game corner

Game Corner: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition (Xbox Series X)

Dr. K1 Comment

Released: 28 October 2022
Originally Released: 7 May 2021
Developer: Capcom
Also Available For: Nintendo Switch, PC/Mac, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series S

The Background:
Helmed by Shinji Mikami, Resident Evil (Capcom, 1996) was a seminal title for the up-and-coming PlayStation, one whose focus on atmospheric horror and resource management popularised the “survival-horror” subgenre. A critical and commercial success, Resident Evil was quickly followed by a numerous sequels that continued to refine the gameplay, add to the lore, and be equally successful. After a troubled development, Mikami re-invented (and once again re-defined) the genre with the ridiculously successful Resident Evil 4 (Capcom Production Studio 4, 2005), though Capcom soon drew heavy criticism for over-relying on an increasingly action-orientated and over the top presentation. Thus, Capcom shook the franchise up again with Resident Evil VII: Biohazard (Capcom, 2017), which took the series in an all-new direction, featured an immersive first-person perspective, and introduced new mechanics and lore that would impact subsequent releases. Although Resident Evil VII was a critical and commercial success, development of an eighth instalment began about a year and a half before VII released. Inspired by Resident Evil 4, the developers purposely focused on a village as the central location and sought to create a balance between combat, exploration, and puzzle-solving. In addition to tying up the story of VII’s protagonist, Ethan Winters, the developers aimed to encourage exploration with an ever-shifting, more open-world environment and drew from gothic horror to design the game’s new werewolf-like enemies. Resident Evil VIII’s marketing heavily focused on Lady Alcina Dimitrescu, a towering, alluring, vampiric figure whose sex appeal helped boost interest in the game, which led to over three million copies being shipped within the first four days alone. The game’s new direction and ties to Resident Evil 4 were praised, as was the gameplay variety and emphasis on exploration, though the bosses and puzzles drew some criticism. Still, the game was a hit, more than justifying the release of additional downloadable content (DLC) within the following year. All of this DLC, which included additional gameplay modes and an epilogue story, was then made available on this Gold Edition release.

The Plot:
Three years after escaping the Baker family, Ethan Winters faces an all-new terror when his infant daughter, Rose, is kidnapped by Mother Miranda, the fanatical leader of a cult-like coven, after being seemingly betrayed by Chris Redfield.

Gameplay:
Like its predecessor, Resident Evil Village (stylised as Resident Evil VII.I.age) is a first-person survival/horror title in which players are again placed into the bland, faceless shoes of Ethan Winters, easily the franchise’s dullest character. Ethan has been fleshed out a little more this time around, though, to be fair. Between games, he and wife Mia have relocated, starting their lives anew with baby Rose; he has much more to say and far more agency this time around since he’s trying to rescue (and restore) his baby daughter; and he’s a little more competent after his experiences in the last game. If it’s been a while since you played Resident Evil VII, you can watch a helpful recap before setting up your subtitle, screen, and sound settings and, thanks to this Gold Edition of the game, you can play in third-person mode, which was my preference. Resident Evil Village offers four control setups, but the default is serviceable enough. You aim with the Left Trigger, guard against enemy attacks with the Left Bumper (with successful timing shoving enemies away), shoot with the Right Trigger, use a recovery item (such as First Aid Med) with the Right Bumper (a godsend in sticky situations), examine points of interest and pick things up with A, reload with X, and open your inventory with Y. By default, B does nothing except perform a quick turn in conjunction with the left stick, which can also be pressed in to break into a run. Pressing in the right stick allows you to crouch behind cover or through tunnels and small gaps, and you can switch weapons using the directional pad, with four different weapons able to be applied to this weapon “wheel”. There are also options to adjust aim assist, the intensity of the damage display, onscreen tutorials, and how much of the heads-up display is visible, allowing you to customise a more cinematic experience if you wish.

Craft health and ammo and purchase new items and upgrades from the Duke.

There are three difficulty settings to choose from at the start of the game, with a fourth, “Village of Shadows”, unlocked after beating the game on any difficulty. Naturally, the harder the difficulty, the tougher the enemies will be, with even basic foes tearing your throat out in a few hits on “Hardcore” difficulty. Unlike in the classic Resident Evil titles, there are no fourth dimensional Item Boxes here. You’ll need to combine and craft items to save inventory space, or spend the Lei dropped by enemies or found in destructible crates to expand your carry capacity. Yes, the crafting system is back; by finding items such as herbs and gunpowder, Ethan can craft recovery items, ammunition, and even explosives like pipe bombs and mines. New “recipes” can be purchased from the game’s rotund merchant, the mysterious Duke, who will happily purchase any treasure you’ve found, sell you ammo, weapons, and healing items, and also tunes up your existing weapons to make them more powerful. If you kill local wildlife, you can bring the meat to the Duke to cook food that increases your movement speed, maximum health, and reduces the damage you take while defending, though the Duke’s prices increase over time and he can even sell out of items, so it’s best to keep an eye out for craftable pickups. I’d also recommend caution with your weapon choices; eventually, better weapons will become available and you can only carry so much, so it’s easy to invest a lot of money tuning up your default handgun only to then have to sell it for the stronger upgrade. You can buy back any weapons you sell, but you can’t remove any charms or attachable tools (such as the scope for the sniper rifle or the extra magazines) from your weapons, so I definitely think it’s better to wait for the W870 TAC shotgun to become available and spend your money upgrading that as opposed to the first shotgun you find.

Alongside some challenging combat, you’ll solve rudimentary puzzles and acquire elaborate keys.

In addition to a decent weapon selection to choose from, Ethan can also use his environment to fight back against the lycan-like enemies that infest the titular village. Explosive barrels will blow enemies away and can hold A to barricade doors with furniture against enemies. You can shoot them off rooftops, sometimes you’ll need to rapidly tap A to escape an enemy’s grasp, and some larger enemies will even attack their smaller cousins. Even on the “Standard” difficulty, Resident Evil VIII is pretty tough. You often have just enough on hand to survive an enemy onslaught, after which you’ll be in dire need of resources to fend off the next enemy encounter, so it’s worth searching every drawer and cupboard, even if many of these are empty. Luckily, your map will indicate any missed items in the local area; it highlights treasures, locked doors, and missed items. You can then backtrack when you have the right keys or the environment has altered to grant you access, and you can still find helpful files that flesh out the game’s lore, Mother Miranda’s connection to the Mold and the Umbrella Corporation, and provide clues or solutions to the game’s puzzles. These may be as simple as finding bolt cutters to break chains, using a key to unlock a door, or finding and entering combination codes, but also become a wild goose chase as you search for masks, examine items for keys or add-ons for existing keys, insert glass eyes into holes, awkwardly swing flaming lanterns, and pull levers to open doors. As ever, you can save your progress at any time using a typewriter. You don’t need to worry about ink ribbons here, and the game also includes an autosave function so you’ll respawn from checkpoints when you die, but I’d recommend making a couple of save files so you can backtrack for missing items or optional side quests as you’ll eventually reach a point where you can’t return to the village that acts as a central hub, of sorts.

While the game peaks early, there’s enough variety and intrigue to keep you hooked throughout.

Resident Evil Village tasks Ethan with venturing to four distinct areas from the titular village, which alters (along with the title screen) as the game progresses, becoming infested with tougher enemies, set on fire, and ransacked by the Mold. Each of these areas presents a unique, but also familiar, challenge; Lady Alcina Dimitrescu’s castle, for example, is very reminiscent of the original game’s ornate mansion, and Lady Dimitrescu herself patrols the hallways, pursuing you throughout the estate like her predecessors, Mr. X and Nemesis. When trapped in House Beneviento, Ethan loses all his gear to the childlike Donna Beneviento and her malevolent puppet, Angie, who force you to complete a series of puzzles, including finding items to investigate a mannequin, rearranging film cells, and searching for fuses, to escape and reclaim your items. The toad-like Salvatore Moreau dwells in a mine, one infested with slime-like pustules, outside a massive lake strewn with wreckage that you must cross, lowering and raising temporary platforms, to power up the generators. Finally, the rebellious Lord Karl Heisenberg dwells in rundown factory populated by horrific cybernetic monstrosities. Here, you’ll use the smelting equipment to craft key items to progress, take a maintenance lift, and battle Heisenberg’s cyborg creations. After defeating Heisenberg, you’ll take control of the far more capable Chris for an all-action infiltration of the village and the catacombs beneath it. Chris has better weapons on hand, utilises ample supply drops, and calls in air strikes by holding down RT,  making short work of Mother Miranda’s Mold defences and the hammer-wielding Uriaș who plagues Ethan so often in the main story.

Graphics and Sound:
It’s almost astounding how good Resident Evil VIII looks; the environments, especially, are moody, dank, and claustrophobic while also being genuinely creepy and unsettling, and the use of ambient noise, distant scratching and screaming, and sporadic music really adds to the tension. The level of detail is incredible at times, with Ethan panting and showing visible pain when low on health, blood splattering on his weapons, snow and frost ransacking the village, bullets and blood alike marking doors, windows, and the environment, and heads sporadically exploding in a shower of gore. Playing in third-person allows you to finally see Ethan’s character model, though he’s still just a guy, one whose face is oddly obscured no matter how much you wriggle the camera. Interestingly, many of the character models (basically anyone who isn’t Chris, who’s been redesigned once again) sport a shiny, uncanny look that makes them seem not quite real. This is fine for the monstrous enemies, but makes human characters a little unsettling to look at in the wrong lighting (though, admittedly, this may be due to the brightness settings I chose). Resident Evil VIII ventures towards the supernatural for many of its enemies, depicting werewolves, witches, and shambling wretches alongside cyborg brutes fitted with drill arms! If these get too close to you, you’re gonna be in for a bad time and treated to some gruesome death scenes, but it’s equally satisfying seeing them be blown to pieces by a well-timed grenade round.

There are some creepy and visually impressive locations beyond the titular, ever-changing village.

As you might’ve guessed from the game’s title, the village plays a prominent role here. It’s your central hub you’ll return to time and again and have to explore and defend throughout the story, housing a church, graveyard, ruins, rivers, and more. Largely barren due to the events taking place, there’s a constant dread hanging in the village that’s mirrored by its adjacent locations. While some areas (stately homes, mostly) are guilty of recycling assets such as ornaments and furniture, others are more visually unique and unsettling, such as the cyborg factory and the creepy doll’s house-like House Beneviento. Resident Evil VIII continues to move away from the futuristic laboratories of Umbrella and takes more cues from Resident Evil 4, bringing an Eastern European flavour back to the franchise. I’m actually surprised it didn’t try to harken back to the backwater locations of the last game. However, these are partially evoked in your encounter with Moreau and when the Mold starts bursting from the ground and overtaking the village, but it’s a tenuous link, at best. The game’s story is engaging enough and mostly related through in-game cutscenes that retain the first-person perspective. You’ll be falling or sent crashing through floors and walls, have your limbs and organs cut off or ripped out, and be constantly interrupted by surprise attacks or jump scares. Everything’s played very seriously here, with very few glib remarks from the increasingly tested Ethan, with the exception of Mother Miranda and her lieutenants, who are almost as over the top as the crazed Baker family from the last game. Sadly, much of their personality is lost when they transform into gigantic, boil-infested monstrosities as per Resident Evil tradition.

Enemies and Bosses:
In place of zombies, bio-organic weapons, parasite-infected villagers, and Mould creations, players battle werewolf-like lycans upon first entering the village. These snarling brutes are nimble and voracious, lunging for you and trying to tear your throat out and taking a fair few shots to be put down. A larger, armour-clad variant is also encountered, one that is better shielded from headshots, and bigger, more monstrous Vârcolacs pose a significant challenge if you’re caught unprepared. The spirit of the classic games is evoked through the shambling, sword-wielding Moroaicǎ, hooded, gaunt figures that rise from shallow water and attack in groups, while bat-like Samcas nest on the rooftops of Castle Dimitrescu. While the mindless Haulers are little more than cannon fodder in Heinsberg’s factory, his cyborg Soldats aren’t to be trifled with. Sporting up to two drill-like appendages and a variety of cybernetic armour, these lumbering walls of muscle can only be put down by blasting the exposed core on their chests, a task easier said than done when they attack in groups and are protected by quasi-mech suits. Most of the game’s more formidable enemies, like the Vârcolacs and Soldats, are introduced as mini bosses, giving you a chance to sample their abilities before they become commonplace and are joined by even stronger variants as the game progresses.

Monstrous and grotesque abominations are the order of the day, however unfitting some of them are.

The first boss you encounter is the aforementioned Uriaș; although it is technically possible to defeat him when he first appears, this isn’t necessary, you just need to survive until the plot progresses. Uriaș shows up as a proper boss twice during the main campaign; first, Ethan fights him in a confined space full of pillars to take cover behind. You’ll need to stay well clear of Uriaș’ giant hammer and leaping attack, and fend off the lycans for resources, preferably blasting him with your shotgun or grenade rounds to put him down. Uriaș also shows up when playing as Chris, but this fight is much easier as you simply need to target him for a few air strikes, surviving until he’s put down once more. As if frantically avoiding Lady Dimitrescu’s appearances isn’t bad enough, her three witch daughters – Bela, Daniela, and Cassandra – also haunt Castle Dimitrescu, appearing as a swarm of bugs that will whittle your health down and then taking physical form to dash at you with scythes. These three can only be made vulnerable by pulling switches or breaking windows to let in a blast of cold wind, with you constantly strafing to keep them in the cold, or pulling levers to keep the pressure on, while blasting at them until they turn to ash. Lady Dimitrescu herself cannot be harmed or killed when she’s pursuing you, but will transform into a massive, dragon-like bat-thing for a boss battle that sadly loses much of her visual appeal. The mutated Dimitrescu will stomp, charge, and try to eat you on the castle rooftop. Luckily, there are lots of resources on hand and her head is wide open for your shotgun blasts. When she flies into the distance, you can use the sniper rifle to shoot her down, repeating this process even as she forces you to take refuge higher up.

There are some unique elements to the bosses, though the later ones lack the iconography of earlier foes.

Donna Beneviento prefers to toy with you than take you on directly; her game of hide and seek will increasingly freak you out as the lights flicker and go out, the environment changes, and a massive, slug-like foetus thing lumbers down the narrow hallways of her doll’s house. To defeat her, you’ll need to track her doll, Angie, three times, ending her threat in a cutscene. This intense, genuinely creepy encounter is juxtaposed by the battle against the mutated Moreau, who transforms into a monstrous aquatic creature that lumbers around a drained lake, spitting and raining acid and thrashing its tail at you. Fortunately, there’s a lot of convenient cover to avoid damage and Moreau pops out to taunt you, allowing you to blast at him, though he’s certainly not an easy target despite his size. In Heinsberg’s factory, you’ll constantly run from Sturm, an armour-clad brute with a propeller mounted to his head! When you eventually battle him, it’s a tense affair as he crashes through walls and shoots flame bursts as you desperately try to hit the vent on his back. Heinsberg proves one of the more formidable of Mother Miranda’s lieutenants purely because of his mental control of metal, which allows him to constantly get the drop on you throughout the game. When Ethan finally reaches him, he’ll construct a massive, spider-like form for himself out of scrap metal, forcing Ethan to man a tank gifted to him by Chris. This made for a fun, action-packed battle where you fire a massive cannon and machine gun at Heinsberg’s glowing weak spots, until Heinsberg destroys your tank. Then, you frantically run around looking for ammo to blast him in the face until he whips you up in a tornado, which allows you to fire one last shot from the tank’s cannon and finish him off.

Alongside also battling Mother Miranda, Rose has her own boss battles to contend with.

