Sonic had a spectacular start, but it's no secret that it has been a rocky road for this rodent, and for a guy whose games are built on the concept of building up momentum, you really don't want to slow down. For almost my whole life, I've been a fan of Sonic and his games, and while some certainly didn't grab my attention as his franchise grew and shifted, there was no era of Sonic games where I couldn't find enjoyment in the titles that were coming out. However, up until now, I only had a decent selection of them to play.
When Sonic Mania was announced, the interest in Sonic was renewed for many people. The game was going back to its roots and brought back that old appeal that made many love the hedgehog when he first sped onto the scene. As a kid, the Sega Genesis was my first gaming console I really owned, and Sonic & Knuckles one of my favorite games on it. A throwback like Sonic Mania certainly got the nostalgia brewing in me, but as I pulled Sonic Mega Collection Plus and the Sonic Gems Collection off my shelf to get in some classic Sonic to get ready for Sonic Mania... I realized I had limited my scope a little.
Sonic is an enormous franchise with many games in it. Good ones, bad ones, awful ones, great ones, games of varying genres and across all kinds of systems. Sonic Mania was a celebration of the series history by going back to its roots and recreating the appeal of the old games, but I wanted to dig deeper. I wanted to experience Sonic. Not Sonic the Hedgehog the game, not Sonic as I define him on some personal level, and definitely not the restaurant Sonic. I decided, in order to celebrate this marvelous return to form, I'd turn my eyes and thumbs back to the very beginning of the franchise and play every single Sonic game I could get my hands on, no matter what genre it was in, what system it was for, or how good it actually was. While the rest of the world was ready to experience Sonic Mania, I went in full force and experienced what I've chosen to call Sonic Hysteria, the ultimate celebration of everything Sonic has every offered to the game player.
Sadly, there will be some games I won't be able to play. It's not like I can get on a plane to Japan and search down an arcade JUST to play that treadmill game Sonic Athletics. But for every game I can get a hold of, even the obscure cell phone games, I will be taking a look and sharing how I feel about this gaming mascots long and storied history... At least that was the intent. Surprisingly, playing a whole video game series can burn a guy out, and while I'd love to go through these games again and give my thoughts on them, too much all at once has made me drift away from this project. Still, for anyone interested, I've kept what I've written here and hopefully you'll enjoy what I have to say.
This won't quite be reviews exactly, but I will still rank them against each other and give my thoughts on if they're any good. I also won't be looking too closely at music or graphics unless they are exceptionally bad, exceptionally good, or actually impact the game, since these aspects are important to a game but not usually gamebreakers and piddling over them too much doesn't really tell you how good a game is. With all that lead-in out of the way finally, how about we turn our eyes back to 1991, the year I was born, actually! The blue blur is only a little older than me, but I've grown up with him, so maybe I can give you a good picture of what he's been like and up to all these years.
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG
Console: Genesis
The game that started it all. When this came out, it hit the ground running, introducing what would prove to be the benchmark title for a long series that still claims a rather unique niche in the gaming world. To many people, Sonic the Hedgehog is a series about going FAST. While that's not necessarily wrong, I feel that's a more simplistic look at the appeal of the game and is part of the reason why later titles felt strange or not up to snuff. Sonic is more about that process of building up speed, looking at the level and its design to build up speed so you can go up the ramps and loops, but you have to think to keep that speed by avoiding enemies and hazards. Very few other platformers have the sloping ground and splitting paths that would allow their characters to build momentum even if the characters weren't locked at certain paces. Sonic, though, is about the physics of speed and how you can manage them to get to that satisfying sprint. You have to get fast, you don't just get to be it.
Besides introducing the theme of Sonic, the first game also introduces the core concepts and characters that are the point from which I'll be judging the rest of the series. Sonic the Hedgehog 1 is about Sonic's friends getting captured by the evil Dr. Robotnik and being crammed into robots to serve, I guess, as their power source (although the idea these are Sonic's friends is just as suspect as the purpose of putting them in robots. I don't think I've seen Sonic hang out with tiny humanoid pig or little walrus ever.) To stop Robotnik, Sonic must travel through a variety of zones divided into individual acts, fighting one of Robotnik's robots at the end of the zone to progress. While most the game is about racing forward through the terrain, the bosses often slow down gameplay and require you carefully attack him. Some people criticize this gameplay shift as not taking advantage of Sonic's core concept, but I find it a good break from the usual gameplay to keep it from being too samey or from growing stale. The bonus games, found by reaching the end of certain levels with enough rings, also break up the gameplay a bit, and they are pretty decent as well, albeit a bit difficult. Sonic bounces around a little pinball like maze, his main goal to collect a Chaos Emerald, special gems that would become a series staple as the way of earning true endings or neat power-ups. In this first game they don't do much, so it makes the pinball mazes a bit easier to stomach or ignore depending on whether you want that slightly altered ending or not.
Another important aspect of the Sonic series besides its speed is the Ring system. Sonic's health system is much different than most video game characters, in that as long as Sonic has picked up at least a single ring, he can survive a hit, and when he takes that hit, rings will come spraying out of his body that he can try to collect to keep alive. This system is an important ingredient to Sonic's appeal I find, as it allows kids who might struggle with level geometry and the enemies still keep in the game as long as they can manage to hold onto the rings. Sometimes, it's hard TO die, the rings that spray out of your body sometimes falling right back onto you instantly to shore you up against another hit. Take a hit with no rings though, and you're dead. Or, fall down a bottomless pit, get crushed, get hit twice in quick succession by spikes...
While I do think the first Sonic game is a good game, there are some issues with Sonic's first outing. Mainly, you can tell that Sonic Team wasn't exactly sure of themselves yet. The first zone, Green Hill Zone, will throw you into Sonic's unique formula immediately, building you up and getting you acquainted with every thing you need to know... only for the next zone to toss that out and give you a rather basic and slower platforming and puzzle solving experience. Marble Zone is a big shift away from the speed building gameplay style, and the game will do this a few more times, bouncing between its speedier levels before throwing you into a slow area again with Labyrinth Zone. This split between the new style and the more typical platforming expected of other games was probably just some defense in case the new stuff didn't click with audiences, but it's clear the developers hadn't figured out how to handle Sonic's speed in general either. Bottomless pits and instant-kill areas are more abundant here than later titles. They seem to sprout up with little warning as well, meaning your rather limited lives and continues will be drained for reasons that don't feel fair. You even have to face the final boss without a single ring, making every hit a one hit kill that would be more egregious if the boss wasn't too much of a challenge. The difficulty balancing in this game is sporadically uneven, but it never gets to the point you'll grit your teeth.
Overall, despite its flaws and the failings that come from being the first game, Sonic the Hedgehog is a decent and fun experience, and I didn't even mention the kicking soundtrack that still holds up to this day. The game has been rereleased on almost every system Sega can get its hands on, and many make improvements by adding things like save features to mitigate the wonky difficulty. It isn't the definitive Sonic experience, but it's a good start for a great series.
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2
Console: Genesis
Sonic's back in his second big game, and for a long time, people seemed to agree that Sonic 2 was the best Sonic game and one of the best games ever for it. Once upon a time, I blindly accepted this to be true, because of all the old Sonic games, Sonic 2 was the one I had the least experience with. I did get to play it when it came out on the Wii Virtual Console, but I dismissed my failures as being inexperienced. When I decided to do this little marathon though, I saw both why people say this about Sonic 2, and why they are wrong.
Don't get me wrong, Sonic 2 is great, and certainly an improvement on the original. Sonic 2 is finally sure of itself, embracing the game's physics and speed mechanics and beginning to explore them in full with levels devoted to building it up and keeping you moving. There is still platforming that requires skill, but nothing that slows you down like Marble Zone.
The game's story isn't much changed from the first one save for the fact Robotnik has more of a goal this time. He's not just building a robot army, but he's also constructing an enormous Death Star like Death Egg that requires those previously pointless Chaos Emeralds to be fully operational. Joining Sonic in his quest to stop the mad scientist this go round is his buddy Tails, a little fox who can fly but not really fly you anywhere. A second player can play as him and get the benefit of being invincible, but if you let the game control him instead, he has a tendency to either be useless or sometimes trigger something you were going for like a moving platform. It's probably best you turn him off, especially for a reason I'll get to later. Most of the mechanics from the first game return but are improved. Sonic now has a Spin Dash ability that allows him to build some speed even at a standstill, and the game is more forgiving when you take damage, allowing you to leap out of spike pits instead of taking two hits and instantly dying.
However, that forgiveness does not carry into the rest of the game. While Sonic 2 is on the whole an improvement by embracing its mechanics instead of shyly wheeling them out every so often, its clear the designers had no idea how to properly make it challenging yet. Still clinging to scarce lives and continues, Sonic 2 decides the proper obstacle for a character going quickly is constantly surprising the player with enemies, spikes, crushing traps, and bottomless pits they can't see coming. Sonic 1 had these of course, but Sonic 2 seems to embrace it as a core design principle. You can go much faster in Sonic 2 yes, but you'll be punished a lot more for it instead of being slowed down. The game also decides to bring back the idea of not giving you any rings for the final boss, who has a boss you must fight before it as well as some unforgiving tricks during the actual final fight. Memorization or paranoia is going to be the only way you can really get through the game... and then there's the special stages, where memorization is absolutely required and paranoia is punished! Going away from the pinball mazes, Sonic 2 has you running down a tunnel, the camera shifting to look at Sonic from the back instead of from the side. When I was younger, I thought these were fun, but that's because I didn't go for the goal with them. The Chaos Emeralds are hidden in these stages, and the prize for getting them all is the incredible fun Super Sonic mode where you are invincible and move even faster... but it's locked behind these gruelings special stages. In them, you must collect a set amount of rings while avoiding mines, but the system can't handle the graphics it is trying to pull off. Mines appear with little time to dodge, and the ring quotas are incredibly strict and leave little room for error the later you get in the game. If you try to overcompensate with paranoid jumping, you'll miss rings and likely hit mines that haven't appeared on screen yet instead! If you decide to bring in Tails as well, you will lose. It's already difficult to keep Sonic on the right path, but Tails will follow you a second late, if he feels like doing so at all. He can collect rings you missed, sure, but he'll lose them to even the easier obstacles. It is technically easier to get in the special stages as you can find them at any checkpoint provided you have enough rings, but they are so poorly designed that they may be the worst Special Stages in the series!
Despite substituting brutality for difficulty, Sonic 2 is a step above the original and offers plenty of enjoyable moments to offset the unfair ones. Sega's moved this game to many consoles and platforms as well and adjusted these issues in part, so you can certainly find more enjoyable versions of this game out there as well. It's certainly not the best Sonic game or one of the best games ever made, but it's a fine experience with a lot more going for it than its predecessor.
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 & KNUCKLES
Console: Genesis
Technically two games in the forms of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, its usually agreed upon that these games are meant to be played in their unique connected mode, since it was essentially meant to be one game but split into two for business reasons. If you lock Sonic 3 onto the Sonic & Knuckles cart, you're in for a treat, because Sonic 3 & Knuckles is, without a doubt, the definitive and best Sonic experience of the old series and perhaps the series as a whole.
Now, how do you get such a lofty title, especially for one of the earliest games in a series spanning over 25 years?
