Another nitpick I don't see mentioned anywhere is the asset laziness. Notice how ALL the "switches" (the buttons that you press in the zone) ALL have the Marble Zone assets. The ones in Spring Yard, Labyrinth, and Scrap Brain, are supposed to be generic grey and blue graphics, but ALL are Marble's green and purple graphics.
Thanks for putting up this detail for everyone to read here! I did mention the switches very briefly in the graphics segment. But it was rapid fire info about object mistakes so no specifics there.
7:15 Small correction on that. They didn't take the Advance games' engine to make this port. Sonic Genesis is actually based on the J2ME port of Sonic 1 called Sonic The Hedgehog Mobile released in 2005, which in itself is based on the Sonic Cafe version of the game, which is why stuff like the title screen is adjusted, because they already had assets for that.
I do see now that the J2ME claim can be found on TCRF. But they resort to using the word "seems" on the page for Genesis so I guess it's just as much of a theory as the advance engine one. Comparing the title screen I do see that Genesis has added dithering on the logo like J2ME. But Genesis definately has its very own background. J2ME has the brighter level water and 3 layer paralax. Genesis has correct dark water but just one merged plane. On further analysis there are interesting discrepancies in the level backgrounds. J2ME actually has some extra parallax layers from REV01 in some levels but not the cloud layer in GHZ that Genesis received. Wish I could've included this in the video. The phone versions totally didn't cross my mind back then. Sonic Genesis looks to be even more of a messed up Frankenstein Monster with even more obscured source of origin than I originally thought.
the fact that's even a thing is an example of bad programming. having music on shouldn't lag a game. i have never seen any other game act like that. heck no Nintendo game in existence lags if the music is on but i guess sega does what nintendont.
You know what's more insulting? Well, at least to me...I got this for my birthday. Yeah....what a birthday surprise. My parents know I'm a huge Sonic fan and at the time, they felt bad, because they didn't have enough money to buy me a Xbox 360 or PS3, so I can get Sonic 06. So when they saw THIS at Walmart, they "knew" I love it. After I played this and saw how awful this game tried to recreate the beauty of the original, I actually had to lie and pretend to my parents that I loved it lol just so they won't feel bad that they couldn't get me a new console lol and I wanted them to think this game made me feel better....it didn't. Years later and I still have this game laying in my drawer collecting dust. Why haven't I thrown it away? I don't know, maybe it's because my parents bought it for me, and no matter how awful this game is, believe me, its BAD! But it's still a gift from my parents. UGH!!!! Great review my guy! The editing, clips and everything was good! Sorry you had to suffer to play this shit lol
This is probably the most extensive review on Sonic Genesis I've ever seen! I never knew up until now that part of the reason why this port is slow is because of the music. Not to mention your dedication to beating the game not only once, but TWICE, just to show off the jukebox. That's a herculean task if I've ever seen one.
I don't know how this could've possibly happened. How can you make something THIS BAD for the GBA? It's not just bad, it boggles the mind how bad it is.
Fun fact, this is the first Sonic game I ever played. I was 6 when I first played this game and for a few years I could never get past Marble Zone. I didn't even think it was bad, I wasn't knowledgeable enough to know that this was a terrible version of Sonic 1.
I got the Genesis in 1991 when they cut the price and changed the pack-in game to Sonic 1, I was initially shocked that this port on a piece of hardware that is supposed to be so much more advanced (no pun intended) was such a janky mess... but SEGA at this point in time were also pretty uncaring and ambivalent about their legacy pre-Sammy merger so it wasn't completely surprising.
This port was my introduction to Sonic 1. I never knew it was a bad port when I had and never got past Labyrith Zone. I knew the game was stupid slow so I never really played it much. Now that Sonic Origins is out, I'd argue it's the superior way to play Sonic 1 and onward
A lot of people wonder nowadays how something this bad could have been made. For context, all the Sonic games in development at the time were, Sonic Genesis, Sonic 06, the Wii version of 06 (which would later become Secret Rings), and Sonic Riders, all of which were slated to be released for the 15th anniversary.
The fact that Sonic Team developed 06, Secret Rings and Riders at the same time still baffles me. I fucking love Riders but I don't even understand how that was greenlit given how busy Sonic Team was. SEGA really didn't care about how far stretched ST was back then. It's a miracle that Riders was good.
@captinsparklezremix they were also working on Shadow and Rush at the same time too since they came out relatively close to when those games were made too
It's not, GTA Vice City builds for GBA existed as early as 15+ years ago so SM64 in 2024 feels tame by comparison. The only reason that SM64 version runs as fast as it does on GBA is because it's a demake that looks nothing like the original, calling it a port is a misnomer. GBA could probably run an unchanged version of SM64 so I don't get all the hype for this particular project.
Why does this video have only 22 likes? Why does this have only 466 views? Why does this video have only 3 comments (4 including this comment of mine)? This video was really REALLY well made! I watched the entire video all the way to the end and I enjoyed every second of it, got some laughs here and there. A while ago, out of curiosity, I tried this game on a GBA emulator, and gave up by the time I reached Act 2 of the Marble Zone because of how laggy it is (and it's not the emulator because other ROMs work perfectly fine). I also wondered about the screen size and why I couldn't see as much as those TH-cam videos of Sonic 1 can (turns out, it was screen crunch as you mentioned). Now, having watched this video, it all made perfect sense. Oh dear, the slowdown. Thank you SO MUCH for this video! Honestly, by the time I finished watching the video, I scrolled down and was expecting like at least several thousand likes on the video, some thousand views and at least a few hundred comments, but I'm really REALLY surprised. This video is really well made and, to be honest, I think it is on par with bigger channels out there that have thousands of likes per video, several hundred thousand views per video, hundreds of comments per video. Keep up the good work! I haven't seen your other videos, but, I gotta say, your channel really deserves to grow big if you keep making videos of such high quality.
