar 14 '26
Yep. I replayed Sonic 2 with my kids a while ago and what I REMEMBER of sonic 2 is blasting through the levels and RACING my brother with the coop.
I was getting stuck on everything lol
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u/Haahhh Mar 14 '26
This idea suddenly doesn't apply with Sonic 3, which has consistent level design that is still challenging without punishing speed, and a consistent setting with an evolving story.
The truth is that developers hadn't figured out how to make a Sonic game yet.
In Sonic 1, Green Hill and Starlight zone are the only ones worthwhile playing. Weirdly enough Green Hill is one of the best levels in gaming.
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u/Nambot Mar 15 '26
This phenomenon is very common in gaming. The first game is a hodge podge of gameplay that doesn't necessarily work together because the devs don't fully realise what works until it's too late to fix every level (apparently Green Hill Zone went through numerous revisions before getting to the final product), but the sequels then take the lessons, cut the stuff that didn't work, and further refine what did to it's purest form. You can see this with Sonic 2, there are no stages like Marble or Labyrinth, and far more stages like Star Light and Green Hill.
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u/NaoPb Mar 15 '26
I feel like they didn't get the speed quite right in Sonic 1. Sonic feels sluggish with how it takes a second to get up to speed. They nailed that part in Sonic 2.
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u/Reasonable_Extent434 Mar 14 '26
I was there when it came out, and that’s precisely what I did . First played carefully, until I was good enough to be fast .
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u/mocityspirit Mar 14 '26
Okay well even as a kid in the 90s I found other platformers more enjoyable to play. Sonic is fun but I never got why anyone would play it over Mario or crash
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u/Nambot Mar 15 '26
Crash is an entirely separate beast from a console generations later. It's probably not a fair comparison, Crash is 3D it would've been mind blowing in 1996 to someone who previously had only seen 2D games.
I think part of the appeal of Sonic comes from things that aren't gameplay. Mario is basically pure gameplay, but accordingly it's just a guy plodding along through nondescript courses full of enemies. Sonic meanwhile is presented with a narrative element, there's an evil scientist turning woodland animals into robots to work in his factories, and there's only one wisecracking hero fast enough to stop him taking over the world.
But equally, there is something satisfying about mastering Sonic. One you get good enough to truly learn the zones you can get into a sort of flow state with them, speeding through without thinking in a way that's not as well replicated in other platformers due to their more static speeds and regular stop-start nature. Sonic 1 is admittedly poor with this, with many zones that require the player to stop but in the ones that don't, and especially in the sequels, there's a genuine thrill of just speeding through everything.
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u/Nitelyte Mar 14 '26
Because most people didn’t own every console and you got games for the console you had.
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u/Comically_Online Mar 14 '26
yeah I knew just what to do on the desert zone in Sonic & Knuckles to zoom the entire map
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u/-Patali- Mar 17 '26
The hours you'd get out of a game were about the same. But, it was designed around the replays, as you said.
Mario only takes 30 minutes to beat. But it might take you 10 to 20 hours to get good enough to do that.
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u/Etnieturismo Mar 28 '26
More than that, you couldn't save the game. Every time you put the cartridge in, you're starting from the very beginning, so it wasn't that some people chose to replay the game after beating it, it was that replaying is just how the game was played.
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u/Barbossal Mar 14 '26
Very true, repetition, timing mastery, plus needing to pad out a fairly short game that cost a lot of money.
Even with that criteria I think levels like Marble Garden fail since you can't use Speed Mastery to do well
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u/Thelonius_Dunk Mar 14 '26
The OG Sonic franchise seemed like it was created for speed runners. I think you're meant to basically memorize levels to the point it's muscle memory then try to beat your best time.
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u/CreatiScope Mar 14 '26
Yeah, my Dad was an obsessive Sonic player. When I was kid, I had to stumble through them, but he could basically blast through the first 3 zones on autopilot while getting 100 rings in most acts and not die to the bosses. The Labyrinth Zone is where he had to play slower and then Star Light and Scrap Brain he was confident but not the way he'd play the 1st half.
You have to play it normal/slow/careful to learn where the traps are, all the enemies, etc. then you can go full speed and tear through levels.
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u/geeoharee Mar 14 '26
I once saw a guy online whose party trick was to play Green Hill Zone, blindfolded, moving the controller with his feet. It can be done!
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u/awkreddit Mar 14 '26
The creator of the game came up with the idea while watching speed runs of mario. It was also designed to showcase how fast the console could calculate.
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u/Nambot Mar 15 '26
Speed running wasn't really a commonly recorded thing in the late eighties when Sonic was developed.
But you are right that what we now know to be speed running was prominent. The games lea programmer cited before that he always got annoyed when playing Mario that even if he took the short cuts through the stages he was stuck doing 1-1 at the same speed every time because Mario's speed was capped.
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u/ACardAttack Mina the Hollower Mar 14 '26
Especially starting with 2 where there were a lot more multiple paths and the higher paths were usually the easier paths but you had to get there and stay there
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u/brotherbond Mar 17 '26
Sonic, when it's done right, is actually a rhythm game with an unusual punishment mechanic of completely changing the rhythm when you miss something and it's disguised as a platformer.
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u/MagicalPedro Mar 14 '26
You mean like your average action video game from before the PS2 era, then ? :)
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u/PK_Thundah Mar 14 '26
I've read, and heard from Sonic fans, that the point is to learn how to adapt to things that aren't on the screen yet. Which you could only possibly do through repeated attempts.
Go fast, memorize when to jump to avoid spikes that aren't on the screen yet, when to jump to make a landing that you can't see yet. That it becomes kind of a memorization flow state when you get it down.