By taking all the core elements of the series and doing them right.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles takes all of the core principles and finally finds its footing in executing them. First off, the game adds a save feature, keeping around the ability to do a run without a save but also adding in a way for people to save their progress without getting booted back to the beginning of the game when they die too many times. It also saves your progress on collecting the Chaos Emeralds this time around, a feature sorely missing in Sonic 2, and if you beat the game, there's even an easy level select if you want to go back and get the Emeralds to unlock the true ending, final boss, Super Sonic, and the new Hyper Sonic that comes from getting the Emeralds in both halves of the game. The Emeralds are also in the one of the best Special Stages the series has, Blue Sphere. Blue Sphere is a simple game that requires you to pass through or box in a certain amount of blue spheres in a 3D environment while avoiding red spheres. It's simple, requires some intelligence, and the way to enter it is incredibly simple. Just find giant rings hidden throughout the stages of the game, of which there are so many its conceivable to get all the Chaos Emeralds in the first levels of the game.
Nailing secret stages does not a good game make, but Sonic 3 also makes sure to cover all the other bases as well. Robotnik is still trying to get that Death Egg plan of his working, this time going to Angel Island and encountering the guardian of the Master Emerald, Knuckles the Echidna. This rough and ready fella is tricked by Robotnik into fighting Sonic, Robotnik telling him that the hedgehog was going to steal the Emerald when Robotnik ends up being the one trying to steal it the whole time. Knuckles pops up throughout the game to hassle Sonic as his new rival, but for the most part, the game still consists of boss fights with Robotnik or his robots in levels with branching paths that allow you to build up speed. You are able to play as Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles, each one now having unique abilities. Sonic can pick up new shields in levels like Fire, Bubble, and Electric that give him special abilities, Tails can fly around, and Knuckles can glide and climb walls. Since we have two games put together into one, there are tons of levels to play through, linked together in a cohesive manner that pushes the story along fluidly, and the atmosphere and music have never been more on point than here.
More importantly, Sonic Team finally figured out how to keep the gameplay challenging without resorting to cheap tricks or putting traps that cannot be anticipated. Sonic 3 & Knuckles spaces its obstacles properly to give the player time to react and positions things that slow down the player when its required to be more careful. Bottomless pits are only present in rare cases where the player knows to expect them.
Admittedly, Sonic & Knuckles was the first Sonic game I ever played, and I have quite a lot of nostalgia for its levels and music. It's one reason I was initially open to the idea of Sonic 2 being better, as I felt maybe I was wearing a pair of rose-tinted glasses when it came to the game I grew up with. I was happy to learn that the opinion has shifted to the idea this is the better game, because as I played it, even the Sonic 3 half that I hardly knew, I could feel how much more enjoyable it was than Sonic 2 and 1. It would be easy to just say it's a perfect masterpiece, but its flaws don't serve to ruin the experience too much. The only one that really stands out as terrible is the barrel in Carnival Night Zone that requires you to press up and down repeatedly to move it in a way that is never required anywhere else in the game and not explained or intuitive. It's also worth noting that it still withholds rings during the final boss. Some levels will also have gimmicks or setpieces that are a tad annoying, but on the whole they're interesting and mix things up enough to keep the experience varied until the end.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles will always be one of my favorite games, now not only for nostalgic reasons. If there is any game on this list that you should play, it is, without a doubt, this one.
SONIC CD
Console: Sega CD
A bit of a black sheep when it comes to the games usually lumped under the Classic Sonic designation, Sonic CD isn't quite as well known as the first three numbered games. Coming out on a less than popular peripheral for the Genesis likely lead to this issue, but at the same time, Sonic CD is a bit of a different beast than the other Sonic games and certainly plays a lot differently.
Sonic CD does port over most of the expected elements from the Sonic series: Rings, robot baddies, running quickly... but things get a bit unusual as we start to look at it more closely. In Sonic CD, Robotnik has decided to industrialize a tiny planet that is chained to the planet, and to further his goals, he has created a counterpart to Sonic called Metal Sonic who goes and kidnaps Sonic's number one fan Amy Rose. Already you can see a difference in plot from the other games discussed so far, but it's mostly a setup for things to come rather than something that dictates the gameplay... save that industrialization part. Sonic doesn't just have to beat Robotnik to save the world this time. Little Planet, the game's setting, has signposts that, if you run past them, will give Sonic the ability to travel forward or backward in time. To stop Robotnik's plans, you must save the future by going to the past and destroying the machines he set up to alter the landscape. Each level in the game has a past, present, and future version, with Sonic able to travel through them if he builds up enough speed after hitting a sign post.
Unfortunately, this mechanic isn't exactly the most fun. Sonic CD's levels are are intricately designed to facilitate exploration and backtracking, taking on an almost maze like quality that makes finding the machines in the past more difficult and the signposts to travel through time a chore. Not only that, but building up speed is often more difficult save in designated areas, and its quite easy to end up down a path you don't want to be on or bouncing around with little control. There's also the fact that heading to the future is completely pointless from a gameplay perspective. You can go there if you want to check it out and see what it looks like, but signposts for Future time travel are almost a trap and can throw you off entirely in your goal to save the future. To get the good ending of the game, you must make a good future for each zone, a task that isn't exactly appealing in these large levels with little guidance in where they might be hiding the machines. There is a different way of achieving the good ending by playing Special Stages that appear at the end of levels. The backtracking friendly nature makes getting enough rings to enter them easy enough, and the levels warn you when you're near the end so you can go back and collect some rings to make sure the Special Stage is available. However, the stages themselves require you to run through a 3D like plane and jump into little UFOs around the place. Sonic does not seem to control well at all during these stages, making the task much more difficult than it should be and unenjoyable as a result.
Despite the failings of Sonic CD, one thing that could be said for it is that it is certainly a unique experience. If you simply want to play through the levels, Sonic CD gives you huge areas to explore and get lost in in a good way. The movement through the level is a lot more appealing than the speed at which you do it in this game, and while some zones get a little too lost in their gimmicks to let you enjoy the core gameplay, Sonic CD has a decent level of difficulty and a save feature to keep it fun even at the hiccups in design. It's different approach to level design and the core mechanics certainly explains why this game is so rarely put together with the other 3 classic games, but it's certainly not being shunned. It's a different take on Sonic, and while getting the good ending could be made a much more enjoyable romp, you should like a run through the game where you get the supposedly "bad" ending... which seems a bit more positive than the good ending somehow. Just another peculiar aspect of a rather peculiar game in the series.
SONIC 3D BLAST
Console: Genesis
3D was approaching, and Sega was beginning to wonder how to move their blue hedgehog from sidescrolling gameplay into the third dimension. The Sega Genesis wasn't exactly capable of proper 3D gameplay yet, so they resorted to making their first foray into this style with a little perspective people like to call... isometric.
Isometric perspective is how a 2D game fakes having a third-dimension by presenting its environment from a fixed perspective at a slant, the character able to move around an environment that gives the illusion of depth. This perspective works pretty well with an RPG or other game where your characters is locked to that flat plane, but unfortunately, to learn that platformers aren't a good fit for it, some people had to fail at it back in the early days of video games. Snake, Rattle and Roll comes to mind as a game made so much harder just because it involved moving your character through an isometric world, and Sonic 3D Blast has the same troubles when it comes to trying to move Sonic into this perspective.
Sonic 3D Blast's story is a bit weird. A place called Flicky Island exists, and on it, there are some birds called Flicky after an old arcade game that Sonic would occasionally find inside Robotnik's robots in the previous games. These Flicky birds can pass through warp rings and Robotnik thinks they'll be able to help him get the Chaos Emeralds this time! Your goal in each stage is to beat the robots to free the Flickys and then take down one of Robotnik's machines in a boss fight. Sonic's speediness and the reliance on physics and momentum are almost entirely absent in this game as the perspective requires a cautious approach, but doing things differently isn't necessarily a bad thing. A slower platformer is not a sin in and of itself... but the isometric gameplay does not work very well. It's difficult to control Sonic at times and figure out how to aim his jumps when there's little feeling for the depth of the environment. Sometimes, the game doesn't even know how to handle Sonic, this most often happening with moving platforms as Sonic can jump right through them or slip off of them with little explanation as to why. The ring system thankfully protects you from most cases of platforming woes putting you in danger's way, but you also have the Flickys following you around. If either you or the birds get hit by an enemy or hazard, they Flickys will scatter and you have to pick them up. This gets particularly annoying in the lava levels that require precise platforming to not touch the lava, and since you'll hit the lava, you got to collect whatever rings you can and somehow retrieve the birds as they all begin to frolic in the lava. The bosses on the whole are pretty easy and enjoyable and the game is merciful in giving you rings, but the lava one has the same issues as the lava levels.
When the isometric perspective isn't dragging the game down though, the game does do what it sets out to do fairly well. The focus on finding and beating enemies to progress is interesting and different, and to collect the Chaos Emeralds this time, you need only find your pals Tails or Knuckles in a level and pay them 50 rings to play a Special Stage. They're hidden quite well in some levels and they'll take all your rings, not just 50, when you find them, but the Special Stages they take you too are perhaps one the best in the series, and I know that's dissing Blue Sphere, my personal favorite. Sonic 3D Blast has Sonic running down a track filled with rings and mines, almost as if it was a reinterpretation of Sonic 2's Special Stages. However, there are no halfpipes here, Sonic moves at a decent pace, the obstacles are easily visible, and the rings are ample and easy to collect. There is still enough challenge in jumping over the mines while trying not to fall off the winding track, but people of all skill levels should be able to manage to get the Emeralds with enough perseverance. They fit more in line with what a Sonic Special Stage seems like it should be, with a focus on running and avoiding obstacles without ridiculous difficulty or a puzzle-solving element.
Sonic 3D Blast isn't as captivating as the more traditional Sonic games, and it does flounder a bit when it tries to require platforming that the isometric perspective can't really handle, but it's a decent romp through a shake up of the old formula. It's not great at what it does, but for the most part, it's good enough.
SONIC SPINBALL
Console: Genesis
One of Sonic's first real spin-offs and the first one we'll be looking at, Sonic having a pinball game is a natural fit for the hedgehog who curls up into a ball all the time. Sonic certainly isn't unique in having a virtual pinball game, but there are a few things it does that I wish more pinball themed games would take notice of, the main thing being that Sonic still has quite a bit of control over himself. Most pinball games, once you send that ball rolling, its time to watch and hope, but Sonic enters these pinball tables by walking into the ball launcher, he can find flat surfaces to walk on and jump off of, and most importantly, you can guide the ball subtly while it is in motion. Most of the early Sonic games have a level with pinball mechanics, so basically making a game out of that while still keeping the mechanics that made those levels fun in the other titles makes for a pretty enjoyable experience!
Spinball involves Sonic going to Robotnik's evil island lair and going through some strange pinball friendly areas to climb to the top and defeat his latest evil plan. Curiously, tens of Chaos Emeralds are distributed through these areas, with Sonic needing to collect all of the Emeralds in an area to open up the boss fight area. Certainly, story wasn't high on the list of requirements here, with all the thought going into making some decent pinball tables. Each area certainly feels more like a level than a table, with Sonic progressing as he completes certain tasks like draining goo in a sewer to make an area accessible or popping open hatches. Enemies will take the place of bumpers and the game will sometimes ask you to time your jumps and flipper presses more carefully than other pinball games, since the goal is more progression than scoring points. It certainly does a lot more than Kirby Pinball Land or Mario Pinball Land in making the areas large and interactive, as there are usually multiple sets of flippers positioned around the level to give you different experiences. The bosses are simple in design but pretty fun to fight since you can usually find some way to bust them up really good if you're clever, and there are bonus stages between the levels that serve as a bit more traditional pinball fun.