Thanks! I'm glad someone finally really appreciates what I have done with this video. I'm honestly shocked how much it tanked and I really don't know why it's so ignored. It also got a bunch of thumbs down right out of the gate, during the last days where TH-cam showed them openly.
@@BlueMueI really like this video too. If I had to guess it might be the title of the video. Someone might look at it and assume you're talking about the og game and not read the gba part of the title so they might get touchy as a result.
@@noname-jt6kl Thanks for the advice! I don't think there's any confusion but I really should've considered are more attention grabbing video title. Might be way too late now but I guess I'll think of a replacement.
@@BlueMue I really do wonder why they thought releasing this in this state was ok. Putting aside the sound problems, the performance is so bad that surely any dev would have looked at it and thought 'hmmm, maybe we should fix this'
"What can be said about this game that hasn't already been said?" Considering I've never heard a single thing about this game, the answer to that question is absolutely anything.
@@EngineerMonkey-zp3yj except Doom is technically more demanding than the frickin sonic 1... So its no excuse for Sonic 1 to run THIS BADLY when the motherfucking Doom can run on the GBA Better.
@@naoaquieopatrickpatrick8565 No, he's right. Doom isn't _that_ much more demanding, originally it was designed for low spec machines, but what matters a lot more is the fact that ID-soft actually went and released its source code publicly on top of having it optimized to near perfection in the first place. If you're porting Doom everything you need is already prearranged and set up in your favor which makes the process a breeze even if you're porting to underpowered hardware, on the other hand Dimps had their work cut out for them and everything was working against them. They didn't even get the source code of Sonic 1 and without one it's practically impossible to make a competent port, it's effectively the same as making the game almost from scratch.
I find it funny how the GBA struggles with emulating the music from the Genesis yet Nintendo had no problem with making newer versions of songs of the NES/SNES games they ported to the GBA.
Fr. They remade A Link to the Past perfectly on GBA so there was genuinely no excuse especially considering the many other pretty great GBA remakes of SNES/Genesis games out there
A year or two ago I kid you not in a Sonic group on Facebook I saw somebody post an image of Sonic Genesis inbox and they were not even being ironic about it and literally said that they're happy that they finally got to experience the first Sonic game. I could not help but laugh because this was not the true experience of the first Sonic game because it is such an awful port. Most people agreed with me but some people were for some reason defending him Like as if they didn't know that the GBA port of Sonic Genesis was so damn bad. I mean it's no wonder why this person got this game from a flea market. Whoever had it there was trying their best to get rid of it
I feel for the developers, really... SEGA has lost the original game's source code, they had to work with a terrible java port that also didn't use the original source code, and had to release a piece of crap because SEGA wanted to fuck everything Sonic-related that came out in 2006.
Great video. Ive seen videos on this port before but not this in depth. We sonic fans salute you for torturing yourself with this game for our entertainment
PLEASE DO MORE VIDEOS LIKE THIS. I literally loved this video so much so that the day after i watched it which is tonight im eating and got a random urge to watch ur channel and man!!!! I love this style you do
Thanks! Very pleased that you enjoyed this enough to rewatch. This here was actually very much not my style and a one-off thing. Don't know if I'll be doing another review like this so I have to curb your expectations.
@@ilikesonicxbro I could point you towards my Hitachi TRQ-298 video if it helps any. Very different subject and different kind of visual and narrative style. Also old... But it's literally the only other video I have where I actually talk.
I loved my GBA SP when I got it for christmas the year it released. Golden Sun, Metroid Fusion, and the GOAT: Super Mario Advance 4 (SMB 3) Also the last year my whole family got together for christmas parties. Where's that Delorean when you need it?
Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis for the Game Boy Advance, where do I even begin? the way Sonic jumps in the game is so exciting and thrilling, making it feel like an absolute surprise every time you land high in the air, never quite knowing where you’ll end up. the spin dash is nothing short of amazing, the slow motion effects being applied as you roll around on the grassy hills or the marble floor being a nice touch to such a brilliant move added to the game. the soundtrack captures the emotion of nostalgia and how it distorts the nature of things very well, being a successful meta commentary on the relationship between nostalgia and accuracy to the imagined past. I especially love it when it ends, it’s such a satisfying and fun experience to see the game finish and you feel really accomplished after all the hard work you’ve put into the game, trying to figure out its secrets and hidden meaning. thank you for everything, Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis for the Game Boy Advance. you truly are the best Sonic 1 port of all time. 😁
This game is essentially "WHAT IF EVERY SONIC ZONE HAD UNDERWATER PHYSICS?!" Which means Labyrinth Zone is DOUBLE as slow at least for this port. And as I've mentioned before, the Spin Dash is useless in Sonic 1 because the game itself was never built around the idea of using a move to blast through terrain like that; Sonic 2 was. Look at the layout between the two games and you'll see Sonic 1 is built for quick reactions on jumps because there are so many jumps and the groundwork is LADEN with so many traps. Sonic 2 and beyond are all about speeding through with slides, inclines abd pipes. To give a better idea, look at how the START of Marble Garden is built. That's utter hell for Spin Dash because of the constantly moving ground, the lava pits, and how it's a constant journey down. Then look at Lava Reef which is also about great timing but is built a lot better to accommodate Spin Dash usage to the point there are designated ramps and platforms for its direct use.
