I remember when I was a young and carefree lad who would rush home afterschool to play with my Sega system, and one of my favorite games was Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic would go on to bigger and better things and have his own series with Sega and arguably become one of video game history’s most recognizable icons. There was no doubt that Sonic would eventually reach the shores of the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. From the looks of it, Sonic may have found a new home.

High hopes but very disappointed! I should have listened to the review from ilounge. The problems listed below are consistent, even with a full restart of the device. 1. Frame Rate is very low and unpredictable and leads to an overall sluggish feel. Hardly the Sonic we expect. 2. Music suffers the same sluggishness. The tempo varies evry few seconds. I could give this a temporary pass if it occurred during high action moments but it can't keep up with no motion! 3. Due to the above the game is frustrating and unplayable. The positives are: 1. Controls seem good if you could actually play without the display problems. 2. The game save your progress on exit, just like an eternal pause button. 3. The graphics hold up well for a game this old, even in the full screen view. It looks a million times better than on the old Game Gear screen. To bad it doesn't run as smoothly! I hope that this can be fixed quickly with an update and will revise my review at that point.

For a game designed to run on hardware that is decades older than the iPhone this port is a little crappy. I gave it two stars because I've been waiting a long time for this but it is really slow in parts. I would hope for an update quick because this borders on not playable.

I've been waiting for this game since the app store opened bought it last night and now wished I waited. The game is way to hard to control. I hope they have an update soon! Untill then I would wait.

I've been waiting for this game forever to come out in the app store. What's disappointing is the controlling of sonic and the fact that he doesn't have spin dash. Please sega I beg of u for an upgrade sooooonnn.

It's about time, Sega! Just like the original, maybe too much. There is no use of the accelerometer, it would be great to have that as an option to replace the d-pad. I agree with others, the slowdown is annoying. Other than that, it's awesome and would love to see Sonic 2 and Sonic 3!!

This is an exact port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog for Sega Genesis complete with stylized pad and buttons reflective of the old 16 Bit console (and even the logo and the small screen mode). This game has all the look and sound of the original but the downfall is in it's execution. There's alot of slowdown in the game and unforgivably so as I would think iPhone could outpower the old Sega Genesis. When full fledged 3D games are released on the Apple handheld, I expect a simple 2D platformer to run much better. An update is absolutely necessary in order to make Sonic run as smooth as he did back in 1991.

This is one of my favorite apps on my iPod(2nd generation).But there is one problem.Whenever I die I can't continue I just go back to the first level!I wish I could continue from the Act I died in.Please if you can make it so that you can continue from where you died.

I was excited to see Sonic in the app store this morning and downloaded it immediately. What a mistake. This game suffers from constant framerate drops and almost always-present slowdown. At first, I thought my iPhone might just need to be rebooted, so I did, and the problems persisted. After speaking with a friend of mine, he told me that he had also just downloaded it to his iPod Touch (2nd Generation) and had the exact same problems. After paying $5.99 for what is essentially an unplayable game, I'm a little ticked off, but hopefully they'll release an update soon that corrects the problem, after which I will revise my review.

I am amazed at the sound and graphic quality of this game. My only criticism lies in the general emulation of the framerate: it's better than other mobile versions, but not quite there yet. Also, the jump button is unresponsive at times when I'm moving fast: which is when I need it most! An update would be in order eventually. It's better than the Puyo Pop/Columns app, but not as good as Super Monkey Ball (in terms of emulation quality) Other than these little details, SEGA has done a good job porting the speedster over on the iPhone/iTouch. Keep up the good work!!

Looking forward to 2 & 3

Have this on the Wii and now on my iPhone... Can't wait to finish this and does Sonic 1 icon mean that there's going to be Sonic 2?

Sonic was one of my favorite games growing up. Sega did a great job on this version! Controls work really well. Much better than Super Monkey Ball!

