The Hall of Shame 07.09.08: Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis (GBA)

Posted by Vincent Chiucchi on 07.09.2008

You take a great Genesis game, port it to the GBA, and add a couple of features. Is that really so hard to do?

Ever since the Game Boy was about as powerful (perhaps even more so) as the 16-bit consoles, it's been a popular source for porting popular 16-bit and 8-bit games. All the Mario Advances were basically ports with a new look, Zelda: Link to the Past came out again, the remakes of Final Fantasies I through VI (except for III) gave gamers a look at what the series was like before it revolved around Cloud and Sephiroth, and many more popular franchises like Metroid, Breath of Fire, and Contra also saw remakes. Sonic wasn't part of the remake bandwagon as Sega focused on making new games that was merely reminiscent of the old school games, and they were pretty good. By Sonic's 15th birthday however, Sega decided to celebrate by porting the first Sonic game that was originally released for the Genesis, add a couple of new features, and price it at $20. Seemed like a move that couldn't possibly go wrong.

But it did. It went so horribly wrong that many think this is truly the worst of all the Sonic games, and that's why it's getting inducted into the Hall of Shame.


How the hell do you screw up the original?!

Before we start the anti-Sonic tirade, let's discuss what Sega did right with this port. The opening has the classic Sega noise which is a nice throwback. The new features they added was a save game feature and the ability to jump to any zone you've already completed. There's also an Anniversary Mode but the only difference between that and the original is you can use the Spin Dash from Sonic 2. They certainly could've added a lot more to the game but as you'll find out this game had a lot worse problems.

As anybody who even remotely knows Sonic tells you, he's all about speed. Sonic has always been marketed as being better then Mario because he's fast. He claims that speed is his game in Smash Bros. So what happens when you take away the speed from Sonic? You essentially get a crappy Sonic game, which was the main problem with Sonic Genesis. The game suffers from a choppy frame rate that slows down the game to the point where it basically destroys the game. It isn't just regular running and jumping that gets slowed down, but even grabbing the power up that's supposed to make you go super fast doesn't work. In fact I think it might even make you go slower. Try figuring that out. The titles that show up for each stage is also slowed down. Jumping on those springs will cause you to go slow as well, even when you approach them as high speed, basically killing your momentum. Even getting Sonic to respond to your controls is slowed down, because even when you let go of the D-pad, he'll just keep on running, leading you to get hit in places that are out of your control.

But the lousy programming doesn't end there. This game has glitches abound. Granted the original had glitches that were either helpful or funny, but in this game they are mostly annoying and they ruin the experience. One especially bad glitch happens in the Starlight Zone. You know the part of the stage where these four blocks are aligned looking like a floor, but once you get on them they go down to form a staircase? If you stand between the blocks as they go down, you somehow die. This even happens when you have the invincibility power up!


This could take a while.

Here are few other programming flaws found in the game:

-With a combination of horrible physics and unresponsive controls, you'll constantly be seeing Sonic moonwalking and moonrolling. That's something you would expect from a lesser known half-assed platformer, not Sonic!

-The bonus game to get the Chaos Emeralds at the end of the levels is totally screwed up. Pressing the R switch is supposed to rotate the stage, but if you happen to wedge yourself between the switch and a wall, the stage basically shakes back and forth. You can be stuck like that all day if you wanted to.

-The ending is completely screwed up. In the original, if you collected all the Chaos Emeralds, you get an ending where Sonic runs across the green hill zone and the emeralds make these flowers appear. For some reason, the new version not only cuts down the running he does, but the flowers don't show up in the new version. So what exactly was the point in collecting them?!

-While I haven't seen it definitively for myself, many have complained that the collision detection is awful.

This was such horrible programming that Sonic Team should be ashamed of themselves.

But the slowdown isn't the only thing they completely screwed up for this game. The music and sound effects sound NOTHING like the original. I'm not sure whether this was because they were trying to remix or remake the music, but when you compare it to the original game's music, it sounds all muffled. The sound effects are even worse as not only are they NOTHING like the original, there is no diversity in the sounds at all. Anything you destroy or hit from ring boxes to enemies to walls will all sound exactly the same. The sound effects apparently can't overlap each other, so once you hit or do something that would case a new sound effect, the old one instantly stops, and it makes it sound like the game is glitched.

Now, you'd think the Graphics would be the saving grace considering that was another feature Sega used to brag about back in the day. Even though at first glance the graphics seem like the same, you start to notice all the little differences that downplay it. The camera is zoomed in to Sonic, which means that some enemies will be attacking you off screen and you won't be able to see traps up ahead, and that gets annoying. Some enemies have a different color then they originally did, the springs are shining in the wrong direction, the walls don't crumble to pieces when you break them, and that underwater wavy effect from the Labyrinth Zone is gone.

So some 15th birthday Sonic had huh? Not only did Sega release such a horrible Sonic game on the Xbox 360, but they also released a horrible one for the GBA, and considering that it's a port of the original that many believe was the best of the Sonic games, it's really sad to see just how bad Sonic has fallen off. If not for his legions of loyal fans who still believe in him, he would've already been hanging out at bargain bins along with Crash, Spyro, and many other failed platforming heroes.

And now for something completely different

So E3 is coming up next week, and of course some staff members of 411Mania will be there to cover it live. As for me, I'll be taking lots of notes of everything that's going on as I plan to bust out the Double Edge Sword to chronicle the best and worst of it all. Look for that in two weeks. As for next week, instead of doing a typical induction of a game/person/thing we already know is bad, I've got a personal rant against a game many people are anticipating, but I'm already very disappointed by it. Tune in next week to find out what exactly I'm talking about.