The sad thing is, The Sonic Advance series proves that Sonic games can run great on GBA. They just didn't try. It would have been cool to see a native port of some of the classic Sonic games on GBA. Instead we get this abysmal failure. :( Sonic Classic Collection I think was the next time we got official versions of the classics on handhelds. Those games were emulated and also had some performance issues but at least they were mostly playable and the slowdowns they did have was because of emulation. I'm curious as to what this game's excuse for it's bad performance was because surely it's not being emulated because it'd be crazy to try that on a GBA. Even a DSi can just barely run Genesis games full speed. I couldn't stand playing this game. The stuttering and off sound fx turned me off from giving it any serious attempt. :P
What really stinks about Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis on the GBA is that the handheld actually did have the capability to use the same kind of audio heard on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, but Sega and Sonic Team cut corners instead because they were trying to meet a deadline. The end result was a mess with the wrong synthesized Instruments and sound fonts.
And this is why ports need more than 1 month. The other thing is that while this game uses the engine for Sonic Advance, it was also not meant to run Sega Genesis programming. The Java version ran better than this for crying out loud.
This was the first game I played as a kid that I understood was... "bad". I'd played bad games before then, but I was just a dumb little kid, so I didn't really care as long as there were flashing lights and colors. But playing this game, I had the distinct sense that something was wrong. It felt difficult to control, I often couldn't tell where I was going or when an enemy would come onto the screen, and I just had this weird feeling that I wasn't having fun. I gave it a few tries because I assumed I just needed to get better before the game would be fun to me, but eventually I just gave up and put it down for good. This port is so bad even my 6 year old self could tell.
I did broke and destroyed a Sonic 1 GBA cartridge after failing in Green Hill Zone Act 2 3 times until i got a game over, because of those stupid controls and physics.
People always say they always got stuck at Marble Zone as a kid. I was one point then learned where to go on my own. But i mainly remember getting stuck on Scrap Yard and Labyrinth Zone
I was playing this and wondering “why is this so crap? I’m not usually so bad at this game” but the screen size being to small makes so much sense because you’re constantly running into shit because once you see it can finally see its, it’s too late and you’ve already been hit
Not really. There's a lot of technical differences between the two. It's not even a port of the Genesis ROM it's just a lazy copy and paste of assets over a Dimps engine
I remember seeing a copy of this game on display at Wal-Mart a few times all the way back in 2004 and I've been wanting to get the game not only because I owned only one Sonic game on GBA, that being Sonic Advance 3, but because I always wanted to play the old Genesis classic that started the whole franchise anytime, anywhere. Now looking back, I feel congratulated by not wasting away my cash on this train crash of a game. This is obviously what the Sonic Advance series would've been like if all those games sucked. Like, if I wanted to play what resembled a version of Sonic Genesis that was actually GOOD, I could do a run on Green Hill zone in SA3 with a team of Sonic and Knuckles.
To be fair there were no good ports from _any_ 16-bit consoles on GBA, not even Nintendo's own SNES, so why would anyone expect Sonic 1 to be this sole exception? The fact that it's more awful than it could be is unfortunate but even at its best it could only be bad, given the GBA track record. Honestly, as much as I hate to admit it GBA kind of sucked. While the SP model and some decent first party games did manage to salvage it I can't help but feel that I liked the DS and even GB Color a lot more than the Advance.
Well I actually showed that I played my cartridge on a DS Lite. The GBA inside the DS is absolutely identical to an original GBA so there's no possibility for differences.
Thankfully, we have Sonic Origins now, and the Sonic 1 in that collection is what Sonic Genesis should have been. Not only it's a faithful port, but it has an actual spindash, and Tails, Knuckles and Amy are all playable now.
I'm having a weird moment here I played the heck out of this game as a kid. Granted it was the only Sonic game I had played at the time and didn't know the slowmo wasn't supposed to be there. I'm not defending it but one person in the world had fun with it.
To give credit to whoever made the port, Stealth had years of experience with the S1 engine and all the hardware knowledge to understand what should have been changed when porting, this team probably didn't in the slightest, so they just transpiled from a language to another and hoped for the best. Also it's based off the equally horrible J2ME port (which is the original Assembly transpiled to Java, and I think GBA only accepts C, so the game went through 3 different languages by this point)
I remember emulating this about 10 years ago on my phone, i had a really shitty phone at the time so when the game kept lagging i just assumed it was because my phone wasn't strong enough to emulate this 🤣
It's honestly hard to put into words how bad it is. It feels like an old, BAD Flash game from Newgrounds, where the jump doesn't work properly half the time, you constantly clip through everything, you get stuck to things because the collision detection is broken... it's really insane. There's bad, and then there's THIS.
I still find it funny that when the fixed version of this port was making the rounds the Dude behind it was going by the name “some guy named stealth”. Funny
Odd to think I was just two years old when this game came out. I'm 20 now. Also, the music in this game sounds like someone took the music from the original and castrated it.
I *tried* to like this, I'd been waiting since the late 90s for some portable Genesis Sonic games. In fact I did kind of like it, but I didn't play Sonic 1 growing up besides on Mega Collection and I didn't really like it since I grew up playing 2 and 3 & Knuckles. When we finally did get those on the DS, the sound was awful, the emulation was even more awful unless you were on a DSi or 3DS
I notice that when sonic dies no matter where it happens, he does the drowning animation, that's really weird. (edit) I just realized that you mention this later in the video lmao
I actually played this once, and even though everything mentioned here did actually happen, for some reason i actually found it sorta fun to mess around with the game 😂
If this is supposed to be a java port like some have speculated theres a chance it's not even properly ported and just running in a sort of j2me interpreter for the gba there's no way the sonic advance engine couldn't handle this game out the box tbh it's doubly embarrassing because i've played through "part 1" of the java version on several phones and none ran anywhere near as dog ass as this one did.