With all of her lieutenants defeated, Mother Miranda attacks the village with tentacles and tree-like constructs of Mold, forcing you into a final confrontation that is easily the toughest of the game. Even with the Duke stationed nearby and some resources appearing in the enclosed arena, this is an uphill battle as Mother Miranda causes Mold to burst from the ground, quickly dashes about and swipes at you, traps you in pitch black and attacks in the blink of an eye, and spews lava and fireballs to whittle you down. Your best defense is a good offense; blast at her with everything you have, taking cover when you can and crafting as need be, until a scripted event is triggered, which requires you to hit RT to cut yourself free and finish her off. Well, not entirely, as you’ll fight her again at the conclusion of the “Shadow of Rose” DLC story. Although Mother Miranda has a similar attack pattern, your strategy for defeating her is very different as Rose must absorb her projectiles with LB and then press towards and B to unleash a Mold attack that stuns Mother Miranda long enough for you to blast her. She also goes into a full-blown rampage as a gigantic Mold beast, requiring you to make liberal use of the dodge and a final power boost from Ethan to dispel her for good. Before Rose fights her, though, she’ll have to contend with the troll-like Amalgam, a grotesque beast who relentlessly pursues you before you face it in an enclosed dungeon, where it freely teleports around, summons minions, and spawns weak spots on different parts of its body. Rose has her own terrifying adventure in Beneviento as well, first fleeing from unsettling animated mannequins, then avoiding killer dolls (while shrunk down), before finally facing the vengeful spirit of Eveline in a psychic battle that sees you avoiding being blasted and corrosive Mold, and blasting the embittered wraith when she’s exhausted from hrr enraged attack.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As you explore high and low, you’ll find a bunch of treasures, ammo, items, and pick-ups scattered around. In Resident Evil Village, a herb is useless unless combined with chem fluid, so you’ll be relying on the crafting system to restore your health, unless you happen upon ready to use restoring items. Gunpowder is similarly used to craft ammo, though you’ll also find these in crates and drawers and such. You can also purchase these from the Duke, though his prices increase as the game progresses and he can even sell out of ammo and healing items. Generally, you’ll be gifted or will find your main weapons, such as the handgun and shotgun, as well as a few explosives, like throwable pipe bombs or proximity mines you can lay to take out groups of enemies. However, you can buy additional weapons from the Duke; the selection is nothing you haven’t seen in previous Resident Evil titles, including machine guns, a grenade launcher, and a magnum revolver, with upgrades available for most, and a knife for when all else fails. Ethan can utilise Chris’s weapons, and others, when you beat the game on other difficulty settings and accumulate points playing “The Mercenaries”, but things really take a twist when playing the “Shadow of Rose” story. Rose has some additional superhuman abilities that are unlocked as you play. When you find special flasks, Rose gains a meter that allows her to use RB to destroy Mold cores, opening new areas, and briefly freeze enemies, with this meter expanded by flasks and refilled with the new White Sage item. As a trade-off, Rose can’t use healing items with RB and has no need for Lei or the Duke’s services (he takes on a mysterious antagonistic role instead), but she can expend her meter with RB when grabbed to escape an enemy’s attack.  

Additional Features:
There are forty-nine Achievements up for grabs in Resident Evil Village, with a further seven included in the “Winters’ Expansion” DLC that’s included with this Gold Edition, bringing the total to fifty-six. You’ll get Achievements for finishing the game, and “Shadow of Rose”, on each difficulty setting, defeating the game’s bosses and reaching story-specific sections, and for simple stuff like using a lockpick, entering Photo Mode, and killing a wild animal. Other Achievements pop when you defeat three enemies with one attack, take down Uriaș early on, equip add-ons and upgrade your weapons, and far more tedious tasks, such as breaking every window in Castle Dimitrescu and opening every outhouse in the village. As you explore, you may come across little wooden goats that should be destroyed for additional Achievements. You’ll also get another Achievement for having 777, 7,777, or 77,777 Lei, using only a knife, or finishing the game in under three hours and/or with four or less recovery items.

Complete challenges, play Rose’s epilogue, or put your skills to the test in “The Mercenaries”.

Some of the Achievements align with the list of in-game challenges you can work through to earn Completion Points (CP). CP is spent in the ‘Bonuses’ menu to purchase new weapons, infinite ammo, concept art, and character models in the form of figurines. You can also acquire CP by playing “The Mercenaries”, a Resident Evil staple that sees you playing as either Ethan or Chris (plus Lady Dimitrescu and Heinsberg once you unlock them), each with different attributes and weapons, and clearing out all enemies across various maps. You’re working against a time limit here, so you must be quick and accurate and use the hourglasses to extend your time. You can also buff yourself and your weapons with power-up stations found on each map, which offer additional health or greater accuracy with specific weapons. It’s a fun little side-game, though you’ll need to have your wits about you as you’ll only unlock new maps and gain the best awards with an A-rank or more. Finally, you can play tilting ball games, hunt down rare treasure and wild beasts, and find the game’s files to go for 100% completion, which requires additional playthroughs and possibly multiple save files in case you miss stuff you can’t go back for, in addition to the “Shadow of Rose” epilogue. This sees you returning to some of the game’s key areas, now warped and nightmarish, as Rose follows a mysterious disembodied voice to rid herself of her strange powers. It’s a fun extra few hours of gameplay that’s spiced up just enough with her extra abilities, a few new and rearranged areas (including the super creepy mannequin section), and some new bosses and twists on existing enemies.

The Summary:
I put off Resident Evil Village for some time, specifically because I was waiting for this Gold Edition of the game so I could experience the entire thing in one go. Although I didn’t mind the jump to first-person horror, I immediately switched the game to third-person as that’s my preference and I feel this suits the game and its action much more. The immersion felt by first-person is outweighed by the frustration of never being able to see all around you, so the third-person option was a godsend for me. Gameplay-wise, there’s not much you haven’t seen from Resident Evil before here; everything is suitably creepy, tense, and incredibly well put together, with a fantastic level of grimy and gruesome detail given to the game’s environments. I was surprised by how much I came to enjoy revisiting the village; it’s not the most engaging hub world and I sometimes felt the narrative was a little too mission-based at times, but it changed enough to hold my attention and I liked how each area offered different gameplay challenges. It’s true, however, that the game peaks quite early; Castle Dimitrescu and House Beneviento were the most engaging areas of the game for me, and neither Moreau or Heisenberg had the same visual appeal or creep factor as Lady Dimitrescu and Angie, which was a shame. It was equally disappointing how often the antagonists degenerated into monstrous abominations; I know it’s a “thing” in Resident Evil, but I don’t think Lady Dimitrescu or Heisenberg needed transformations to be interesting or scary. Still, there’s a lot to enjoy here; Ethan, while still bland, is far more interesting this time around with his heartfelt desire to rescue his baby girl, and the franchise continues to evolve its story, even if the direction it’s going down is becoming increasingly bizarre. Best of all, there are plenty of reasons to come back to this one for additional playthroughs. The addition of playable antagonists to “The Mercenaries” is a goal to reach for, and the game itself a fun distraction from the main story, which was as gruesome and disgusting as we’ve come to expect from this long-running franchise.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

What did you think to Resident Evil Village? Did you buy the game upon release, or did you wait for this Gold Edition, like me? Are you a fan of Ethan Winters and, if so, what did you think to his character progression? Which of the game’s areas and bosses was your favourite and what did you think to the new enemies on offer? Did you ever beat the “Village of Shadows” difficulty and find all those goats? Which Resident Evil game is your favourite and where would you like to see the franchise go next? Whatever your thoughts on Resident Evil, drop a comment below and be sure to check out my other Resident Evil content across the site.

Game Corner: Doom 3 (Xbox Series X)

Dr. K2 Comments

Released: 4 August 2020 
Originally Released: 3 August 2004
Developer: id Software 
Also Available For: Nintendo Switch, Nvidia Shield, PC/Mac, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One

The Background:
Although the first-person shooter (FPS) genre existed before Doom (ibid, 1993), it was definitely popularised by the online “Deathmatches” featured in this heavily ported and much celebrated title. Despite its controversial violence and Satanic imagery, Doom was so popular that it was banned from workplaces, met with widespread critical acclaim. and followed by a sequel just ten months later. Bigger and faster than the original, Doom II (ibid, 1994) was equally successful despite being a glorified expansion and was followed by numerous expansion packs, but it would take ten years for gamers to get their hands on a third entry. This was partially due to concerns within id Software that the company was too reliant upon their existing franchises. However, the success of Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Various, 2001) saw development of Doom 3 begin in earnest. Pitched as a reboot of the franchise, Doom 3 was always planned to be a more story-focused title, one that took advantage of then-modern technology to bring the concept to life. This included utilising dynamic lighting to create ambiance and realistic shadows in the game’s environments and increasing the focus on interacting with said environments, This contributed to Doom 3’s critical success; the game became id Software’s best-selling title at the time and proved a big hit for its claustrophobic atmosphere and gore-infested combat, despite some repetitive gameplay loops. Eight months after its release, it was followed by the Resurrection of Evil expansion pack that added twelve new missions alongside new weapons and enemies and with positively received, with the additional Lost Mission campaign added when it was re-released in the BFG Edition (id Software, 2012). All of this additional content was also included alongside the game, its predecessors, and the 2016 reboot in the Slayers Collection, a nifty compilation release that I played for this review.

The Plot:
In the year 2145, the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) conducts groundbreaking teleportation research on their Mars facility under the direction of Doctor Malcolm Betruger. However, when their experiments open a portal to Hell and unleash a horde of demons throughout the facility, it’s up to one lone Marine to fend off the demonic forces and seal the Hellmouth. 

Gameplay:
Like its predecessors, Doom 3 is a third-person shooter in which you take control of an unnamed space marine and blast seven kinds of shit out of the hordes of Hell on a futuristic Mars facility. However, given the huge gap between Doom II and Doom 3, many things have changed, primarily the fact that you can now utilise two control sticks for a greater range of movement, bringing the Doom franchise more in-line with what we now consider to be a modern FPS. One holdover I am grateful for is that the Marine can hold multiple weapons at once. You can fire these with the Right Trigger, cycle through them with the Left and Right Bumper (or use the inventory menu, though this won’t pause the game so you’ll still be vulnerable), manually reload them with X (yes, weapons now need to be reloaded), and select certain weapons (your bare fists, grenades, and others) using the directional pad. The Marine can also duck if you press in the right stick, temporarily run by pressing in the left stick (there’s a stamina meter on the heads-up display (HUD) that automatically refills), jump with A, and interact with the environment and non-playable characters (NPCs) with Y. There are also options to switch to a “Southpaw” playstyle, swap the jump and interact functions, toggle aim assist (though I recommend having it on), and toggle whether you automatically switch to newly acquired weapons or not. 

Unlike the previous games, Doom 3 has a strong survival/horror element to it.

Doom 3’s biggest change to the series is its course correction towards survival/horror. 90% of the game’s environments are dark, moody, claustrophobic, and full of poor or malfunctioning lighting, meaning you’re heavily reliant upon your torch (or “flashlight”). In the original release of the game, you had to pick between using the flashlight or using a weapon, a bizarre and ridiculous system that’s thankfully corrected here, though the flashlight can’t be used indefinitely as it’s tied to a cool-down meter. You can whip it out with the Left Trigger to light up areas, which is essential to finding your way around Doom 3’s many horrific, wrecked, and samey environments, and you’ll need to keep an eye on the meter so you’re not left being attacked in the dark. Another new mechanic is the Marine’s occasional jaunts out onto the Mars surface. In these brief sections, you’ll run and hop around, blasting enemies and collecting air cannisters to keep from suffocating before you reach the next airlock. These sections help to break up the monotony of the game and connect the many large military complexes of the UAC facility, but they’re sadly not utilised as often as I’d like or in massively interesting ways. You’ll need to turn to the Dead Space franchise (Various, 2008 to present) for more in-depth space and zero gravity gameplay. Although Doom 3 eschews the classic Doom mechanics of searching for coloured keys or artifacts to open doors, you’ll still be searching for key cards and access codes to download to your Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) to access new areas. You can bring up the PDA using the ‘View’ button; from here, you can switch weapons and read e-mails and listen to audio logs that help flesh out the game’s lore, provide hints, or give you codes open storage lockers for ammo and resources. 

Hazardous and demonic elements are as commonplace as health and resources.

Unlike in previous Doom games, there’s no map system in Doom 3. This isn’t a massive issue as the game is fairly linear, but it can be difficult to find your way around as a lot of the areas look the same and it can get quite dark so it can be tricky to spot doors, vents, and stairways. There’s also no compass system, so you better pay attention when the story objectives pop-up onscreen and NPCs tell you where to go (especially as there’s no way to remind yourself of either of these). Luckily, one easy way to know that you’re going in the eight direction is if enemies appear before you. These either shamble or pounce from the darkness or hidden cubbyholes or literally teleport in in a flash of lightning and demonic chanting. Whichever campaign you choose to begin here, you’ll start with only your fists or a pistol and have to acquire new weapons along the way. Ammo is dropped by gun-toting zombies, found in lockers, on eviscerated bodies, and scattered all around the environment, as are Med Kits, various armour, and healing stations used to top up your health until they’re depleted. Saving is a manual process, as ever, and I recommend making regular saves once you’ve cleared out a room or stocked up on health and ammo as it doesn’t take much to whittle your health and armour down to nothing. Environmental hazards like fire, high (or endless) drops, and flaming Hellpits are commonplace, and it can be easy to miss a jump during the game’s tricky platforming sections and plummet to your death. You’ll also need to be on the lookout for ladders, teleportation devices or rips in the fabric of reality, and elevators to take you to new locations, laboratories, or even the depths of Hell itself. There’s some light puzzle-solving present in Doom 3 that usually, involves a series of fetch quests as NPCs send you after key cards, access codes, or various power cells to open up new areas. Other times, you’ll be powering up or down reactors, security measures, and other futuristic equipment to progress, extending bridges and activating and riding monorails and moving platforms to traverse the sprawling facility.  

There are some minor, repetitive puzzles here, and helpful Sentry Bots to assist you.

You’ll also be activating cranes and grabbers to clear out toxic waste, deactivating gun turrets, extinguishing fires, and can even use security cameras to check out areas you’re heading to. Sometimes, you’ll be forced to fight off waves of enemies while waiting for lifts or other machinery to power-up, but mostly you’ll be skulking around every corner expecting a demon to pounce in your face. Thankfully, you can use exploding and flammable barriers to even the odds and there are many times when you’re accompanied by (or, more accurately, have to follow) a spider-like Sentry Bot to a new area. These scuttling little robots will urge you onwards and rain fire upon any enemies that appear before them, which is super helpful. Unfortunately, they’re not indestructible or infallible, so you’ll still have to keep your wits about you and make an effort to cover them to increase your chances of survival. Although Doom 3 is nowhere near as confusing or maze-like as its predecessors, it walks a fine line between action-orientated gameplay and ominous exploration. Whenever you enter an area that seems quiet and invites exploration, be sure to keep your finger ready over the trigger as it’s normal for enemies to pop out or teleport in and ruin your day. These aspects come to a head whenever you venture into Hell, where resources are limited and enemies come thick and fast, or when you explore the more desolate areas of the facility where even the health stations have been rendered inoperable. There are three difficulty settings available at the start of the game, with a fourth unlocked through gameplay, so don’t be ashamed to dial the difficulty down if you’re having trouble as Doom 3 is quite a tough and harrowing experience that basically sees you fighting to survive from one room to the next thanks to enemies constantly appearing all around you. 

Graphics and Sound:
Compared to its predecessors, Doom 3 is a quantum leap ahead. It’s astounding to think that the Doom series missed out on the early, polygonal 3D graphics era but it really benefits the presentation of this game as the last time we played a Doom game, everything was cleverly designed 2D textures rather than 3D graphics. In this regard, the game looks amazing. Areas are dark, desolate, and constantly foreboding; bodies, blood, ominous messages, and even oozing tentacles litter many of the game’s environments, especially as you venture closure to Hell. Pentagrams, candles, runes, sacrifices, and bloodbaths are commonplace, as are jump scares from bodies or enemies falling from ceilings or bursting from vents. Occasionally, you’ll be beset by demonic visions; the screen turns red and hazy, the demonic chanting intensifies, and you’ll even endure some poltergeist activity as furniture and bodies and wildly tossed around. Mostly, you’ll be exploring claustrophobic, futuristic corridors in low lighting. Doors will jam, machinery sparks and stutters with static, and voices come over the speakers to either direct or taunt you or create an unsettling ambiance. Sometimes, the environment will collapse around you as you cause meltdowns and explosions. Other times, you’ll be warped through a Hellmouth to the Malebolge itself. Even relatively normal looking areas quickly turn to shit as demons teleport in, the power goes out, or Hell’s influence seeps in. 

While samey at times, the environments are beautifully (and gruesomely) presented.

