How did a terrible game like Sonic The Hedgehog 1 spawn a successful franchise?

[Mother 3]

I'm not saying that Sonic is a bad franchise, I'm saying that Sonic 1 is a bad game. I mean, the game forces you to go slow for a game where speed is the selling point. Like, if you go too fast you fall into a trap and die, or there are parts where you have to wait in order to progress. The levels besides Green Hill zone are forgettable, bland, and gimmicky, the mini game to acquire chaos emeralds is boring, and a pretty bad game overall.

That being said, how did such a shoddy release spawn a franchise with much superior entries?
How did it even get superior sequels and positive feedback? Then again, Street Fighter 1 was terrible, though just like Sonic, there would not be better games to come out of it.

This is just my silly personal opinion, and a curious thought that came to my mind

[sfnhltb]

2.8 million cartridges sold = sequel. Quality is irrelevant, marketability and sales is what creates franchises.

[Phirestar]

It was the early-90s. Video games didn’t have standards yet. People were just excited to be able to play stuff.

[Q-T_3.14.exe]

The game was bundled with the console, didn't it? The franchise was meant to be the selling point for Mega Drive/Genesis. The game did it's job at kick starting SEGA towards success and spawning a successful franchise.

[talemore]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Q-T_3.14.exe:

The game was bundled with the console, didn't it? The franchise was meant to be the selling point for Mega Drive/Genesis. The game did it's job at kick starting SEGA towards success and spawning a successful franchise. :SonicManiaSonic::SonicManiaTails::SonicManiaKnuckles:

correct. It was a halo.

[Scurrybt]

Personally speaking, the Sonic franchise would have fizzled out like Ristar if it wasn’t for the massive success of Sonic 2 and Sonic Adventure. Sonic 1 was only seen as a technical novelty during that era, nothing more.

[🍋 Lemonfed 🍋]

sonic 2 , 3 , knuckle and Mania are fantastic as platformers goes.

[Devsman]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Phirestar:

It was the early-90s. Video games didn’t have standards yet. People were just excited to be able to play stuff.

I don't know if Sega had anything similar, but a large part of the secret of Nintendo's success in the post-crash years was the official licensing quality seal.

https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Official_Nintendo_Seal

Which supposedly meant "this is a good game" but in practice it was more like "this isn't the total crap they used to sell on the 2600."

And by "total crap" I don't mean the Internet gamer definition of the term. I mean garbage like 3D Tic-Tac-Toe, where the players (there is no vs CPU mode) have to figure out for themselves who won because it doesn't even recognize its own victory conditions. Or garbage like Steeplechase, where none of the controls does anything at all. Or garbage like Miss It, which is literally two dots on a white background (and managed to actually be one of the most fun games for the system anyway).

Or garbage like Swordquest, where you pick stuff up and put it down, hoping it's in the right place, because nothing in the game hints at where stuff is supposed to go, because those hints come from the accompanying comic book... except it still doesn't help because there are no landmarks in the rooms in the game... and even with a full walkthrough, it's virtually impossible to get through the game because instructions like "pick up the chalice, walk three screens south and trade it for the dagger" have no meaning when nothing in the game looks like a chalice or a dagger, and it's really not even clear sometimes if you've gone into a new room at all because they all look the same. And at a point, there's eventually nothing at all in the room that (you think?) the guide directed you to.

I mean, if you want to see gaming before it had standards, just go through the 2600 library A to Z. The 90's was a WONDERFUL era by comparison.

[Tonepoet]

The first thing to note is that it is not as if the whole game is like that. You can get some good speed going in Green Hill Zone and Star Light Zone, which are widely regarded as the two best zones in the game. Spring Yard Zone allows you to get some good speed going sometimes too, although those blue rolly polly bastards can take you by surprise in the most unfair way.

The second thing is that speed is relative. You need to experience some slowness to appreciate the faster segments and accelerate.

The third is that yeah, there are traps in the sonic games. A game without any challenges would be rather boring, and if speed is the name of the game, then you are going to have to expect to have quick reflexes if you want to do well. Not having obstacles is, as Sonic would put it bor-ing.

