1/5 ★ – MechaniChris's review of Sonic the Hedgehog.

And so the time has come. This is arguably the first Sonic game I ever played. I remember getting a demo for it in the Xbox 360 which only included that first beach level and getting so frustrated by the whale part that I decided the entire franchise wasn’t for me. I may have been a little hasty. Turns out there’s a lot of great Sonic games, and even some hidden gems in the 3D era. Part of me wondered if I might even like this now, the way I actually enjoyed Shadow the Hedgehog. I was not prepared for how bad this game would be on revisit. First off the graphics and art style are insane. The characters are now hyper realistic and it made me immediately uncomfortable. Eggman shouldn’t look like that. He should be far rounder. It’s also wild to see a world that is basically a Microsoft screensaver inhabited by a cartoon character. It’s just all so bizarre feeling. But that doesn’t matter, that’s just window dressing. The game itself is laughably unplayable. I very rarely say that about a game. Almost always, I determine that difficulty is based on my own failings, but this is one of the few games that just killed me for no reason and without warning. Multiple times I simply fell through the floor to me death. Didn’t do anything to prompt it. Usually though, I’d use my homing attack and miss my target by a mile and fly off the map. That’s when the game mechanics themselves aren’t killing you with bad design. Why does Sonic immediately drown in the sand? What is the possible purpose for that choice? Needless to say, the controls themselves are at their worst here. Sonic rarely if ever vet does what you intend for him to do, and the camera is doing you no favors. There are moments when you briefly enter a flow state and see the magic of what this game COULD be. It feels amazing to run at top speed for an extended period while avoiding obstacles and enemies, and you suddenly feel like Sonic is this incredibly powerful super being, and then you immediately slam into a pillar and kill all momentum for the rest of the level. Nothing was as bad as that snowboarding level though. I was yanking my hair out trying to work out the controls on that thing. The best thing I can say about the game is that it is technically beatable. You can get through the levels with enough effort and frustration. Believe me, I know. Otherwise it is truly one of the worst games I have ever played, and certainly the worst major release. If Mario out out a game like this, I think Nintendo might have to file for bankruptcy. The fact that the series didn’t end here is a testament to mankind’s forgiving nature.