Unfortunately, many of these areas are extremely repetitive. You’ll travel through so many laboratories, industrial areas, warehouses, and offices that it’s easy to get bored of the aesthetic. Sure, these are often shaken up by gore, bodies, or flickering lights but it’s still the same assets being recycled again and again, which doesn’t help make each area all that distinctive. Sometimes you’ll see space or the surface of Mars out of windows, which adds a lot of scope to the game, but it’s usually painfully obvious when the game is masking loading times behind elevators and airlocks and other such doors. Your trips onto the Mars surface really help to break up this monotony, as do your ventures into Hell, which is a desolate, volcanic wasteland full of elaborate gothic ruins, castles, and titanic demonic skeletons, but sadly these sections don’t appear that often or are mainly saved for the finale, respectively. I would’ve liked to see you doing more on the surface, maybe acquire a more permanent upgrade to allow you to survive the vacuum for longer. As it is all you really do is move across the rocks or gantries to an airlock, occasionally activating consoles and such. In Hell, you mainly just explore the shifting stone architecture and fend off waves of powerful demons. There are no keys or puzzles to solve, it’s just a fight for survival, and thus, the majority of the action takes place in the UAC facility. While there are some fun distractions and elements, like arcade machines, various stages of disrepair and slaughter, and elaborate sights like the teleports, industrial lasers, and the like, it all gets very old very quickly and I found myself rushing through and making mistakes as a result. 

There’s a lot of emphasis on story and ghastly demonic creatures.

Doom 3 uses the power of its new graphical engine to greatly expand upon the narrative aspects of the series. Serving as a gritty, overbearingly serious reboot, the tense gameplay is broken up by unskippable cutscenes and overblown conversations with NPCs who beg for your help or threaten your life. Even your character (who I hesitate to call the “Doomguy”) is quite chatty throughout the game, though he has lost a lot of the charm of his predecessor as he just looks like a generic Jarhead, something not helped by the lack of a traditional Doom HUD. It also doesn’t help that the human character models are painfully stiff; while the voice acting is suitably over the top, the characters have that same plastic, action-figure-like look to them that dogged many games during this time. Thankfully, the enemies make up for this; enemies from previous Doom games have been given a gruesome makeover, appearing bloodier and more horrific than ever. You’ll see blood and gouges formed in their skin from your bullets, bodies bursting into flames and disintegrating into skeletal dust upon defeat, and even exploding into bloody chunks if you use the right weapons. I enjoyed the parts when enemies would teleport in and burst from the shadows, as frustrating as these aspects were, and the overall look of the environments despite how samey they could get, though the game’s soundtrack leaves a lot to be desired. While I appreciate it relying on ambient noise and ominous sounds of enemies, I miss the hard-rock infused tunes of the previous games. 

Enemies and Bosses:
Many classic Doom enemies make a ghastly reappearance in Doom 3, now more terrifying and gruesome than ever. You’ve got regular cannon fodder such as slow moving, moaning zombies who swipe at you (either with their hands or wrenches) and try to bite you, flaming and emaciated variants, and gun-toting bastards who hide behind cover or riot shields and can whittle your health down from afar. Also on the smaller end of things, spider-like Ticks and Trites will scuttle down webs or out from vents to swarm you, fairy-like Cherubs buzz about in your face, and those damn Lost Souls and Forgotten Ones will fly right at you from out of nowhere. Once all Hell (literally) breaks loose, you’ll be bombarded will all manner of demonic forces. The standard Hell grunt are the Imps who pounce at you and toss fireballs at your face, quadrupedal two-headed Maggots who rush at you, and bat-like Wraiths who can teleport about the place. You’ll also contend with bulbous Cacodemons, chainsaw- and Gatling gun-wielding zombies, and a brutish Commando variant who charges at you with a tentacle-like arm. You’ll initially be introduced to many of the more monstrous enemies in the form of a sub-boss battle. Demons like the Pinkies and Vulgars are given short cutscenes and enclosed areas in which you fight them before they pop up at random and in the worst places.  

Larger, horrific demons offer the greatest challenge ad require more than just endless shooting.

The massive, dog-like Pinkies charge at you, biting and slobbering, and seem threatening at first until you blast them point-blank with a shotgun. Resurrection of Evil’s Vulgars can also be formidable until you use the Grabber to reflect their projectiles back at time. Additionally, you’ll often run into the screaming Revenants; these skeletal demons fire rockets and can make your day go downhill fast when they appear alongside more melee-based demons. Be sure to prioritise Arch-Viles; while they can’t heal enemies like before, they can summon flames and even Hell Knights, making them a real pain in the ass. Also, keep your distance whenever a Bruiser or Mancubus appears; these huge demons blast at you with their massive cannons so hang back and use your rocket launcher, strafe around them with your Plasma Gun or Chaingun, or utilise the “bullet time” features of the Artifact when playing Resurrection of Evil. There are four bosses to face in Doom 3, with six more appearing in Resurrection of Evil and two being recycled for The Lost Mission. The first is the spider-like Vagary who scuttles about, slashes you, and tosses objects with telekinesis, but she’s simple to take down if you strafe and unload with the Chaingun. You’ll battle two Vagary’s at the end of the game and another in The Lost Missions; in this latter fight, she can’t use her telekinesis but is accompanied by Cherubs, but the arena is much bigger, making this fight even easier. Before you visit Hell, you’ll have to face two Hell Knights at once in a very claustrophobic area; because of the tight quarters, it can be difficult strafing and dodging their stomps and fireballs, and especially dangerous if using explosive weapons, meaning later encounters with these enemies are usually much easier. To escape Hell the first time, you’ll have to defeat the Guardian of Hell, a large crocodilian-type beast who stomps about trying to bite you and rains fireballs. It’s blind, so it sends out “Seekers” to pinpoint your location and destroying these is the only way to expose the Guardian’s weak spot, a blue sphere over its head. When you battle it again in The Lost Mission, it is no longer blind, doesn’t use the Seekers, and can be damaged more conventionally but is also a lot tougher than before. 

The massive, aggressive final bosses will test your skills with the game’s mechanics,

Fittingly, the bosses really ramp up at the end game. Sabaoth (the Marine’s demonically transformed superior officer) attacks you in the Primary Server Bank, his legs mutated into tank-like treads and his torso sporting heavy armaments such as the BFG9000! Thankfully, your victory over the Guardian of Hell awards you with the Soul Cube, which is crucial for defeating Sabaoth and his successor, the Cyberdemon. Sabaoth also makes use of four pillars, electrifying them (and you, if you’re close by) but he’s also slow and predictable so you can use the Soul Cube to deal massive damage to him. Blast his BFG shots before they can hurt you (the closer to him the better), and unload with your Chaingun or Plasma Gun to end him. The semi-cybernetic, minotaur-like Cyberdemon is an entirely different beast. Fought around a Hellmouth and assisted by infinite lesser demons, this brute unloads with its arm-mounted rocket launcher and can only be harmed, and killed, by you charging up and unleashing the Soul Cube four times, making this a gruelling bout at times. When playing Resurrection of Evil, you’ll need to defeat four demonic Hunters to acquire new abilities for the Artifact: the Helltime Hunter blasts about in flaming bursts and tosses fireballs that you must reflect back with the Grabber as this is the only way to hurt it. The Berserk Hunter leaps at you with slashes and spits fireballs and can only be damaged by targeting the beating heart in its chest, and you’ll need to open up and destroy four power cores to disable the Invulnerability Hunter’s shield, avoiding its electrical shockwaves and attacks. Resurrection of Evil concludes with a final showdown with Dr. Betruger, now transformed into a demonic bat, in what was the toughest fight of the game for me. This bastard flies around, blasts flames across the ground, rains fireballs and flaming meteors, and is both fast, extremely difficult to hit, and incredibly durable. A lack of ammo and health items and a fatal drop add to the difficulty, though you can use the Artifact to get a better lock on with your BFG before the fight abruptly and anti-climatically ends in a cutscene. 

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
It pays to explore every room, nook, and cranny when playing Doom 3. Be sure to crouch through vents and under stairs and tables to search out Med-Kits, armour shards, and ammo and check every desk and body for PDAs and other resources. Computer terminals and e-mails (and handy online guides) will provide locker codes and access to resource caches, which are invaluable at times, and be sure to make strategic use of any healing stations dotted about the place. As you explore and play, many familiar Doom weapons will become available to you, including the standards pistol, the always enjoyable chainsaw, and my personal favourite, the shotgun. Automatic weapons like the Machine Gun, Chaingun, and Plasma Gun are great for unloading on enemies, but you must factor in charge up and reload time, so be sure to make use of cover or quiet spots to reload. 

Classic Doom weapons get an overhaul and are joined by some weird, hell-spawned armamants.

You can also utilise grenades, a handy-dandy rocket launcher, and the series staple, the ultra-powerful BFG9000, but take care as these can often explode in your face if you’re not careful! When playing Resurrection of Evil and The Lost Missions, you’ll also get to use the Super Shotgun, a far more powerful version that fires two shots at once but takes twice as long to reload, and the Grabber, a gun-like appendage that can snag objects (even enemy projectiles) and blast them at enemies. It’s a clunky bit of kit that’s sadly underutilised andz while I’m glad there aren’t loads of annoying physics-based puzzles that use it, it does feel like a superfluous inclusion, unlike Resurrection of Evil’s other new mechanic, the Artefact. This beating Hell Heart is charged using human souls and allows you to slow down time, strengthen your attacks with a brief “Beserek” mode, and temporarily become invincible. Similarly, in the main game, you can charge up the Soul Cube by defeating enemies; when unleashed, it passes through all objects and instantly kills most enemies, restoring your health in the process. Finally, various armours boost your resistance to attacks, ammo belts and backpacks boost your ammo and you can temporarily buff yourself with various one-use items. Adrenaline affords you infinite stamina, Beserker renders you invulnerable and triples your attack power, while you can also make yourself invisible and invulnerable in multiplayer.  

Additional Features:
There are forty-five Achievements up for grabs in Doom 3, with many of them earned simply by completing the main campaign. You’ll get an Achievement for defeating each boss, for example, and for finishing the game on each difficulty setting (these stack, too, so you can earn multiple Achievements in one playthrough if you’re good enough). You’ll also get Achievements for earning a high score on the arcade machine, having two demons fight each other, acquiring the BFG9000, finding hidden secrets, defeating certain enemies with certain weapons, and finishing the game in ten hours or less. Interestingly, considering Doom pioneered multiplayer Deathmatches, there are no Achievements tied to the game’s multiplayer component, which allows you and you friends to go head-to-head on various game maps in traditional Deathmatches, tournaments, last man standing, and team-based campaigns. Scattered throughout each campaign are PDAs and lockers, all of which need to be found and accessed for Achievements. There’s no level select or New Game+ feature here, though, so you’ll need to make multiple saves or have a guide handy if you want to avoid replaying entire sections. In addition to the main campaign, you can play the two DLC campaigns, Resurrection of Evil and The Lost Mission, right off the bat; both recycle enemies and environments from the main game but introduce new elements, such as the Grabber, Artifact, and Vulgars, in addition to concluding the main story by including a showdown with Dr. Betruger. 

The Summary:
I’d been putting off Doom 3 for a long time. I first played it in the BFG Edition on PlayStation 3 but was put off by the claustrophobic environments, low lighting, and tense, frustrating combat mechanics. These elements remain nagging concerns in Doom 3; I never felt like I could relax or really enjoy myself as enemies would pop up or swarm at a moment’s notice and drain my health and ammo, meaning I was constantly on edge and became aggravated at being forced to kill more and more demons as they kept teleporting in. However, as a fan of the series and survival/horror games, it’s true that this sense of constant dread, worry, and anticipation about what lurks behind every door and around every corridor really added to the horror vibe of the game, and was surely the intention. It’s just a very different gameplay experience to the more straight-forward nature of the original games and more horror-themed FPS titles, so I recognise that this is very much a “me” problem rather than a fault of the game, which wants you to always feel endangered. The game plays well; gunplay is satisfying, and the gruesome aesthetic is truly macabre. I just wish it was more prevalent; there are only so many futuristic hallways and laboratories I can skulk down before I get bored, so I would’ve liked to see more blood, more of Mars, and more Hell-based locations sprinkled throughout the game. Having said that, the environments look amazing; the lighting (or lack thereof) and graphics do the game justice here, it’s just a shame that doesn’t translate to the human character models. I’m glad the game wasn’t a confusing labyrinth, but I did get turned around a bit without a map or compass and because of the samey environments and I felt the constant fetch quests dragged the pacing down a bit. When you’re fully armed and engaged with the game’s horrific enemies, Doom 3 shines. I loved the sense of dread and how formidable the enemies were, and the scale of the bosses, I just think a better balance between survival/horror, action, and puzzle solving was needed. Ultimately, it’s a decent enough game; a little too much like a bland FPS at times thanks to the gritty, military aesthetic but easily the most graphically impressive Doom for its time. However, I can’t say that I will throw it on for a quick burst of action like I do the originals as this is a game that insists upon your time and energy. 

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Did you enjoy Doom 3? Did you think it was toomuch of a departure from the original games? Did you find the environments too repetitive? What did you think to the new looks for the demons and the new weapons? Were you glad that the gamewas changed to allow simultaneous use of the flashlight? Which boss was your favourite to fight, and would you have referred to see more of Hell? Whatever your thoughts on Doom 3, or FPS games in general, drop a comment below or let me know on my social media.

Game Corner: Terminator Salvation (Xbox 360)

Dr. K3 Comments

Released: 19 May 2009
Developer: Grin
Also Available For: Mobile, PC, and PlayStation 3

The Background:
The Terminator franchise (Various, 1984 to 2019) has quite the history with videogame adaptations. Every film in the franchise has been adapted to at least one videogame over the years and the murderous cyborg even matched wits with RoboCop (Verhoeven, 1987) back in the day. Despite the mixed reviews that accompanied Terminator Salvation (McG, 2009), the Halcyon Company turned to developers Grin to produce a tie-in videogame, one whose in-game assets and engine were used to produce a prequel miniseries. Much like the movie upon which it was based, Terminator Salvation was met with mixed reviews that criticised the repetitive combat and lack of replay value and the game was generally seen as a disappointment considering the vast potential offered by its cover-based shooting mechanics.

The Plot:
Years after Judgment Day, John Connor leads Resistance soldiers on a dangerous rescue mission that sees them storming one of Skynet’s main bases and encountering their most dangerous creations: The Terminators!

Gameplay:
Terminator Salvation is a third-person shooter that can be played alone or alongside another player in co-op. When playing alone, AI-controlled allies will provide cover fire and even a bit of ammo every now and then to help fend off the machines, though you’re unable to issue them with orders or change your playable character. The game’s controls are similar to many other similar shooters of the time, and even now: the Left Trigger lets you aim or peek out from cover, the Right Trigger fires your current weapon, and the Right Bumper tosses a grenade or pipe bomb. You can switch weapons with B; holding the button gives you access to a limited weapon wheel where you can switch to different firearms and bombs, but you can only carry two guns at a time. You can pick up new weapons Y, which also focuses the camera on certain objectives or points of interest and gives you control of nearby turrets. X lets you reload, you can review your objectives by pressing the ‘Back’ button, and you can snap to, from, or dash between cover using A and the left stick. Anything from cars, columns, partial walls, and metal barriers can be used as effective cover. You can quite efficiently fire blindly from behind cover and dash between cover to avoid incoming fire, but some enemies can simply come around whatever you’re hiding behind and murder you on the spot.

Use cover and your partners to take on Skynet’s repetitive forces with some mediocre weapons.

The game’s narrative is told over nine chapters, each of which sees you navigating the war-torn remnants of downtown Los Angeles, various dilapidated buildings and sewers, and infiltrating the ominous factories of Skynet. However, your mission objectives and the basic structure of each chapter is painfully tedious and predictable: you’ll explore a path so linear that there’s no onscreen map required, following your allies to open or enclosed areas where you’ll be ambushed by T-7-T machines and drone-like Aerostats (referred to as “Spiders” and “Wasps”, respectively). You’ll be forced to take cover, or go up stairs to take the high ground, and clear out waves of these enemies, flanking the Spiders to target the battery packs on their backs and opening fire when your aiming reticule turns red so you know you’re dealing maximum damage. Unlike many games where you’re accompanied by AI partners, Terminator Salvation’s AI is almost too good; there were many times when I simply stayed behind cover and waited out the fracas as my AI companions destroyed all nearby enemies. This was surprisingly effective, though not the most enjoyable gameplay experience; it’s great that your partners can’t be killed and will so helpfully destroy incoming enemies, but it can make you superfluous or leave you sitting and waiting for battles to end as you’re out of ammo or close to death. Your health will only be refilled after a battle has been won, but you can recover a bit of health if you avoid incoming fire for a time; unfortunately unlike other third-person shooters with this mechanic, this can take a long time. I don’t know if this was because I was playing on “Hard”, but my health would take ages to recover in these situations, meaning it was usually better just to let myself be killed so I could try again. In co-op mode, you can revive and be revived by your partner to continue the fight, but this doesn’t happen when playing solo. However, there are a decent number of checkpoints in the game, which can be helpful, though it quickly becomes tedious having to go through the same fights again and again with little reward. Occasionally, you’ll be tasked with protecting Barnes as he sets explosive charges but there isn’t actually any danger of him being killed so this is just another case of battling against waves of machines. Similarly, there’s a cool section near the end where you have to pass through a suburban area on the way to Skynet’s control centre. T-600s and “Skin Jobs” patrol the buildings and grounds, which seems to encourage a stealthy approach but, no, you just take cover behind cars and walls and blast at them until they explode and disappear into the ground like always.