Perhaps one of my biggest gripes is just that everpresent one found in a lot of pinball games. You have a bit of control over Sonic in this game, but there are still times where the ball is doomed and you're going to die because of a poor shot or bad bounce. Most levels this isn't too big of a worry, but once you hit The Machine and the following levels, it becomes a bit too easy to screw yourself over in the opening areas and they keep you locked there for a while as you have to slowly chip away at the means to move on. The game also gets gradually worse at gating the way onward. Rather than hitting two plugs to drain goo, you have to wait for floating robot chickens to pass by so you can bounce on top of them, but it's really finnicky on if the bounce will give you the height you need to pop up into the tube. Or you have to hit the same spot five times, with a bad bounce leading you to your death. Or you have to go inside an electric cage to spin a chamber around, and the electric cage spits you out in a random direction it chooses above an area with instant death. Unfortunately, these almost feel like part of the territory with a pinball game, and Sonic doesn't even have to worry about rings or enemies hurting him this time around. Once you get out of the deadly low areas of a table, the punishment for messing up usually is just throwing you backwards, and while getting back up to where you are is a bit annoying in itself... you'd have to do the same if you died!
The only moment that felt truly unfair is an area in The Machine that reminds me of the Barrel in Sonic 3, in that you have to lift the flipper and let Sonic linger there for a while and the flipper will slowly go up a conveyor belt. This is the only situation where something like this happens as far as I can tell and the area looks like you can pull it off with the flipper as it is. The last Chaos Emerald in this area was grueling because of this unusual change of formula. It does get a bit old trying to hunt down each Chaos Emerald in most every level, especially since they like throwing you back to start if you fail a tiny bit on what you're meant to do, but only that one in The Machine really felt totally unfair. I swear I had even lingered there before! I think I might have activated it somehow but the message said "The Platform Has Stopped!" or notifying me of the opposite, and it seemed to refer to the platform that was on screen, not the platform I couldn't see at the time and hadn't been moving.
Spinball is still a great outing for Sonic and I really do wish there had been more Sonic pinball games. There are more, actually, but there could always be MORE than more! Sonic Spinball has only four large levels and while they are designed well enough for the most part, it would be great to have seen them explore more areas. The game does a good job at keeping it all focused on the idea of you climbing up through a mechanical island, with each area having a bit of a grungy color palette and some mean looking bosses. On the list of pinball video games to play it has to be near the top, and it's even deserving of some love for people who just love Sonic.
DR. ROBOTNIK'S MEAN BEAN MACHINE
Console: Genesis
For people who don't know the story behind this game, essentially, Sega decided to release a Puyo Puyo title internationally but didn't think the cute anime girls of the main series would appeal to many players. To up its appeal, Sega slaps the Sonic brand onto the game so it can ride the wave of Sonic mania, but I appreciate the angle they decided on in doing so. Sonic himself is completely absent from the game, the focus instead being on his main antagonist Dr. Robotnik and his army of robots. You play as yourself with the help of one Has-Bean, a small bunny-looking creature that you honestly could miss you were playing as at all since he's hidden as a tiny sprite on the screen whereas most the focus is on the kooky robotic creations of the mad doctor with a trend towards the artstyle of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon.
The gameplay is a block dropper, where you get two "beans" at a time in a connected block dropping down on a field where you have to match four or more to clear them. The beans have a bit of gravity to them so that if one bean hangs over the side it will drop instead of float there like a Tetris block piece might. Puyo Puyo, and by extension, Mean Bean Machine, are simple and fun timewasters as the dropping beans grow in speed and you struggle to stay in the game, chain matches together with the help of the gravity dropping, and get points if you're into that sort of thing.
Mean Bean Machine has a casual "just play the game" mode, but it also has a Story mode where you are trying to stop Robotnik from turning all the beans into machines by fighting his robots one by one until you reach him. The fights are, of course, competitive Puyo Puyo! If you get a chain or a match of five or more beans, you'll toss grey garbage beans over onto your opponent's playfield, and the only way they can clear them is by matching proper colored beans that are touching the grey ones. The game does not deviate from the Puyo Puyo formula at all or introduce any new mechanics, so the appeal over getting one of those games is the coat of Sonic paint, and I actually found it pretty nice. The enemies all have silly designs and groan-worthy taunts and puns before you fight them, but it lends to the game's silly and relaxed air. As the game progresses the robots get smarter, but some have noticeable styles to how they try and play. I'd almost say the difficulty curve was pretty on point. I gradually got better at chaining and planning where I put the beans down and the game kept up difficulty wise. I would lose yes, but the Continues are painless and I eventually powered through each enemy without it ever reaching the point where I felt I couldn't win. Games like the Puzzle League series have put brick walls in my path where it is clear I need to get much better at the game to succeed, but Mean Bean Machine can be won with perseverance and the gradual growth of your skill in game.
While I don't think Mean Bean Machine might captivate puzzle game fans quite as much as a game that eventually demands quick reflexes and thinking, it's certainly good for a casual romp with a silly theme to it all.
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG GAME GEAR
Console: Game Gear
Despite its actual name being just "Sonic the Hedgehog", this Game Gear game is different from the first entry in the series. It caries over quite a few elements, but if you decide to play it, you'll only really recognize Green Hill Zone, and even then the place has changed up quite a bit.
Sonic the Hedgehog for the Game Gear takes all the ingredients from the first game and tries to figure out how to do them on a portable system. What this ultimately boils down to is a Sonic experience more focused on the platforming that interrupted Sonic 1's progression, which I think was actually a good choice. There's still a few moments Sonic builds up speed here, but the Game Gear struggles when you go too fast or there is too much on screen, so taking a slower approach on the whole is a wise decision. The Game Gear Sonic has levels that are about careful maneuvering more than anything, jumping across platforms and over bottomless pits, but the game is kind with continues and extra lives (especially in its Special Stages) to make up for that... while also being one of the stingiest games in the series when it comes to rings. If you are hit by an enemy, you lose all your rings and you can't get them back as they pop out in one singular translucent ring that disappears. Boss battles also do not provide you with any rings, nor do some of the later levels. Still, despite this, I found the stock I had of lives made this annoying, but manageable.
Chaos Emeralds are hidden in the stages themselves instead of Special Stages, with some better hidden than others and, more importantly, the Emeralds are even less important than in Sonic 1. The levels are pretty small though and any exploration will usually take you down the right path to the Emeralds, so again, we come to the fact that the games small scope and kindness make it so that the game never gets too frustrating. Relying more on the platforming element also makes the levels have a few unique spins on them to help set them apart despite not getting to work with colorful environments and catchy music.
Really, when it comes down to it, Sonic the Hedgehog on Game Gear is such a simple delight it's hard to dislike it. It's got a bit of fun platforming and it doesn't quite match the game it shares a name with, but it does its own thing and does a decent job at it. It's a good kind of average, where you'll walk away feeling okay.
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2 GAME GEAR
Console: Game Gear
Man, wasn't Sonic the Hedgehog for Game Gear such a delightful experience? It took its limitations in stride and put Sonic in a situation that the system could handle. He wasn't going fast, but he was bouncing around and having some fun platforming! Well, it stands to reason that the second game in the Game Gear series would take that and improve upon it, right?
...Right?
...Oh lord what is this mess.
Well uh... let's start with the story. Robotnik is getting personal with his plans now, kidnapping Tails instead of Sonic's supposed animal friends that he never hangs out with (although he grabbed some of those too just for funsies). There are also Chaos Emeralds to collect, although they are found hidden in the levels more like the previous Game Gear game instead of one of the Genesis titles. They hide the Emeralds a bit more trickily this time around, with most requiring a bit of skill to acquire.
There's no real problems there, but Sonic the Hedgehog 2 really... REALLY does not know how to design a level for the system it's on. You see, this game is also available on the Master System, and from just watching it, I can see I would have been spared so much misery if I had played that version instead. Why? Because the Game Gear version keeps the camera so close to Sonic that it's sometimes actually impossible to anticipate when you will need to jump to avoid death. It's not even a question about just being more careful and taking things slowly, as sometimes you need the speed to clear a jump. This game is chock full of leaps of faith and abrupt traps on the Game Gear that it will grind down your very soul. I've mentioned memorization as a problem before (it was in the Sonic 2 Special Stages as a huge issue!) but it felt like you could at least luck into those possibly. POSSIBLY. Not very likely, but possibly. Sonic 2 on Game Gear, you would need prior knowledge to know when to jump at certain points, because doing it wrong will kill you or trap you!
I'm willing to believe the Master System version of this same game is so much better, because sometimes, there are hints of good design. Being able to see the approaching obstacles or knowing when to jump can clear away so many of the game's problems! There's still some areas where choosing the wrong path without having a way of knowing the right one can screw you over, but you can sometimes scamper away with a few rings and either adjust your path or power through the bad one just barely. Each zone also tries to give Sonic a mode of transport he hasn't used before. Minecarts, paragliders, a big ol' bubble... Sonic 2 has some decent ingredients, but you can't enjoy them when your nose is pressed so close to the recipe that you can't make it right! It's worth mentioning the game did fix the ring problem of Sonic 1 somewhat, in that you can retrieve them after losing them, but the bosses still don't give you any rings. However, they seem a pretty even split between ones that are nice and easy despite it like the bird and seal bosses... and ones that will break your back over their knee like the antlion boss and the... sumo... pig? I could stomach Sonic the Hedgehog 1 on Game Gear withholding the rings due to ample lives, but Sonic 2 steals your lives with unforeseeable death traps that make a boss that is slightly difficult even worse. The hard bosses have just enough of an unpredictable pattern to drain those lives down, and when one hit is death, you're boned.
Even if we ignore this in the favor of its Master System version, you're mostly just trimming away the absolute worst moments to still be left with some pretty bad ones. Level design that requires not even luck, but prior knowledge is downright sinful in most any game, and having a better view of it wouldn't fix areas like the pipe mazes near the end of the game. Couple this with the Chaos Emeralds being required for the good ending where you actually save Tails instead of looking forlornly at the sky, and you've got the worst platforming experience of the early Sonic games. I do have to admit, I was impressed when I found a walkthrough video of a guy beating the game without taking damage, but he clearly had the whole game memorized and the comments of people saying they couldn't get beyond zone 1 or 2 are the more accurate experience. Keep in mind, I made sure to at least beat the main game of almost every game in this retrospective. And I learned a very important lesson from it.
Stay far away from Sonic 2 for Game Gear. Stay faaaaaaaaaaar away.
SONIC SPINBALL GAME GEAR
Console: Game Gear
While the previous Sonic games on the Game Gear have only shared names with Genesis games, Sonic Spinball is the first true attempt at a port we'll be seeing. Sonic Spinball covers all the same bases as the Genesis game: you're going to infiltrate Robotnik's island from the bottom up, going through the same levels, collecting the Emeralds, and destroying robots along the way. For most people, they'll want to pick the more visually impressive and detailed levels of the Genesis version, but having played both... I think I might actually enjoy the Game Gear version a bit more!
The Genesis version of Sonic Spinball certainly has more going on, but I think that can be to its detriment at times. The ridiculous moving flipper, the electric cages, and even the cute moments like paddling a steel barrel through slime to get a Chaos Emerald are ultimately stripped away in the Game Gear port to accommodate the simpler hardware. It's not as visually stimulating, and the personality filled bonus levels are replaced with weird trips through ruins-themed areas that are less interesting but more rewarding and forgiving. Level layouts often follow the same idea while differing the actual construction of the areas save where it was already simple enough, and the game is a bit slower on a whole. I know praising slowness in a Sonic game seems sacrilege, but it makes it all a more relaxing pinball experience. There were a lot less instances of cheap deaths or areas that are aggravating to get into.
