SHOWCASE: Sonic the Hedgehog maintains its appeal and charm on Xbox One backward compatibility

Back at E3 2015, Microsoft announced what was arguably the biggest piece of news in this generation of console gaming: backward compatibility for Xbox One. With over 150 Xbox 360 games already in the program, and many more to be released each month, every Sunday I will be taking a look at some of the games in the program and reporting back on how they hold up and play on Xbox One. This week we look at Sega’s classic Sonic The Hedgehog.

Long before the age of the internet and modern gaming consoles, there was another, more bitter console war between the titans of Nintendo and Sega. In the 1980s, Nintendo was leading the console charge with their Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Atari was starting to fade away and Sega were chugging along behind with their own Sega Master System. As the 1990s began, Nintendo released the Super Nintendo (SNES) just after Sega released the Mega Drive/Genesis with a staggered roll out around the globe.

Coming into the 1990s, Nintendo had established many gaming titles including Donkey Kong and of course, Mario. Although Sega had released classic games of their own like Altered Beast, Alex Kidd and Phantasy Star, none of these titles came close to Nintendo’s ever-popular plumber.

To compete with their rival, Sega knew they had to challenge the dominance of Mario, which by now had become the biggest name in gaming. With this plan in mind, they commissioned their own, in-house competition to design a new character to head up their own flagship game, and to rival the dominance of Super Mario. This is where Sonic the Hedgehog was born. Originally called Mr. Needlemouse until later renamed, and coloured to match Sega’s blue logo, Sonic made the Mega Drive’s popularity skyrocket, leading it to have a larger market share at times to the Super Nintendo.

Even today, Sonic the Hedgehog is still one of the biggest names in gaming. With many sequels to the original, new characters added to the series, and Dr. Robotnik being as evil as ever, the Sonic series has gone on to sell over 150 million copies of its games. Now with thanks to the Xbox One’s Backward Compatibility program, the original Sonic is available to play on your Xbox One.

For those that don’t know-hopefully there aren’t many of you-Sonic the Hedgehog is a fast-paced 2D, side-scrolling, platformer, based in the fantasy setting of South Island in the Pacific Ocean. You play as Sonic, a blue hedgehog on a mission to stop the evil Dr. Robotnik from collecting the chaos emeralds, and freeing the animal inhabitants from the Evil doctor’s grasp.

There are six levels to the game, each consisting of three zones. In the first two zones of each level, you progress by collecting at least fifty rings. A much larger ring will appear at the end of each level so you can jump through it to enter the hidden Chaos Emerald zones, a dream-like area full of rings, crystals, bumpers and, you guessed it, a Chaos Emerald. As stated above, this is only available in the first two zones of each level, and with six levels in the game, this gives you twelve opportunities to collect them all. Collecting a hundred rings in a level grants the player an extra life.

When spinning, Sonic can attack the mechanical beasts created by Dr. Robotnik. Attacking them and popping open their mechanical exoskeleton will free the captured animal who will now hop or fly away to safety. Sonic spins automatically every time you jump by pressing A, or hitting down on the D-pad whilst moving. Just to add, the only other command you will use will be the left analog stick for movement. There you have it, 3 buttons to play one of the greatest title in gaming history. Beware, attacking an enemy without spinning will cause Sonic to spill out all the rings he is carrying. Also, getting hit or taking damage in any way without holding any rings will kill Sonic, making you start that zone from the beginning again, presuming you still have some of your original three lives remaining.

You repeat the process throughout the game’s six distinctive levels, with every third zone culminating in a fight with the evil doctor. Each time you defeat him, Sonic can jump onto a large metal pod to release the level’s remaining trapped animals from captivity.

Even today the levels of Sonic are some of the most memorable in my gaming history, from the colourful opening Green Hill Zone, to the pinball machine-type Spring Yard Zone. The game’s memorable soundtrack remains one of my very favourites to this day.

Up, down, left, right, start and A needs little introduction. This is still known by many older gamers as the original cheat code. Doing this on the Mega Drive would open up the secret level select screen, and was the only way of playing whichever zone you wanted without starting at the beginning. Sadly, after many attempts, I don’t believe the cheat works on the modern console version, but the legacy still lives on in some of the top franchises today. I am sure you typed a code you found online into your mobile phone on GTA right?

The game runs very smooth on the Xbox One, and better than I can remember the original did all those years ago. Growing up in a house with pets, all it took was the slightest knock to the old console and you were met with a game crash screen from the chunky cartridge getting moved, or even worse, not loading at all in the first place. This would lead to the frantic blowing of the game or console cartridge connectors trying to boot it up again. Luckily in the modern way of gaming, cartridges are all but a distant memory, but a very fond one at that.

The Xbox One has features like Game DVR, Twitch streaming, YouTube uploading and many more. This adds a whole new dimension to many of these older games available today. Unlike last week’s Wolfenstein 3D showcase, I don’t think you can add much to the experience by using the Elite Controller, although changing the down and jump buttons onto the paddles may offer a little refreshing play style to a game which has remained the same through the years.

Sonic is not the largest or most time-consuming game ever made, a thorough playthrough takes a little over an hour, and with the console port, you can save your progress into one of the 3 slots provided. This gives returning and new players the chance to fully explore the game. With the original you had to complete the whole game in one sitting.

As with most other Xbox games, Xbox achievements are included to the tune of twelve unlocks for 200 Gamerscore. The achievements are very basic as you would expect, and are all still unlockable. The only hard ones you will come across are the “Perfect Win” achievement which will unlock for completing the whole game without dying, and the “Fast Win” achievement which you will be rewarded for completing the whole game in under 40 minutes. They might sound tricky, but taking advantage of the save system, will make getting these unlocks very easy indeed.

Playing through the game again these last couple of weeks, I was surprised at the sheer amount of people who are still playing the original Sonic on Xbox. Scanning through the leaderboards, there were over 3000 entries in the weekly scores alone. Not a bad number at all when you consider the game released 25 years ago.

Although platformers had been around long before Sonic’s birth in 1991, Sega’s blue spinning hedgehog took the fight to Super Mario and friends and helped them to cement their place in the console wars for years to come. With sequels on almost all consoles since its inception, Sonic is showing no sign of going into hibernation for a long time to come.

Now with the power of backward compatibility on Xbox One, you too can join Sonic on his very first journey to fight the evil and tyranny of Dr. Robotnik, and help save the animals of South Island, once again.

Sonic the Hedgehog is available on the Xbox store for $4.99/£3.39/E4.79.

Remember to follow ICXM on Twitch, as over the coming weeks we will be playing all the games featured on the Sunday Showcase.

Did you play Sonic the Hedgehog? Will you be picking it up again for Xbox One? Are there any backward compatible games you would like to see here in the future? Let me know in the comments below.