A few rail-shooting and first-person sequences break up the gameplay, but can be frustrating.

Thankfully, it’s not all cover and shooting in Terminator Salvation. In addition to being pinned down, caught in crossfires, or being relentlessly hounded by the T-600s, you can man turrets to blast Spiders and Wasps (though you need to be good with your accuracy as this leaves you completely vulnerable), must run away from pursuing T-600s, and your objectives generally include reaching evacuation sites, finding survivors in the wastelands, and fending off attacks from the machines in open and enclosed areas alongside allies and with weapon caches nearby. Gameplay is broken up further by a handful of rail-shooting stages; in these, you’ll man a gun on the back of a truck or wield a rocket launcher with infinite ammo on the back of a speeding subway train and fire at incoming Wasps, Moto-Terminators, and Hunter-Killers (HKs). Sometimes you’ll need to protect an ally in a truck or a school bus but, while these sections aren’t very long, they can be extremely frustrating and are far from enjoyable. You have no options for cover and no way to regain your health, and enemies can be tough to hit since they’re very small and nimble. Your AI companion is also far less useful in these sections, and you have to endure the annoyance of your gun overheating if you hold the trigger down for too long. Thankfully, these sections aren’t very long and they can be fun when you’re just blasting at HKs, but they were one of the most aggravating parts of the game. Later, you’ll control a gigantic HK Tank; here, the game switches to a first-person perspective and employs the red Terminator vision as you automatically stomp across the devastated landscape using LT and RT and RB and LB to fire your gatling guns and missiles at machines and anti-aircraft turrets. Unfortunately, this is also quite a clunky and frustrating section; checkpoints are plentiful, and your health will refill, but the weapon charge time is a joke and you have no way to avoid being blasted by enemies since you can’t move or dodge, so you need to fire quickly and accurately to get past each section without being blown to pieces.

Graphics and Sound:  
Terminator Salvation is a bit of a mixed bag in terms of presentation. On the one hand, the environments look pretty good; I liked how the streets are littered with cars, debris, burning planes, and the fallout of all-out nuclear war. Buildings are partially destroyed and full of disused furniture; they’re overgrown with vegetation, and everything has a very bleak and ominous feel to it. Like the source material, much of Terminator Salvation’s action takes place in the daytime; if you stop and think about it, it doesn’t make much sense for the world to be in this state considering it was subjected to nuclear war and there’s a disappointing lack of skulls and bodies strewn about the place, but the general presentation works pretty well. When you’re inside, things become suitably claustrophobic and you’ll have to endure stages set inside dilapidated buildings, sewers, and subway tunnels; nothing massively out of the ordinary, but still in keeping with the Terminator theme. The subway actually makes for a really fun and depressing location; the survivors huddled there have built a pitiable shelter from abandoned subway cars and it really speaks to the desperation felt by the rag-tag survivors. The game’s final stage takes place in one of Skynet’s facilities, an industrial factory where they build their machines. These sections more accurately evoke the dark, desolate Future War seen in the first two movies, and there’s even a cool part when John sets of an electromagnetic pulse and you dash past incapacitated T-600 endoskeletons.

The machines and environments are better than the character models, but it’s a very basic presentation.

While the in-game music generally isn’t anything to shout about, it impresses when the classic Terminator theme kicks in when you complete objectives or to bolster bigger, tougher battles. The T-600 encounters are often accompanied by the ominous T-1000 theme, which I really enjoyed, and the machines themselves are a particular highlight of the game’s presentation. While their intelligence is often questionable (they’re either laughably incompetent or annoyingly relentless), the machines impress when they appear. Spiders scuttle through the ruins, T-600s burst through walls and doors guns blazing, there’s a definite sense of dread every time a HK flies overhead (even if they’re pretty easy to take down with your rockets), and there’s even a few genuinely tense moments as you frantically flee from the gigantic Harvester or from a persistent T-600. It’s a shame, then, that the human character models don’t impress anywhere near as well; John lacks Christian Bale’s voice and likeness and it is just a general Jarhead as a result, though Common and Moon Bloodgood do lend their voices and likenesses to their characters. Sadly, they’re stilted, puppet-like imitations of themselves; as there are very few pre-rendered cutscenes, you’ll have to endure these marionette-like soldiers flailing and yapping about and it’s genuinely laughable seeing them (and their vehicles) being pounded about in the game over sequences. The story itself is actually pretty serviceable and works as a prequel, of sorts, to the movie, but I did notice some instances where the game lagged when too much was happening at once. Some glitches, like enemy fire passing through your cover and the AI just running in place aimlessly or dropping through the ground (both of which were actually very beneficial!) also appeared.

Enemies and Bosses:
As you might expect, you’ll be battling Skynet’s forces throughout Terminator Salvation; unfortunately, the malicious AI doesn’t exactly favour variety and simply sends the same handful of enemies at you over and over again, without even any colour or weapon changes, which makes the game very tiresome very quickly. Drone-like Aerostats sweep across the sky raining fire at you and can be annoying to hit as they’re small and nimble; similarly, the Moto-Terminators can be difficult to destroy as they’re very fast and you’re stuck on a set path that can mess up your shot. The most common enemy you’ll face at the T-7-Ts, large mechanical spiders that scurry about firing incessantly once they spot you or your allies. The only way to destroy them is to get around behind them and target their battery pack, which either you can do, or you can distract them so your partners can take them out, but this becomes extremely aggravating in close quarters situations and when the Spiders are flanked by Wasps and T-600s. The T-600s are easily the game’s toughest enemies; wielding gatling guns and shrugging off your bullets, they relentlessly fire at and pursue you and the only way to defeat them is to lob pipe bombs at them or unload all your ammo into their chests from a safe position.

The game is a non-stop barrage of battles against the same machines over and over again.

The T-600s are initially presented as mini bosses of sorts; at first, all you can do is run away, luring them into traps to try and bury them under rubble, but soon you and your allies are cornered by three of them and you need to dash to a table to pick up pipe bombs to take them out. This is where the game really takes a sharp difficulty spike; the crossfire here is unreal and you only have a limited number of pipe bombs, plus it’s super tough to get close to the T-600s so I actually found it easier to stay under cover, rely on my AI companions, and fire the way overpowered shotgun at the Terminator’s chests to dispatch them. Later encounters are much easier, even when you’re again forced into a tight corridor, as you have better weapons to help you out, like the rocket launcher or a turret. You’ll also encounter “Skin Jobs”, T-600s in rubber skin, which I actually found weaker than their endoskeleton cousins, and these Terminators soon start to appear out in the open and alongside Spiders and Wasps as the game progresses and things ramp up. While you must run for cover when the Harvester makes its single appearance and never get to engage with it, you’ll be taking on a fair amount of HKs. These are some of the best sections as the massive ships linger outside buildings firing plasma blasts and unleashing Wasps to weed you out. You need to grab the nearby rocket launchers to bring these huge ships down, which is a lot more fun than when you’re steaming along in a vehicle or even in that massive tank as you can actually use cover and aim your shots more effectively. Sadly, there’s not really any big, climactic final battle in Terminator Salvation; the entire game is a series of shoot-outs or tense moments against the same enemies over and over, and the finale is much of the same. Sure, there are more T-600s and it can be really difficult juggling between the different enemies, dashing between cover and using the heavier explosives at the right time, but it would’ve been nice to have a big final boss battle, perhaps against a prototype T-800 or even the Harvester. Instead, you simply blast through the machines until John disables them with an EMP in a cutscene, and then just run to the evacuation chopper to end the story.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As disappointing as the enemy variety is in Terminator Salvation, the weapon selection isn’t much better. You’ve got an assault rifle, a shotgun, a heavier machine gun, a rocket launcher, and a grenade launcher, alongside standard tossable grenades and pipe bombs. You can only carry two guns at a time, they don’t hold much ammo, and you can’t upgrade or customise them or your character’s abilities in any way. Turrets and vehicles are also on offer, but they’re painfully limited by their cooldown and reload times, and there are sadly no laser rifles to be found here; you can’t even use the T-600’s gatling gun, for God’s sake! However, if you’re going to use any weapon, make sure it’s the shotgun; this thing is ridiculously overpowered and works amazingly well even at long range and against the T-600s, so be sure to keep it in your inventory.

Additional Features:
There are eleven Achievements on offer in Terminator Salvation, with nine being awarded for completing each chapter. You’ll gain an additional two Achievements for beating the game on Medium and Hard, but these Achievements stack and the game really isn’t all that difficult (beyond a couple of really frustrating parts) so you’re better off just playing all the way through on Hard and snagging every Achievement in one playthrough. This is all very disappointing; the game has a co-op mode but there are no Achievements for playing with a friend, there are no items or collectibles to find or unlock, no audio logs or concept art, no additional skins or modes (like deathmatches or anything), and no downloadable content on offer. It really is a disappointingly cheap and barebones presentation; you can replay any chapter after completing the game, but what’s the point when you can sweep all the Achievements in one go and there’s nothing to go back for?

The Summary:
Terminator Salvation is a pretty poor rip-off of the Gears of War games of the time (Epic Games, 2006; 2008); it lacks none of the pulse-pounding action, satisfying weapon combat, or macho bravado of those games and instead distils the gameplay down to a tedious cover-based shooter where you could probably set your controller down at a few key points and let the AI take care of things without your involvement. It’s such a shame as there are some tense and enjoyable moments here; I love how the T-600s and larger machines are portrayed as a real threat and the ominous and desperate atmosphere that accompanies these encounters. Sadly, the enemy AI is absolutely bonkers and easily exploited; even when you’re literally pinned down in a corner and will be cut to ribbons the moment you move, you can still win the day with bucketloads of patience and some well-timed explosives. These sections are incredibly frustrating, though, and result in an uneven pace to the game; even on the hardest difficulty, some chapters and sections will be a breeze (annoying and boring, but not exactly hard) but then others are like running into a brick wall! The rail-shooting sections, especially, are very aggravating due to the lack of cover and small margin for error afforded to you, yet you can be cornered by waves of machines and easily take them all out with no problem at other times simply because you have cover and heavier weapons and competent allies nearby. The lack of real bosses is also an issue; I liked the encounters with the T-600s and HKs, but there could’ve been so much more here, like a showdown with the Harvester or more enjoyable use of the HK Tank. The absolute worst thing, though, is the lack of replayability, collectibles, and unlockables; once you’ve beaten the game and gotten all the Achievements, there’s no reason to play it again over, say, Terminator: Resistance (Teyon, 2019) or any of the Gears of War titles this game so shamelessly apes. There as a bit of an effort made here, but then the developers just kind of gave up. It’s just another videogame tie-in that’s really not worth your effort unless you have nothing else to do and want to earn some quick Achievements, though I’ll give it an extra point for having some decent visuals and moments amidst all the mediocrity.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you ever played Terminator Salvation? What did you think to it and how do you think it compares to other Terminator videogames, and the movie it’s based on? Were you a fan of the cover-based shooting and repetitive combat or did you grow bored by the gameplay? What did you think to the T-600s and the rail-shooting sections? Did you ever beat this game with a friend? What’s your favourite Terminator videogame and how are you celebrating Judgement Day this year? No matter what you think about Terminator Salvation and the Terminator franchise, feel free to leave a reply down below or drop a comment on my social media, and go check out my other Terminator reviews!

Mini Game Corner [DK Day]: Donkey Kong 3 (Nintendo Switch)

Dr. KLeave a comment

In July 1981, Shigeru Miyamoto and his team at Nintendo R&D1 created Donkey Kong, an arcade title that was not only one of the earliest examples of the platform genre but also introduced gamers everywhere to two of Nintendo’s most recognisable characters: Mario and Donkey Kong. Mario, of course, shot to super stardom but July’s a good excuse to celebrate everyone’s favourite King Kong knock-off.

Released: 5 April 2019
Originally Released: 28 September 1983
Developer: Nintendo R&D2
Also Available For: Arcade, Family Computer Disk System (Famicom), Game & Watch, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 3DS (Virtual Console), Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Nintendo Wii, Nintendo Wii U (Virtual Console)

A Brief Background:
At the start of the eighties, Nintendo had run into some issues when their plan to expand into North America with Radar Scope (Nintendo R&D2/Ikegami Tsushinki, 1980) failed. Nintendo’s then-president Hiroshi Yamauchi thus tasked young designer Shigeru Miyamoto with creating a new arcade cabinet to get the company back on track. When his plan to base it on popular comic strip character Popeye fell apart, Miyamoto took inspiration from Beauty and the Beast (Barbot de Villeneuve, 1740) and King Kong (Cooper and Schoedsack, 1933) to create Donkey Kong (Nintendo R&D1/Ikegami Tsushinki, 1981). A financial and critical success that introduced players to “Jumpman” (now known as Nintendo’s mascot, Super Mario), Donkey Kong was followed by the equally successful (if obscure) Donkey Kong Jr. (Nintendo R&D2, 1982) the very next year. Based on this success, Donkey Kong 3 came the year after that, with the gameplay significantly altered; even Mario was gone, in favour of bug exterminator Stanley. Although allegedly successful in Japan, the videogame crash of 1983 stunted its release in North America and, while somewhat praised upon release, it hasn’t stood the test of time and effectively killed the franchise until the 16-bit era of gaming rolled around.

The Review:
Donkey Kong 3 deviates wildly from its predecessors in a few ways; first, Mario is strangely absent, replaced by Stanley the Exterminator and, secondly, it’s now a 2D shooter-type game not unlike Space Invaders (Taito, 1978) or Galaga (Namco, 1981). Secondly, Donkey Kong is now a central antagonistic figure, appearing in the vines atop each screen (or “Round”) and shaking beehives to spawn enemies that swoop in and take away your flowers (and your lives). Thirdly, the game has a traditional timer; you have a limited amount of time to fend off the enemies and Donkey Kong himself before you lose a life, but you also have to keep the pressure on Donkey Kong with your bug spray or else he’ll come crashing down and cost you a life. Once again, you can pick between two one-player games and two two-player games, with “Game B” offering a greater challenge, though the controls are a little more versatile. You fire your bug spray with A or B (sadly, there’s no auto- or continuous fire option), jump by pressing up on the control stick and drop down a level with down. Falling won’t cost you a life but Stanley is hard-pressed to jump over enemies; instead, you must drop down and move about to get underneath them and spray them. Very rarely (literally once per life), you’ll be able to make use of a super bug spray power-up that’ll make fending off Donkey Kong and defeating enemies much easier; this even carries over between Rounds, but its effects wear off after a few seconds. As before, defeating enemies awards you points; if you clear a Round with all flowers intact, you’ll get a point bonus, with an extra life being awarded for every 50,000 points you earn, though there’s still no high score table, so it’s all about maintaining the top score at the top of the screen.

Blast at bugs and a looming Donkey Kong with your bug spray to keep your flowers safe.

Donkey Kong 3 also deviates from its predecessors by sporting two screens that repeat in a perpetual loop until you lose all your lives or get bored and quit, though they are made a little more varied in the colour palettes changing, the platforms being trickier, and the number of enemies increasing as the loops recycle. The first Round is in the forest and sees you hopping up stone platforms to fend off Donkey Kong, and the second Round is in the treetops and sports vines that annoying worms crawl across to block your shots. Once you’ve played both screens, you’ve basically seen everything Donkey Kong 3 has to offer, and you can even clear Rounds in a couple of seconds if you’re quick enough. Sure, faster, more aggressive enemies appear later, darting at you or sending out stingers, and Donkey Kong will toss coconuts at you, and the trees might be red or green, but there’s even less visual variety here than in the last two games. Stanley doesn’t make as much of an impression as Mario and I found myself easily losing him against the stone platforms. His bug spray is weak and incredibly limited, he can’t jump over enemies, and there’s often so much onscreen that you’re guaranteed to lose a flower, if not a life. Although the music also isn’t all that much to shout about, being on the same level as the previous games, Donkey Kong is now a large, detailed, and animated sprite; he’s mischievous and daunting, grinning at you and always edging closer. Though there’s no true final showdown or end to the game, you can force him up the vines and trap his big, stupid head in a beehive, which I counted as a victory. As ever, you can use save states and rewind the game to address any mistakes, but it can be tricky to figure out your attack strategy as, unlike in the last two games, pausing the game inexplicably covers the in-game action with a black screen.