I'd definitely agree that the Genesis version of Spinball has more going on and is a better treat to the eyes and ears, but by smoothing the edges to play on simpler hardware, Sonic Spinball made itself more enjoyable in a casual manner, which feels more in the spirit of pinball. Genesis Spinball is the better adventure, and Game Gear is the the better pinball game. You still won't find too much different between them, certainly not enough to justify getting both as a conscious decision, and you really probably should give the Genesis version a look over this one as it has more ways of getting its hooks into you... but Game Gear Sonic Spinball? It's okay!
SONIC LABYRINTH
Console: Game Gear
Sonic the Hedgehog's platforming has two main components: jumping, and building up speed. What kind of game do you get when you remove both of them? A game that most people seem to consider one of the worst Sonic games ever made.
I don't agree with that idea. I try to be open to all kinds of genres and expect a game to do well within its stated goals. Sonic Labyrinth is not a platformer so much as a puzzle game, and approaching it as a puzzle game really helps with enjoying the merits of the game... not that the detractors don't have a few points.
The setup of Sonic Labyrinth is that Dr. Robotnik has finally had enough of Sonic interfering with his plans and decides TO KILL SONIC THE HEDGEHOG ONCE AND FOR ALL! ...No... wait, his ACTUAL plan is to force Sonic to wear a pair of speed-dampening shoes that remove his ability to run fast and jump so he can throw him in a Labyrinth where these aren't required. The story is certainly silly, but it really just exists to explain why Sonic controls differently. Sonic must work his way through the Labyrinth now, collecting three keys in every act and beating a boss at the end of each zone in order to collect Chaos Emeralds and beat Robotnik once again and get his old shoes back. The Chaos Emeralds are provided for free in this one, but there is a special bonus stage that you must visit to unlock the true ending... the ending that basically just changes a single line to tell you that you did perfect.
The gameplay of Sonic Labyrinth has a few similarities to 3D Blast but without some of the issues the isometric perspective gave that game. In Labyrinth, Sonic walks across an isometric plane and must find three hidden keys in each level, his only ability remaining to help him being his spin dash attack that he can use to destroy robots. In the normal levels, Sonic doesn't have to worry too much about taking damage. He will lose a bit of time if an enemy or hazard hits him and any keys he was holding will scatter around him for an easy pickup, but he won't die to it. The rings that are normally his health are only present in the boss stages, where you fall down a slide to collect them before the fight. The bosses mostly just consist of timing your spin dash right while avoiding simple hazards, but it is most likely the only place you'll really die. There's a timer that can kill you in the more appropriately labyrinthine levels and you can fall off the sides, but it's not likely to happen too often since the levels are also rather small. The puzzle element comes from navigating Sonic to the keys and then getting to the exit, and while it's more of a search-and-find than a mentally stimulating challenge, the levels are all short enough that it's not a bad search-and-find.
The main issue people have and one I can certainly understand are the controls. Sonic is so slow in this game, and he'll be walking across moving currents and other things that can slow him down even more. It makes angling yourself easier, but trying to traverse can take quite a bit if you don't got the spin dash down. The spin dash is your main means of... well, doing most everything! It gives you a speed boost in movement, it takes down enemies and bosses... it really is what you'll spend most the game doing, and you have to learn how to control it to really enjoy the game. Most of the time you'll want to angle yourself right and do a quick spin dash, the charging mechanic mostly existing to mess you up and send you bouncing off the walls. After launching yourself where you want to be, you press the button again to make Sonic slow to a halt. Because the game is pretty forgiving, you won't have to worry about taking damage by accident since you're hardly punished, and Sonic even does a cartoonish look down a pit for a second to give you time to pull back if you almost careened off.
Sonic Labyrinth certainly isn't the worst Sonic game ever, but it's also not exactly a masterpiece either. The enjoyment is short and the game moves by so quickly you could probably finish it in an hour easily enough, and I think that shortness really helps it not to be a slog. Sonic is slow, yes, but the simple gameplay is just fun enough to keep you going so long as you remember this is a puzzle game, not a platformer. I'm certain the majority of people will dislike it regardless, but it's more passable than terrible. I at least had a bit of fun!
SONIC CHAOS
Console: Game Gear
After the misstep of Sonic 2 Game Gear and the compromises in Sonic 1 Game Gear, Sega finally decided to abandon the confusing naming convention and develop a game with its own name and identity: Sonic Chaos. Building upon the formulas of the previous Game Gear titles, Sonic Chaos manages to get the speed down and the platforming, designing itself around the hardware limitations instead of zooming in so close and demanding less of the system so that it can pull off speed properly.
Sonic Chaos's name is pretty appropriate, since there are three different storylines for this game depending on where you live and whether you play this on Game Gear or Master System. Really though, the only bit you see of it in game is Robotnik manages to steal a Chaos Emerald and is doing his robot making evil tricks again, so you have to stop him! The Chaos is also important to the name since Sonic Chaos is perhaps the game most focused on those Chaos Emeralds, at least in my opinion. To get a Chaos Emerald, you must collect 100 rings in a level and then you'll be teleported to a Special Stage. This game's Special Stages are all unique and focus on things like tricky platforming, going quickly, or picking the right path in a maze. They're mostly hit and miss on if they're hard or easy, and when you finish one and grab the emerald, you automatically move to the next stage instead of having to finish the one you were in. There are only five to collect and the levels are all designed with huge pockets of rings or with smart paths to get them, so you will likely be able to get them or can kill yourself to try again at a level. The Special Stages buffer you with some lives and continues to assist with this quest as well.
While there are games that will reward you more for collecting the Chaos Emeralds or ones that give you them as part of the plot, Sonic Chaos doesn't seem to have much going on besides that quest. The levels have many paths to help you hunt down those 100 rings, but once you got all the Emeralds, its easy to see the levels are very short and easy to speed to the end of. Thankfully, there aren't many bad traps or enemies that will cause you to lose your rings too often, but the game has way too many bottomless pits, especially since it introduces these weird metal octagon things that you must have a certain amount of speed to run across. They introduce you to it kindly enough, but later on if you drop off those metal ramp things, you'll fall to a bottomless pit and die. The bosses are pretty simple too, the game kind enough to give you rings, but you have to take the right route to the boss to get them. Even the final boss has rings available for once! You were probably getting tired of seeing that complaint! The game also gives Sonic some new power-ups in the form of rocket shoes and springs that he can travel with, making exploring levels even more varied. Thankfully, it's not too hard to back track in the levels either so long as you don't go near the end, so you can turn back to keep collecting rings if you need to.
One thing is, you can play as Tails as the game's easy mode of sorts. Tails doesn't have to collect the Chaos Emeralds, has more lives, can fly, and... really doesn't have much trouble with anything. The levels already are designed more to get you Chaos Emeralds than to give you a cool place to run and jump through, so Tails seems like he breaks the game too much by skipping all that and still getting the good ending.
Sonic Chaos reminds me of New Super Mario Bros 2 a bit. When I played New Super Mario Bros 2, the quest to get a million coins was an interesting challenge that made me rethink how I played Mario. The coins I never went out of my way to get were suddenly valuable, and it wasn't until I got near the end of the game did I realize the quest was not only pointless, but would require tons of repetitive grinding in order to get anywhere close to the coin goal. Sonic Chaos asks you to pay attention to ring collection, the rings still serving as health and it being near impossible to get more than one ring when they burst out of you, thus requiring a more exploration based style of gameplay while still having the Sonic gameplay standbys. It loses steam once you have completed that goal though, so it's more an interesting twist on the formula than a game worth picking up for its quality.
SONIC TRIPLE TROUBLE
Console: Game Gear
If you've played one of the other Sonic Game Gear titles, Sonic Triple Trouble isn't going to surprise you much. Sidescrolling Sonic running and ring collecting goodness just like the previous ones but without any of the glaring issues ones like Sonic 2 had or unique twists like Sonic Chaos. That's not to say it's exactly mediocre, nor is that to say it's anything more than just another spin on the Game Gear for Sonic. It's got an emphasis on verticality, you don't lost all your rings when you get hit... it's got the right ingredients for maybe being the definitive take on the formula, but it also keeps those old niggling issues like throwing you at bosses with no rings, and some of these bosses really don't hold back in throwing annoying things at you... while others are cakewalks. The rude ones are incredibly annoying, especially the flying turtle one that kicks off the game since it requires you to control your jumps perfectly to avoid dying instead of hurting the boss.
The Triple Trouble of the title refers to Robotnik being the main antagonist, Knuckles helping him out again because Knuckles will take any opportunity he can find to forget Robotnik's not trustworthy, and the third character... Nack the Weasel/Fang the Sniper, who's here to just make the bonus games more interesting really. The bonus games to get the Chaos Emeralds are accessed through a monitor system where you need fifty rings to access one of two types of bonus stages. The first version and the far more annoying version is a timed maze you have to get through. The mazes themselves aren't really interesting challenges, just bouncing around or slowly breaking spheres to get to the next area of sphere breaking... or falling in an instant loss hole. The other one that's far more tolerable is when you fly around the Tornado plane to collect rings. Both Sonic and Tails are in this game and playable, likely why they couldn't call it Double Trouble for fear of implying the protagonists are the issue rather than Robotnik and Knuckles, but Fang the Sniper makes his mark in these bonus games as a boss you have to fight to acquire the challenge's emerald. None of them are really hard so at least you won't find yourself denied the emerald after putting up with the annoying mazes. Get all the Chaos Emeralds, and you have yourself another "good ending unlocked" situation. Again, Sonic Triple Trouble doesn't really push boundaries, it just spends time salvaging the good ideas from the others while not budging on ideas that Sonic Team would take quite a while to understand about boss and bonus design.
Besides adding Fang the Sniper to the game, Triple Trouble really is so decent its hard to go on at length about it. Maybe if I hadn't already taken a look at other Game Gear titles it would stand out, and I'm sure its positives stand out a lot more if you work backwards from it towards the original Sonic the Hedgehog on Game Gear, but despite the hiccups in difficulty, it was a nice send-off to this style of Sonic portable titles before Sonic decided to chase the trend and prioritize appearance over function.
SONIC BLAST
Console: Game Gear
The first thing anyone will notice when playing Sonic Blast is the weird, lumpy, pseudo-3D model Sonic and Knuckles have in this game. Nearly sharing its name with Sonic 3D Blast, it is easy to think this game will be the Game Gear trying to pull off the same gameplay style, but if anything, that is what Sonic Labyrinth is. Sonic Blast just decided to make the two playable characters look ugly for some reason, probably hoping that novelty of the false 3D would make it appeal to some people.
Sonic Blast actually just plays like a traditional Sonic game for the most part. Run, jump, collect rings, you know the drill by now. The only pseudo-3D areas are the Special Stages. To get to a Special Stage, you have to find a large ring in Act 2 of a Zone, at least if you want a Chaos Emerald instead of a simple extra life like you would get if you find it in Act 1. The Special Stages have Sonic running through a plane, moving left, right, or jumping to get 50 rings to grab the emeralds. Unfortunately, the false 3D makes it hard to judge how high the rings are and when you should jump, not to mention Sonic moves generally sluggish in the Special Stages. They aren't that hard really and the rings to get into the Special Stages are pretty easy to find.
