http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_1_MegamixA very clever hack of Sonic 1, heavily edited into something new, comprised of bits and pieces from all over the Sonic series. I don't know if anyone was keeping up with this, but development officially discontinued a few months ago, leaving the project unfinished. Yet, the final version is still a completely playable game, with an impressive amount of features, and I've been playing this on my PSP via Picodrive. There are one or two graphics glitches, but nothing major. The project was moved to SegaCD format (for some reason) so to play the latest build, you need to run it on the right emulator/bios, but it's not too hard to set up.
Given this is the work of hackers, the game is surprisingly playable and flows really well. It's not nearly as difficult as it looks, given the new moves you can do (Sonic has a homing attack and all enemies now drop a ring instead of an animal) and I reckon the new Scrap Brain zone is actually easier than the original. I finished the game without using a continue, and now I'm going through it again with the other characters. There's even a save state which records what level you were on if you quit. Playable are Sonic, Mighty, Shadow, Tails and Knuckles, and they've been given different moves specific to them. They've also been given 'super' forms when you collect all the emeralds, and new abilities to accompany them, but I've yet to manage that. The special stages have been rebuilt and reskinned and they're a bit tricky, but I think I can get there.
Three of the levels have have major graphical reworking done to them, so much so that it's almost unrecognisably Sonic 1 anymore. The new Green Hill zone (now Sunny Shores) is very pretty, really nicely designed. Marble zone and Labyrinth zone have also undergone redesigns, whereas the remaining zones have just had colour pallette changes (as well as being structurally rearranged). The new Labyrinth zone is now set outdoors, which looks weird, because there's a lake in the background, even when you're 'underwater'. It's not quite right, but sadly there won't be any more updates as the project is finished.
Still, it's the closest to a new decent Sonic game we're going to get any time soon, and nice to play a Sonic 1 clone that I can't play on auto-pilot. I recommend it.
Author