The Summary:  
I, like I suspect a lot of people, was not very familiar with Donkey Kong 3 before heading into it. In fact, I’m not sure I’d ever even seen a screenshot of it, let alone really knew it existed, and I have to say that it really isn’t worth your time. It borrows more elements from other games than it innovates and lacks even the mild appeal of Donkey Kong Jr. since Mario is entirely absent. It’s nice to see Donkey Kong back as a big, foreboding antagonist and there was some fun to be had in blasting him up the ass with bug spray, but that’s about where my praise ends. Even compared to the last two games, Donkey Kong 3 wears out its welcome pretty quickly; there’s just not enough variety to hold my attention and very little incentive to keep playing without a high score table. I liked that the palette changed as you progress, but the lack of visual variety really hurts the game. The enemies are little more than uninspired and annoying bugs, too, and the lack of other power-ups and mechanics just makes this a bland and forgettable title. It seems like Nintendo were trying to milk Donkey Kong a little too hard back in the day, including similar gameplay mechanics but adding one or two tweaks to try and keep things fresh, but I wonder if simply expanding on Donkey Kong, adding new mechanics and stages and such like in the Game Boy release, wouldn’t have been a better idea than releasing dull titles like this. These days, Donkey Kong 3 is all-but forgotten, and with good reason; just play the original or the 16-bit titles if you’re itching for some nostalgic ape action and leave this one in the dirt where it belongs.

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Terrible

Was Donkey Kong 3 in your NES library back in the day? How do you think it compares to the last two games? What did you think to Stanley and the new shooting mechanics? How far did you get in the game before you failed or quit? Which Donkey Kong videogame is your favourite and why? How are you celebrating Donkey Kong’s anniversary this year? Whatever your thoughts on Donkey Kong, feel free to leave a comment below or on my social media, and check out my other Donkey Kong content on the site.

Mini Game Corner: Donkey Kong Jr. (Nintendo Switch)

Dr. K5 Comments

Released: 21 December 2018
Originally Released: 30 June 1982
Developer: Nintendo R&D2
Also Available For: Arcade, Atari, BBC Micro, Coleco Adam, ColecoVision, Family Computer Disk System (Famicom), Intellivision, GameCube (via Animal Crossing (Nintendo EAD, 2001)), Nintendo 3DS (Virtual Console), Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Nintendo Wii, Nintendo Wii U (Virtual Console)

A Brief Background:
In early 1980, Nintendo were in a spot of bother; their plans to expand into North America with Radar Scope (Nintendo R&D2/Ikegami Tsushinki, 1980) had failed, so then-president Hiroshi Yamauchi tasked young designer Shigeru Miyamoto to create a new arcade cabinet to turn things around. After plans to adapt popular comic strip character Popeye fell apart, Miyamoto took inspiration from Beauty and the Beast (Barbot de Villeneuve, 1740) and King Kong (Cooper and Schoedsack, 1933) to create Donkey Kong (Nintendo R&D1/Ikegami Tsushinki, 1981), a financial and critical success that introduced players to “Jumpman”, who would go on to become Nintendo’s mascot, Super Mario. During Donkey Kong’s development, many of the team’s concepts had to be cut due to time and hardware constraints. As they worked to develop these further, and given Donkey Kong’s success, the team developed a follow-up title that was initially planned to star the cantankerous ape himself before a smaller, more manageable substitute was created. Although Donkey Kong Jr. is now one of Nintendo’s more obscure characters, having largely been supplanted in the 16-bit era, Donkey Kong Jr. was very successful in its native Japan. Reviews praised the colourful presentation and gameplay loop and the game became very popular in the competitive play arena.

The Review:
Donkey Kong Jr. is, essentially, more of the same game as its predecessor. Like Donkey Kong, players can pick from four game modes: two single-player options and two two-player options, with “Game B” being the more difficult of the two as it includes more onscreen enemies. Regardless of which mode you pick, Donkey Kong Jr. utilises the same simplistic control scheme as before, with A being the only button you need to press to jump over enemies, to vines, and across platforms. Donkey Kong Jr. has the rare distinction of being perhaps the only Mario-adjacent videogame where the portly plumber is an antagonist. Players now control the titular Donkey Kong Jr., a stout baby ape who slowly clambers up vines, quickly slides down them, and whose only method of attacking the many critters Mario sends out to obstruct him is to touch various fruits high up on vines; these will then fall, destroying any enemies beneath them. While Donkey Kong Jr. is a far more complex-looking sprite, with a humorous and over the top death animation and being slightly more animated overall, he’s no less clunky and actually less useful than Mario was in the last game as his hit box is bigger and he doesn’t get a hammer power-up. There is a spring on one screen, but it’s just as likely to send you plummeting to your death as it is to the next platform, so you’ll need to carefully time your jumps to avoid enemies and snag some points. But don’t take too long; like in Donkey Kong, the longer you take, the lower your bonus score will be upon completing a screen, which in turn impacts your high score. While you don’t seem to earn extra lives by accumulating points and there’s no high score table to display your best score, it is displayed at the top of the screen and is the only goal available to work towards so you may be somewhat protective of this.

Junior must clamber up vines, jump over hazards, and use keys to rescue his dad from Mario.

Donkey Kong Jr. is comprised of four screens that repeat in a nigh-never-ending loop until you finally die, with the enemies increasing in number and aggression the more you play. In three screens, your goal is to reach the top, acquire a key, and scare off Mario, and this culminates in a final showdown where you need to take down the devious plumber and rescue your kidnapped father. In the first screen, you simply navigate between vines being careful not to fall in the static water below or even drop a short distance as both will instantly kill you. In the second screen, you’ll bounce on the spring to smaller moving platforms and use a pulley to cross a gap and, in the third screen, you’ll hop over electrical hazards that erratically move back and forth across the platforms. Finally, you’ll climb up six chains, pushing six keys up to a bridge and avoiding bees and little alligators. Once you’ve pushed all six up to the top, the bridge is destroyed, Mario is defeated, and Donkey Kong is rescued and it all begins again until you either lose all your lives or quit from boredom. Although the game lacks the iconic music of its predecessor, each screen has some fun little jingles and sound effects but nothing especially innovative. Donkey Kong and his son are the most colourful and visually interesting sprites, with Mario only impressing due to him wielding a whip this time around, and the enemies are simply snapping alligators, egg-dropping birds, and electrical bolts. Naturally, this version allows you to create save states and rewind the game if you make a mistake, effectively destroying any difficulty curve it might’ve had and reducing the average playtime to around ten minutes.

The Summary:  
Donkey Kong Jr. reeks of cheap, money-grabbing desperation. Donkey Kong was an innovative and popular arcade release and it’s obvious that Nintendo simply wanted to capitalise on that with a “new title”, but there’s very little new about this game. Sure, moving to vines is different and having to time fruit-grabbing to defeat enemies adds a little more strategy and I quite liked the final showdown with the keys on the chains, but the gameplay experience is largely the same and lacks a lot of the nostalgia and charm of its predecessor as the setting is so weird. Even now, it’s bizarre seeing Mario as a whip-cracking antagonist. Donkey Kong Jr. has a lot of visual appeal, but I wonder if this game might’ve been better if Junior actively chased Mario across the stages? Or if a two-player mode saw one player as Junior and the other as Mario trying to intercept him? I feel like Nintendo could’ve bundled these two games together into one experience at the time, creating an eight-screen loop where you first track down and capture Donkey Kong and then switch to Junior to rescue him, but, as is, I can’t see myself choosing to play Donkey Kong Jr. over its more popular and nostalgic predecessor.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Did you ever own Donkey Kong Jr. for the NES back in the day, or play the arcade version out in the wild? How do you think it compares to Donkey Kong? What did you think to Junior and seeing Mario as an antagonist? How far did you get in the game before you failed or quit? Which Donkey Kong videogame is your favourite and why? How are you celebrating Donkey Kong’s anniversary this year? Whatever your thoughts on Donkey Kong, feel free to leave a comment below or on my social media, and check out my other Donkey Kong (and Mario) content on the site.

Game Corner [Sonic Month] Sonic Superstars (Xbox Series X)

Dr. K1 Comment

Sonic the Hedgehog was first introduced to gamers worldwide on June 23 1991 and, since then, has become not only SEGA’s most enduring and popular character but also a beloved videogame icon and, in keeping with tradition, I have been dedicating the entire month to celebrating SEGA’s supersonic mascot.

Released: 17 October 2023
Developer: Arzest / Sonic Team
Also Available For: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S

The Background:
After SEGA created a mascot viable enough to rival Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog expanded into mainstream popularity with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (SEGA Technical Institute, 1992) and saw further success with subsequent sequels and his first 3D adventures, After later withdrawing from from console manufacture, SEGA brought Sonic to multiple platforms, but struggled to maintain consistent quality, with even their more enjoyable titles drawing notable criticism. Despite this, SEGA scored a hit when they brought in noted indie developers to work on Sonic Mania (Christian Whitehead/PagodaWest Games/Headcannon, 2017), a much-lauded throwback to Sonic’s heyday. Rather than capitalise on Sonic Mania’s success, SEGA opted to continue with hit-and-miss 3D adventures, primarily because Sonic Mania’s developers wanted to branch out from the Sonic franchise. Still, Sonic Team producer Takashi Iizuka saw the potential for a spiritual successor and convinced Sonic co-creator Naoto Ohshima to return to the series and help develop a new 2.5D adventure. While Ohshima’s studio, Arzest, develop the game’s environments, drawing from Sonic Mania and the classic 2D Sonic titles, Ohshima himself designed new character Trip the Sungazer to add to the classic cast and the developers not only added Amy Rose to the roster but finally brought back obscure bounty hunter Nack the Weasel Fang the Sniper Fang the Hunter after a decades-long absence. Sonic Superstars was also designed and marketed with co-op play in mind and the team expanded the gameplay mechanics by awarded players new abilities when they collected the mythical Chaos Emeralds. Unfortunately, Sonic Superstars released to mixed reviews; while it was praised as a throwback to Sonic’s classic titles and for its colourful visuals, critics disliked the level layouts, multiplayer features, and its unnecessarily aggravating boss battles. Still, the game was bolstered by some interesting downloadable content (DLC) that featured various skin packs and even included the rabbit concept that was ditched early in Sonic’s development!

The Plot:
When Doctor Eggman heads to the North Star Islands to transform their giant animals into a powerful Badnik army, Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends follow, only to find the mad scientist has enlisted the notorious Fang the Hunter and naïve local Trip the Sungazer to seek out the legendary Chaos Emeralds and weaponise the natural landscape!

Gameplay:
Sonic Superstars doesn’t buck tradition; it’s a 2.5D, sidescrolling action platformer just like the classic 2D Sonic games and with all the traditional tropes you’d expect returning. You take control of one of four familiar faces and race through twelve colourful levels (known as “Zones”), each with anywhere from one to three stages (or “Acts”) within them, freeing woodland critters from Badniks, collecting Golden Rings to stave off death, pinballing all over the place on springs, bumpers, and boost pads, and striving to blast through Acts as quickly as possible. However, unlike in the classic games, you’re no longer penalised if you take more than ten minutes to finish an Act; the timer simply runs out and the game continues, which is good as some of the later bosses take at least ten minutes to battle against, so you’d be dying over and over to time outs if they were still a thing. Another noticeable change is the complete absence of a life system; you’ll hit Star Posts to create checkpoints across each Act and you’ll respawn at these when you inevitably die, but you won’t ever have to worry about running out of lives or continues or getting a game over, which again is good as some of the later Acts and bosses will see you crushed, zapped, or plummeting to your death to an almost spiteful degree. Otherwise, many of the same mechanics are here; you’ll suck in air bubbles to avoid drowning, run through loops, crash through walls, and take multiple paths through each Act, with the higher route usually being the fastest but most dangerous, to finish faster or find goodies. Like Sonic 3 & Knuckles (SEGA Technical Institute, 1994, Sonic Superstars uses save files for your playthrough (though, oddly, you can’t copy your save file) and, like Sonic Generations (Sonic Team, 2011), you can run around a limited hub world between Acts where you can access Acts, bonus Acts, switch characters, and play some tutorials to get to grips with the game’s new mechanics.

Team up with friends and use the gang’s classic abilities to conquer new, but familiar, Zones.

From the start, players can pick to play as Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles “Tails” Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, and, in what’s still a rare inclusion, Amy Rose. The basic controls for these characters are universal: A and B are your action buttons, allowing you to jump, perform the character’s special attack, or Spin Dash; X or Y (if configured) will activate the Emerald Power you select after using the Right Bumper to bring up the selection wheel, and that’s it for button commands. Each character performs the Super Sonic Spin Attack when jumping; holding down the button sees you jumping higher and pressing or holding it a second time in mid-air sees each character perform a signature special attack. Sonic performs the Drop Dash, which I finally found somewhat useful here (though I still miss the Insta-Shield), Tails can fly for a short time (and doggy paddle underwater), Knuckles can glide (and will cling to and climb most walls he glides into), and Amy will swing her hammer in her spin for a super useful double jump and flail it around for a ground attack if you hold the button. If you press down while running, you’ll roll into a ball; if you stand still and press down and A or B, you’ll charge up the Spin Dash for a burst of speed and, while there is no Super Peel-Out here, Sonic’s run greatly resembles it. Because of their individual abilities, you’ll have an easier time with the likes of Tails or Knuckles and even Amy thanks to their mid-air tricks, while Sonic often has to rely on the Emerald Powers to reach higher areas and find secrets. Mostly, the controls and physics work well; they’re not as slippery as some games and everything feels more akin to the classics, though there are still moments where characters slip from precarious footing and struggle to make jumps, but this isn’t helped by some badly placed enemies and hazards. Sonic Superstars can also be played in co-op with a group of friends, but I wouldn’t recommend it; it’s basically like playing Sonic 2 in co-op, with any players that are too slow or who get stuck or who take a different path disappearing from the main action and having to respawn in. There are also no team-up moves beyond Tails carrying a character, which is a shame, but it’s still nice to see it incorporated, even if it’s not very sustainable.

Autoscrolling sections, shoot-’em-up stages, and unique level-changing gimmicks are notable inclusions.

I mentioned the enemy and hazard placement just now and it’s true that Sonic Superstars suffers a bit from this, especially in later Zones, primarily because the camera is a little too zoomed in and the level designers seem to be taking inspiration from Sonic the Hedgehog CD (SEGA, 1993) at times by placing ceiling and wall spikes and Badniks just offscreen. Still, there are times when the mechanics are really fun; there’s some new additions here, such as being shot or blasted onto a background plane, running around loops, grabbing pulleys, or bouncing around inside rings for Ring bonuses, and even some autoscrolling sections. The one in Golden Capital Zone sees you dodging waves of lava, while the one in Frozen Base Zone is effectively a mash up of Sky Chase Zone and a remix of Fantasy Zone (ibid, 1986), with you piloting one of Dr. Eggman’s crafts and blasting at redesigned Fantasy Zone enemies and bosses with A and dropping bombs with B. While things start out very familiar, and many Zones include recycled gimmicks from classic Sonic titles (Lagoon City Zone, for example, recycles just about every underwater gimmick from the previous games and Pinball Carnival Zone and Sand Sanctuary Zone owe a lot to previous casino-theme Zones and Sandopolis Zone, respectively), I mostly enjoyed how these elements were implemented, even if they were very familiar. There are some really unique additions included here, too; Press Factory Zone sees a giant piston in the background smash into the ground and bump you about if you’re not grounded, while Act 2 sees Dr. Eggman’s hovering drone grow closer and closer to detonating every explosive device in the Act unless you find switches to briefly reset the counter. Speed Jungle Zone sees you creating bridges by hitting switches and using nearby butterflies to light up dark areas, Sky Temple Zone incorporates wind gimmicks using fans, Cyber Station Zone sees you travel on electrical currents and expands on Sonic CD’s shrinking mechanic by transforming you into pixelized animals to navigate past dangerous area (with the mouse lines being the most aggravating), and Egg Fortress Act 2 sees you running from the right to the left as the damaged space station is repaired thanks to Dr. Eggman’s time warping machine, which I thought was a really novel idea.  