For the core gameplay, Sonic Blast does a few weird things that set it apart. While it's not the only one to do it, Sonic doesn't lose all his rings when he is hit, and even the ones he lost can be collected. This aspect almost makes the game too easy, as the only times I died were from running out of breath in the horrendously slow-moving underwater levels and against the final boss who surprisingly not only gives you rings, but gives you 99 of them. You will likely lose a lot of rings fighting him no matter how good you are, so giving you a set amount of hits for a hard boss is a lot more interesting than giving you no chances to get hit like a lot of the other titles in the early Sonic series.
I did mention the underwater areas are slow, and that sorts of plays into the game's general slowness. Sonic can build up some speed but he doesn't feel all that fast save when he grabs a Running Shoes pick-up. Being slow isn't always a bad thing, but it's difficult to tell if I have enough speed to go up a ramp or do a loop because of it. Of course, like most decent Game Gear Sonic games, a focus is given more to platforming, and while Knuckles has his usual tricks to make things easier for him, Sonic is given a double jump! And it is actually pretty nice to have. It's a good parachute for bad jumps and the platforms often require it for navigation instead of being broken open by the exploitability of such a mechanic. The level design does a decent job of mixing exploration with the theme of the zones, although there are a few moments like the lava levels and their pressure powered platforms or the moving spike walls in the final areas that aren't really executed well. Despite that though, the fact it's so hard to lose rings makes even the more finicky obstacles a breeze, perhaps to its detriment. If I got enough rings, I sometimes just plowed through enemies and obstacles without a care since it was easier than taking my time. I'm not going to dismiss the idea of losing only some of your rings since it didn't save Triple Trouble, but Sonic Blast shows the side of the coin where things are too easy for it.
I'm kind of glad this is the last Sonic platformer for Game Gear, partly because I was getting incredibly tired of the long pipes where you sit back and wait far too often for Sonic to be moved along automatically. The pipes are almost always in a maze too, and while Sonic Blast isn't the most egregious of the series, the water levels are basically themed around it and it certainly makes the worst levels in the game even worse because of it.
It's hard to be too mean to Sonic Blast though. Since it's so easy to stay alive, you get to go through the game without much frustration, but conversely, the challenge isn't much either. The bosses are pretty strange and interesting, with Robotnik inexplicably pulling from mythology to ape Sun Wukong with one of his designs. While I do appreciate the game giving you rings for every boss and level, it probably should have stuck with the old formula of you losing all of them on a hit. That's what makes the Sonic ring system beautiful, and they are way too plentiful in this game to even try and think of them as a reskin of a more typical game's set health limits. It certainly won't hurt you to play Sonic Blast, and it might even a good recommendation for a kid's first Sonic game since it stays pretty easy the whole ride through. That is, if the lumpy character models don't make the kid dismiss it of course.
DR. ROBOTNIK'S MEAN BEAN MACHINE GAME GEAR
Console: Game Gear
While this isn't the first Game Gear pseudo-port we've looked at, it does seem to be the one that is objectively better than its Sega Genesis counterpart. What the Game Gear version of the title sacrifices in regards to graphics and theming, it manages to make up for it with a more in-depth and variable approach to its gameplay. If you only came to play Mean Bean Machine to see the robots taunt you before the levels, that's basically what you miss out on, but everything else seems to be an improvement!
I guess you could also say the story's a bit messier. You don't even see Has-Bean as a tiny dancing sprite on the screen anymore, and the setup for the conflict is even further buried from view. If you wanted a heavy story emphasis in your Puyo Puyo puzzler, I'm sorry, but you'll have to look elsewhere. The Game Gear story mode does still have you facing off with the same batch of robots as you progress, although the difficulty seems to be much different this time around. It felt like battles dragged on a lot more if I didn't try to set up chains right from the get go. Many early battles in the Genesis version were easy to scrape by playing it like a novice. Right out the bat though Arms seems too smart to beat just by not dying yourself, but the difficulty as a whole doesn't seem to ever reach above where the Genesis versions ended up. If anything, I had a much easier time with the final few battles in this version. Enemies still have their quirky ways of playing despite not getting to smack-talk you before the battle.
One thing I find the poorer graphics actually improve is the bean matching in general. The beans in the Genesis version all have a sort of gooey quality to them, coming in odd shapes and melding together into little globs. The Game Gear just makes every bean into a flat color and shape, so they all look much cleaner and are easier to match up. It's not a big difference admittedly, but it allows a bigger focus on the mechanics I find. The playfield is much smaller visually as well, condensing everything into a puzzle game that's less visually stimulating but can be easier to navigate. During the main story, there are even levels that add a bit of variety to the simple task of matching, putting a bar at the top that is lower than usual that you don't want your beans to reach as you stack them. Whereas the original almost never mixed up its formula, the Game Gear version also tosses in an extra mode where you have to puzzle out how to do certain tasks with an already filled area. Making chains, clearing all of one color, and other little tasks to make you think in a different way than the Genesis title, and its these slight alterations to the gameplay that make it feel like the better version. Sure, you can play the Genesis version and get good Puyo Puyo, but the Game Gear version has more variety overall despite it turning away from the delightfully cheesy scenes from its console counterpart.
SONIC DRIFT
Console: Game Gear
Before we begin, it is absolutely required that any discussion of Sonic Drift begin with the joke "Why is Sonic, a guy who is all about running fast, driving a car in a racing game?" Make sure to tell a variation of this joke to any marathon runners you happen to find behind the wheel of a car.
Moving on, Sonic Drift is a racing game and it is about driving cars. You get to pick from Sonic, Tails, Robotnik, and Amy as your racer, each one with differing stats and unique power-ups they can activate if they pick up two rings on the race track. Sonic gets a speed boost, Tails jumps, Robotnik places down mines, and Amy can fire a heart that slows people down. There are three Grand Prixs in this game, all consisting of rather plain flat tracks that vary mostly in appearance and how they decided to bend the simple track design around this time. The levels borrow themes from the first Sonic the Hedgehog game, but it appears to be mostly a visual aesthetic rather than anything that affects track design. The tracks have a few obstacles outside of the course itself that you can smack into, and there are universal speed boost and invincibility power-ups that any racer can pick up by smashing through a monitor.
Sonic Drift's racing isn't particularly unique, but as a simple racer it does most of its job right. The controls are a bit slippery, meaning that at almost every turn your racer will overcompensate and likely go off the course... unless you get drifting down. Holding the brake as you take corners will let you drift, and you have to be a little careful you don't drift too much. Even if you can't get the drifting down, trying to do it or being careful can still help you do decently well at the races, and the power-ups mostly serve as a way of catching up rather than disrupting the gameplay. Surprisingly for a racing game, computer controlled racers don't seem to have any cheap tricks and won't do the impossible and catch up to you if they're off screen but lagging behind. Sonic Drift is pretty fair!
The three Grand Prixs do increase in difficulty but are pretty manageable and sometimes maybe a little too easy when you're starting off. The computer racers are pretty docile seemingly, allowing you to focus on the many rough turns and giving you the means to recover from mistakes. Taking three laps in a race and a victory in the whole series won't require much besides not losing that lead.
Sonic Drift may not be intensely fast, wacky and chaotic, or any of the other expected aspects of a mascot racer, but it focuses on the core racing and gives a pretty decent experience for it! This game was never released in the U.S. originally for some reason, but its sequel was!
SONIC DRIFT 2
Console: Game Gear
"Sonic Drift is an incredibly fun game for Game Gear.It's sort of like Mario Kart, but with Sonic Characters and more fun."
This is a quote taken from the GameFAQ on Sonic Drift 2, which I looked up because I was convinced I must be doing something wrong to be failing so miserably at this game. Sonic Drift 2 is not more fun than Mario Kart. It doesn't deserve to be in the same sentence as Mario Kart.
Sonic Drift 2, on its surface, is deceptively simple and not much of a departure from the original. There are more racers now, Knuckles, Fang, and Metal Sonic joining with their special abilities not much different than the other racers. There is also a lot more variety in regards to items. All racers can now pick up and use when they wish the Dash, Jump, Mine, and Invincibility power-ups, although Amy's heart is still unique to her. The track also has a lot more hazards to avoid that aren't just relegated to being off course punishments. Speaking of the tracks, there is a lot more variety in their design. There are a few flat bendy tracks, but the game throws in unique level specific hazards, half-pipes, mandatory spring jumps, and levels that consist of one long drive instead of the typical three laps.
Looking at all this, you would think Sonic Drift 2 would be better than its predecessor, but the game gets one thing MAJORLY wrong: the difficulty. Sonic Drift 2 somehow controls WORSE than its predecessor, and you'll likely to have to pick Knuckles, the character with the best handling, to avoid drifting so far off course that you can't recover. Speaking of drifting, it is still in the game, but engaging in it slows you down too much, allowing computer racers to zoom on by. The controls can almost be swallowed like a bitter pill, but the computer players have gone from perhaps a little too easy in the first game to absolutely monstrous in the sequel. They will break all the rules in order to keep pace with you. At the start of the race when no one has any rings, they will use their items without a care. They will catch up with you if you are ahead no matter what is in their path and spam their unique power-ups constantly. Compounded with the controls, the computer racers make it incredibly difficult to win, and there are six courses to each Grand Prix! It's difficult to enjoy the improvements in course design and the more varied theming when you are struggling to stay out of last place. If the computer players pull ahead, you're going to need something big to catch up. Thankfully, you are allowed to pick your opponents, even for the main game, so you can pick the opponents with the power-ups that are least likely to screw you over. It's a small comfort that won't stop the other nastiness, but it's something.
I played Sonic Drift 2 before I played the original, and I was terrified of what I would find in the first game. Somehow, the simpler gameplay and the fair computer players meant that I found Sonic Drift far more enjoyable than its sequel. Both games have a few flaws like poor turning and a short horizon, making oncoming obstacles and the track itself a bit hard to predict even with a massive map on the screen. It's hard to believe they managed to make a sequel that fails so hard despite having so much more. Thankfully, Sonic wouldn't be hopping back into a car for a good long while after this excursion.
TAILS SKYPATROL
Console: Game Gear
Tails finally gets to go off on his own solo adventure, the blue hedgehog nowhere in sight! Where will our flying fox friend head off to on his big excursion off into the world on his own? How will his amazing abilities manifest in gameplay without Sonic shackling him into super fast sprinting? Which fearsome foes he will face that Sonic could have never hoped to face himself?!
You fight Witchcart. She's called that because she's a witch in a minecart.
That is the level of imagination the team had when developing Tails's first solo excursion, and rest assured, the whole game is about on the level of Witchcart level imagination.
It feels a bit like Tails Skypatrol was developed by people who had to make it and had to follow a certain set of rules to make it. In this game Tails flies of course, that's his big thing! But since the designers had no idea how to make that fun, Tails is saddled with a giant ring that he has to tote around to interact with the world with. Tails can move around the screen a bit, but the level scrolls automatically at a rather leisurely pace, Tails at risk of damage if he isn't careful! He has no health or rings to lose, but instead runs on a flight meter system. Moving along in the level gradually drains it and you have to pick up candy in the level to refill it, and the flight meter really feels like an unnecessary challenge on top of the game's navigation. A gradual push forward already leads to a few issues when the game makes split paths where only one answer is truly safe, but having moved through so much of the level only to see your meter dwindling just before reaching a checkpoint or piece of candy is both disheartening and annoying. It doesn't help that Tails's only real means of interacting with things around him is that big ring he's pulling around. He can launch it at enemies and objects to latch onto them or knock them away, and part of why Witchcart exists I think is because Tails can latch onto minecarts and they really had no idea who the final boss should be.