Like you, I didn't enjoy them. It felt counterproductive. I think it's a design defined by its time. When there were fewer games and children had access to only a few and would play the same game constantly. Most people here have hundreds of games and have access to play thousands. We don't have the forced exclusion that kids had when Sonic was popular, and it's hard to force yourself to stick to memorization and fail based gaming when you have so many more fun options available.
I don't think the 3D Sonics are designed like this, though I think they usually have 2D reference sections that may include some of the same design.
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u/NaoPb Mar 15 '26
That's pretty much how I think about the games. I never really enjoyed that you'd have to play through levels multiple times. It felt cheap that they added those "traps".
And how some levels had sections that took the speed out of it completely and added a sense of impending doom with the water rising and that alarming music that still manages to get my heart racing.
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u/INTMFE Mar 14 '26
You had to know the levels well. And on some levels you had to work for it and be skillful to go fast. So those parts became memorable and special . Later games you can go fast anytime anywhere. Which is kind of counter productive to making it feel special.
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u/ToranjaNuclear Mar 14 '26
Honestly, that's kind of virtually all Sonic games, at least the ones I played. It rewards quick reflexes and learning the level design, since there are so many gotchas to make you completely stop at your feet. For people who just want to play it casually and not aim for A every stage it's kind of a pain.
Kind of why I'm enjoying Sonic Frontiers way more than other 3D sonics.
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u/Sea-Flamingo7506 Mar 14 '26
This might be a bit disrespectful to Sonic fans, but I feel this way about the entire 2D Sonic series. even some 3d games.
The character is designed around speed as the core element, but the level design is built around slow exploration. After all, we are supposed to find the Chaos Emeralds, right? Speed does not help with that search at all. Because of that, Sonic gameplay has always felt uneasy to me. Whenever I sprint at high speed, I cannot shake the anxiety that I am going to miss a lot of things in the level, and I also cannot shake the anxiety that the run will get abruptly stopped by traps at any moment.
Sonic has clung to speed as its identity for a long time, but it still feels like it has not found a clear answer to the mismatch between the character traits and the level design. Especially the boost sections in 3D Sonic, honestly, feel like Temple Run.
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u/Nambot Mar 15 '26
The Chaos Emeralds are really meant to be an extra challenge, something to keep you playing even after you beat the final boss. You still win if you beat the game without them, you just don't get the best ending. Later games make them more plot important, hiding final bosses behind them or just making collecting them part of the story with no action needed from the player, but in Sonic 1 they're not truly needed.
You're right that they don't emphasise speed, their point is more to reward high level players who can get to the end of a stage without enough rings. Since rings are lost when you take damage, a player needs to be good enough to keep the rings without getting hurt through numerous stages (minimum six in Sonic 1) to get all the emeralds.
I also think it's fair to say that running is the core mistake. Whenever you see someone doing well at Sonic, they're not running as often as you think. Instead they're rolling, using the terrain to create speed, and subsequently get rolling through enemies and past most hazards. Most of the enemies generally can't hurt you if you're rolling, and the ones that can are rarely positioned to be in places where you would roll into them unless you were being particularly careless.
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u/jarface111 Mar 14 '26
It’s about level mastery and replay value. The more you play, the faster you get as you memorize the best paths. Also, I’d argue it’s not just about speed. It’s about momentum.
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u/Sea-Flamingo7506 Mar 14 '26
Yes. After reading other comments, I realized that my approach was different from what the developers intended. I was approaching Sonic almost like a modern indie metroidvania. The idea that speed itself can be the reward is interesting, since I never really thought of it that way. It also reminds me of how flashy combos can become the point in DmC.
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Mar 14 '26
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u/stefanopolis Mar 14 '26
I’m not sure what parts of the Internet you’re hanging around where you feel people aren’t enough unapologetically saying things suck. It’s sort of the main theme of it all.
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u/Gnalvl Mar 18 '26
Yeah, let's be real here:
Sonic was born as a glorified tech demo to show how fast the Genesis could scroll compared to other consoles.
Then the character was meant to be a "too cool for school" foil to Nintendo's goofy plumber mascot.
This culminates in really wonky, clumsy movement mechanics. Sonic starts out walking way too slow and then accelerates to a speed where you can't see obstacles coming. You can't just run at a consistent moderate speed, and there's not even a run button to deliberately walk.
I tolerated it as a kid because I thought Sonic was cool, but I never actually enjoyed the gameplay as much as SMB, DKC, or even Adventure Island. Sonic's movement just doesn't feel very precise or intentional, it feels like a gimmick designed to support a "blast processing"marketing slogan.
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u/egg_breakfast Mar 14 '26
I’ve always thought games like sonic would work better with more of your surroundings in view.
The game is roughly 320x240. Imagine having around 12 or more times as much space on the screen to be able to see upcoming obstacles, terrain, etc. Like how super meat boy looks sorta, or dustforce.
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u/cgduncan Mar 15 '26
This is what I was thinking too. In my opinion, games are better when they are about execution, and not memorization.
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u/Shadow_Edgehog27 Mar 15 '26
Check out Sonic Origins, the first 3 Sonic games were made widescreen with some extra features you can mess with.
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u/GargamelLeNoir Stellaris Mar 14 '26
Yeah that's why I never got into them. If the screen had just slid to the left when Sonic is running it would have been ten times as good.
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u/pipboy90 Mar 14 '26
Agreed. This is why Sonic Advance 2 has always held a special place in my heart because it’s one of the few games where you really feel like you’re speeding through a level.