Graphics and Sound:
Although I would’ve preferred to see a bigger, more colourful and adventurous sequel to Sonic Mania that continued to use charmingly detailed sprite art, Sonic Superstars may be the best of the 2.5D Sonic titles in recent years. The game perfectly translates the classic aesthetic of Sonic 1 and Sonic CD, especially, into a quasi-3D style, with characters all performing idle poses, victory celebrations, and exuding a lot of personality in the game’s fun, pantomime-like cutscenes. These primarily tell the story of the gang trying to catch up to Dr. Eggman or Fang, clumsy Trip’s efforts to impress her masters and change of heart after being befriended by Amy (you’ll carry Trip around in an Amy-focused bonus Act), and Fang’s delight at tormenting Knuckles. The Acts are also full of fun elements; sometimes, you’ll see other characters racing along in the background and not just baddies like Fang, but Sonic, Knuckles, and Amy, which adds a layer of scope to the game. The large animals of the North Star Islands often show up to help out, hang out in the background, or celebrate with you at the end of the Act, and they’ll pop up on the hub world as well to give a sense of progression. While some Acts can be a bit cluttered at times, with some clashing colour schemes and visuals making it difficult to know where’s safe and what’s a bottomless pit, I had no issues with the game’s visuals; even the various DLC costumes appear in cutscenes, which was a nice touch. To make things even better, the anime cutscenes made famous in Sonic CD and brought back in Sonic Origins (Sonic Team, 2022) return here, which is most welcome, though you can’t watch them back. As much as I like the visuals though, and little touches like the title screen and enemies encountered in Trip’s story changing as you play, I wasn’t impressed by the game’s soundtrack; it’s serviceable enough but failed to make much of an impact, with no tunes staying in my head after I finished, some haunting my nightmares as I struggled to clear the more aggravating bosses, and some actually cutting out due to odd glitches.

While some Zones are quite derivative, the game’s overall visual style is impeccable.

Sonic Superstars evokes the classic games in its Zones, even bringing previously discarded concept art from Sonic 1 to life for the first time, and mixing and matching classic gimmicks with new ones. The game begins with the classic Green Hill Zone archetype, one that incorporates waterfalls, floating boost pads, wall running, and swinging springs to try and mix things up a bit. Speed Jungle Zone owes a fair bit to Sonic’s often forgotten 8-bit adventure, incorporating vines and grinding into the gameplay, while Sky Temple Zone focuses more on tricky platforming on small, moving, or temporary platforms and trying to avoid enemy fire when you’re being blown about by the fans. Pinball Carnival Zone is about where I started to make the most apt comparison for Sonic Superstars’ Zones; they’re very similar to those seen in the Sonic the Hedgehog 4 games (Dimps/Sonic Team, 2010; 2012), mashing together classic gimmicks to try and create something new and giving us theme-park levels and snowy mechanical bases. Luckily, this is executed far better here but I wonder if this was a conscious decision to try and make good on some of Sonic 4’s better ideas or just coincidence and laziness, since Sonic games love to reuse the same tropes over and over. For me, this was most evident in Sand Sanctuary Zone, which is just Sandopolis Zone again, but it’s only one Act in the main story this time. Luckily, Press Factory Zone made up for this, being a mechanical obstacle course in Act 1 and a tense face against a fiery death in Act 2. Golden Capital Zone also impressed, despite initially appearing quite bland; there’s a fun rotation gimmick where you end up running on the ceiling with the ground above you and it switches to a lava-infested furnace for Act 2. While Cyber Station could also get very cluttered, I loved the pixelated visuals applied to the character and enemy models; everyone looks like LEGO here and it really made the Zone stand out (and make me wish we could play as those models as skins in other Zones). Frozen Base Zone saved itself from blandness with its random shoot-‘em-up mechanics in Act 2 and I did enjoy how Egg Fortress Zone crumbles around you in Act 1 and unwinds in Act 2, that was really fun, even if it led to some cheap deaths from crushing, spikes, and sudden pits.

Enemies and Bosses:
Many of Sonic Superstars’ Badniks are recycled from Sonic 1, Sonic CD, and Sonic 2 though some have been slightly tweaked; Buzz Bombers use sweeping lasers, for example. Choppers, Orbinauts, Slicers, and buzzsaw-wielding Robot Beetles pepper each Act but the most reoccurring classic Badnik is strangely the Batbrain, which appears in Zones that really don’t fit its aesthetic. Still, Sonic Superstars does have some new Badniks on offer; one of the worst, for me, were the Jellyfish Mechas, which float up and down with drill-like appendages on their tentacles. You’re supposed to attack them when these are pointing away, but I seemed to always mess up the timing, and they’re often found floating between bumpers and other gimmicks. I quite like the seahorse-like Soap Bubble Mecha, which is largely harmless but spits out bubbles you can use to boost your jumps to higher areas. The Elephant Mecha, Electrical Discharge Mecha, and Kanga Clangas and Barrel Throwers were all visually very fun, too; the Elephant Mecha is more like a blowtorch, the Electrical Discharge Mecha is a cloud that fires thunderbolts if you don’t destroy it quickly, and Kanga Clangas and Barrel Throwers are kangaroo and sea lion-themed robots that toss explosives and barrels at you. The Trampling Mecha was an odd on for me; this vulture-like Badnik rears up and tries to squish you, so you have to wait for it to appear on your level pane before you can attack, something that happens in many of the boss battles, too. Splats also makes a return here, alongside the Eggrobos in Trip’s story (now able to fire in multiple directions, and from offscreen, just to really wind you up), and you’ll come across multiple disposable Badniks, like Antons and Mole Mechas, that primarily serve as an annoyance but are also used as projectiles in certain boss battles. Speaking of which, while the bosses start out as expanded versions of those seen in Sonic CD and Sonic 3 & Knuckles, sporting multiple phases and attacks, they quickly become very tedious as you’re forced to loiter around, unable to attack, as you wait for your one opening and it can be laborious starting all over again if you make a mistake and fail thanks to the lack of checkpoints, making many of the bosses a rage-inducing chore to fight.

Giant robotic animals will expose the game’s lengthy boss battles.

Like in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, many Act 1’s end with a battle against one of Dr. Eggman’s larger mechanical monstrosities. The first of these is the Mosasaurus, though this is more of a chase; you can hit it when it leaps into the foreground, but just run to the right, avoiding pits, and it’ll crash into a wall, defeated. In Speed Jungle Zone, you face a giant mosquito-bot that can only be damaged by Spin Dashing up the chain it shoots at you. You’ll have to watch for spike pits, projectiles, and its charge attack near the end, too. Pinball Carnival Zone pits you against a maniacal clown merged with a giant bumper; this thing will float around dropping explosives and shielding itself with electricity, and the only way you can make it vulnerable is to jump at the tokens in the arena to flip it around, with these (and the hazards) increasing as the battle progresses. Lagoon City Zone’s robotic guardian is a giant jellyfish that spits out a bunch of minions to distract you, fires its tentacles at the floor, and then electrifies the water you’re standing on before trying to crush you. As you damage it, it’ll also fill the screen with projectiles and strike with multiple limbs. Press Factory Zone’s giant mechanical ape harkens back to Sonic 1’s Final Zone boss; when in the background, it causes giant pistons to come crashing down on you, so you need to find the safe spot to avoid being crushed then wait for it to finish jumping about in the foreground so you can ram it, not unlike the Flying Battery Zone boss battle. Golden Capital Zone’s robot pig can be a bit tricky as it sucks up all your Rings at the start of the fight but it’s actually pretty simple; just race around the rotating arena as it charges you until you can hit the big button on its back, something made ridiculously easy with Tails or Amy thanks to their greater air time. Finally, Frozen Base Zone sees you running along (and against) conveyer belts and battling a bird-like mech that spits targeted mines, ice cubs, and other Badniks that must be avoided before you desperately try to jump up and hit it before it disappears to the background again.

All the Emerald Powers in the world can’t save you from the tedious boss battles.

Speaking of Dr. Eggman, you’ll naturally battle him multiple times in various contraptions. In his first appearance at the end of Bridge Island Zone, Dr. Eggman pilots a massive mech suit that resembles him (a common occurrence in this game) and attacks by spinning its mace-like arms, firing its arms at you, and leaping at you, where it becomes vulnerable. After enough hits, parts of the mecha break away and the torso, now a UFO-like craft, tries to slam into you. Dr. Eggman encases himself in an impenetrable sphere in Speed Jungle Zone; not only does he try to crush you, but he also summons spear-like chains to try and skewer you, but you can lure these to attack his craft pretty easily. When it goes a bit mental and starts spinning around and firing projectiles, hit the blue ones to reflect them back and land an extra hit. Sky Temple Zone features a particularly annoying boss battle that sees you dodging Dr. Eggman’s many buzzsaw projectiles in free fall and hopping to floating debris, avoiding more projectiles, to land a single hit, all while a giant fan looms at the bottom of the screen, with the battle looping until Dr. Eggman tries a kamikaze attack! I never really figured out Pinball Carnival Zone’s boss; it appears to be a roulette-style battle where you need to dodge mines and electrical bursts and use momentum to reach Dr. Eggman, but I just used Amy’s double jump to cheese through his and I suggest you do the same. Sadly, there’s no cheesing the Lagoon City Zone boss; this battle takes place underwater, so you’ll need to grab air bubbles regularly to keep from drowning. First, you must jump up a vertical shaft avoiding projectiles and using the wake from Dr. Eggman’s drills to boost you higher. Soon, Dr. Eggman fires homing missiles and rotating lasers, then the battle shifts to a side-on view and you have to awkwardly avoid incoming attacks to hit Dr. Eggman’s craft, which now resembles a wall. While this one was tough, the Sand Sanctuary Zone boss is where I started to see how tedious the game’s bosses are. Here, Dr. Eggman fires giant stone stabs at you from the foreground and sends Badniks tunnelling towards you; hit the right ones at the right time (in mid-air) and you’ll reflect them back at him, and you can ram him when he pops up from the ground, but otherwise this is a lot of waiting around for a small opportunity to attack. In comparison, the Press Factory Zone boss is much preferable, despite the constant threat of being crushed by its giant piston. Simply avoid its projectiles, jump when the piston comes down to avoid being bounced about, Spin Dash through its legs, and ram the unprotected cockpit whenever you can.

Encounters with Fang, the Metal Fighter, and the finale are particularly lengthy and aggravating.

Of course, Dr. Eggman isn’t the only baddie in Sonic Superstars; you’ll encounter Fang quite a lot, taunting you or firing missiles and lasers at you, completely out of reach until you reach Golden Capital Zone, where you battle him in an autoscrolling section. Piloting a weaponised version of the Marvellous Queen, Fang fires lasers at the ceiling and lava, causing debris to fall and lava to rise, fires three more lasers from drone-like appendages and shields himself with destructible hexagons. Between each encounter, you must dodge flame plumes and falling lava; Fang’s projectiles and dangers increase as the fight drags on, too, making this a hell of a chore. After a battle against Dr. Eggman’s prototype Metal Fighter (which is the “Battle Mode” avatar you created) that draws from the classic Metal Sonic battle from Sonic CD and the Death Egg Zone boss from Sonic 3 & Knuckles (but with more pits and less Rings), and a shoot-‘em-up battle against two redesigned Fantasy Zone bosses (one a cylindrical mech that spits bullets, the other a sphere resembling Dr. Eggman’s face that rains projectiles) and working your way back through Egg Fortress Zone, you’ll have a climatic two-stage battle against Dr. Eggman’s biggest mech yet. In the first phase, you run around a circular platform devoid of Rings dodging his missiles; run around the mech and hit the blue missiles to score a hit, but don’t bother from the front as it’ll block them. The mech also swipes at you with its buzzsaw-like arms and fires an energy wall that you can avoid by jumping through the gap and, after enough hits, it’ll switch to attacking from the foreground (again, like Sonic 3 & Knuckles’ Death Egg Robot). This is the toughest phase of the boss as you need to avoid falling, dodge his hand smashes, hide behind any nearby walls to keep from being trapped in his anti-gravity beam and roasted by his projectiles, and must to dodge the multiple giant lasers, all while striking at a precise moment to land a hit. This becomes especially frustrating as there are no Rings in the arena, no checkpoints between phases, and the fight drags on and on since it takes so long between each attack and before you can land a hit.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Since the game doesn’t use lives, there are no 1-Up monitors to be found; collecting 100 Rings grants you a Medal rather than an extra life and you’ll find similar Medals hidden in Acts and collected from Bonus Stages for use in the game’s Battle Mode. Monitors, however, are present and will grant you additional Rings, a temporary speed up or invincibility, and a shield that’ll protect you from one non-lethal hazard. The magnetic shield also returns but, while this still attracts nearby Rings to you, it oddly no longer protects you for a hit, severely reducing its appeal as a power-up. As you play, you’ll notice warps appear in Acts; jumping into these will take you to a freefall section where you float about grabbing a few extra Rings and then emerge nearby, effectively acting as a shortcut. Other times, you’ll rocket along grabbing Rings, smashing Badniks, and avoiding touching the environment, search for Fruit that you can cash in on the hub world to play bonus Act Fruit obstacle courses where you grab Rings, pop balloons, and hit tokens to win Medals, and each character also has their own Act to play that serves as a way to get to grips with their mechanics and expand the story. As in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Giant Rings can be found in each Act; blue ones transport you to a Bonus Stage modelled after the Sonic 1 Special Stages, where you must navigate past warps, change the maze’s rotation, and swap the environment around to grab Medals, and gold ones that take you to the game’s Special Stages.

It’s cool that the Emeralds bestow powers, but most of them are pointless and circumstantial.

Completing a Special Stage awards you with a Chaos Emerald but, this time, these are actually a game-changing mechanic. Each Chaos Emerald bestows you with an Emerald Power, selected with RB and activated with X, which will last for as long as the meter lasts or until you take a hit and will be replenished at each Star Post. As cool as this idea is, I found the Emerald Powers to be more miss than hit; some are only useful in certain situations, like Water, which lets you swim up waterfalls or through underwater sections much more freely, or Vision, which reveals hidden platforms. An indicator will appear to let you know when it’s a good time to use these abilities, but a lot of them are redundant when playing as Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Trip; Bullet and Ivy, for example, are only really useful for getting Sonic to higher areas outside his skills. The most useful Emerald Power, for me, was the first one you get, Avatar; this swarms to screen with a bunch of (at times distracting) duplicates of your character and can help get a free hit in on bosses. I never used Slow at all in the main game; it was much more prominent in Trip’s story, where you need to use it to slow down rapid hazards to pass by safely. Perhaps the most disappointing Emerald Power was Extra, which grants each character a new special ability, but I only found two to be of any use; Sonic gets a stunted Homing Attack, Tails swipes with his tails, Knuckles gets a projectile punch, Amy tosses her hammers like in Sonic Origins, and Trip throws bouncy fireballs, with these latter two being the only ones I found beneficial.

Additional Features:
There are thirty-eight Achievements in Sonic Superstars, with eleven awarded after clearing each Zone, seven awarded after using each Emerald power, one for clearing any Act with a friend, and one for collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds. You can earn five Achievements for destroying 100 enemies with each character’s special attack (so, 100 enemies with the Drop Dash, 100 while gliding, etc), one for finding and destroying the special Golden Badnik in each Act (though be warned as you’ll have to destroy it again, or restart the Act, if you lose a life after destroying it), one for collecting 100 Medals from Bonus Stages, and one for finishing Frozen Base Zone’s shoot-‘em-up section without taking damage. Your Medals can be spent in the game’s shop; here, you can purchase heads, torsos, arms, legs, and spray paint for your Metal Fighter, a custom robot you use in the game’s Battle Mode. While parts for metal versions of the five playable characters exist, the shop is really expensive, so you’ll need a lot of Medals to create classic characters like Metal Sonic and Metal Knuckles, and the Battle Mode isn’t that great. You battle friends or CPU-controlled robots in three arenas, either to the death, while avoiding missile bombardments, or collecting items to win, using X to attack with an electrical burst and being underwhelmed by the entire thing. Although you can access additional skins for this mode (and the main game) via DLC, there are no Achievements tied to the Battle Mode, so I’d just avoid it; there’s a Time Attack mode as well, but again there are no Achievements associated with this.

Snag the Chaos Emeralds, endure Trip’s ridiculously hard story, and take on the arduous true final boss.