The bosses themselves are probably the only time the ring grabbing is close to interesting, as you have to grab the boss and hurl them at the ground or smash them into it. That's not to say the bosses are particularly good, the character they insist is a bunny has a needlessly long boss fight since you fight her in the air where you can only smash her into things if you grab her at the right moment, but its the closest to the game seeming like it was a design decision done for a reason instead of some attempt at making something work when they had no ideas. Tails really was not given a good solo start here, evoking some of the things I didn't like about Ristar all while you fly through the air at a pace too slow to enjoy and too pushy that you can't really figure out the path onward so much as pick a split path and hope you're right. The game has a cartoony fun atmosphere to it when it puts in things that aren't just devices for ring-grabbing, but it feels like Tails is dropping by rather than a part of the world. Enemies look like they're from Looney Tunes or Tex Avery while Tails himself is just trudging along in his Sonic 2 design, always moving forward, never really caring about anything happening in this wacky world he's suddenly found himself in.
A bit more freedom would have made this game more enjoyable, but it feels like flying around with a ring you swirl around your body to snag stuff isn't exactly a formula for success. Tails didn't really have much of a personality back then besides being Sonic's plucky sidekick, hence why the plot of this game is basically Tails is wandering around on a random island and stumbles into Witchcart's plot to build a railroad. Such high stakes too! Modern Tails might see the merit in industrialization even if he didn't agree with it going out of control like presumably this railroad somehow did. I guess Witchcart needs a lot of track to travel with her mode of transportation. Sadly, Tails's means of transportation is just unfun, and if they want to make a Tails flying game again, they need to embrace it instead of begrudgingly put together enough pieces that the game seems like someone cared about Tails enough to give him a game.
TAILS ADVENTURE
Console: Game Gear
Tails Adventure was almost what Tails Skypatrol should have been. By now, we had it firmly cemented in our minds that Tails is a bit of a gear nut, an inventor with tons of neat gizmos in addition to his definitive ability of flying about with his tails. This game even roots Tails in a more believable situation. Tails went off to his own personal island Tails Island... okay maybe not everything is firmly believable, but the antagonists are a conquering group of military birds. An army is a proper foe for Tails and with a decent scope for the challenge he'll be facing with his own smarts and devices. Speed isn't what will take down such a force, its clever application of science that can topple this empire!
Tails's flight is wisely limited and somehow more fun than it was in Skypatrol despite that. It's treated more as a means to move through a level rather than the only means, and Tails has quite a few vertical levels to accommodate it while at the same time making a few mazelike or cramped levels to limit it just enough that its not gamebreaking. The flying isn't perfect and sometimes it can cause problems when its not exactly cooperating with you, but its a skill rather than the focus, so its not too bothersome. Tails's abilities in this game primarily consist of a host of interesting and useful inventions! ...That the game ruins by limiting how you can use them. Tails will usually need in his kit a bomb to deal with enemies and obstacles, the remote robot that is basically used in every level in some capacity, a device that is situationally useful in the current area you're exploring, and if there isn't another item with that requirement, only then does your fourth slot really let you pick something to have fun with. You see, the game begins with a decent set of tools for Tails to use and swap between, but the progression of the game consists mostly of moving through levels, finding out there's a roadblock, backtracking to an area to unlock a specific item, using that item to move towards the next roadblock, and continue that backtracking adventure over and over as you slowly get the things you need to continue onwards. It wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact the game limits how many items you can carry at once. To swap them out, Tails must leave a level and head back to his garage, meaning if you made progress into a new area and didn't have the right item, you'll have to go set it and repeat everything you just did. Most levels are small enough but not tiny at all. You still have to jump through some hoops to get back to where you needed that item, and on too many occasions the item you needed was important just for a specific moment and is inventory clutter after that. If you could just access items from a pause menu the game would be so much better, but this clunky system weighs down what could have been a decent adventure with Tails at the helm.
Surprisingly, even though they weren't in Skypatrol, Tails has to find Chaos Emeralds in this game, most of them just hidden behind more of those item "puzzles" that make your inventory cluttered. There are some decent puzzles despite the constant roadblocking passing off as such, but the boss battles that veer towards normal combat are usually a drag, and the Chaos Emeralds are mostly here to give you health. Lose all your health, and its game over, back to start. Surprisingly punishing considering the game starts you off with 10 health you can lose quite easily. Tails is a bit too squishy for the game and not really capable enough for a true battle, but most enemies are more like obstacles that you can handle well enough. There are some undersea segments that serve as nice changes to the gameplay to prevent the constant item shuffling of Tails's ground-based missions from growing staler than they already are. Again, the main issue really is just the inaccessibility of the items you need to continue the game. It's set up like a Metroid game almost but Metroid lets you hold onto items so you can use them when you need them... save the beam issues in Metroid II of course.
Still, this is the better of the two Tails outings and has a lot more thought put into its design and concept. Tails gets to shine here even if the game holds him back a bit with its backtracking. It's not an exceptional adventure, but if they had kept moving this subseries along, I could see it becoming something worthy of your time and both interesting and fun to boot. As it is, it's okay, a curiosity with a bit of problem solving thrown in... but it's a lot better if you have a guide open because there are way too many situations where its hard to tell where to go next and which exact item is specifically needed to progress.
SONIC ERASER
Console: Genesis sort of?
Sonic Eraser was released in Japan as part of a special Genesis attachment on a special download service for only a limited time.
Needless to say, it wasn't a game I'd ever play if not for this goal of mine, and when I did go to play it, I didn't know what to expect.
Sonic Eraser is a puzzle game that combines elements of Tetris and your typical Match-3 style game. Interestingly though, Sonic Eraser is only a Match-2, meaning that if you can put two blocks of the same design together, you clear them. The obvious question comes to mind when considering making a Match-2 in thinking that the game might be a bit too easy since the threshold to clear blocks is so low, but Sonic Eraser bypasses this worry through the way you are delivered pieces. Blocks fall down in sets of four that you cannot rotate, but you can move them and shift the positioning of the designs within the block around. It's definitely easy to get matches in this game, but since every block that comes down will deposit some junk blocks you can't match yet, you have to start setting up chains and consider where you put the blocks despite the lower threshold on erasing them. Because of this, Sonic Eraser manages to be fun and challenging with a unique take on the typical block clearing game. Naturally, you lose if the blocks reach the top of the screen, and it's not that much harder to lose here than more famous games like Tetris.
There are a few modes of play in Sonic Eraser. You can, of course, just do a regular run where the blocks gradually get faster as you go on, and this is definitely the mode that nails in that Match-2 can be difficult with the right ingredients. There is a Round mode where you are given a playfield where there are already a few blocks present. The goal is to clear a special type of block that does not appear in the ones you are dropping, and for the most part, it just requires clearing the right blocks to cause the special blocks to connect and disappear. There are probably only two Rounds of the rather small selection that you can't clear with some simple matching, so its a nice simple puzzle challenge that won't frustrate you much. The last mode worth mentioning (other modes just slightly shift rules) is a player vs. player or player vs. CPU mode where you play simultaneously as someone else, the goal being to last longer than the other. If you get a few matches in a row, Sonic Eraser has what is perhaps the most interesting means of interfering with your opponent I've seen in a puzzle game. Most games will send them garbage blocks that are hard to clear, but Sonic Eraser makes it impossible for your opponent to tell what block is coming next and mixing up the block once it enters play. The opponent can still try their best to place it intelligently, but its difficult and they'll have to figure out if they want to risk it.
You may have noticed I haven't mentioned much related to Sonic here, and that's because the game barely includes him. The blue hedgehog appears in the center of the screen in some modes to mostly just stand around and sometimes do a flashy attack to clear blocks or interfere with the opponent. This really isn't a game about Sonic at all. The designs on the blocks have nothing to do with him, and the game opens with a book being opened strangely enough, not even one that has anything to do with Sonic. He really is just placed in the game for the name recognition, but despite that, Sonic Eraser isn't a bad game. On a better platform, it could be a decent time waster or short amusement. I'd certainly like to play more with its approach to a Match-2 game, it just doesn't really tie into Sonic in any meaningful way. Still, if you want to go searching for a way to play it, you'll probably have a bit of fun!
WACKY WORLDS CREATIVITY STUDIO
Console: Genesis
Despite not mentioning Sonic's name in the title, Wacky Worlds Creativity Studio does involve you controlling Sonic to select your levels and has a few Sonic and Sega characters present, so I decided to take a look at it even if it might be a little bit of a stretch to call it a Sonic game.
Wacky Worlds Creativity Studio certainly can't be faulted for its title. There's a small selection of Wacky Worlds you can select by moving Sonic around in a UFO, and when you enter them, you have a few tools to change up the world you see. The game itself is pretty much just an interactive sticker book clearly meant for the youngest of children. You can put down characters and items, make them do little dances by clicking on them, shift their colors and... that's about it. There's nothing particularly impressive on display, just a simple cartoon style for the stickers and the actions the stickers take are usually just them walking or flying around the screen. There's no real pretense of proper gameplay here so it's not like it suckers you in. It's hard to really say too much about this game since you just pop over to the Fantasy/Jungle/Underwater/Outer Space/Etc. environment, play around with a few stickers, and that's the entire game. Sonic's just there to give the game less generic stickers, although Ecco the Dolphin and Toejam and Earl also show up to wiggle if you get them moving.
At worst, I feel Creativity is the misnomer in the title. There should have been more freeform interaction like a paintbrush to allow you to add to the sticker scenes you create. There are certainly more interesting games like this for children and ones that can hold their attention better, but this is mostly just an inoffensive attempt to give kids something to do and, when we really look at it, probably didn't need to be on this Sonic series retrospective!
SONIC THE FIGHTERS
Console: Arcade
Fun Fact: Sonic the Fighters once had an actual good title! Called Sonic Championship during its initial arcade run, someone from Sega decided that all subsequent appearances of it would trim an admittedly generic title and instead replace it with an Engrish sounding title that never sounds natural. It's a bit of an industry trend these days to release the English version with a title more appropriate in Japan, if all the games trying to tell America that an X pronounced cross is an acceptable substitution for "vs." isn't any indication of how regressive this naming trend is going. I don't need my US games to have flashy titles, but I prefer it over titles that sound like google translate was involved in the name choice rather than a marketing team.
The name is probably the most memorable part of the game I guess. This is the Sonic the Hedgehog fighting game, set in a set of 3D boxing-ring like arenas where you don't really do much interesting fighting-game wise. The movesets aren't varied enough to be interesting and the simple stuff works too well, and Sonic the Fighters made the baffling choice of limiting guards. Probably to limit just standing around and blocking of course, but its so easy to deplete your opponent's ability to shield with basic attacks that its not hard to reduce the AI to no shield left and then just hammer your most repetitive attack until they die. Sure, they can still grab you to interrupt, but otherwise they're basically at your mercy, and the shield loss lasts the rest of the match, making it a bit too easy to keep the cheap tactics going. Not that there would be much else to do without the cheap tactics. There are a few moves and you can sort of use them cleverly here or there, but it feels like it comes down to a mashfest if you really want to win. Too much space and the AI will get too fancy for you, but it's not like you're missing out on a fighting system with depth because of it.
