The hardest game ever!!!

So tell me the truth, what game do you think it is? Dark souls, Ninja Gaiden, any of the X-com games. All wrong in fact the hardest game I have ever played is. (drumroll please)

The blue blur

Now I know what your all thinking "really f'ing Sonic the Hedgehog?" and the answer is "Yes" and let me explain why. As a child born in the 90's, in fact as a child born the same year as Sonic himself, my first console was the SEGA Megadrive (or the genesis, depending on your coordinates). what a console, what a machine, I could reminisce of this time in my gaming life for days but that's not the point of this post.

The first time I ever picked up a controller, or a least the sharp uncomfortable piece's of plastic we used to call controllers, I was 3 years old and my dad had brought a Megadrive from his friend and set it up on an old CRT television in the back of our living room for me. He plugged in the only game we had 'Sonic' and handed me the controller and that video file played, that coincidently took up 1/8th of the cartridges total memory, "SEGA". Little did my father know that he had just handed me the keys to a life long obsession.

Now I don't remember how that first game went but considering that I still have never made it past the 'marble zone' (the second set of levels) I can only imagine that it didn't go to well. I can't explain it to you, why I find sonic so difficult but the game just has this strangle hold me like the Hulk bashing Loki around in the first avengers film.

My wife likes to tell me that it might just be that I'm scared to do any better than I did as a child for some reason, but I don't think that's the case. She on the other hand would give the worlds top Sonic speed runners something to worry about. She used to time herself in how quickly she could complete the game, frequently coming in under 30mins.

If you have never played the original Sonic the Hedgehog game then 1. where have you been and 2, let me explain that this was a game with a set amount of lives and no save points, back when games still had some of the old hangovers from being arcade cabinet made games, before home gaming had established any of the things we expect as bare minimum out of our games today. Hell the Sonic didn't even have a check point, that wouldn't appear until the sequel.

The controls are simple forward to run and any of the face buttons to jump. in the original game the only other thing you could do was press down while running to make Sonic go into a spin move, and that was it. Enemies had set small movement patterns and rings meant score and gave sonic a chance to be hit once without dying. Full stop easy game and in the words of those two kids from Back to the future

By the way that kid at the front, that's Elijah Wood

So why. oh why can't I do it, it's true I do love the Green hill zone and if it was a real place I would want to buried there , under one of those pixelated palm trees, and Marble Zone give me anxiety that can only be beaten by the drowning music from the same games but I'm a grown man and I'm sure I can do it. In fact I'm going to stop writing this post now to finally go and beat it. Hang on...

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I died again, that Lava man and those bats. I'll never do it.

I still love Sonic though, even if he has gone on a diet, grown taller and stopped returning my calls because he's too into his new girl friend to hang out any more.