I wish I knew more about this theory back then, would've definately included it in the video. I remember playing these old Java versions on a flip phone and I have to agree that they worked better than Sonic Genesis. They were quite choppy but at least not sluggish. Really no idea if the J2ME theory holds any water though. It could really be anything that makes Sonic Gensis such a mess. Unless the code gets completely disected we may never know.
Thx, and also about the game on the gba instead of the DS, when Nintendo unveiled the DS, they didn’t say it was a successor to the GBA, but instead a “3rd pillar” just in case it failed (which it didn’t, I mean take a look at the DS’s sales numbers)
I don't care what anyone says At this point , the gameboy advance version of sonic 1 was the port I grew up with Before I knew about the Genesis and I actually liked it despite the game, not having it's best visuals and graphics
I blame sega for the lack of preparation of making this game, I would have loved to see them make a remake of the game gear/master system sonic platformers aside from blast instead. Imagine how great the game could be if it was made with a bigger screen in mind.
I'm surprised you didn't mention that they got the physics of knockback when hit wrong. When you land after getting hurt, you're supposed to stop, not keep your momentum.
Wasn’t that game by THQ? I also assume they released it on the Game of Advance because wasn’t that THQ’s contract with Sega that they could develop Sega games on GBA. Which was great with Sonic Advance but terrible with Crazy Taxi. I would assume that’s why they released it for GBA. I assume they didn’t get the rights from Sega to release games on DS
THQ only did the publishing in North America for the Sega GBA games. Sonic Genesis doesn't come with their logo on the box so they probably didn't even have that involvement there.
@@BlueMue I wasn’t aware that THQ wasn’t the publisher. I just knew most Sega games for GBA were published by THQ and developed by a third party. Jet Grind Radio GBA was by Vicarious Visions, Crazy Taxi was by Graphic State Limited, The Revenge of Shinobi and Altered Beast were by 3d6 even Sonic Advance was published by THQ and mostly handled by Dimps. Those are just the ones I played. I assume there are more.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 80 | คู่เอก "รักษ์ vs ยอดนำชัย"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ckLMRorsMeY/mqdefault.jpg)
Another nitpick I don't see mentioned anywhere is the asset laziness. Notice how ALL the "switches" (the buttons that you press in the zone) ALL have the Marble Zone assets. The ones in Spring Yard, Labyrinth, and Scrap Brain, are supposed to be generic grey and blue graphics, but ALL are Marble's green and purple graphics.
Thanks for putting up this detail for everyone to read here! I did mention the switches very briefly in the graphics segment. But it was rapid fire info about object mistakes so no specifics there.
@@BlueMueSonic Game Boy Advance Genesis has the same camera problem like Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 PS3.
I wonder if that's more of a problem with GBA carts' limited size
@@brendangilbert3283 Sega really made such a poor utilization huh
11:59 isn't that spring upside down too? In fact I think all the horizontal springs are upside down
7:15 Small correction on that. They didn't take the Advance games' engine to make this port. Sonic Genesis is actually based on the J2ME port of Sonic 1 called Sonic The Hedgehog Mobile released in 2005, which in itself is based on the Sonic Cafe version of the game, which is why stuff like the title screen is adjusted, because they already had assets for that.
That is some truly nerdy Sonic knowledge that you got hold of.
I was going to say...that doesn't seem right and would probably take a LOT more work to get the physics similar with all its quirks
I do see now that the J2ME claim can be found on TCRF. But they resort to using the word "seems" on the page for Genesis so I guess it's just as much of a theory as the advance engine one.
Comparing the title screen I do see that Genesis has added dithering on the logo like J2ME. But Genesis definately has its very own background. J2ME has the brighter level water and 3 layer paralax. Genesis has correct dark water but just one merged plane.
On further analysis there are interesting discrepancies in the level backgrounds. J2ME actually has some extra parallax layers from REV01 in some levels but not the cloud layer in GHZ that Genesis received.
Wish I could've included this in the video. The phone versions totally didn't cross my mind back then. Sonic Genesis looks to be even more of a messed up Frankenstein Monster with even more obscured source of origin than I originally thought.
Does that mean that it could be theoretically possible to port sonic 2 J2ME on the GBA?
@@heitorsant1759well could be possible.
FINALLY, I FOUND SOMEONE TO ADDRESS THE MUSIC LAG
the fact that's even a thing is an example of bad programming.
having music on shouldn't lag a game.
i have never seen any other game act like that.
heck no Nintendo game in existence lags if the music is on but i guess
sega does what nintendont.
@@Boomrainbownuke9608 That's called not having a dedicated soundchip
@@abc_4285 sonic advance games didn't need it.
They were optimized @@Boomrainbownuke9608
Everyone else do
You know what's more insulting? Well, at least to me...I got this for my birthday. Yeah....what a birthday surprise. My parents know I'm a huge Sonic fan and at the time, they felt bad, because they didn't have enough money to buy me a Xbox 360 or PS3, so I can get Sonic 06. So when they saw THIS at Walmart, they "knew" I love it. After I played this and saw how awful this game tried to recreate the beauty of the original, I actually had to lie and pretend to my parents that I loved it lol just so they won't feel bad that they couldn't get me a new console lol and I wanted them to think this game made me feel better....it didn't. Years later and I still have this game laying in my drawer collecting dust. Why haven't I thrown it away? I don't know, maybe it's because my parents bought it for me, and no matter how awful this game is, believe me, its BAD! But it's still a gift from my parents. UGH!!!! Great review my guy! The editing, clips and everything was good! Sorry you had to suffer to play this shit lol
I feel bad for you, I wonder how you would’ve felt if you got 06 instead
@AubreyTheKing oh, you poor soul 😢😢
he would've been dead either way@@thecoolbroscoolman4672
in hindsight would you really have been happier with sonic 06 lmao
Better this port than the mess that was Sonic 06 tho xD
This is probably the most extensive review on Sonic Genesis I've ever seen! I never knew up until now that part of the reason why this port is slow is because of the music. Not to mention your dedication to beating the game not only once, but TWICE, just to show off the jukebox. That's a herculean task if I've ever seen one.