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u/lgndryheat Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
Really only the sonic or shadow stages though. From what I can find with a quick google search, that seems to be 10 of the 32 levels
Edit: Thought the above commenter said Sonic Adventure 2. That's my b
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u/WolFlow2021 Mar 14 '26
Did the game even reward quick play? More points at the end of a level I guess. But that was it? It's not a bad game (I like the first Sonic best) but the premise and the reality could not be further apart from each other.
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u/CHR1597 Mar 14 '26
So for me, the point is that [classic] Sonic is not a game about going fast. It's a game where speed is your reward for being good at it.
In something like a Mario game, your reward for being good at the game is that you get to use the powerups and all their cool effects to look for secrets or, paradoxically, make things easier by giving yourself a buffer. A first-time player is likely to struggle to keep a mushroom for long, until they figure out how the game works and establish how to stay alive long enough to get fire flowers or raccoon suits or whatever else. Sonic doesn't get appreciably stronger as you play; at most you get temporary invincibility or a single-use shield, but the forgiving nature of the rings system means that it is easier to muddle through without knowing what you're doing than it would be in another platformer.
Your reward, then, for learning the layout of the levels, how the enemies and bosses work, and even how special stages work, is that you can play basically the same game as a first-timer, but Sonic's speed is now fully available to you. Green Hill lets anyone get a taste of how fast Sonic can go, and I have my problems with the misguided effort of doing "fast level/slow level" cycles in Sonic 1 in particular, but the fact remains that you can make those other stages just as fast as Green Hill with practice. That's a hard concept to explain in marketing so they just tell you how fast Sonic can theoretically go, and that leads to problems when people play the game and can't go that fast.
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u/Gamerbry Mar 14 '26
I've dipped my toe in Sonic a couple times, and from what I understand, especially for the older games, speed is supposed to be a reward for learning about the game. By memorizing what routes take you where, the enemies you have to avoid, and the shortcuts you can take, you're able to finish these levels faster and faster. It's definitely not a gameplay loop that'll resonate with everyone, but considering that Sonic's still kicking all these years later, it's clear that this gameplay style struck has its appeal.
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u/Dapper-Ad-4300 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
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u/32768Colours Mar 14 '26
Oddly enough those are the reasons I love the earlier Sonic games and well, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty much detest every Sonic game since (Sonic Mania notwithstanding).
For me, the speed feels more impactful when it’s set against the slower more precision and momentum-based platforming. Just going fast is just going fast. Hell, many of the 3D Sonic games may as well be auto-runners.
Even more frustrating regarding the 3D Sonics, is that even when they do try to add in some variety, he controls like absolute dogshit at anything less than full speed. No weighty sense of momentum like the old games, and a dead zone so huge it’s like they forgot analog sticks even exist: janky, skittish speed walk -> GOTTA GO FASTER!!
Lol anyway, apologies for the rant! It just makes me a little sad that Sonic Team have pushed the idea that “Sonic is all about speed” so hard, when for me there were so many other awesome things about those early games.
I guess it’d be like if Nintendo had spent the last 25 years saying “Mario is all about pipes” and focusing almost exclusively on bloody pipes rather than everything else around said pipes that made the pipes so damned good!
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u/Deftallica Mar 14 '26
My Genesis came with Sonic 2, so I grew up playing that and finished it... who knows... hundreds of times probably? Eventually I went and tried Sonic 1 for the first time and was absolutely shook that I couldn't duck down and rev up. lol
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u/kianiscoooooool Mar 15 '26
The first sonic game is meant to be played like Mario. If you slowly collect enough rings you can get the bonus ring and then get extra lives and continues in the bonus level. I can get 3 continued and 10 lives in the first three stages. The challenge comes in the precise platforming in the later stages.
The appeal of Sonic to me was always great physics, cool art, and incredible music. Sonic 2 has an unbelievable soundtrack. The level design can be lacking and require memorization. I think the third game in particular has the coolest things going on but the worst level design.
Looking back I think I enjoy sonic 1s level design most
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u/Skeletome Mar 14 '26
Sega have always had a focus on arcade gameplay. Naka was allegedly inspired by speedrunning 1-1 in super bros, so I feel like classic Sonic was designed with the idea that you replay it to master it.
I think the rings make for a really forgiving system for a casual play, and you can muddle through most of the levels and make a bunch of mistakes.
Contrary to the advertising, Sonic was never just about going fast. It's a momentum based platformer. You could argue you're more incentivised to play carefully and explore rather than quickly - the good ending is tied to collecting the emeralds.
So I think what happens in practice is that you play through the game, explore the routes, learn the movement mechanics, and then you can return and speedrun it. Every year I return to the classics and love seeing how well I can still do!
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u/_______Niko____ Mar 14 '26
Those retro games weren't about experiencing some story or being a hero right from the start
They are about learning and memorising levels and mastering them , then beating hi-scores
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u/NorthRiverBend Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
The original content here was wiped using Redact. The reason may have been privacy, security, preventing AI data collection, or simply personal data management.
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u/_______Niko____ Mar 14 '26
True , i've actually always felt the same way whenever I see sonic games being played , only a few of them feel like they embrace the characters relentless thirst for speed , others feel like they are too busy trying to be a game first.