There is, nicely enough, a bit of roster variety present, the HD port even adding a few characters in to shore it up a bit, not that I've played that one. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are there, Amy has deigned to leave her car for this competition and is starting to swing what would be her signature hammer, Espio the Chameleon is surprisingly away from the Chaotix crew, Fang the Sniper's dropping by from Triple Trouble, and two unique characters in Bean the Dynamite (a Duck, but can't call him that! Not cool sounding!) and Bark the Polar Bear show up to add some roster flair without feeling too out of place. These two would also jump off to other Sega fighting games strangely before fading away for a long time, but I definitely enjoyed my time with Bean here at least. Character variety isn't the greatest on the account of the fact that it's too easy to fall back into the same tactics, but you can see it when the game sneaks through the breaks in the monotony. Fighting through the main game is easy enough, and the tried and true tactic of fighting unfairly even managed to get me to beat the final timed battle at the end despite it being set up to be hard. Being based on an arcade, you can also do continues if you need them, which Metal Sonic manages to lure out with his ability to actually deal a lot of damage in a way that's hard to interrupt. The battles with him aren't challenging in an interesting way though, just in a different way.
Sonic the Fighters does hold a unique distinction though: it may have the hardest Super Sonic to get in any Sonic game. Apparently, you have to beat the entire Arcade mode with Sonic without losing a single round. Here, the cheese tactics are both necessary but not enough, and I certainly didn't pull it off despite getting pretty far with what I could manage. It's not particularly rewarding, just appearing for the final battles, but its a lot more interesting for being so difficult and at least you aren't missing much by skipping it.
...I guess I forgot to mention the story. Tails has built a rocket to go take down Robotnik's space base, but it only has enough room in it for the Chaos Emeralds and one powerful individual. Rather than trusting Sonic to defeat his constant foe yet again, they hold a tournament to determine who will take the rocket and go defeat Robotnik and his oddly altered version of Metal Sonic. Admittedly, according to my run through the game, Bean the Dynamite was the perfect choice in the end, but its certainly contrived, even for a fighting game plot. Maybe if the characters had better reasons for withholding their emeralds from Sonic than being the one who wants to go to space, and maybe if Tails wasn't just handing off a rocket he made himself to whoever punches him hard enough, and maybe if we didn't have the Sonic series history in our minds... okay, so, there are a lot of maybes, but it's not like you need a good plot for a fighting game, hence my lateness in mentioning it. The little arenas are pretty enough for what they are, and the models are decent if a bit telling of the time they are from, but a fighting game where the fighting isn't too interesting isn't going to have much staying power or leave a good impression. I certainly doubt the multiplayer could redeem it, where you can expect almost all cheese to be cranked up to maximum power. There's a reason fighting games fans don't bring this up much, but at least Sonic had an okay outing here rather than an utterly embarrassing one.
SONIC R
Console: Saturn
After years of people making jokes about Sonic Drift and... never really stopping in making those jokes as Sonic now moves into the Sega All-Stars Racing series, Sonic finally gave the people the game they thought they were asking for in Sonic R: a Sonic racing game where you run. Sonic and his friends are now racing on foot, except Robotnik who is being a big cheater and flying around in his eggmobile. Strangely, despite remembering the game controlling poorly back when I originally played it, coming back to it now all these years later and I feel like I've got a decent grasp on the controls without ever feeling like I'm struggling against them. They aren't perfect, and Sonic and friends control more like vehicles than characters still, but if you try and learn it like a racing game instead of just rushing around at the speed of sound, you can get a decent hang of it, enough to win the races fairly well.
The game has chaos emeralds in it of course, but they manage to make it a bit more interesting than it could have been. Levels hide their emeralds in a variety of ways, and surprisingly, even if you have to take a big detour to explore some nook of the level, its still often possible to get back in the lead and win the race so long as you don't dawdle too much. That is a bit telling about the difficulty on some levels, even if the computer players can sometimes keep pace well enough, other times you can rocket by them no issues and still grab your out of the way emeralds in the process. The race tracks are more fun when you are trying to get the emeralds though, as its easy to figure out a singular route for the race that is optimal and then breeze through it since the other racers have little in the way of impeding you. Even when you go off course you can usually correct yourself and get back in the race so long as you don't mess up too often.
The racer selection is a bit weird. It's got the expected characters of the time, Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Robotnik, and Amy driving a freaking car around because she hadn't gained Sonic Main Character speed powers yet. You can also get Metal Sonic which is nice, but then Metal Knuckles shows up and tries to act like he belongs, Eggman has a Robo enter the race, and no one could be bothered to make a robot tails so they just had a doll version of him race and inspire creepy stories on the internet years later. The music in this game was a sign of Sonic's future as well, songs with English lyrics that focused more on their words than their rhythm were attached to levels, and they're mostly enjoyable in the same way most Sonic songs with words are. They're a bit cheesy but rhythmic and fun, so who cares if the lyrics are vapid strings pushed together to make rhymes?
Still, despite the slack I cut it, Sonic R isn't a top notch racer. It's acceptable, the controls could be better even though you can handle them well enough, the AI could be better to make the races more challenging for the right reasons, and the game is so short you can probably finish it all in one night, including unlocking the secret characters. Sonic R at least finally got Sonic racing on his own two feet, even if it still didn't capture the speed one would expect from that set-up. Imagine an F-Zero game but with Sonic running around and you've got probably what would at least thematically match what people would expect from a Sonic racing game, but this one is at least a fun inclusion on the Sonic Gems Collection for curious minds.
SONIC CRICKET
Console: Mobile Phone
I can't claim to be a cricket fan, and every time I go and look up the rules so I can remember them, I'll forget them before the end of the day.It seems to be the only sport I have this issue for, but I did make sure I at least had the rules fresh in my memory when I booted up this unusual mobile phone game... from India.
And note: this isn't a game for iOS. This was made for the old phones with physical keyboards. As an exclusive for India.
Unusual roots aside, Sonic cricket isn't a very interesting game. It really is just a simple minigame version of cricket. You can likely find a better version for free in a flash game, or a more complex and accurate version from a real game. This tiny phone game is simple and easy enough to control, but it's not particularly engaging either. You just go through a game of cricket with a singular Sonic character on your team. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles all serve as team captains, with Eggman as referee and Amy sometimes appearing as a cheerleader, but other than those five, the rest of the game is populated with interchangeable colored robots. Your team really is just a bunch of robots and then the team captain, helping to make the experience drag on as Identical Robot #7 takes his turn up at bat. The level of control is simple, yes, but it also means that you aren't doing too much to interact either.
Even if you are a cricket fan, you can do much better than Sonic Cricket, and Sonic fans don't really have a reason to check it out either. Perhaps the Indian mobile phone market had a niche this game was perfect for, but going back to it now doesn't really give you anything work talking about, save if you really want to one-up someone with obscure Sonic game knowledge.
SONIC TENNIS
Console: Mobile Phone
Sonic Tennis is the first in a series of phone games we'll be taking a look at that came from a service called Sonic Cafe. Sonic Cafe was a subscription service on the old style of Japanese mobile phone where you would get access to an assortment of Sonic games that was slowly being added to over time. The service ran from 2001 to 2007 and many of the games are hard to access now that it's not being tended to, but a few of these games have been rescued and sometimes even translated so people around the world can experience them.
Whether or not such efforts to play these games are worth it is a different question entirely. The quality certainly varies a lot between titles, but rest assured there are some good ones amongst the bad.
Sonic Tennis certainly falls on the bad side of the net.
Much like Sonic Cricket, Sonic Tennis goes for the more barebones version of the sport it can manage while inserting a few Sonic characters to keep up the brand. Sonic goes up against Tails, Amy, and Knuckles in a series of Tennis matches that mostly just boil down to pressing the button at the right time, being in the right place, and waiting for your opponent to hit an out since they're usually too good to get the ball past. It's quite easy for you to get an out too, as the phone controls aren't exactly the most responsive and the only way to really aim your shot properly is by risking a charge shot. The game has you charge up your swing whenever you click the button to swing the racket, meaning that if you aren't quite positioned properly yet, you won't hit the ball since Sonic is wasting time charging a shot that won't hit. Charging a hit is such a risk that it again becomes more prudent to wait for the opponent to hit out of the chalk lines to take points, although sometimes you just need to take advantage of the computer player's sluggish movement instead as they slide around robotically instead of running to get shots.
No matter how you feel about Sega Superstars Tennis, it's a much better game than Sonic Tennis and has more variety, personality, and controlability than this mobile phone outing. We hit that same issue Sonic Cricket had. Sonic Tennis is just a Sonic skin lazily applied to a subpar tennis minigame, and you can find plenty of better and simple free tennis games, and a lot better realistic tennis games. I know not to expect much of substance from these games, but the other Sonic Cafe games aren't nearly as lazy or bland as this one... some of them at least. A real mixed bag lies ahead.
SONIC HOPPING
Console: Mobile Phone
When I decided to drudge up the Sonic Cafe games and give them a go, I really did expect just a bunch of barely games that were more like curiosities than actual games. Imagine my surprise when I managed to find a game in the bunch that I not only legitimately love, but it just so happened to be the game all about Sonic bouncing around on a pogo stick.
Sonic Hopping does indeed have a bit of an unusual concept. Placed on a square grid styled in the typical Sonic Green Hill Zone manner, Sonic must bounce between squares on his pogo stick to collect rings. Collect all the rings, and you clear one of the rather large assortment of levels. What makes this interesting though is Sonic's movement style. When Sonic moves forward or to the side, he moves 2 spaces at a time, and if he moves backward, he can only move one square. Sonic can only get rings if he lands perfectly on the spot they're on, and levels are filled with switches, instant death pits, and one-use platforms that encourage the player to think about the routes they take to collect the rings. There's also a timer ticking down, so idling around or trying to undo a mistake aren't always options. Although you are given a set of lives, you can always select the last level you were on from the main menu, making it easy to get back in and keep going.
Despite not really relating to Sonic at all, Sonic Hopping has a deceptively simple premise with enough depth to carry it through multiple levels. The game figures out many ways to arrange the levels to keep them challenging all the way to the end. This game really embraces the required simplicity of phone controls without feeling hampered by them, and it does what it sets out to do so excellently that I find it hard to say much bad about it. I can certainly reach, criticize the timer or something like that I suppose, but they are such minor complaints that I don't even feel they're all that legitimate! It's going to be hard to get a hold of if you want to play it, but Sonic Hopping is a delightful little puzzle game, and if I had it on my phone back in the day, I certainly would have spent a lot of time bouncing around on that little pogo stick. Sometimes, it's the simple pleasures...
SONIC FISHING
Console: Mobile Phone
Some of you might be wondering why this game is called Sonic Fishing instead of playing into the series representative of fishing, Big the Cat. Well, you have a bit of a point there, but even if this had been Big Fishing instead, you wouldn't really notice it. Sonic, Tails, Eggman, and any other recognizable Sega characters are notably absent from this tiny fishing minigame, the closest thing you get to their presence being fishing lures based on them. I've criticized the Sonic coat of paint in other games when it's done half-heartedly, but they at least made sure to put Sonic in there SOMEWHERE!
In Sonic Fishing, you play as a floating fishing pole and are given an inordinately short amount of time to snag fish out of a fishing hole. The fishing itself isn't too bad, and I actually got to say, there are aspects of it I like. There are shadows of varying size throughout the fishing hole, and when you cast out your lure, you need only move it to one of the spots where the shadows are and you'll instantly hook the fish. No waiting around for them to bite, which is good, as the timer certainly isn't waiting on you. Reeling them in isn't too hard either, likely to accommodate the phone controls, but the game really does seem to be about grabbing as many fish or as big a fish as you can while its waiting desperately to boot you back to the title screen.