Even in 2024, Sonic GBA GENESIS still deserved a 0/10.
I don't know how this could've possibly happened. How can you make something THIS BAD for the GBA? It's not just bad, it boggles the mind how bad it is.
The irony is, the Sonic Advance trilogy proved that you can make a good GBA Sonic game.
@@KitsuneYojimbo And this came out AFTER those.
@@KitsuneYojimboSonic Advance Trilogy originally also planned to be released on 2005. 2 years after SONIC ADVANCE 3.
+1 more person accurately describing the gba sound hardware situation
Sonic The Hedgehog GBA Genesis originally should've been delayed into 2008 to avoid this gameplay mess.
Now that is some serious "mean beans" Robotnik ate. lol
Well seems like even Espio the Chameleon approved that.
Fun fact, this is the first Sonic game I ever played. I was 6 when I first played this game and for a few years I could never get past Marble Zone.
I didn't even think it was bad, I wasn't knowledgeable enough to know that this was a terrible version of Sonic 1.
Same. Played it on a friend’s GBA. Became familiar with Sonic afterwards and bought Sonic Rush and Sonic Heroes.
I always felt bad for those were not at least gifted a hand-me-down Genesis with Sonic 2. That's just how I grew up.
I got the Genesis in 1991 when they cut the price and changed the pack-in game to Sonic 1, I was initially shocked that this port on a piece of hardware that is supposed to be so much more advanced (no pun intended) was such a janky mess... but SEGA at this point in time were also pretty uncaring and ambivalent about their legacy pre-Sammy merger so it wasn't completely surprising.
This port was my introduction to Sonic 1. I never knew it was a bad port when I had and never got past Labyrith Zone. I knew the game was stupid slow so I never really played it much. Now that Sonic Origins is out, I'd argue it's the superior way to play Sonic 1 and onward
@@ShadamyLover15 Sonic Origins gets way too much crap despite not being bad at all
This is the best review of Sonic The Hedgehog Genesis EVER!!!
I enjoyed this review much more than I would for playing Sonic The Hedgehog Genesis.
Sonic original 1991 still miles above Sonic GBA GENESIS.
A lot of people wonder nowadays how something this bad could have been made. For context, all the Sonic games in development at the time were, Sonic Genesis, Sonic 06, the Wii version of 06 (which would later become Secret Rings), and Sonic Riders, all of which were slated to be released for the 15th anniversary.
The fact that Sonic Team developed 06, Secret Rings and Riders at the same time still baffles me. I fucking love Riders but I don't even understand how that was greenlit given how busy Sonic Team was. SEGA really didn't care about how far stretched ST was back then. It's a miracle that Riders was good.
@captinsparklezremix they were also working on Shadow and Rush at the same time too since they came out relatively close to when those games were made too
13:51 Those particular sound effects sound like the experience point bars from Pokémon.
The fact that someone is porting Mario 64 to the GBA, which runs faster than this bullcrap is insane
It's not, GTA Vice City builds for GBA existed as early as 15+ years ago so SM64 in 2024 feels tame by comparison. The only reason that SM64 version runs as fast as it does on GBA is because it's a demake that looks nothing like the original, calling it a port is a misnomer. GBA could probably run an unchanged version of SM64 so I don't get all the hype for this particular project.
Really enjoyed the editing and how elaborate the video is. This port is rightfully infamous. Truly horrible...
Ride to Hell Retribution to Sonic GBA GENESIS: FINALLY A WORTHY OPPONENT.😂
Why does this video have only 22 likes? Why does this have only 466 views? Why does this video have only 3 comments (4 including this comment of mine)? This video was really REALLY well made! I watched the entire video all the way to the end and I enjoyed every second of it, got some laughs here and there. A while ago, out of curiosity, I tried this game on a GBA emulator, and gave up by the time I reached Act 2 of the Marble Zone because of how laggy it is (and it's not the emulator because other ROMs work perfectly fine). I also wondered about the screen size and why I couldn't see as much as those TH-cam videos of Sonic 1 can (turns out, it was screen crunch as you mentioned). Now, having watched this video, it all made perfect sense. Oh dear, the slowdown. Thank you SO MUCH for this video! Honestly, by the time I finished watching the video, I scrolled down and was expecting like at least several thousand likes on the video, some thousand views and at least a few hundred comments, but I'm really REALLY surprised. This video is really well made and, to be honest, I think it is on par with bigger channels out there that have thousands of likes per video, several hundred thousand views per video, hundreds of comments per video. Keep up the good work! I haven't seen your other videos, but, I gotta say, your channel really deserves to grow big if you keep making videos of such high quality.
Thanks! I'm glad someone finally really appreciates what I have done with this video. I'm honestly shocked how much it tanked and I really don't know why it's so ignored. It also got a bunch of thumbs down right out of the gate, during the last days where TH-cam showed them openly.
@@BlueMueI really like this video too. If I had to guess it might be the title of the video. Someone might look at it and assume you're talking about the og game and not read the gba part of the title so they might get touchy as a result.
@@noname-jt6kl Thanks for the advice! I don't think there's any confusion but I really should've considered are more attention grabbing video title. Might be way too late now but I guess I'll think of a replacement.
@@BlueMue I really do wonder why they thought releasing this in this state was ok. Putting aside the sound problems, the performance is so bad that surely any dev would have looked at it and thought 'hmmm, maybe we should fix this'
"What can be said about this game that hasn't already been said?"
Considering I've never heard a single thing about this game, the answer to that question is absolutely anything.