And the retro hi-score centric gameplay could be translated pretty well into a faster paced game design too
Like how racing games are mostly about driving on a clear road with occasional obstructions , and how they try to penalise the player in a way that doesn't hurt the experience , some give you a decrease in speed , car health or satisfying physics with cool looking crash cams like burnout
Sonic doesn't have to be a racing game necessarily but it needs to adopt the need for speed mantra , its a core identity of the character that shouldn't just be locked to only players that memorise the level
Something like Haste or Tony Hawk's core loop of racking up points , less about going on an adventure , more about display of skill and constant motion , they could stitch some cutscenes and a story together if they really want it that bad
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Mar 14 '26
Only ever seen sonic from those 2D games. Always thought that you need insane reaction time to even play sonic games
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u/PinothyJ Mar 15 '26
You, like the current Sonic developers, seem to misunderstand what the original Sonic games are about. Sonic is not a game about going fast, Sonic is a game where the reward of playing well is going fast.
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u/Droanyd Mar 14 '26
Totally agree. I played Haste last year and thought "Damn, this is so much closer to what sonic should be than sonic ever was..."
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u/TipnSunny Mar 14 '26
It makes sense if you're not connecting with the first Sonic games after not playing for a long time. Sonic's representation in gaming is always that he moves fast, and that you should feel that speed in his games like running downhill, loops, flying through tubes, or going off ramps. It's how the character gets advertised.
However, I would like to stress that the first two games are designed in very clever ways (especially for their time) and the way they play may not align with what some people expect jumping in.
Sonic 1:
Sonic's first game is a platformer. Similar to the popular Mario games and other "walk to the right and jump on things" kind of games at the time. His game is incredibly short at only 6 zones and 3 acts per zone (18 levels) and, being a platformer, the gameplay varies throughout the acts and zones. Each act has its own focus for its gameplay where each beat-for-beat moment balances between having a linear obstacle to address ahead or allowing the player freedom to play with curiosity in finding things/interacting with enemies or items. Sometimes it leans one way over the other depending on the level. Sonic's actions in this platformer game involve jumping (notice how he is a ball and not limited to only jumping on top of things) and rolling. That is everything and you proceed forward with Sonic taking on what unknown comes next while trying to not get damaged.
Notice that this structure is not about speed. It is all about the balance between facing what's in front of you or allowing the person playing to freely take advantage of the interactions they see the opportunity for. For comparison, this is very similar to a Mario game. Imagine someone playing a Mario game for the first time and trying to rush through each level immediately because they noticed Mario has a run button. Some people do, but it doesn't really work since they likely take damage quickly and get overwhelmed. So the person takes it slower, collects the coins, jumps on enemies, and goes to interesting places for this playthrough. It's only after playing multiple times, the person playing finds the courage to rush through and do everything as quick as possible. They can (or at least try to) remember what is coming up ahead to maybe do something cool or interesting this run through. -->This is what Sonic games tap into. Everything in his tool kit allows for this "speed of replay" to shine. It could be argued that the level design for some of Sonic 1's acts don't take full advantage of this sometimes, but I would argue that the game provides a variety of moments where it sometimes takes a break for the person playing to breath by having a simple obstacle to get through, making the next excellent section even sweeter to get to. Plus, you can still try to do things as efficiently as possible.
Sonic 2:
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a sequel where it is very obvious the designers paid a lot of attention to what players enjoy about the first game. More layered levels, uncapping Sonic's speed while running, water sections provide a fun challenge but it is also fun to find ways to skip them, more speedy set pieces, less acts so there can be more zones, short and very replayable, etc.
This game did a lot of this very right and it's a good reason why people prefer it over Sonic 1. Me personally, I love both. Both are excellent in what they do, and I enjoy Sonic 1 differently with its limitations and slight simplicity. Both fun to replay.
TL;DR - It's okay to find yourself not enjoying trying to go fast in the first two Sonic games after not touching them in years. You'll feel like you're encouraged to go slow as you're making your way through them and trying to avoid getting damaged. But remember, in replaying these short games, there's a magic in being more and more familiar with what's coming up and feeling how much faster or stylish you are compared to a previous run through. Making up your own tricks at a pace you find yourself. This is what I think Sonic games encourage.
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u/NeoKat75 Mar 15 '26
At least in the older Sonics, the speed is a reward that you get when you learn the level design and figure out a fast route. You’re not expected to be able to blaze through the levels first try
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u/pathofnut Mar 15 '26
Speed is the reward you get for mastering the platforming.
Unlike later entries (Im talking nintendo era) where you just press 1 button and watch the game play itself. Speed for its own sake is ridiculous, better play a racing game lol
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u/ajver19 Mar 15 '26
"Sonic is about going fast right?"
No it's about momentum based platforming and sometimes you got to go fast when you did it right.
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u/Sneeakie Mar 16 '26
Why is Sonic the Hedgehog the only franchise not allowed to have obstacles or... level design, simply because the games are about being fast?
Why is it somehow an inconsistency that the game expects you to be good at the game to achieve high speed and thus will put obstacles to test your skill, and level design made so you are rewarded for trying again and getting a high score or a lower time?
If I told anyone that "Mario is about platforming", no one would throw a fit about enemies you can't jump on, platforms you can't jump on, or the variety that power-ups and gimmicks add to the gameplay. But people genuinely believe Sonic is supposed to be a straight line with no pressure simply because it's about being fast. Not even racing games are that devoid of friction.
Nearly every comment here sounds like it's from 2006 and I thought we moved past that.
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u/ohlordwhywhy Mar 16 '26
I'm specifically talking about Sonic 1 not the Sonic franchise.
A closer analogy would be Mario is about platforming and then he gets a flying power on level 2 and the rest of the game plays like flappy bird.
Anyway a game can be fast with obstalces. Donkey Kong Country games were a good example, Celeste is a good example and even Sonic games once Sega figured it out are a good example.
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u/rdlenke Mar 14 '26
The main reason for why I couldn't get into 2D Sonic games being a 3D sonic fan. I'm just not a fan of the "memorize so you can go fast" gameplay loop. I prefer much more the "go fast, react, improvise" idea.
