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I really like the new music, sound effects and graphics! The bonus content is also really impressive, though I wish enemies had bigger cooldown to firing projectiles, or at least there were more shield monitors lying around. Overall it is definitely worth checking out and I will look forward to new updates

This hack goes above and beyond to make what was once a mediocre bootleg port into an actually fun and competent port. The modifications are technically impressive, music remixes are fantastic, and the graphics are visually appealing. And can I just say how much I absolutely LOVE how you managed to import the Sonic 3 Special Stages? The turning is a bit janky, but it still feels mostly accurate to the original and is fun to play otherwise. It's definitely the highest point of the hack so far in my opinion, very impressive. However, the problem stands so far within the main game itself. The physics are still very janky, i.e. the running speed and slope physics, although I see that the dev is working on that currently, so I'll have to wait and see what happens in the next update. The level design is still very rough. Too many enemy placements to interrupt the flow and pacing, requiring you to slow down A LOT. Combine that with janky physics and it can really give you a hard time, especially if you're going for all of the emeralds. It's very easy to run into enemies and their projectiles, even when you're trying your hardest not to. I feel like there's less invincibility frames too, I died way too fast to the spiked ball enemy in Labyrinth Zone trying to run away after I got hit from it once and it killed me with a ball it threw at me barely even two seconds after. It's still fun and I had a good time playing this through twice, the second time to finish getting the Super Emeralds. Though, I feel it only got real fun when I became Super Sonic and plowed through everything. Speaking of, please add in Hyper Sonic if you can. Your only reward for getting the Super Emeralds now is just Super Sonic but with a music change to S3K's invincibility theme. Hyper Sonic actually has more, i.e. the neon colors with the large sparkles surrounding him and a dash attack you can make in any direction that nukes the whole screen. Though overall, I feel that the most important fixes needed are the level design and physics. Once those aspects are polished up, it could become the absolute definitive version of this port. It really doesn't need much more than that because everything else is great. Right now I'm honestly kinda mixed on this, but the improvements shown so far are incredibly promising. As I'm writing this review, this hack is not fully finished, so I recommend to wait until it is. Until then, I really look forward to what comes in the future. :)

Tl;dr: Incredibly impressive modifications on a technical standpoint, needs more polish on the level design and physics.

Somari has always been an interesting novelty since I initially discovered it back in the Wild West days of YouTube. It was so strange seeing this entire recreation of Sonic 1 on the NES with Mario in place of Sonic. The Famicom bootleg market was filled with weird crossovers such as this (Street Fighter and Mario Kart!), but Somari looks and (almost) plays like a Famicom Sonic 1 which had me curious enough to try it. Mario-Erm...Somari...being the star just made it more enticing.

After actually getting my hands on the game, I wasn't too impressed. While it initially appears like a fun time, the knockback your character receives from damage made it pretty frustrating to actually play. The poor acceleration also meant certain jumps were rather difficult to make, and resulted in 'fighting' the terrain. There's a particularly infamous spike pit in Green Hill that the player simply can't escape from. The rings the player has are also likely to bounce back into the player, resulting in a rather obnoxious softlock. It shows things really weren't tested thoroughly, as is the case with most of these bootlegs. It's not the most frustrating bootleg of the bunch by a long shot, but it's not great.

This hack actually turns Somari into something I can recommend! The graphical touchups makes the game a lot more faithful to the Genesis original and actually looks really impressive for the system. Somari (now Sonic)'s physics have been adjusted a bit so he accelerates a lot more quickly. While it might take some adjustment to get used to, it makes the game's more challenging platforming manageable.

The hack also adds a lot of things that impressed me. The Special Stages being restored is a welcome surprise, since I believe every revision of Somari essentially made it impossible to get the Good Ending and lacked these entirely. The layouts are the exact same across all Special Stages, but it adds some nice replay value to go for all the Emeralds. The music improvements are also really nice and some of the covers stand on their own really well, right up there with the official Sega Master System release. It isn't something I felt the hack needed since the original bootleg covers were pretty serviceable, but I'm glad the authors went through this extra trouble as the end results are pretty great.

Is it a perfect platformer that's exactly on par with the Genesis original? Eh, nah. Slope physics are still incredibly janky which can make certain Zones such as Spring Yard Zone a bit trickier than necessary to navigate. I found myself confused trying to get out of the first 'two Spring' section in Act 1 of that Zone, and feel the bumpers were a more reliable way to escape.

While I do understand that some of the level design was changed to be more fair, I still find myself agreeing with Noid the Bat's previous review, and felt there are a couple of small sections that feel a bit cheap. Namely some nasty blind spots, enemies being a bit harder 'to read' compared to the Genesis original, and some cramped spaces where navigating out of danger is difficult (again, Spring Yard Zone's small 'tunnel' areas).

However, I find that Sonic's 'Ring System' makes these sections more forgivable than other platformers, so it's not quite the deal-breaker for me. It can just be obnoxious if the player is aiming for all the Chaos Emeralds to lose an opportunity to get access to the Special Stage through an enemy that was difficult to navigate around. The game is otherwise pretty generous with lives and continues for those playing without any emulator tools. You can also access Special Stages by clearing Act 3 with 50 Rings, which is something the original Sonic 1 didn't offer and eases some of the aforementioned frustration.

The only real suggestions I have to 'improve' the title is lowering the hits needed for the Green Hill boss to match the original game. It seems to be higher than 8, which is weird since the other bosses seem to be closer to 8 (but I wasn't counting there). Checkpoints would also be nice, as a death forces the player to restart from the beginning of an Act. It's not too bad early on, but the Labyrinth stages being 3 minutes long with some lag can make a full level restart annoying. I also felt the Marble Zone 'cloud' animations look a wee bit weird, but I'm not sure if I can provide a nicer alternative outside of simply making the clouds static.