As mentioned, you’ll warp to Special Stages by finding Giant Rings. These are pretty simple, unique bonus areas where you have to tap and hold A to latch on to glowing blue orbs, boost points, or Rings to chase after a Chaos Emerald. You can latch onto mines, too, but these will explode to slow you down and you’ll need to avoid crystalline structures and collect Rings for more time. While the later ones can get very challenging, it’s not too difficult to get all seven Chaos Emeralds, which unlocks the final Emerald Power, where you’ll turn Super after collecting 50 Rings and selecting the ability from the wheel. After clearing the main story, you’ll unlock Trip as a playable character and “Trip’s Story”, which picks up where the main story ends and sees Trip battle through remixed versions of each Act, encountering an army of Eggrobos led by a primary Eggrobo. Trip has all the same abilities as the other characters in addition to a double jump and the ability to cling to walls and ceilings, which is incorporated into her Acts. Her Super form is also a flying, fire-breathing dragon that absolutely breaks the game, but its advantages are offset by her story being so damn hard. Acts are redesigned to have more enemies, more hazards, and more bottomless pits, as well as required more Emerald Powers to bypass obstacles. Her bosses also seem tougher, with new attacks in their arsenal; the Eggrobo takes Dr. Eggman’s place until the end, where you must battle Fang in a gruelling final boss full of one-hit kills and frustrating sections that nearly had me rage-quitting! Complete “Trip’s Story” and you’ll get an Achievement and access to the true final boss, the Black Dragon, in a battle that’ll take at least ten minutes to complete. This sees you, as Super Sonic, smacking back blue comets, avoiding instant-death black holes, ramming the dragon’s chest, and tearing your hair out trying to hit five incoming projectiles with frame-perfect timing as the game suddenly introduces quick-time events! Not only does the boss constantly hide in the background, but its attacks are completely random, your opportunities to hit it are ridiculously limited, and you’ll burn through Rings if you keep tapping the Boost button. Rings randomly rain from the sky and Sonic’s friends will randomly appear to offer more, but this and the rage-inducing fight against Fang’s mech cast a dark shadow over the whole game for me that ruined the entire experience.

The Summary:
I was surprised when I first saw the announcement of Sonic Superstars; although disappointed that we weren’t getting Sonic Mania 2, I was cautiously optimistic, especially as it had that classic Sonic aesthetic, included a playable Amy and the welcome return of Fang, and incorporated the Chaos Emeralds in a new, more practical way. Sonic Superstars definitely makes a great first impression; it ticks all the nostalgia boxes and is fun to play, with lively, animated characters, bright and colourful Zones, and challenging (but not impossible) Special Stages. I loved seeing all the little details in the backgrounds, watching the hub world change, and seeing the story unfold; I even enjoyed the recycled gimmicks from old games, even if I was disappointed by the Badnik variety. Soon, though, cracks started to appear; Acts ran a bit too long or strangely short and bosses started to become a chore as I was left standing around, watching the timer run out, waiting for the game to let me attack. The main reason for this, of course, is that the Emerald Powers would decimate most bosses but I think a compromise could’ve been reached. At least speed up or tone down the waiting time between the boss’s attacks, or maybe even disable Emerald Powers altogether for the fights. But it was those final battles against Dr. Eggman and Fang’s giant mechs and that random-ass dragon that pulled the rug right out from Sonic Superstars. It’s bad enough that you must beat “Trip’s Story” to unlock the final boss; it’s bad enough that “Trip’s Story” is cheap as hell with its pits and hazards; but to put insta-deaths in the boss fight? Seriously, it can take five minutes to reach Fang’s second phase and you can die five seconds into it, meaning you have to do the whole thing all over again. The Black Dragon fight may be the worst Super Sonic fight I’ve ever played, as well, which is a shame as the game was doing so well until those final battles; I could even forgive the drawn out nature of the previous bosses if Sonic Superstars had stuck the landing but, sadly, it drops the ball right at the end, leaving a sour taste in the mouth. Yes, it’s a beautiful game with lots of fun elements, but that just makes its flaws all the more glaring; I really hope SEGA patch the bosses to make them more enjoyable, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

What did you think to Sonic Superstars? Did you enjoy the new Emerald Powers or, like me, did you find them to be a missed opportunity? What did you think to Trip, her gameplay and her character arc? Did you also find the bosses arduous and aggravating? Does this game have the hardest, most unfair bosses of any Sonic title? Did you play the game’s Battle Mode? Would you like to see Trip make a return in a future game? How did you celebrate the Sonic franchise this month? Whatever your thoughts on Sonic Superstars, leave a comment below or on my social media and go check out my other Sonic content.

Game Corner [Sonic Month]: Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (Xbox 360)

Dr. K3 Comments

Sonic the Hedgehog was first introduced to gamers worldwide on this day back in 1991 and, since then, has become not only SEGA’s most enduring and popular character but also a beloved videogame icon and, in keeping with tradition, I have been dedicating the entire month to celebrating SEGA’s supersonic mascot.

Released: 7 October 2010; 15 May 2012
Developer: Dimps / Sonic Team
Also Available For: Mobile, Nintendo Wii, Ouya, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Shield, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X

The Background:
In 1991, after much development and strategic planning to create a mascot iconic enough to rival Super Mario, SEGA introduced gamers to Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic’s initial success (thanks, largely, his debut game being bundled with the Mega Drive) exploded into mainstream popularity with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (SEGA Technical Institute, 1992) and, from there, the sky seemed to be the limit. So big was Sonic’s blockbuster third outing that it was split into two parts to save costs and meet deadlines; nevertheless, Sonic 3 & Knuckles (ibid, 1994) is widely regarded as one of the best of the classic 2D Sonic games, though SEGA strangely followed this success with several lacklustre spin-offs before transitioning to 3D in 1999. By 2010, Sonic had appeared in around sixty titles, with SEGA outsourcing their supersonic mascot to Dimps for the Sonic Advance series (2001 to 2004), which seemed to be the closest fans could hope for a Sonic 4. Conscious of the demand for a classic Sonic experience, SEGA again teamed with Dimps for a secret project originally codenamed “Project Needlemouse” in a nod to Sonic’s origins. Sonic 4 was conceived of as a throwback title, one that would mix modern elements with the classic formula, and incorporate gyroscope functions for mobile players. Episode I released to mixed reviews; despite criticisms of the poor physics, the game was a commercial success and development began on Episode II, with the specific intention to introduce new elements. With the digital re-release of the celebrated Sonic the Hedgehog CD (SEGA, 1993) looming, Episode II was developed to tie up loose threads from that game, as well as introducing team-based mechanics by including Sonic’s sidekick, Miles “Tails” Prower. Episode II was also met with mixed reviews; while largely seen as an improvement over Episode I, the boss battles and level designs drew criticism. Although players could access a side story with both titles, Episode Metal, plans for a third entry were mysteriously abandoned and the game has largely been discarded by all, especially after more fitting throwbacks to the classic era were later released.

The Plot:
Doctor Eggman is back, having refined some of his past creations and seeking to conquer new lands with the Chaos Emeralds. When Sonic inevitably arrives to stop him, Dr. Eggman calls in Metal Sonic to hold off his foe while he again works to harness the power of Little Planet.  

Gameplay:
In the tradition of the classic Sonic titles, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is a 2.5D, sidescrolling action platformer in which players blast through ten levels (known as “Zones”), with most having three stages (or “Acts”) each, culminating in a boss battle against Dr. Eggman or Metal Sonic. Fundamentally, the basic controls are as familiar as ever; players can pick up speed to blast through Acts, spinning to crash through Badniks, walls, and acquire power-ups with the A or B button, or charge up a Spin Dash by pressing down and either A or B. Oddly, the Spin Dash is actually quite nerfed and doesn’t give you the usual speed boost you’d expect compared to simply running, and Sonic uncurls when flying off curves and springs, leaving him vulnerable to attack. However, this is somewhat explained by the incorporation of the Homing Attack; by pressing A or B after a jump, Sonic will fly towards the nearest target (“helpfully” indicated by an onscreen reticule and targeting sound), which is all-but required as you chain together Homing Attacks to cross gaps. In Episode II, the controls are slightly expanded; here, Tails constantly follows you around, snagging Golden Rings and bopping Badniks, and can be called to your side at any time by pressing the Right Trigger or performing one of the three new Tag Actions with X. Sonic and Tails can either curl up into a massive ball to break through walls with the Rolling Combo or Tails can indefinitely swim Sonic around underwater with the Submarine Combo or briefly carry him with his helicopter tails with the Copter Combo. Each has different strengths and weaknesses; the Rolling Combo is quite fast and unwieldy, the Submarine Combo can be a bit slippery to control, and the Copter Combo only allows for a short burst of flight, though it’s very handy to use to save you from one of Episode II’s many bottomless pits. 

Episode I poorly apes the original classics, marrying bad physics with wonky mechanics.

The basic gameplay mechanics are also very familiar; players must collect Golden Rings to stave off death, with the Rings scattering when you’re hit so you can snag them to protect yourself, in addition to swallowing air bubbles to keep from drowning. Acts are played against a ten minute time limit, after which players will lose a life, though you can earn extra lives by racking up points, collecting 100 Rings, or breaking open 1-up monitors. The more points you acquire, and the faster you finish Acts, the more likely it is you’ll earn continues to carry on playing after you’ve exhausted your lives, and you can respawn from checkpoints by running past Star Posts. Zones are filled with robotic enemies and cheap obstacles to sap your Rings and lives, however, from spikes jutting out of floors, walls, and ceilings, to bottomless pits, crushing hazards, and a massive wall-like drill machine that relentlessly chases you down. In Episode I, you’ll play through Zones heavily inspired by the classic Sonic games, meaning you’ll run through loops, mobius strips, jump to moving or temporary platforms, press switches to open doors, and ricochet all over the place on bumpers, springs, bouncers, and steam vents. A few new gimmicks are also present, though; Sonic can swing from vines and zip lines in Splash Hill Zone, ride playing card bridges and cross flipping cards in Casino Street Zone, awkwardly run on giant cogs in Mad Gear Zone to cross tracks, and light dynamite and ride mine carts in Lost Labyrinth Zone. It’s this latter Zone that has some of the most frustrating elements of Episode I, however; not only is it full of water that threatens your life and slows you down and all the same gimmicks as Labyrinth Zone, but you must also run across giant balls in Act 1, carry a flaming torch to light the way in Act 2 (including an annoying light puzzle that can easily cause you to time out if you don’t light the torches in the right order), and struggle with an underwater maze and some bizarre tilting mechanics in Act 3. Indeed, Episode I suffers greatly by its reliance on the original games, especially the first two, and its obnoxious use of Homing Attack chains; every Zone is simply a remix of those seen in Sonic 1 and 2, with a few things shuffled about and some sluggish, clunky physics thrown in to sour the experience. 

Episode II expands the gameplay to include tag-based mechanics and fun flying sections.

Episode II addresses many of the issues with Episode I, providing more unique gimmicks and reimagining of old gameplay mechanics along with new elements that can be both enjoyable and frustrating. The Spin Dash pads from Marble Garden Zone are back, for example, and there are now warning signs alerting you to bottomless pits; tilt mechanics are gone, replaced by platforms you can hit with the Homing Attack to make horizontal or springs, and there’s less reliance on Homing Attack chains and more emphasis placed on the Tag Actions. This is especially true in White Park Zone, where you’ll need to make ample use of the Submarine Combo to navigate the ice-cold waters, and Sky Fortress Zone, where you’ll have to expertly use both the Homing Attack and carefully-planned execution of the Copter Combo to cross gaps and avoid spiked ceilings. This Zone also sees the return of the Tornado in a very Sky Chase-inspired sequence; Sonic can now perform the Homing Attack from the Tornado’s wings and you can barrel through obstacles with X, though this’ll leave Tails dizzy for a few seconds. This was a fun autoscrolling section that focused more on avoiding Metal Sonic’s attacks and minions and trying to not get crushed by hazards but, like much of Episode II, it does go on for some time. Zones are much bigger with more varied paths, which is a good thing, and give you lots of options to use the Tag Combo or roll snowballs or take oil slides to different areas, but things can get quite aggravating due to their length and the eventual number of cheap instant deaths. Some Zones uses their gimmicks in interesting ways; Oil Desert Zone, for example, mixes together elements of Oil Ocean and Sandopolis Zone, including quicksand, rising sand you must outrun, and the aforementioned oil slicks but you’ll also lose traction on oily surfaces and these can even briefly be set alight! Sky Fortress Zone makes liberal use of propellers and wind to blow you about, rocket boosters to fry you, and chain-link fences littered with explosives for you to run across. White Park doesn’t just see you swimming through icy water, ploughing through snowdrifts, or snowboarding on avalanches but also includes a rollercoaster aesthetic, which sees you racing along at high speeds and springing to the foreground and background in a fun (if, at times, disorientating) mechanic, while Sylvania Castle Zone makes use of destructible ruins, water, springs, rotating platforms, and shortcuts across the water’s surface like in Hydrocity Zone. 

Graphics and Sound:
Sonic the Hedgehog 4 opts to ditch the classic sprite art (except, bizarrely, for loading screens and certain icons) and go for a sleek, plasticine aesthetic that seems to be trying to bridge the gap between the classics and the then-modern games but ultimately ends up being quite an unsightly, unnecessarily shiny, and cluttered mess of colours, especially in Episode I. Sonic takes far too long to get to top speed here and looks daft when he does; every movement feels like you’re underwater and the screen is zoomed in a little too close, making it difficult to see what’s ahead of you. Sonic has his usual idle poses and looks up cheerfully enough, but this is also slow and doesn’t even scroll the screen; the sound effect of his Spin Dash is also wrong, with the “release” sound used for the ”wind up” and vice versa, and all of the game’s story is told through the in-game manual and a couple of simple, pantomime-like cutscenes that are just ripped off from the first game. Although many of the same sound effects are recycled for the in-game action and menus, the soundtrack is actually pretty good; it’s stronger in Episode II, but even Episode I has some catchy tunes going on, especially the boss theme. Each Act also has slightly different gimmicks and colour palettes to mix things up, and there’s even a world map where you can freely choose which Zone and Act to play, though I disliked that the game automatically returns you to this screen after you clear an Act unless you press Y to play the next Act. 

Episode I can be quite cluttered and fundamentally cripples Sonic’s momentum.

Episode I is, however, an unsightly mishmash of conflicting effects and colours. There is a lot going on in the foregrounds and backgrounds, especially in Mad Gear Zone, which takes Metropolis Zone and ups the ante to eleven, with pistons and gears and steam vents and moving parts cluttering up the screen and making it difficult to see enemies, hazards, and even the way forward. It’s a shame as I quite like the redesign given to classic Zones like Green Hill and Labyrinth Zone, with a greater level of detail and lighting applied to make them pop and feel “busier” than before with the inclusion of waterfalls and crumbling effects. However, that doesn’t change the fact that it looks and feels like you’re playing with toys or plasticine; everything is unnecessarily busy and lacks the charm of traditional sprite art, meaning there’s no “weight” to anything. This isn’t helped by the dreadful physics; Sonic is constantly struggling against gravity, loses all momentum when hitting the ground after flying through the air, and can easily walk up slopes and loops without fear of falling. If you play fast and hard, you can avoid much of this, but Zones like Lost Labyrinth force you to slow down, and Casino Street Zone’s curved surfaces lose all their appeal when you can just trot up them without curling into a ball or using the Spin Dash. The Homing Attack is also finicky, stuttering when multiple targets are onscreen and sometimes causing you to drop to your death with it fails to lock-on. Finally, Episode I just feels like a cheap and thrown together knockoff; five Zones and one playable character, with no two-player options and very few new gameplay options, make it feel less like a continuation of the classics and more like a reimagining for the mobile generation (indeed, I argued at the time – and even now – that the game might’ve been better served being titled Sonic the Hedgehog HD). 

Episode II is visually far more interesting and unique, and handles far better.

