After Alex Kidd wasn't really popular enough, this was Sega's answer and their new mascot to compete with Nintendo and the Mario games. Sonic the Hedgehog - It's the game that started at all. Now here is a slight overview on each of the games. The spin dash that was introduced in Sonic 2 is now also available to be used in the first Sonic the Hedgehog, on any of the difficulty settings.

For anyone that likes Sonic but finds the Genesis games to be too hard, this would be a good option for them. The easy mode goes a bit further in this and even goes as far as removing some stages entirely.

The normal versions alter the levels a little a bit like removing the blue blobs and other such changes to reduce the challenge of the levels a bit as well as scattering more rings around the stages.