1st off - those complaining about it not being able to handle 30fps or whatever, seem to have forgotten they are playing on a cell phone, not a Sega console or handheld game player. That being said, this is the exact replica of the original Sonic game & after about 2 hours test driving this game, it's certainly fun & high quality - especially for those who've played the original. Sega's super monkey ball was hard to play whereas this is easy, and the quality of graphics and both stellar. It's not 100% perfect, hence my 4/5 star rating, but to me it's good enough and at $6, rather than the $9-$15 price points we see, it gets my vote for one of the best games on the iPhone "out of the box" (i.e. before updates) Oh - another plus - you can listen to your own music! (won't stop your iPod)

I agree with most other reviewers that this is just an ok port of sonic. The thing that I feel needs to be adressed the most are the controls. First there needs to be accelerometer control options this would really improve gameplay. Second where is the spin dash? Update with these and other reviewers suggestions and this game would be 5 stars.

Aside from some framerate issues, this is a reasonable port. However, what I'd really like to see is a port of the entire series. Seeing as how this port is apparently just an emulator on top of a Sonic 1 ROM, this shouldn't be too difficult.

Sound emulation is poor, and the game isn't able to even keep a steady 30fps, let alone the 60fps of the original. On top of that the lack of tactile feedback makes it hard to use the d-pad. There are definitely better options for portable Sonic.

I was excited to see this in the App Store, so I downloaded it immediatly. However, I couldn't be more disappointed once I loaded the game up for the first time only to discover the horrible slowdown that mars this otherwise beautiful port. Please fix it Sega. C'mon, how do you expect us to play a game like Sonic with this terrible of a framerate?!

Touch controls are not ideal for a fast game like this. Jumping in tight spaces can be hard. Plus if you die you start from begining with no level select. Too much money for experience

Slowdowns make this game hard to play. Plus the controlls don't work that well. I took me jumping back and forth to jump on a box. Very difficult. Save your $6 and just use it to buy a gba and the gba port.

this is a very playable version of sonic and once I got used to the controls, it was great. there are however terrible technical problems with this game like music slowdown and ocassionally gameplay slowdown. it's somewhat surprising and also unacceptable that this game was released like this considering there are much more graphic intensive games on the iphone that run without a hitch. strikes me as quite lazy. hopefully sega will release an update fixing those problems if enough of us leave bad reviews.

I grew up playing Sonic games, and so as soon as I saw it, I bought it. I would love to see Sonic 2 on here soon!

Just like the wii port, good fun! And to the guy asking for a second button for the super spin... That wasn't till sonic 2. The first sonic never had that ability. Update: I hate to do this, but I have to drop some stars after lots of game play time. This game almost comes to the point of freezing when there is too much going on in one screen, i.e. Sonic and a bad guy or two are in the same frame, everything horrably slows down. Please fix this issue.

This is Sonic. On the iPhone. It's automatically win. There is massive slowdown and the SEEEGA intro needs work but that can easily be fixed anyday now if enough people leave reviews about it.

Great version of sonic, but you should be able to keep playing after a game over

OK guys, about half the reviews I have read complain about the fact that there is no Spin Dash (the thing where you press down and "B" to charge up a spinning roll), but here is the thing... THERE WAS NO SPIN DASH IN THE ORIGINAL GAME EITHER!!! The Spin Dash was not introduced until "Sonic the Hedgehog 2"!!! If Sega added Spin Dash to this game... then this game wouldn't be "Sonic the Hedgehog". It would be like a re-mix of the original game; definitely NOT the original. So instead of complaining about a feature that will NEVER happen... just beg Sega to put up "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" which DOES have the Spin Dash.

I have not seen any of the problems other have with the gaming being sluggish. This port actually performs better than the original game did on the Saga Master system. Those looking for the spin attack are remembering Sonic 2 not this original version of Sonic. As mentioned it was originally released on the Sega Master System and was almost too much for that hardware. When it was rereleased for the Genius it was much better and played just as smooth as it does on the iTouch 2G.

I hope to see other SEGA games, or even a new Sonic game.