Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis) cover art
North America June 23, 1991 SEGA
Europe June 23, 1991 SEGA
Japan July 26, 1991 SEGA
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7.9/10 average from 17 members

Staff reviews

Sonic the Hedgehog review

The fast and the furious Green Hill Zone. Barreling over bright green hills, digging your heels in as you race through lush valleys of green, leaping for coins and coming back down to green earth - this is what the entire game should have been about. Sad that the heights of…

Marc Golding · December 20, 2003

Reader reviews

6

Sonic the Hedgehog review

Playing the original Sonic the Hedgehog is a lot like revisiting your old elementary school: you know your way around, and you’ve got some good memories, but the place just isn’t as big as you remember it. Sonic 1 feels like a footnote in platformer history—it’s so slight that…

phediuk · December 22, 2009 · 1 comment

Sonic the Hedgehog review

You can imagine my surprise when I played this game for the first time since I was a kid. You mean this was supposed to be Mario's biggest rival? This was the game the Nintendo haters trumpeted? Well, ok, I take that back. This isn't a bad game after all. Or, at least most of it…

mariner · January 15, 2006

Sonic the Hedgehog review HG exclusive

We all know the history of Sega vs. Nintendo. Nintendo probably had at least an 80% share of the market, and it was hard to imagine a company doing better than becoming Pepsi to Nintendo’s Coca-Cola. So here comes Sega with its version of a mascot that could presumably outrun…

retro · March 16, 2005

Sonic the Hedgehog review

So, why was Nintendo kicking Sega’s butt early on in the rivalry between the two companies? Personally, I’ve always felt it was because Nintendo had all the recognizable characters. They had Mario, Link, Mega Man, Simon Belmont and others. Our friends at Sega could boast little…

overdrive · November 18, 2004

Sonic the Hedgehog review

Competition made games better. More specifically, vision and imagination in a time of competition made games better. Such is the only reason there is an existence of my favorite gaming lineage ever, that of Sonic the Hedgehog. Without the opponent and then tyrannically dominant…

ethereal · March 14, 2004

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