Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the first games I've ever played (the very first on the classical Sega Genesis) and this game was responsible for my love of video games in general.

Graphics: To this day, the sprites and backgrounds are still legit. They are so colorful and pleasing to the eye, even though the graphics are only 16-bits. Why is it that the old 2D games look more awesome than today's 3D games I wonder? This version is way superior to the 8-bit version on the Master System. 10/10

Story: A fast-running, blue hedgehog, with a love for adventure, tries to stop the evil Dr. Robotnik from taking over the world. An always running formula, but still in good hands. On a side note, I always thought that Dr. Robotnik (aka Dr. Eggman) was very similar to Dr. Willy from the Megaman series due to their motives and use for machines. 10/10

Sound: The sounds in this game is some of the best I've ever heard, just hearing the explosions when I hit the robot enemies is just plain awesome and persuades me to do some more damage to these bags of bolts. The sounds are notably louder and more fluid than earlier games on the Genesis, which makes the sounds even more exciting. 10/10

Difficulty: The first zone was actually pretty easy to accomplish, but after that is when it gets you. The last parts of the game were a pain, I can't remember exactly how many times that I have to start all over again due to me dying, but I can say that it was a lot. The main difficult task in the game is to collect all 6 Chaos Emeralds, basically a player has to collect 50+ rings towards the end of a level, at the goal the player can enter a large ring at the top right corner of the screen, once he/she does, the player enters a special stage, which allows you to collect an Emerald. I've gotten the 1st Emerald no problem, but getting the other 5 was really frustrating, it took me many tries to collect even 1 of those 5. 9/10

Depth: The game has the challenge of collecting all 6 Chaos Emeralds, which leads to an alt. ending. There are 6 zones in the game, along with a special zone and a final zone, each have 3 acts to play (except for the latter two, only has one act). One could argue that the game is shorter than it seems due to the amazing speed of the game play, but it took me at least 2 days to finish (4 hours without the Emeralds and 44 more hours with all the Emeralds). In my opinion, it depends on how skilled a gamer is, I'm not very skilled, but I am a good strategist, very patient, and a fast learner, without these attributes it would've taken me a lot longer to complete this game because this game requires all 3 of those, trust me. 8/10

Music: One of the most recognizable pieces of music I've ever heard. I remember each track by heart. I remember the first time I heard the main title theme in the game, I first turned on the Genesis (which was new to me at the time) with the Sonic cartridge in it, I heard the "SEGA" voice and I was like, "Oh, this is going to be fun," then the title screen appeared, just hearing the tune and seeing Sonic waving his finger at me has gotten me addicted to this game non-stop and I just listen to the soundtrack all day long that day, it was awesome. 10/10

Addictiveness: This game was all I would play when I had it, I was balling out when the game (and the Genesis as a whole) was sold. This addictiveness existed mainly because of its fast-paced game play and the memorable music and sounds, I just played that game non-stop because of these 3 things. 9/10

Final thoughts: I remember this game like the palm of my hand because of how memorable and fun this game was. Ever since then I became a HUGE fan of the Sonic series, becoming more so than Mario I actually am, which is quite the accomplishment, and this game was the stamp of my fan-hood. I love speed in video games because speed makes everything more spectacular and awesome, so what better to play a game with speed than to play as "The World's Most Famous and Fastest Hedgehog".