The fourth thing to note is that the way games were played was different back then. Saving wasn't commonplace, and Sonic 1 has neither a password system nor a save battery in the cartridge. If you turn the game off and do not know the level select cheat code, you are not starting where you left off to finish a play through when you turned off the console. You are starting all the way over back at Green Hill Zone. As such, Green Hill Zone is played much more often than the rest of the game, and if that level is well enough designed, it can carry the whole game to an extent.

The fifth thing is that the market was not the same as it is today. Today, video game players buy stuff for themselves using their own disposable income. Back then however, you were relying on your parents to either buy your video games and consoles for you or a paltry weekly allowance. Assuming the typical cost of a game is $50, plus tax, and you get $5 a week, you're probably only going to be able to afford a brand new video game about once every three months. Moreover, the 16 bit generation consoles cost almost $200 plus tax, so you'd be saving up for 9 months to buy a console on your own, if your parents didn't buy it for you as a gift. With these financial constraints in mind, your game library wasn't going to be very big, and Sonic the Hedgehog would probably be a part of it, since it replaced Altered Beast as the pack in game. Not only that, but even if you had the money, you had to beg your parents to take you to the toy store to buy the console to spend it, and hope that they don't remark on the irresponsibiility of placing all of your eggs in one basket.

The sixth thing to note is that the Sega Genesis had a two year head start over the S.N.E.S., so you may have gotten a Sega Genesis before the S.N.E.S., without ever even knowing the S.N.E.S. would be a thing if you were not subscribed to some magazine. In consideration of the financial constraints on a '90s child, is an upgrade from an Sega Genesis to an S.N.E.S. so you can play Super Mario World very practical, especially if you just upgraded from the N.E.S. to the Sega Genesis a year or two before? Not really. The S.N.E.S. represented a marginal upgrade over the Sega Genesis in terms of hardware capabilities, and although the game library was much better, that didn't matter as much as it does now. Back then you might only owned about a half of a dozen or so games for a given console, and even if Sega wasn't offering as much, it was still offering more than enough to keep a player satisfied with the amount of entertainment they were getting.

Seventh, if you're comparing Sonic 1 to other games that did not exist at the time of Sonic 1's release, most especially including its own sequels, then you must have forgotten how time works. It's not that bad of a game compared to some of the other stuff on the market, and it blows Altered Beast out of the water in terms of how fun it was to play. Those gimmicky level designs gave the game a pretty good amount of variety. Super Mario Bros. is rather monotonous in comparison.

Now is Super Mario Bros. 3 better than Sonic the Hedgehog 1? Yeah, it is much better. However, here's the rub: In North America, the Sega Genesis was released in 1989, but Super Mario Bros. 3 wasn't released for the N.E.S. until, drumroll please …

… 1990! Granted, there were Playchoice 10 machines that had Mario Bros. 3 in 1989, but let's be frank here. How many of you even ever actually saw a Playchoice 10 in person? What about Super Mario World? Isn't that better than Sonic 1? Yeah, sure, but get this. The S.N.E.S. didn't release in North America until 1991! That's the same year Sonic 1 released. Moreover, whereas S.M.W. released in November, Sonic 1 released in June.

The North American Market is the most important market when speaking about Sonic's success, because Sonic's success is inexorably linked to the Sega Genesis, and while the Sega Genesis was successful in North America, it didn't do so hot in other markets. It lost to the P.C. Engine and the S.N.E.S. in Japan by a pretty wide margin. Oh, sorry for the confusion. Did I say the P.C. Engine? You probably better know it as the frickn' Turbografx 16! Yeah, Sega ultimate lost to that in Japan, and perhaps for good reason too! However, that is somewhat of a separate subject.

Meanwhile, although the consoles were sold in the U.K., that region was more into home computer systems like the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amiga than home video game consoles around that period.

So you're a North American with a Sega Genesis and maybe an aging N.E.S. in the year of 1991, and you're looking for a good new platformer to play. What do you buy over Sonic 1?