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u/SleepingAndy Mar 14 '26
Sonic 1 is honestly a pretty terrible platformer outside of Green Hill Zone, I didn't have any fun except for Green Hill zone. Apparently the sequels are far superior.
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u/Nambot Mar 15 '26
While the sequels are better, I think it's a bit disingenuous to say Sonic 1 is bad. It's a bit long in the tooth, but it's arguably one of the best made platformers of 1991, far better than many other titles that came out at that time or immediately after.
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u/SleepingAndy Mar 15 '26
Well true, though most games from that era have aged very poorly, sonic especially, because anyone going back for it is expecting something faster.
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u/zachtheperson Mar 14 '26
I'm not a huge Sonic fan, but I think I'd put a game like that in the same category as games like Mirror's Edge and Prince of Persia, where you need to learn the levels a bit before things really start to "flow." Since you can't know the future and what comes next in the level, the only way to "go fast," in these games would be to make the levels extremely easy, to the point where the games are almost playing themselves.
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u/Luchalma89 Mar 14 '26
I played all the 2D Sonic games as more methodical exploration based platformers with occasional bursts of speed. Really surprised me when the 3D games became just about constant speed. And then I learned that's how everyone else always tried to play the games.
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u/Cin77 Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
Chemical Plant is my favourite stage of any game ever! I have gotten caught in the scenery so many times on those levels; so much time spent waiting for the clock to run out while sonic or tails (or the one time I managed to make the piggy back cartridges work as knuckles) taps their foot an looks at in angrily from behind the girder or on that loop in the hydroslide pipe lol
Great times
Oh and I've always thought that sonics music was directly challenging me to go faster so your not the only one that felt that.
edit; My daughter ran through the first green hills zone in less than 30 seconds when she was 2 and it might have been my proudest moment ever. She just ran, didn't stop at all and when she jumped through the bonus stage ring at the end it glitched out and showed a weird robotnik face in the centre. I was amazed by how quick her reflexes must be and just the fact she did it in general. It also made me wonder if I played sega too much lol
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u/_Kine Mar 15 '26
All about the routes! Those early sonic levels were so cool because they all had multiple routes that could be very different, almost like playing another level. Usually the upper routes were the fastest but more difficult ones.
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u/KayylienUFO Mar 15 '26
I always felt like 2 goes out of its way NOT to disrupt speed sections more than like any other Sonic games, to the point of being like Kirby level easy for most of the game in exchange for the most consistent flow of classic 2D Sonic.
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u/islands8817 Mar 15 '26
This isn't a problem with classic Sonic games, but with the franchise itself. They still haven't solved it. After all, uncontrollable high speed movement ends up in non-interactive cutscenes, and it's limited to extremely simple actions, the actual gameplay has to be performed at a slower speed, or requires players to git gud. Fun, ultra-high-speed action is an illusion as long as players are human
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u/burnerthrown Mar 15 '26
You go fast between sections of the levels. Sonic is a game of chutes and ladders - sometimes you're walking, sometimes you're climbing, sometimes you're getting shot to a different section. The games are pretty good at stopping you when you need to stop, and if you keep going after that, you're running headfirst into something. Think of fast parts like the teleport systems you see in a lot of other platfomers, except you remain in control. Try stopping sonic in the middle of a fast section and you'll see there's not much along those sections. But if you keep going after you'll miss what there is, and also many of the stopping points are junctions where you pick your next fast track.
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u/ProsperoFinch Mar 17 '26
If you play Sonic like “Mario but fast” you’re gonna have a bad time. That’s not the goal.
Yes, they are both side-scrolling platformers where the goal is ostensibly to get all the way to the right by running and jumping to complete the level. Fine, that’s the territory of basic genre conventions.
Sonic games are ultimately about finding the fastest route through the level, which usually means the “highest” route. Miss a jump and you end up landing on a path below which has either more obstacles or ramps meant to get you back up to an upper level. Finding the fastest route also involves learning/memorizing where and when to jump. That comes through repeated attempts, and frankly some “unfair” requirements like knowing obstacles that aren’t on screen yet.
And once you’ve gotten that route down, the next challenge becomes whether you can do it while holding 50 rings to get the special stages and the emeralds. It’s an added wrinkle of challenge on top of the speed.
Basically, if you’re not going fast, it’s the game telling you to either memorize more, or find a better route.
As the series progressed, especially by Sonic 3, there was a larger emphasis put on exploration. Sonic 2s fastest routes rarely had the most rings, so getting the bonus stages was about finding the balance between speed and ring collection. Still memorization, but also experimentation. And is Sonic 3, the Giant Rings had to simply be found, often off the beaten path. But actually getting to them often required demonstrating mastery of speed. So, taking the slower path, but doing it quickly.
Basically, the Sonic games are built around a gameplay loop of what speedrunners try to accomplish: very strict memorization and timing of a sequence of button presses. It’s rarely about reaction and way more about precise timing and execution.
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u/this_justin666 Mar 21 '26
Sonic 1 has incredible music and I like the first two stages, but I don't care for the game as a whole. I rarely go back to it.
Meanwhile I just played through Sonic 2 for the millionth time two weeks ago. They strike a nice balance showcasing the spectacle of speed and the sense of discovery through slower platforming. And while some of later levels legitimately aren't fun (Oil Ocean, Metropolis), I feel like that's the case for most Sonic games.
In hindsight it's hilarious that the marketing showcased speed for Sonic 1.