Good video and good analysis, shame this video is not as popular as it deserves to be.
You know it’s bad when the GBA port of _Doom_ works better…
Okay, to be fair, Doom... is Doom. You can run Doom on a pregnancy test.
@@EngineerMonkey-zp3yj except Doom is technically more demanding than the frickin sonic 1... So its no excuse for Sonic 1 to run THIS BADLY when the motherfucking Doom can run on the GBA Better.
@@naoaquieopatrickpatrick8565 No, he's right. Doom isn't _that_ much more demanding, originally it was designed for low spec machines, but what matters a lot more is the fact that ID-soft actually went and released its source code publicly on top of having it optimized to near perfection in the first place. If you're porting Doom everything you need is already prearranged and set up in your favor which makes the process a breeze even if you're porting to underpowered hardware, on the other hand Dimps had their work cut out for them and everything was working against them. They didn't even get the source code of Sonic 1 and without one it's practically impossible to make a competent port, it's effectively the same as making the game almost from scratch.
I find it funny how the GBA struggles with emulating the music from the Genesis yet Nintendo had no problem with making newer versions of songs of the NES/SNES games they ported to the GBA.
and to think this console also runs doom 2 just fine as well
@@UltimateWaheeand also Doom 1995 game.
Fr. They remade A Link to the Past perfectly on GBA so there was genuinely no excuse especially considering the many other pretty great GBA remakes of SNES/Genesis games out there
Mother 1+2?
@@estadian earthbound gba's music is trash
A year or two ago I kid you not in a Sonic group on Facebook I saw somebody post an image of Sonic Genesis inbox and they were not even being ironic about it and literally said that they're happy that they finally got to experience the first Sonic game. I could not help but laugh because this was not the true experience of the first Sonic game because it is such an awful port. Most people agreed with me but some people were for some reason defending him Like as if they didn't know that the GBA port of Sonic Genesis was so damn bad. I mean it's no wonder why this person got this game from a flea market. Whoever had it there was trying their best to get rid of it
Thank god for the 3DS compilation, giving us a better version with the spindash. Classic Collection on DS made up for this too.
Oh... Shit, I just brought four Sonic games for GBA, for my Analog Pocket. This was one of them.
imagine buying ram chips in the year 2024
I feel for the developers, really... SEGA has lost the original game's source code, they had to work with a terrible java port that also didn't use the original source code, and had to release a piece of crap because SEGA wanted to fuck everything Sonic-related that came out in 2006.
Great video. Ive seen videos on this port before but not this in depth. We sonic fans salute you for torturing yourself with this game for our entertainment
PLEASE DO MORE VIDEOS LIKE THIS. I literally loved this video so much so that the day after i watched it which is tonight im eating and got a random urge to watch ur channel and man!!!! I love this style you do
Thanks! Very pleased that you enjoyed this enough to rewatch. This here was actually very much not my style and a one-off thing. Don't know if I'll be doing another review like this so I have to curb your expectations.
@@BlueMuenoooooooooooo😢
@@ilikesonicxbro I could point you towards my Hitachi TRQ-298 video if it helps any. Very different subject and different kind of visual and narrative style. Also old... But it's literally the only other video I have where I actually talk.
@@BlueMueYes please:)
@@BlueMue Ah, so this is like a super one-off!
I loved my GBA SP when I got it for christmas the year it released. Golden Sun, Metroid Fusion, and the GOAT: Super Mario Advance 4 (SMB 3)
Also the last year my whole family got together for christmas parties. Where's that Delorean when you need it?
Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis for the Game Boy Advance, where do I even begin? the way Sonic jumps in the game is so exciting and thrilling, making it feel like an absolute surprise every time you land high in the air, never quite knowing where you’ll end up. the spin dash is nothing short of amazing, the slow motion effects being applied as you roll around on the grassy hills or the marble floor being a nice touch to such a brilliant move added to the game. the soundtrack captures the emotion of nostalgia and how it distorts the nature of things very well, being a successful meta commentary on the relationship between nostalgia and accuracy to the imagined past. I especially love it when it ends, it’s such a satisfying and fun experience to see the game finish and you feel really accomplished after all the hard work you’ve put into the game, trying to figure out its secrets and hidden meaning. thank you for everything, Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis for the Game Boy Advance. you truly are the best Sonic 1 port of all time. 😁
12:25
"Just listen to Spring Yard Zone!"
_Doesn't let you listen to Spring Yard Zone_
I didn't want to waste everyones time by letting the terrible music play out. If you are curious consider the comparison as homework.
This game is essentially "WHAT IF EVERY SONIC ZONE HAD UNDERWATER PHYSICS?!"
Which means Labyrinth Zone is DOUBLE as slow at least for this port.
And as I've mentioned before, the Spin Dash is useless in Sonic 1 because the game itself was never built around the idea of using a move to blast through terrain like that; Sonic 2 was.
Look at the layout between the two games and you'll see Sonic 1 is built for quick reactions on jumps because there are so many jumps and the groundwork is LADEN with so many traps. Sonic 2 and beyond are all about speeding through with slides, inclines abd pipes.
To give a better idea, look at how the START of Marble Garden is built. That's utter hell for Spin Dash because of the constantly moving ground, the lava pits, and how it's a constant journey down. Then look at Lava Reef which is also about great timing but is built a lot better to accommodate Spin Dash usage to the point there are designated ramps and platforms for its direct use.