Eighth, any bad initial impressions left by Sonic 1 would have been quickly erased. Sonic 2 had a worldwide release in November of 1992, and while we can debate over which of the three games is the best, I would contest that Sonic 2 holds up rather well against Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. That's a pretty snappy turnaround considering that in North America, Super Mario Bros. 1 released in 1985, and Super Mario Bros. 2 (U.S.A.) released in 1988.

Finally, like Devsman mentioned, the first installment of a game isn't going to be as refined as subsequent installments. You have to have a chance to figure out what works about a game and what doesn't.

[talemore]

Iceberg ahead !

[Irene ❤]

Because the other games are more horrible?

[Vox]

Sonic 3 & Knuckles was the best. Sonic 3D, adventure and pretty much everything else sucked, hence why the Saturn and Dreamcast tanked.

[Kamiyama]

It was actually one of the fastest side scrollers when it was released. 1991 was years before Windows 95 and the primary OS at the time was probably either DOS or BASIC because so many Commodore 64's were made in the 80's. More C64's were sold than any other desktop computer in history.

Windows 3.1 ran on top of DOS. So yes it was an OS but the computer boot to DOS first.

Thing is, DOS and BASIC applications ran slow as molasses. There was a limit to how fast they could refresh the screen.

The main selling point to the Sega Genesis was that it could provide arcade quality graphics to a home computer system, which was a big deal at the time. The graphics chip in the Genesis could provide more colors and refresh the screen faster than most computer systems at the time, at least the ones on the low end of price range.

When my parents took me to Toys R Us to buy our SNES they didn't outright tell me to get the SNES instead they led me over to where the game systems were and I gravitated to the screen playing Super Mario World because I had a NES and played Mario 1, 2, and 3. But I remember looking at the screen with a Sega Genesis playing Sonic and yes Sonic was running a lot faster. The screen was scrolling faster than the one playing Mario.

Maybe it doesn't hold up these days but back then it was impressive.

[Devsman]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Labyrinth:

Sonic 3 & Knuckles was the best. Sonic 3D, adventure and pretty much everything else sucked, hence why the Saturn and Dreamcast tanked.

I liked a couple of the 3D ones, tbh. Adventure and Generations were both p good. 3D Blast was also better than I was expecting. Adventure 2... I didn't hate, I guess...

But the rest all just looked so stupid I couldn't even bother to try them, lol. Sonic as a werewolf, lol. Sonic as a knight, lol. Just the title of Sonic Colors was enough to dissuade me.

I actually decided not to judge a book by its cover for a change and got Secret Rings on a whim. Good gracious was that one bad, lol. The hour or so of actual core gameplay was actually kinda fun... but the other couple dozen hours I actually grinded through hoping something else in the game would be fun I will never get back.

[gugnihr]

I will never understand why so many people like so much and have such a good opinion about Sonic 2. I hate it, it is one of the worst Sonic games ever made imo, it is just ugly.
Sonic 1 is fantastic, one of the best games of all time imo it is just great.
It is not even the first one I played my first Sonic game was Sonic CD, then I played Sonic 3 & K, and then I played the other ones so it is not even nostalgia it is just an absolutely wonderful game I do not understand why so many people do not appreciate it much just like I will never understand why so many people like that horrible Sonic 2 crap.

[Dracoco OwO]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Irene ❤:

Because the other games are more horrible? :erune:

Honestly tempted to say that the games weren't that good at the times or way too hard to even be approachable by a majority of peoples.

Początkowo opublikowane przez gugnihr:

I will never understand why so many people like so much and have such a good opinion about Sonic 2. I hate it, it is one of the worst Sonic games ever made imo, it is just ugly.
Sonic 1 is fantastic, one of the best games of all time imo it is just great.
It is not even the first one I played my first Sonic game was Sonic CD, then I played Sonic 3 & K, and then I played the other ones so it is not even nostalgia it is just an absolutely wonderful game I do not understand why so many people do not appreciate it much just like I will never understand why so many people like that horrible Sonic 2 crap.

I think you saying Sonic 2 is bad is weird but understandable because there is multiple versions of that game and one in particular is really bad, though you like Sonic CD so all i have to say is you have a good taste, i never particulaly was a fan of Sonic 2.