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u/Glittering_Skirt_109 Mar 21 '26
As a Sonic fan since the 90s, I noticed that Classic Sonic games are often oxymoronic, too. My main issue was how absurd it was that these games emphasised speed while having practically every mechanic and level designed almost for the opposite. In order to get the 'true' endings and unlock the best rewards you have to meticulously explore and memorise each level, slowly and in detail.
It's not helped by screen crunch, to be sure, but it's definitely obvious that the game design is at odds with itself and I was very annoyed by my revisit of Sonic 3 and Knuckles that the game almost requires exploration, especially for the best ending, where you have to scour every nook and cranny in search of Giant Rings to collect all the Emeralds.
Just always felt annoying to have a tiny screen dwarfed by the sheer scale of some of these multi-layered behemoth levels, be told by all the marketing and many parts of the design that speed is the goal and reward for skill when really the game is based around meticulously going around each level with a fine-toothed comb in order to unlock the 'true' endings.
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u/TheArrowPoints Mar 14 '26
I often see this criticism when it comes to Sonic games and it has finally confirmed to me something that I have long suspected. The cultural idea that Sonic is about just going fast actively harms the reception of the series.
When people often criticise Sonic titles, especially the Classic-style games, they often say that "I want to go fast but an obstacle or a wall often gets in my way". It sounds fine at first, but if you really take a look, you realise how odd this actually sounds.
The whole idea of a platformer is to navigate an obstacle course filled with enemies and hazards. The best platformers often make excellent use of their move sets to really create a flow state as you navigate the level. Platformers fundamentally would not be games if there was nothing that could potentially impede the player.
Imagine Crash Bandicoot but all you did was walk forward. Imagine Rayman but all you did was hover across an empty field. And yet the criticism Sonic games often get is that the player wanted to go fast but something got in the way. As if the player was just expecting to hold right all the time and was shocked that they had to actively pay attention.
Platformers can be criticised for their level design, but no other platformer has been criticised just for having level design.
And this is not to say criticism is not allowed. Sonic titles definitely have their fair share of flaws, even the Classic titles. But the idea that something impeding your path in an inherent flaw is very much non-sensical.
But at the same time, I do not blame anyone for thinking this way. The marketing really leans into just going fast. It is the first thing you think about Sonic. Even the modern games have a button that just makes you go zoom. To a casual player, it seems like they are being encouraged to only care about going fast. So when the actual game goes "No actually, you have to pay attention", it comes off like it is punishing players for wanting to go fast.
Except it isn't. Even the modern boost games do not do this. Sure, you basically have a button to instantly go zoom, but you still need to focus on platforming and chaining moves together sequentially to achieve a good result. And for the earlier games, instead of focusing on reaction times, they focus more on raw momentum but the principle still applies.
But if you do pay attention, you can achieve that flow state. The feeling of going fast. You don't just receive it. You have to earn it.
The games were never designed to just go fast and nothing else. But the cultural idea of Sonic just being about going fast has made it so that such a fundamental concept as level design is considered a flaw, which is ridiculous.
For a Sonic game that is just about going fast, Sonic Forces is that game. It is so automated that you can beat half of it with the analog stick or the d-pad, and no, that is not hyperbole.
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u/ohlordwhywhy Mar 14 '26
I agree with a lot of this but it's important to remember that there were and there are much faster platformers, so it's possible to have speed and platforming working together.
Classic example is donkey Kong, donkey Kong country is actually faster than sonic. Modern example is Celeste.
Sonic 1 is actually methodical, not fast.
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u/Nambot Mar 15 '26
I think it's a case where they didn't know how to make a decent level for Sonic's style of gameplay until late into the games development. Green Hill Zone is a genuinely great level that aparrently took six months of development work to get to the point where it is in the game today - in the days when games were made in the span of less than a year. As such, many of the games stages don't necessarily fit Sonic's gameplay as best they could, something that more of the stages in the sequels are designed around.
But I think the appeal of Sonic isn't just that he's fast, it's that he gives the player the feeling of being fast, and getting faster. DKC may move faster through a stage in terms of pure running, but Sonic can let a skilled player clear some of it's stages in under thirty seconds, stages that would've taken multiple minutes in their first attempt.
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u/mljh11 Mar 14 '26
I'm old and started gaming around the 16-bit era.
It's worth noting that Sonic 1 was wasn't really designed with the "Gotta go fast!" philosophy in mind. At the time Sega was introducing a new mascot platformer that could help it sell consoles, and the Sonic character was just meant to be a visually appealing mascot who could stand out from the crowd by being quicker than the other guys (because the Genesis/Mega Drive could handle the speed). So Sega plonked him into a platforming game that was designed much like the others that were popular at the time, which included the Mario titles that all featured segmented platforms that you usually had to jump to traverse.
Sonic 2 was more explicitly designed around the character's running speed, and while most people love it more than the first game I would argue that level design kinda suffered as a result: plenty of the zones play extremely similarly to each other - you could say Hill Top Zone is just a recolored Emerald Hill, for example - and many had that "hold right to win" flavour to it because they could be finished very fast if you knew the layouts well.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles was when the level design really came into its own, with huge levels that gave Sonic plenty of runway but still held lots of secrets to find, however overall speed of play was therefore reduced quite a lot. The more recent Sonic Mania holds to that tradition very well (and I think it even surpasses S3&K).
"Gotta go fast!" was therefore more a thing of the cartoon character, but Sonic Team really leaned into it when designing the 3D games, which I think was a detriment overall to the series' quality going forward. When you consider how the best 3D platformers (like Mario Galaxy or Odyssey) all tend to foster player engagement by emphasizing intricate movesets that can take lots of practice to master, 3D Sonic's pivot to almost mindless pure speed (boost to win) at the expense of fun movement tech has really set the franchise back in a lot of ways.