The sad thing is, The Sonic Advance series proves that Sonic games can run great on GBA. They just didn't try. It would have been cool to see a native port of some of the classic Sonic games on GBA. Instead we get this abysmal failure. :(
Sonic Classic Collection I think was the next time we got official versions of the classics on handhelds. Those games were emulated and also had some performance issues but at least they were mostly playable and the slowdowns they did have was because of emulation. I'm curious as to what this game's excuse for it's bad performance was because surely it's not being emulated because it'd be crazy to try that on a GBA. Even a DSi can just barely run Genesis games full speed. I couldn't stand playing this game. The stuttering and off sound fx turned me off from giving it any serious attempt. :P
Fantastic video! Thanks for going in depth on it's quirks and why things turned out this way!
Sonic has the correct arm coloration!
10/10 masterpiece.
I didn't even notice the water ripple in Labyrinth Zone until you mentioned it being missing in this port! Great video
What really stinks about Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis on the GBA is that the handheld actually did have the capability to use the same kind of audio heard on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, but Sega and Sonic Team cut corners instead because they were trying to meet a deadline. The end result was a mess with the wrong synthesized Instruments and sound fonts.
11:16 "Hardware of the GBA" no, that's a skeleton, I'm sorry.
This was a very entertaining video. Loved how thorough you were with the quirks of this port and the recordings were great!
And this is why ports need more than 1 month.
The other thing is that while this game uses the engine for Sonic Advance, it was also not meant to run Sega Genesis programming. The Java version ran better than this for crying out loud.
This looks like an interesting _30_ minutes..
This was the first game I played as a kid that I understood was... "bad". I'd played bad games before then, but I was just a dumb little kid, so I didn't really care as long as there were flashing lights and colors. But playing this game, I had the distinct sense that something was wrong. It felt difficult to control, I often couldn't tell where I was going or when an enemy would come onto the screen, and I just had this weird feeling that I wasn't having fun. I gave it a few tries because I assumed I just needed to get better before the game would be fun to me, but eventually I just gave up and put it down for good.
This port is so bad even my 6 year old self could tell.
I did broke and destroyed a Sonic 1 GBA cartridge after failing in Green Hill Zone Act 2 3 times until i got a game over, because of those stupid controls and physics.
Sonic The Hedgehog Genesis on Game Boy Advance still is very famous for its "Lives Undeflowing" glitch.
It's insane how literal DIMPS can make better games than this
The true irony is that Sonic Genesis is based on the Sonic Advance engine lol
Sonic Advance was probably the closest replica of the Genesis physics until Mania popped out.
To think, i got this game in a book order in middle school.
People always say they always got stuck at Marble Zone as a kid. I was one point then learned where to go on my own. But i mainly remember getting stuck on Scrap Yard and Labyrinth Zone
Sonic the hedgehog genesis is like gta the definitive edition
The one game Sonic fans won't pretend is secretly good -- but I don't know, give it 10 more years.
I was given this game by my grandpa so I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for it
I was playing this and wondering “why is this so crap? I’m not usually so bad at this game” but the screen size being to small makes so much sense because you’re constantly running into shit because once you see it can finally see its, it’s too late and you’ve already been hit
Without watching much of the video
Screen crunch
At this point. Sega just took the original sonic the hedgehog's file and squeezed it in a Gameboy advance cartridge
Not really. There's a lot of technical differences between the two. It's not even a port of the Genesis ROM it's just a lazy copy and paste of assets over a Dimps engine
7:48 also notice how he just clips through that spring
You know what would have been cool for anniversary mode redo the game in sonic advance graphics
I remember seeing a copy of this game on display at Wal-Mart a few times all the way back in 2004 and I've been wanting to get the game not only because I owned only one Sonic game on GBA, that being Sonic Advance 3, but because I always wanted to play the old Genesis classic that started the whole franchise anytime, anywhere. Now looking back, I feel congratulated by not wasting away my cash on this train crash of a game. This is obviously what the Sonic Advance series would've been like if all those games sucked. Like, if I wanted to play what resembled a version of Sonic Genesis that was actually GOOD, I could do a run on Green Hill zone in SA3 with a team of Sonic and Knuckles.
Game didnt come out til 2006 pal
you shoulda got mega collection
@@ScourgeTheKing I do have the Mega Collection!?
To be fair there were no good ports from _any_ 16-bit consoles on GBA, not even Nintendo's own SNES, so why would anyone expect Sonic 1 to be this sole exception? The fact that it's more awful than it could be is unfortunate but even at its best it could only be bad, given the GBA track record.
Honestly, as much as I hate to admit it GBA kind of sucked. While the SP model and some decent first party games did manage to salvage it I can't help but feel that I liked the DS and even GB Color a lot more than the Advance.
I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to port it to the GBA instead of the DS when the DS was literally around 2 years old
Music's so bad the game performs better without it playing 💀💀😭😭
I know this is a old video but did you try it on the Nintendo Ds and see how the perform it was love to see a follow up video Ps I’m a new subscriber
Well I actually showed that I played my cartridge on a DS Lite. The GBA inside the DS is absolutely identical to an original GBA so there's no possibility for differences.
This is the way I played sonic 1 before I got sonic classics collection for the DSi 😭
It's like playing the game as Sonic himself experiences it.
Thankfully, we have Sonic Origins now, and the Sonic 1 in that collection is what Sonic Genesis should have been. Not only it's a faithful port, but it has an actual spindash, and Tails, Knuckles and Amy are all playable now.
I guess Sega could in fact do what Nintendon't.
I love how the bumpers sound like Mac OS 9
I'm having a weird moment here I played the heck out of this game as a kid. Granted it was the only Sonic game I had played at the time and didn't know the slowmo wasn't supposed to be there. I'm not defending it but one person in the world had fun with it.
