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Impressions: Sonic the Hedgehog on the Wii Virtual Console

I never played Sonic back in the day. I was a Nintendo kid. I had a NES, and then I had a Super NES. So the first time that I really played a Sonic game was when I played through Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast.

I always wanted to play Sonic, just to see what all of the fuss was about. Though, even then, the games struck me as being more attitude that substance.

After purchasing the Wii and having the requisite $8US to download the game to the console, I decided to give Sonic a try.

I've played it for a while, and it certainly is one of the best non-Mario platformers from that era, but it certainly doesn't come near to even being in the same weight class as any of the old Mario greats. Though it is quite fun in a 1991 kind of way, almost everything that it does well is copied verbatim from Super Mario Bros 1 and almost everything that's clunky (such as combining the concept of "coins" with the number of times you can get hit) is a Sonic innovation.

It's also notable that it doesn't rip-off concepts from Super Mario Bros 3, probably because it was mostly through being designed by the time SMB3 came out.

Now I want to play Sonic 2 to see if they fixed most of the annoying bits in Sonic. I'm sure it's coming out on the virtual console eventually.

 
 
 
 

Post a Comment 2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sonic!!! Do you remember the Sonic cartoon show, with its profoundly shitty theme song?

Sonic, he can really move.
Sonic, he's got an attitude.
Sonic, he's the fastest thing alive.
He's the fastest thing alive.
He's the fastest thing aliiiiiiiiiive!

Wednesday, December 13, 2006 1:31:00 PM

Daniel Kaszor said...

There were actually two separate Sonic cartoons that came out at the same time, both with totally different takes on the game (in one Sonic had to stop Robotnic the evil dictator as a post-apocalyptic freedom fighter, in the other Sonic had to stop clutzy incompetent Robotnic from robbing banks and stuff).

Wednesday, December 13, 2006 2:46:00 PM

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