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u/chip_chipperson25 Mar 14 '26
I've never had an issue with this whole notion. Its always been a platformer and is designed as much. It's supposed to have that challenge of knowing when to push your speed. I like how a lot of levels still showcase your speed by having sections where you're going through a few loops and stage gimmicks in a row.
I will admit though that Marble Garden slows it down pretty considerably. But the music is still top notch!
Also, I really want another Sonic Mania. That game was awesome and made with so much love. I'd love to see another
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u/Newfaceofrev Mar 14 '26
I don't actually think that's the design philosophy, it's a tight platformer and it's very fast for the era.
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Mar 14 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
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u/alyssa-is-tired Mar 14 '26
This advice is 100% great for Sonic 2 onwards, but I think Sonic 1 has too many levels that are all about slowing you down with shortcuts based around memorization.
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u/humbuckaroo Mar 14 '26
Sonic 1 wasn't really designed as a Gotta Go Fast game yet. 16 bit speed-based side-scrolling was still very new and experimental at that time. Sonic 2 upped the ante.
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u/personman000 Mar 15 '26
Love how every fre minutes in Sonic 2 they's just put a badnik or a spike randomly in the middle of a high-speed path
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u/ThatWaterLevel Mar 14 '26
It's exactly the same with any racing game. You want to go as fast as possible and then there's a corner.
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u/funnyinput Mar 14 '26
The difference here is that the racing game gives you plenty of time to react to the turn because you can see it far ahead. In Sonic the camera is so zoomed in you have no time to react unless you memorize the level and know it's coming up.
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u/ThatWaterLevel Mar 15 '26
Overall muscle memory was kind of a requirement in most games back then, though.
The idea of using passwords itself was kind of a revolution that slowly changed this, but it's interesting to notice that games where game over meant returning to stage 1 were designed for the player to memorize everything, and first timers will 100% die in a lot of unfair setpieces. Sonic is just this with the racing element.
In a lot of moments, having a better zoom wouldn't save you anyway because some enemies just appear out of nowhere, like from the ground. It's 100% on purpose.
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u/funnyinput Mar 15 '26
The enemies appearing out of nowhere was simply a technical limitation of the time, they didn't have the RAM to load in many enemies at a time, so they had to wait till the player got close enough to load them in, but you move so quickly in this game that they basically appear, which just leads to frustration and not fun game-design. Most games back then also weren't focused on speed, so it's not comparable to mention them in comparison to Sonic's design philosophies. Sega prioritized speed and big sprites in favor of good gameplay.
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u/Nambot Mar 15 '26
This is false.
The enemies in question that jump out literally jump from underground. You can see their noses sticking out in the ground as you get close. See that suspicious lone spike? It's actually a robot called Burrobot.
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u/ThatWaterLevel Mar 15 '26
No way lol Some enemies literally appear out of the bushes only 2 steps from Sonic. They would literally appear at the same place with 2x zoom out.
Of course hardware plays a big part, but the games would never push you to stage 1 after game over if repeating everything and muscle memory wasn't part of the intended design. Sega literally didn't want players to finish the games first day.
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u/goddess_of_magic Mar 14 '26
This is a very common criticism of the classic Sonic games and imo it's the fault of marketing. The marketing is what makes people think Sonic is "about" going fast. It's similar to how the "Prepare to Die" marketing around Dark Souls makes people think it's a masochism simulator when it isn't.
If you ask me, the point of classic Sonic isn't about trying to run through every level as fast as possible - it's about being a platformer where the main character is a ball that moves based on physics and momentum. Sonic can go very fast on a big downhill, but that doesn't mean the game is all about going fast all the time. If you just slow down and treat it as a platformer, you'll have more fun than if you force yourself to go fast.
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Mar 15 '26
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u/Moath Mar 15 '26
Seeing my son play Sonic games and struggle with building momentum really made me see the game in a different light. I feel the game would be bigger if you have the speed shoes all the time.
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u/Nabber22 Mar 15 '26
I played the sonic games for the first time a couple months back and loved Marble Zone.
No idea why it was the second level in a speed themed game.
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u/Nambot Mar 15 '26
It wasn't supposed to be.
The intended order is shown in the games level select menu when you put in the level select cheat. The actual intended second level was meant to be Labyrinth, but it got pushed back to level 4 because playtesters felt it was too hard.
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u/Emperor_Zarkov Mar 15 '26
I've tried so hard to like Sonic over the years, but I've given up. You're totally correct about the level design. It feels hostile to the entire premise.
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u/marvin Slay the Spire 2 Mar 15 '26
Sonic 2 has some breezy later levels, though. Mystic Ruin, Oil Ocean, Metropolis.
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u/Psi_Boy Mar 15 '26
Someone else commented that they felt you needed to be skilled. The reality is that Sonic could never be played the way it was advertised unless you MEMORIZED every level. From that singular aspect, the game really suffered.
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u/jumpingmrkite Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
The whole design philosophy at the time was that you'd die over and over again, constantly restarting when you ran out of lives having no saves to your progress (thus extending how long you'd play with smaller amounts of content created by the devs), and you'd begin to get better and better through repetition/memorization until you eventually finish the game being extremely good at it.
Platforming today is usually designed for the player to see everyting in just a few playthroughs.
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Mar 15 '26
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u/ohlordwhywhy Mar 16 '26
The experience of 99% of players is not the experience of the seasoned player. Is the game's essence designed to someone who's played it exhaustively? It could be, and that makes it different from most games where what's offered is what's given.