A few casts into the water and a few boots back to the menu and you'll soon realize that Sonic Fishing is a very shallow experience. At best, it could be a decent minigame in a full-fledged game, but as a standalone title it doesn't have enough going on to look at. The fish you catch are plain old normal fish and the Sonic part of the title seems almost completely irrelevant. If Sega had just released a game called Fishing and had the lures as Easter Eggs, at least then you aren't being deceived about what you're getting. Thing is, Sega also has proper fishing games, so just go check out one of those if you want fishing, and there are certainly better phone games for fishing anyway! Kind of wish it had been Big fishing, just so it could at least serve as an inexplicable talking piece instead of just fishing.
SHADOW SHOOT
Console: Mobile Phone
Shadow Shoot is perhaps the most faithful Sonic Cafe game style wise to the main series... and its a game about Shadow the Hedgehog with a gun.
Let me explain.
Shadow Shoot's gameplay carries over quite a few of the elements of Sonic titles while adjusting them to account for the mobile phone and to give the game its own unique draw. In Shadow Shoot, Shadow has five lines that he can travel down. Shadow will automatically move down them, the player in charge of moving him into the right lanes to defeat enemies, avoid pits, and collect rings. It almost surprised me that rings were actual health in this game after the other Sonic Cafe titles using them more as pickups or not including them at all! Shadow can only jump with the help of a ramp and his spin attack only if he hits a booster, so if you want to kill enemies reliably, you will have to fire on them with your gun. Its easy to tease Shadow for using a gun, but almost every game mascot has been considered for using a weapon like a gun, and while the Shadow the Hedgehog game takes it too far, I think in Shadow Shoot, he's using the gun the way it should have been adopted. It's a simple attack, the gun doesn't look real and the shots are more like fireballs than ammunition. It's also very simple and straightforward. A shot goes down the lane until it hits something or disappears. Getting tripped up on IT'S A GUN feels more like an excuse to make fun of it than a real complaint in this case.
Most levels aren't even so much about using the gun as they are traversing the lanes properly. The gun is more like your safety net if you miss a booster or jump, allowing you to blast enemies in your path as you adjust yourself. The boss fights at the end of each stage are focused mostly on holding fire as you avoid attacks, so even there it's not really about gunplay so much as dodging. Shadow Shoot does, admittedly, do something peculiar with its level design. Nearly every level is split into two identical halves, as if they just stapled a copy of the first part on to pad the time. It's noticeable but not too bad, as the first half you learn the level and then the second half you go through the level with the path you learned. Still, sometimes Shadow seemed to hit a ramp and just not make it over pits for reasons I couldn't discern.
The gameplay really is simple when its boiled down to its base parts, but for a phone game, it certainly does well with what it has. It's not too hard, it's not overextending itself, and there's a decent amount of content without it overstaying its welcome. Really is odd that they managed to squeeze out a decent mobile phone game out of one of the series's more maligned decisions, but if you're going to take a look at the Sonic Cafe selection, Shadow Shoot is bound to be a standout amongst the bunch.
SONIC MANIA
Console: Switch
Here it is. The game that inspired the trip down memory lane. The game that billed itself as a return to form for the series, with fans who had created ports of other Sonic titles as well as their own fangames taking up the helm to reinvigorate Sonic based on the classic formula. I like the new stuff. I like the old stuff. Had I not lost the energy I would have likely been just as kind and harsh towards games on both sides of the big 3D divide. But Sonic Mania was pulling things back to the old style, and I do believe both styles of Sonic can coexist and make wonderful games.
But would Sonic Mania prove to be worth all the anticipation? Could it deliver on its promises?
You better believe it did.
Sonic Mania turns back the clock in a very literal way, the plot started when Eggman digs up a special jewel on Angel Island that throws Sonic back into levels from his previous games. All the old level visual styles and songs are back to pull on your nostalgia, and even if you didn't recognize any of it, the old Sonic formula has been perfected even beyond where it was in Sonic 3 and Knuckles. Thankfully, the levels aren't just retreads of the old levels either, each area showing you a bit to make you go "I remember that!" before starting to shift things around and add new mechanics. Things may look familiar at times, but as you play the levels there are new challenges in these old zones that keep them fresh while still evoking the good ol' days. Thankfully, the nostalgia pandering doesn't mask anything, the levels containing some solid design and avoiding the old troubles of classic Sonic titles. There are few bottomless pits, enemies are positioned well... but the levels are made much larger as the game revels in its ability to give you so much more than it could back in the day. This is, actually, pretty great! Long levels with good checkpointing is not a problem at all, but the timer is. The timer is the game's biggest issue, one that old Sonic games never really struggled with because you never had to worry about the lenient level timer that was more there because it was industry standard for platformers than any good reason. Keeping it around now means you don't get to have fun in the levels you're exploring, and some of them are so huge that even trying to speed through like Sonic is meant to do doesn't mean you're guaranteed to beat the clock.
Losing all your lives is harder than ever due to fair difficulty, but it doesn't feel easy for it. Rings are plentiful and the bosses give them to you before you battle so that old complaint is finally retired. You can die and will die often enough, but the abundance of rings shores up your life count and you can continue after a game over if you ever do hit that point since it uses the Sonic 3 "save if you want to or run through a file with no save" method. Bonus games are done really well this time too, special stages coming in two colors. To get the Chaos Emeralds, you find giant rings hidden in the levels Sonic 3 style and do one of the better special stages in the series. Taking the basic formula of Sonic CD's UFO chase, they fix the graphics and controls and make it about catching up to the UFO by collecting little blue orbs to speed up and rings to extend your time. The difficulty scales up with each new on at an appropriate rate, and the save file system means you can always come back later to get them all and face the real final boss. The real final boss is sadly not much fun and a bit of a letdown though, but Super Sonic is as good as ever! ...Although it's a shame Super Sonic can't be achieved earlier if that is how you have to get them all. Sonic Mania is at least enjoyable without Super Sonic because of how super Sonic already is! The drop dash never appealed to me much but its a way to get going fast in an instant, and you can even play as Tails and Knuckles to get more out of your levels. And you can use shields from Sonic 3 in interesting ways in the levels! So much is squeezed out of the levels and their design its mindboggling and it again shows the expert level of care these new developers put into their game. Before I get too distracted, the other special stage involves Blue Sphere making its return, and since I loved it in Sonic 3, I'm happy to see it again! ...Although it strangely reuses some very recognizable stages from a set of puzzle arrangements that supposedly numbers potentially in the thousands upon thousands, which is a shame since it was a perfect place to put in new but similar content. They appear when you have 50 rings and hit a checkpoint, which happens more than ever and I've heard some people stop visiting the bonus stages they're so common, but that's partly because the reward for beating them are now medals used to unlock goodies for a save file.
Sonic Mania really does combine so much of the good parts of old stuff... but you kind of miss out on getting a lot of definitively new things. There are a few new levels and they're pretty great, but most the time the game is forced to reimagine old stages, and I do mean forced. Despite having fangame developers at the helm, you never feel the telltale signs of a fangame developer show up like overindulgence in references or a departure from the series's theming and style, but you do see Sega's hand in it all. They're lack of confidence in the project means the team can't do too much new, and it sucks when you have to see parts of the development process influence a game so strongly. The new levels are scream the potential of the team, and while the level reimaginings are also good, even making me like old levels I didn't like that were brought back like Oil Ocean and some Sonic CD ones (albeit only marginally improving my opinion in some cases), it would be great to see the old Sonic formula in new stuff entirely more often. Most the game is based on the old stuff, and while there are some references and cameos that made me extremely giddy, especially since some of them I only got after doing this series playthrough and playing obscure titles along the way, I do want to see things move forward with confidence.
One place the game design falters a bit even with new ideas would be the bosses.Some are insanely imaginative, and since each act has a boss now, there are a lot around and some of them are a joy to fight... but others become tedious due to designs that are more clever than fun and those ones tend to drag on for a long time until you do things exactly as intended with a small margin for error. The spider boss being one example, and the Metal Sonic stuff being another. They even add in some bosses that involve running more as part of the fight without sacrificing the old more methodical battles, not to mention injecting some personality by way of giving some robots personality besides Eggman always sitting at the controls and sometimes just shifting the boss battle entirely away from anything the series has done before as a boss fight.
Sonic Mania is by no means perfect, but it has so many years of knowledge, tinkering, and examples behind it that it can hone the formula fantastically and give you where the series could have evolved if it had stuck to its original style for longer. This game proves to even the naysayers that Sonic still has gas in his tank and it just requires the right eye to look at what works about Sonic to draw it out. I feel Sonic's 3D series is close to having this as well if fans sat down with Sega to explore what worked there and make an evolution of it instead of a series of sidesteps and soulsearching titles. Sonic Mania is an excellent direction for the series and an excellent game. I'm glad it drew me into playing the older titles and I'm glad it paid off with what it was trying to do, and I can only see this branch of the series getting better as its given more freedom to move away from nostalgia pandering so it can keep the blue blur going in the modern age.
I would have been more than happy if Sonic Mania had simply been an excuse to play all the Sonic games I did manage to play in this period of time, and while there are many more to play, Sonic Mania at least served as an excellent capstone for this set of Sonic exploration. Apologies if some of this loops on itself or reads strangely, but that's the nature of a project that was more gumption than substance. I still got a lot in here, but some of the inclusions are haphazard due to the way I played the games and the ones trimmed once I admitted defeat. I'll give most my thoughts on Sonic games over on the Game Hoard blog now anyway and in better less rambly format, but hopefully this wasn't an exercise in futility. It was fun at least through and through, even when I had to play games like Sonic 2 Game Gear or Sonic Drift 2.
Here's to many more years of excellence from this weird little blue hedgehog who runs really fast.
This was a great look at the first era of Sonic (plus that mobile stuff and Mania). You didn't play everything, but you DID play just about everything that's relatively easy to access these days on collections like Mega Collection and Gems Collection - the Genesis games, the Game Gear games, Fighters, R, and Sonic CD, plus a couple fringe extras. I have yet to beat ANY of the Sonic games in Gems besides CD, so I'm thinking I ought to give it a shot and at least beat R or Fighters sometime, especially since they don't sound like too much of a hassle to complete.
ReplyDeleteSo how did you manage to play Sonic Eraser and those ancient mobile games, exactly? I know you don't emulate as a rule, so I'm perplexed by that one since there's not exactly a lot of other options to play 15-year-old phone games and a game only offered via a special service in Japan 25 years ago.
Oh, and I agree on the subject of best Sonic. I was initially torn between 2 and 3K for many years before finally settling on 3K as the best one. Mania has what it takes to surpass even 3K, and while I'm not certain it's my favorite Sonic, it's absolutely at least in the conversation with the other two.
DeleteI've mentioned in the past my one exception to the emulation thing is stuff where there is no other alternative, like games that were never released in America or games that were released but only in a way that makes them inaccessible in the current age such as those limited time satellite games. I've talked about playing Ace Attorney Investigations 2 as an example of a game I might have to play through emulation since Capcom won't be porting it here, and Sonic Eraser and a bunch of Japanese only phone games on a dead service are pretty much in that same boat only moreso since I doubt Sega even remembers Sonic Hopping. I'm not happy it's the only way to play them, and I would probably be one of the few people on the planet who would happily buy a Sonic Cafe collection if they did ever inexplicably release it, but since there's no resale market or other proper channel to get these, its Nerf or Nothing here.
DeleteI almost removed that statement about Sonic 3K being my favorite since Mania is giving it a run for its money, but I'm waiting until I play it again down the road a bit to decide, and I feel if we do get Sonic Mania 2, that will be the one to blow it out of the water and snag that spot with ease.