What in the hell is going on with Sonic? Sega's gaming mascot icon used to be a prized commodity in this industry, but recently the blue dude with 'tude has become nothing but a laughing stock of platformer mascots and a punching bag for industry journalists and gamers alike to whale away on with expletive-laden tirades of disappointment. Everywhere I look these days there's another crummy Sonic game or spin-off coming out that shows so much pre-release promise and potential to return the series back to its former glory, but ultimately winds up delivering nothing but frustratingly sloppy end results. Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic's recent next-gen foray on the 360 and PS3 painfully spring to mind - if it weren't for the excellent Sonic Rush on DS or the surprisingly solid Sonic Rivals on PSP I'd be ready to call it quits on ever caring about another Sonic game again. But who am I kidding? As a youngster who grew up with a Sega Genesis, I love Sonic and will always anticipate any new game he stars in with the highest hopes - even if my instincts tell me not to.

But alas, the pain and anguish of yet another poor Sonic title endures with the release of Sonic The Hedgehog Genesis for the GBA. Commemorating Sonic's 15th anniversary, this GBA port of the original Sega Genesis classic had all of the indicators of being a winner. The fast-paced side-scrolling platform action, seven original stages, crisp and colorful levels and character sprites, poppy music and authentic sound effects are all present, appreciatively fleshed out for the big anniversary release with a special Anniversary Mode that introduces the Spin Dash move from Sonic 2 into the mix, plus a new save system that saves your game progress and lets you resume where you last left off, and a level select feature that allows you to jump ahead to any zone you've previously completed.

These are all noteworthy additions to what was already an exquisite game from the Genesis, so obviously this must be a great game too, right? Wrong!!! Somehow, Sega and Sonic Team still managed to screw things up. While Sonic Genesis retains the qualities of its namesake and introduces some helpful new features, one inexcusable problem alone ruins the entire game: an unimaginably sluggish frame rate. Simply moving Sonic forward through a stage is a chore, as the choppy frame rate reduces the fluid gameplay and once-blistering sense of speed the game originally wowed us all with to a frustrating mess of platforming that literally crawls along at slow motion speeds. Not only does the gameplay suffer, but the graphics and audio do as well, giving the game an ugly, jittery look when in motion and causing sound effects to glitch out from time to time. Sure, it looks great when Sonic is standing still, but that's hardly any consolation.

I truly am blown away by how terrible this port turned out to be. The GBA is a powerful little handheld, fully capable of running a Genesis title without a hitch, yet for some unknown reason (though in guessing I'd say time limitations had something to do with it) Sonic Team couldn't come anywhere close to achieving a proper port. Quite frankly, I'm astonished that Sega even let this game pass its quality assurance testing and reach retail shelves, as after one second of play it's readily apparent that what's here is unfinished and completely broken. Sonic fans beware - Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis is not the classic you remember it being, at least not in this form. You should run away from this game as fast as Sonic used to be able to, back in his glory days…

Reviewed by Matt Litten for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).