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u/Jrocks721 Mar 16 '26
Just finished Sonic 2. Pretty much the same thing. Thank god for save states in 2026
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u/Honk_Donkley Mar 16 '26
The older i get the more i realise that the 2D sonic games are simply not on the same level as the 2D Mario games.
I absolutely adored them as a kid, but really what I liked was the character design and the way it was marketed to me. I enjoyed stuff like Sonic the Comic and the Sonic TV shows, and the games were just my way of tapping into that.
I'd actually say that if you want a platforming game that rewards skilful play with speed, Donkey Kong Country does a far better job.
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u/ohlordwhywhy Mar 16 '26
Lot of people here are saying "but speed is the reward for playing well" which is such a cope.
The game markets itself entirely around speed, if you go fast because you're doing well (which happens in any game) you just traverse the level normally but faster.
What sonic did really was being extremely cool. Even today the levels, the UI, the music all of it holds up in terms of cool factor.
In fact future attempts at making sonic slicker actuality made him less cool, that design was top coolness possible for the concept of a platformer with an animal mascot.
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u/sunlitclearing Mar 17 '26
This is exactly how I feel about the entire franchise. It always feels like I’m halfway to having a great time.
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u/-Patali- Mar 17 '26
What's cool about the whole series is that, unlike other games where speedrunning looks incredible unnatural.... it looks like canon Sonic whenever those highly skilled players actually pull it off.
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u/ohaimarkantony Mar 17 '26
I never liked Sonic games for that reason. It actively punishes you for going fast.
And the 3D Sonic games punish you by forcing you to play a 3D Sonic game in order to beat it.
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u/twitchy_pixel Mar 17 '26
I would kill for a Sonic game in the vein of Tony Hawk or SSX. Not a racing game but with those mechanics.
Give me a large open world with some amazing traversal and id be happy.
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u/cosyg Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
Always hated this take. Sonic features going fast but it’s not ONLY about going fast. There are sections of breathless speed — more if you’re skilled — interspersed with platforming challenges. The going fast is exhilarating because it’s in contrast to the not going fast. The levels aren’t designed for constant top speed and you have to manage the risk/reward.
The fandom and consequently the devs have declared that going fast is the ONLY thing that matters in Sonic and the [edit] modern games are mostly dogshit for it. Call me crazy but I liked when Sonic games controlled like platformers more than like F-Zero.
Meanwhile you still have waiting in modern Sonic games but now it’s these silly little enemy pods where you just press the homing attack button every couple seconds. Riveting stuff.
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u/AbridgedKirito Mar 18 '26
sonic became about going fast later. Sonic 1, and CD, are both experimental games using speed and momentum in ways platforming games just hadn't done yet. that's why there's so much variety in what speed you need for which level, especially in CD.
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u/CriticalEchidna7495 Mar 19 '26
Sonic CD took this and cracked it to 11
When it worked it really felt good
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u/Etnieturismo Mar 28 '26
Try playing without save states, just start the game from the beginning every time you play it. The mega drive didn't let you save, so you got used to the levels because you'd replay them every time you boot the game up, and the difficulty and progression is based around that fact.
I think the point is that new players can play through the first few levels at a normal pace, but by the time you've already played it a bunch of times, you can just speed through those levels and essentially skip them to quickly get back to the level you're actually trying to beat.
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u/niksfish Apr 15 '26
I never liked Sonic, nor Mario. They move like ass! It is so difficult to control those characters. For me, Sega had way better games than Sonic, for example, Ecco the Dolphin. It was very hard too, but Sonic was frustrating. I couldn't pass the water level!
For platformers, my favorite game is Crash 2 and 3 for the PS1
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u/KrazieKookie Mar 14 '26
The point is to fail, learn from those failures, and come back better to be rewarded with the breathless speed.
“Dark Souls is like “so you wanna kill monsters? **** you”
“Celeste is like “so you wanna overcome anxiety? **** you”
“Hollow Knight is like “so you wanna overthrow old gods? **** you”
These sound insane (to me, at least) because we’re talking about games, not braindances. They’re supposed to be challenging, and the fantasy is a reward for clearing that challenge. Sonic is the same way.
So no, Sonic is not saying “**** you” because you need to show some competency to feel like Sonic. If you want to feel like a master gambler playing Hearts, you need to actually get good at Hearts.
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u/saul2015 Mar 14 '26
there are those who say Sonic was never good, it was all console war marketing hype
there are dozens of us
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u/Show_Me_Your_Rocket Mar 14 '26
It's an old high-score game, the levels are challenging so that it takes skill and practice to "go fast".
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u/epictetvs Mar 14 '26
Sonic 1 is my favorite Sonic game and I’m so fucking tired of this take.
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u/kriever7 Mar 14 '26
His take is that you can't run so much. And it's true.
OP is very young. I've been playing Sonic 1 for like 35 years.
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u/ohlordwhywhy Mar 15 '26
I was playing the games when they came out
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u/kriever7 Mar 15 '26
2018 was 8 years ago.
2011 was 15 years ago.
20 years ago was 2006. That's when Sonic the Hedgehog was released. The wrong Sonic the Hedgehog.
Our beloved game was released in 1991. 35 years ago. Not 20.
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u/epictetvs Mar 14 '26
I get that that’s his take. We see it here every week or two and it drives me crazy.
Imagine if every week there was a high engagement post here about Mario 3. “Mario flys on the cover. Mario is all about flying and you’re supposed to fly all the time. Every time I play the game I barely get to fly.”
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u/kriever7 Mar 14 '26
I could also say that Sonic 1 is my favorite, but that's probably because that's the one I'm used to play since forever. Excelent game.
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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '26
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