I played this game a lot as a kid since it was my only gameboy game at the time, I loved and still do
Why
@@ivythay4259 well I mean it's obviously a terrible port but I still do enjoy it a little bit
On the camera comment, if only there were two unused buttons, that your fingers always have access to, that could be used to manually pan the camera
To give credit to whoever made the port, Stealth had years of experience with the S1 engine and all the hardware knowledge to understand what should have been changed when porting, this team probably didn't in the slightest, so they just transpiled from a language to another and hoped for the best. Also it's based off the equally horrible J2ME port (which is the original Assembly transpiled to Java, and I think GBA only accepts C, so the game went through 3 different languages by this point)
I remember getting this GBA Cart when I was a kid. I ended up tearing off the VRAM chip and unlocking every single level.
I remember emulating this about 10 years ago on my phone, i had a really shitty phone at the time so when the game kept lagging i just assumed it was because my phone wasn't strong enough to emulate this 🤣
Now hold on a minute. The GBA wasn't the problem. The devs were. Proof? A fan made a way better version of GBA Sonic 1. The game was clearly rushed.
Fun fact, if you emulate this on a DS it’s one of the best ports ever
Wait a minute... 15th anniversary and the game becomes 15% faster if you disable the music? It's all connected
It's honestly hard to put into words how bad it is. It feels like an old, BAD Flash game from Newgrounds, where the jump doesn't work properly half the time, you constantly clip through everything, you get stuck to things because the collision detection is broken... it's really insane. There's bad, and then there's THIS.
I kinda want this on NSO for the lolz. It should be a kind of rite of passage to beat this game.
ive beaten it more times the the original
I still find it funny that when the fixed version of this port was making the rounds the Dude behind it was going by the name “some guy named stealth”. Funny
Ugh, Labyrinth zone was a nightmare in this port…I could never get past it as a kid
i dont understand
Odd to think I was just two years old when this game came out. I'm 20 now.
Also, the music in this game sounds like someone took the music from the original and castrated it.
14:00 - Stung By The Thome! 😂🤣😂🤣
23:07 can’t believe the frontiers devs made this game
I *tried* to like this, I'd been waiting since the late 90s for some portable Genesis Sonic games. In fact I did kind of like it, but I didn't play Sonic 1 growing up besides on Mega Collection and I didn't really like it since I grew up playing 2 and 3 & Knuckles. When we finally did get those on the DS, the sound was awful, the emulation was even more awful unless you were on a DSi or 3DS
This isnt just a bad GBA port, this is peak Yuji Naka programming mastery.
I notice that when sonic dies no matter where it happens, he does the drowning animation, that's really weird.
(edit) I just realized that you mention this later in the video lmao
This and Sonic '06 have some things in common. Do you know what they are?
One of the worst games to ever be officially released. Sega should’ve cancelled it during QA.
50th anniversary!?! I dunno about all that...
I actually played this once, and even though everything mentioned here did actually happen, for some reason i actually found it sorta fun to mess around with the game 😂
Sonic shrugging with a cash bag in one hand and Sonic The Hedgehog Genesis for the Gameboy Advance in the other hand.
If this is supposed to be a java port like some have speculated theres a chance it's not even properly ported and just running in a sort of j2me interpreter for the gba
there's no way the sonic advance engine couldn't handle this game out the box tbh
it's doubly embarrassing because i've played through "part 1" of the java version on several phones and none ran anywhere near as dog ass as this one did.
I wish I knew more about this theory back then, would've definately included it in the video. I remember playing these old Java versions on a flip phone and I have to agree that they worked better than Sonic Genesis. They were quite choppy but at least not sluggish.
Really no idea if the J2ME theory holds any water though. It could really be anything that makes Sonic Gensis such a mess. Unless the code gets completely disected we may never know.
It would explain how disabling parts of the sound processing improves performance just like old emulators on weak computers
Funny that the ESRB says No One.
I am so very happy that finally this easter egg was found and pointed out!
Thx, and also about the game on the gba instead of the DS, when Nintendo unveiled the DS, they didn’t say it was a successor to the GBA, but instead a “3rd pillar” just in case it failed (which it didn’t, I mean take a look at the DS’s sales numbers)
I don't care what anyone says At this point , the gameboy advance version of sonic 1 was the port I grew up with Before I knew about the Genesis and I actually liked it despite the game, not having it's best visuals and graphics
I was born 7 days after Sonic's 15th anniversary.
im surprised that avgn never covered this
I blame sega for the lack of preparation of making this game, I would have loved to see them make a remake of the game gear/master system sonic platformers aside from blast instead. Imagine how great the game could be if it was made with a bigger screen in mind.
Never heard of this port and I know a lot... The music sounds better than it does on the Master System, though. 😅
I think I once saw a copy while getting a black 2 copy at GameStop in 2019.
After ports like this in the past, you realize that Sonic Origins isn't that bad.
I'm surprised you didn't mention that they got the physics of knockback when hit wrong. When you land after getting hurt, you're supposed to stop, not keep your momentum.
Wasn’t that game by THQ? I also assume they released it on the Game of Advance because wasn’t that THQ’s contract with Sega that they could develop Sega games on GBA. Which was great with Sonic Advance but terrible with Crazy Taxi.
I would assume that’s why they released it for GBA. I assume they didn’t get the rights from Sega to release games on DS
THQ only did the publishing in North America for the Sega GBA games. Sonic Genesis doesn't come with their logo on the box so they probably didn't even have that involvement there.
@@BlueMue I wasn’t aware that THQ wasn’t the publisher.
I just knew most Sega games for GBA were published by THQ and developed by a third party. Jet Grind Radio GBA was by Vicarious Visions, Crazy Taxi was by Graphic State Limited, The Revenge of Shinobi and Altered Beast were by 3d6 even Sonic Advance was published by THQ and mostly handled by Dimps. Those are just the ones I played. I assume there are more.
A lazy Sonic cash-in? From Sega?
NO WAY!?!?!?