Overall, this almost makes Somari feel like a release Sega officially licensed out to Nintendo back in the 90's. I think someone who has decent familiarity with how Master System Sonic 1 'feels' might enjoy this. This feels more 'platforming-focused' like that release, with level design that tries to emulate Genesis Sonic 1 (with it's own unique twists to makeup for system limitations/objects not programmed in). Give it a shot if you passed up on the original Somari or didn't find yourself enjoying that bootleg. It now feels like a platformer that can more snugly fit in with other high quality licensed platformers for the system. Well done to those involved!

I already played it, it is simply spectacular. hack that are made with the heart, congratulations to everyone who participated in the development.

Looking at what happened over time, the hаck has been updatеd decently. It feels slowly that it really looks almost like a port. The title screen is good, the physics is improved, the graphics are pleasing to the eye, the music is improved. If this is updated again and again soon - it will really become a port from SEGA to NES. Оh... I forgot, here the levels are adjusted for a more fair game, commendable.

It partially takes other ideas that were created by other HACKERS, but together, and with the ideas of this author - they are well combined. I especially liked "changing the waterfall", which is in this pack "set up a hack as you want".

Here about version 1.5 More updates, more improvements, Super Sonic, the introduction of unused things, the improvement of working things and all this is here? AN UNTHINKABLE RESULT OF ROMHACKERS. And for this we can say a huge thank you to them, because they have brought this game closer to perfection.

The spin dаsh is in place - it destroys the badniks, the destroyed badnik, a new special stage and a sea of other changes. Delicious, pleasant and good.

There are relatively few ongoing hacks I keep monitoring the progress of on semi-regular basis and get excited about, but this is definitely one of them. There are many small changes that improve the general gamefeel, but the standout of 1.5 for me is vastly improved Sonic physics, controls and enemy interactions. At this point, it feels like a proper, professional, passion-driven port, rather than an amateur project at disassembling and hacking an obscure unlicensed game and I'm really excited to see where it goes next.

Ever since 2016, during Sonic The Hedgehog's 25th Anniversary. The fans have took it upon themselves into making Sonic on the NES playable. But as of today, we finally have a much better version of Sonic The Hedgehog for the Nintendo Entertainment System thanks to this incredible rom-hack!

This hack finally includes everything including the unused continue screen and this is actually worth playing. Not only is this hack perfect enough to have lots of "Let's Play" videos! But have a chance to be a perfect NES port rather than the ones from 1997 under the names "Sonic & Knuckles 5/ 3D Blast 5/ 3D Blast 6/ Sonic 5/". But overall, this rom-hack contains lots of improvements, bug fixes, gameplay, audio improvements, and a new background scroll render.

Hope to see a few of these new things in the next update:

• 1. Sonic's spin dash fixed
• 2. Somari's new title screen
• 3. Family Kid's new title screen
• 4. Doraemon be part of the Sonic Improvement Vol. 2 hack
• 5. Furthermore (which will be coming soon)

So glad to see the torch keep being picked up, and this famous hack continuing to be finely polished. The new Sonic title screen alone is something to behold. On top of tuning up the "Somari to Sonic main hack" Terwilf has included a variety of patches alter game behavior aspects as well as those that transform the game into different "variations". One is an update of "Speeding Hummer", as well as a couple of "Family Kid" character versions where you can choose either a black or blue suit color. Also here is a "vanilla" Somari update where you play as Somari The Adventurer, like in the original. However I have to admit that I was disappointed that the Somari update had the Sonic The Hedgehog title screen. I was really hoping to see a freshly updated new title screen with the Somari character on it. Hopefully in a future update. Regardless of that nitpick I was extremely pleased with this set of hacks and look forward to seeing what the future holds with this project.

Out of every version of the original game, the bad design, physics, and enemy AI were what needed to be improved on the most, and yet almost none of that was altered in any of the improvement versions. The player physics are still awful, the level design is still (mostly) cheap, and you have little to no reaction time to enemies because they immediately shoot projectiles when you get close to them. There really aren't any improvements to any version of the hack, regardless of who originally made it or continued it. You may as well just play the original Genesis version or play the much better Somari 3D Blast 5 fan game at this rate. For a game like this, graphical and audio changes are NOT improvements.

The graphics, sound and player control are all so much better than in Somari. The only bug left that I've found is that pesky ring that doesn't get collected as you run through the loop. If that lone remaining issue was fixed, I would call this (already amazing) hack the perfect version of Sonic on NES!

What the title says, this is a vast improvement over the original bootleg, Sonic & Knuckles 5, Sonic 3D Blast 6... or 5 (Despite the title screen being the normal Sonic 1 title screen), Somari or whatever you may know it as. Me personally, i'll always know it as just simply "Sonic the Hedgehog", despite it not being the real Sonic 1.

The graphics and music are a great improvement over the original, the physics are closer to accurate with the original Sonic 1, and the full OST is now there if you go into the Sound test. No doubt that the hackers who made this Improvement hack know what they're doing, this version is much more pleasant to look at and hear, and play (to an extent).

The one thing that's always bothered me with this bootleg in general is the levels not being accurate to the original Sonic 1, rather being what looks like a slight approximation of the original levels with way more enemies than there should be. Hopefully, a 'Vol. 3' of this hack can make the level designs much more accurate to the original game, where then it'd really be a game i'd play to enjoy.

Other than still having Hummer Team's level design and enemy placements, this is very much worth your time!