Episode II is, technically, a vast improvement over its predecessor; the menu screens are more detailed and lively, the physics are far more polished (Sonic doesn’t always uncurl off a ramp and no longer feels floaty and heavy), and the soundtrack is even better, boasting catchy tunes and a remixed boss theme that kept me invested even at the game’s most frustrating sections. The world map has been cleverly expanded, Sonic’s running animation is far better, and the addition of Tails really adds to the gameplay. Unfortunately, Zones are still quite cluttered; White Park Zone, especially, can be very busy with all the foreground and background elements overlapping, but I enjoyed how they retained different times of day and the looming presence of the mechanised Little Planet or Metal Sonic in the background of many Acts. In fact, every Act has something interesting happening in the background; you can see the rollercoaster and theme park in the background of White Park Zone: Act 1, drilling platforms and machinery at work in the background of Oil Desert Zone, and holographic screens and foreboding machinery all over the gravity-skewing Death Egg mk. II Zone. Episode II incorporates far more cutscenes, with them being similar to those of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but to the game’s detriment; you’ll have to sit through numerous unskippable scenes of Sonic and Tails being taunted by Metal Sonic or Dr. Eggman getting his newest mech ready to battle you, which can make replaying these sections after failing a real chore. However, I really liked the way Episode II presented far more unique Zones; yes, there are influences and borrowings from previous mechanics here, but it feels like some actual effort went into giving the new Zones distinct identities rather than being rip-offs of previous efforts, and the gameplay experience was far more enjoyable here, even if the difficulty has spiked somewhat as a payoff. Indeed, hazard and enemy placement and Zone construction seems to take a leaf out of Sonic CD’s playbook, with many high-speed paths running you head-first into danger and awkward platforms, though it’s nowhere near as slapdash as in Sonic CD and seems like a balanced marriage of all five of the classic 2D Sonic titles. 

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
If you’ve ever played a Sonic game before, you’ll know exactly what’s on offer here. In addition to the life-preserving (and granting) Golden Rings, you can break open monitors to earn an extra ten Rings, grab a bubble that will protect you from one hit, a temporary speed up, and a briefly period of invincibility, as well as the odd extra life monitor. Sadly, none of the elemental shields appear here, neither does Sonic’s insta-shield, and there are no new or returning additional power-ups with the exception of Episode II’s “Special Combination” item box. These are pretty rare (I only found two throughout my entire playthrough) but see Sonic and Tails bounce across the screen, racking up points and destroying all onscreen enemies as you tap A and being showered with Rings, not unlike the “Team Blast” function of Sonic Heroes (Sonic Team USA, 2003). Episode II’s Special Stages also include the new “Combination Dash” pickup, which tethers Sonic and Tails together to allow them to pickup more Rings, a clunky mechanic that relies on momentum as much as your current speed.  

Enemies and Bosses:
When playing Episode I, you may be equal parts excited and disappointed, depending on your nostalgia for the classics and desire for fresh Sonic content, by the enemy selection on offer. Every Badnik encountered is ripped straight from Sonic 1 and 2, with only the Batbot and Bubbles returning from Sonic 3 & Knuckles. This means you’ll be bopping Motobugs, smashing Buzzers, dodging spiked balls thrown by Orbinauts, and cursing with frustration when you run head-first into Shellcracker’s clawed fist or Slicer’s annoying bladed projectiles. Episode II continues this recycling of classic Badniks, primarily focusing on enemies encountered in the old Wing Fortress Zone, but also includes a bunch of brand-new Badniks for you to go up against. Some of these are intimidating in their size; Snowy the massive mechanical polar bear is almost akin to a mini boss as it takes a couple of hits to destroy while giant robotic Sandworms will burst from the sand in a surprise attack. Others, however, are more aggravating: Flamers can set fire to Oil Desert Zone’s oil slicks, the dung-beetle-like Scarabesque always seem to sap your Rings with their explosive balls, and the seal-like Steelions will be the bane of your life in White Park Zone’s waters as they flash-freeze the nearby area and cause you to drown. Each Badnik you destroy releases a furry woodland critter, with a whole bunch being freed after boss encounters, nets you some points, and can be used to cross gaps with your Homing Attack but don’t get too cocky as some will sprout spikes to ruin your chain and send you plummeting to your death. 

Episode I recycles classic bosses, adding new attack patterns and strategies to them to mix things up.

After clearing each Act of every Zone, you’ll have to do battle with Dr. Eggman (and/or, in Episode II, Metal Sonic). In Episode I, there are five boss encounters, with all of them being recycled battles from Sonic 1 and 2 but with a new coat of paint and an extra “pinch” mode after you deal enough damage. First up, you’ll once again battle Dr. Eggman in his classic (and overused) Egg Wrecker; as before, you need to attack Dr. Eggman’s craft while avoiding his massive wrecking ball, which is a lot easier now that you have the Homing Attack and a higher rebound after landing a hit, meaning it’s simple to put him down even when he spins around and tries to crush you with the ball. Casino Street Zone revisits the Egg Claw boss; again, you need to run up the pinball table-like arena or use the bouncers to attack Dr. Eggman, this time while avoiding a claw-like appendage and an electrical shield that will damage you on contact. In Lost Labyrinth, you’ll again have to chase after Dr. Eggman’s Eggmobile, avoiding spikes and drowning, until he locks you in an enclosed arena. Here, he summons a series of horizontal and vertical columns that will crush you if you’re not careful, forcing you to quickly hop up and target him as he hides in a safe corner for easily the most aggravating boss of the game. Finally, in Mad Gear Zone, Dr. Eggman busts out a new version of the Egg Bouncer; as in Sonic 2, you’ll need to watch out for the mini Dr. Eggman bubbles that detach from his craft, which become a deadly hazard in the second phase. In this section. The game takes a page out of the Sonic Advance 2 (Dimps/Sonic Team, 2002) bosses and forces you to run at Dr. Eggman, avoiding spiked balls and his erratic duplicates to land hits. As if that isn’t bad enough, you’ll have to battle all four bosses in their “pinch” phases again in the secret final Zone, E.G.G. Station, in a boss rush. Luckily, there are Rings and checkpoints between each bout, though they’ve also got added hazards thrown in, such as moving platforms in the Egg Wrecker section and additional projectiles in the Egg Bouncer section. 

Episode II‘s bosses are larger and more complex but long-winded and tedious at times.

Episode II is once again a double-edged sword when it comes to bosses; while they’re largely far more unique and offer more of a challenge, they’re long, tedious, and involve a lot of waiting around. Episode II takes inspiration from Sonic CD for its bosses, giving them complex attack patterns and more visually interesting and tricky pinch phases, which is either a good or a bad thing depending on how patient you are. In Episode II, you’ll battle Dr. Eggman twice; in Sylvania Castle Zone, he pilots the Egg Serpentleaf, a massive plant-like mech that tries to swat you with its many tentacles and shields him behind a spiked bud. You’ll need to use the Copter Combo to avoid being smacked and land a few hits on Dr. Eggman, which will eventually cause more tentacles to appear and the mad scientist to blast the arena with a massive cannon. You’ll next encounter him in Oil Desert Zone in an even more irritating boss battle; Dr. Eggman assembles a massive mech out of scrap metal and you must pursue him up a garbage disposal, dodging his buzzsaws and the crates he drops (which thankfully aren’t instant-kill hazards but can contain spikes or bombs) and smacking his cockpit when he appears. When you reach the surface, the Egg Scrap Mech rapidly jumps between the foreground and background before trying to crush you; you’ll need to hit its feet with the Rolling Combo to stun it and finish off this pain in the ass boss. The other two boss battles are against Metal Sonic; like Sonic CD and Sonic Advance 2, these are auto-runners and autoscrollers. In White Park Zone, you must race towards Metal Sonic and attack him, then dodge his charge attack (either by jumping or springing to the foreground or background) and hop over the electrical traps he lays for you. After a few hits, he’ll start destroying the rollercoaster track so you’ll have to take care not to fall when attacking him. In Sky Fortress Zone, Metal Sonic pesters you in his Metal Carrier and then battles you directly, blasting electrical bolts that you need to dodge to smack his cockpit. He’ll then face you head-on, firing energy beams that you need to avoid and then jettisoning booster rockets that can crush you if you’re not careful. This can be a very annoying boss battle if you fail as there’s a lot of downtime at the start and between phases; while you can easily amass 100 Rings for an extra life, it doesn’t help with the frustration that can build in this encounter. 

Sonic’s return to the Death Egg is either overly familiar or erratically tough, but always an uphill battle.

Once you’ve cleared every Zone and bested Dr. Eggman’s boss rush in Episode I, you’ll face a final confrontation with the mad scientist in a refurbished Death Egg Robot. This is easily the most tedious and frustrating boss battle of Episode I as the Death Egg Robot takes nearly thirty hits to destroy and the battle involves a lot of waiting around. To start with, it’s exactly the same as in Sonic 2 but easier thanks to you having Rings and the Homing Attack; simply stay away from the mech, attacking its torso and avoiding its rocket arms, until it starts to malfunction. In this phase, the Death Egg Robot cannot be directly attacked; you need to quickly dash under it as it hops about and then use the Homing Attack to blast one of its rocket arms back at it, avoiding the sporadic laser blasts as you go, to land a few precious hits. Once you’ve done this enough, Dr. Eggman will try one last attack, forcing you to quickly dodge out of the way and land the finishing blow before you’re dropped to your death. In Episode II, you’ll rush at Dr. Eggman and Metal Sonic aboard the Death Egg mk. II; you need to get past the invulnerable Dr. Eggman and ram Metal Sonic a few times, avoiding the giant energy balls unleashed, before racing against your robotic doppelgänger like in Stardust Speedway, only this time with more doors to bash through. Finally, you’ll battle Dr. Eggman’s Egg Heart at the heart of the mechanised Little Planet; this battle is fought on constantly rotating mechanical rings that will burst with electricity, forcing you to quickly hop between them and ram Dr. Eggman’s cockpit. The more damage you do, the more erratic the rings move and the more dangerous the hazards become; Dr. Eggman even erects an energy shield that you’ll need to break with a Rolling Combo, making for a far more unique but equally frustrating final boss encounter. 

Additional Features:
There are twenty-four Achievements to earn in Sonic 4, twelve for each Episode, and they’re pretty basic, for the most part. You’ll get an Achievement for clearing the first Act of each game’s first Zone, one for clearing each game, one for completing first Act of each game’s first Zone in a strict time limit, and one for collecting first one and then all the Chaos Emeralds. In Episode I, you’ll get an Achievement for defeating 1000 enemies and accumulating 99 extra lives, while in Episode II you’ll add to your Gamer Score by playing as Tails fifty times and performing the Rolling Combo. Each Act in Episode II also hides a Red Star Ring; collect them all and finish the game for another Achievement, and upload your best scores in each Episode for another. I mentioned Chaos Emeralds just now and, as you’d expect, the seven gems are collectible in each Episode. You’ll earn them by beating Special Stages, which are accessed by finishing Act 1 to 3 with fifty Rings and entering a Big Ring, but the Special Stages vary drastically between each Episode. In Episode 1, they’re based on Sonic 1’s Special Stages, featuring a floating maze filled with Rings, bumpers, and exit pads; you need to collect Rings to lower barriers and reach the Chaos Emerald before the time runs out, collecting time bonuses and making use of the ‘Retry’ option in the pause menu if you’re sensing failure. As bad as Sonic 1’s Special Stages were, these are far worse; you rotate the maze here, not Sonic, which is extremely awkward and disorientating. Sonic can also jump but all this does is shake the screen in a nauseating way and, while you can replay the Special Stages from the world map, you can only retry those you’ve beaten and you must enter a Special Stage from a different Act to get a different Chaos Emerald. 

Conquer the aggravating Special Stages or take on a harder challenge in Episode Metal.

In Episode II, the Special Stages are redesigned and now influenced by the half-pipe stages from Sonic 2. Here, Sonic and Tails must collect a set number of Rings to progress, dodging bombs and electrical hazards and making use of the awkward tether mechanic in the final two Special Stages. While these are a lot more enjoyable and it’s much easier to retry if you’re struggling, they can get really annoying as the difficulty increases; you’ll need pixel-perfect timing and to make good use of the boost and momentum to snag all the Rings and the Chaos Emeralds here. In both Episodes, collecting the seven Chaos Emeralds allows you to transform into Super Sonic once you collect fifty Rings and double press A or B. this makes you super fast and completely invincible unless you’re crushed or drop down a pit, though it only lasts for as long as you hold Rings. Unlike Episode I, Episode II also features a multiplayer component; you and a friend can play the game in co-op like in Sonic 2, either locally or online, though this is strangely the only way you can play as Tails alone. Finally, completing Episode II unlocks Episode Metal, a side story in which you play as Metal Sonic and work your way backwards through remixed versions of Episode I’s Zones with all new cutscenes setting the stage for Metal Sonic’s return. Despite some new animations and sound effects, Metal Sonic is simply a reskin of Sonic and doesn’t have any new attacks; he also has to smash Badniks as well, which is a bit odd but I guess speaks to his superiority complex. There are no Achievements tied to Episode Metal, which is significantly harder then either Episode I or II; enemies, hazards, instant-death traps, and Act layouts have all be increased, altered, and made far more challenging, though there are sadly no bosses to contend with here, meaning this is more of a distraction for players who have mastered the base games. 

The Summary:
Honestly, calling any title Sonic the Hedgehog 4 was going to be asking for trouble; Sonic the Hedgehog HD or Sonic Returns or Sonic Redux would’ve been far more appropriate titles and would’ve tempered expectations for these sadly unfinished titles. It just baffles me how SEGA thought it was acceptable to go from the sprawling, multi-character epic that was Sonic 3 & Knuckles to this tame, cheap, stripped down bastardisation of the first two games. Playing Episode I alone is a joke; the game is functionally playable but visually a mess, with wonky physics, a lack of replay value, and too many recycled gimmicks and elements from Sonic 1 and 2. Thank God for Episode II, which fixes many of these issues; Sonic controls a lot better, the Zones are far more visually interesting and unique, and the bosses have more effort put into them. The team-based mechanics were fun; they could’ve easily been overused but they were enjoyable when you weren’t being asked to fly over bottomless pits, though I’m confused as to why there’s no option to play as Tails in the lead. The inclusion of Episode Metal was also a nice touch, though I think more could’ve been done with this. At least give Metal Sonic his electrical boost or some new gameplay mechanic, or have him face off against Sonic, rather than just being relegated to a hard mode add-on. Truthfully, I am sad we never got the planned Episode III as it’s possible that more unique elements would’ve been added in, including a playable Knuckles the Echidna and other more engaging elements, but sadly we’ll never know. As a complete package, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is widely inconsistent; in addressing errors from Episode I, the game just feels like a disjointed mess, even when it’s doing something new and enjoyable. It’s obvious the developers tried to address these issues in Episode II, providing a more challenging and versatile gameplay experience, but at the cost of upping the difficulty in some areas and making it equally as frustrating as Episode I but in different ways. Ultimately, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is a disappointment; it not only fails to live up to its title, but also fails to match the quality of Sonic’s Game Boy Advance titles. I can understand why SEGA distanced themselves from it (though not its hefty price tag), though luckily these mistakes were atoned for in the years to come with better, more enjoyable throwbacks to Sonic’s heyday being released. 

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Are you a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog 4? Which Episode did you prefer and what did you think to the presentation and stripped down mechanics? Were you disappointed by how much Episode I drew from the original games and the poor selection of Zones and modes? What did you think to the team up moves in Episode II and the return of Metal Sonic? Which of the game’s bosses and Zones was your favourite, and would you have liked to see an Episode III tie everything up? How are you celebrating Sonic’s anniversary this year, and what are some of your favourite Sonic games? Whatever you think, leave a comment below or on my social media and go check out my other Sonic content across the site!

Game Corner [Sonic Month]: Sonic Rush (Nintendo DS)

Dr. K3 Comments

Sonic the Hedgehog was first introduced to gamers worldwide on June 23 1991 and, since then, has become not only SEGA’s most enduring and popular character but also a beloved videogame icon and, in keeping with tradition, I have been dedicating the entire month to celebrating SEGA’s supersonic mascot.

Released: 15 November 2005
Developer: Dimps / Sonic Team

The Background:
SEGA’s desperate attempt to create a mascot iconic enough to rival Super Mario paid off greatly when Sonic the Hedgehog expanded into mainstream popularity with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (SEGA Technical Institute, 1992). Despite further success with subsequent platform titles and his first forays into 3D gaming, a series of costly decisions saw SEGA forced to withdraw from console manufacture, bringing the “Console War” of the nineties to an anti-climatic end. With SEGA focused on software development, the unthinkable happened when Sonic and SEGA-branded videogames appeared on Nintendo’s often-underappreciated GameCube console and Game Boy Advance handheld. Partnered with Dimps, Sonic Team created a trilogy of throwback titles for Nintendo’s handheld that were largely well received, despite some nagging criticisms. The partnership with Dimps continued when Nintendo succeeded the Game Boy Advance with the more powerful, dual screened Nintendo DS and SEGA immediately impressed when they dropped the first gameplay footage of their newest game for the new-fangled device at E3 2004. Director Akinori Nishiyama was keen to infuse the spirit of the classic games with the contemporary mechanics and fast-paced action of Sonic’s 3D titles and introduced not just the hotly-debated Boost gameplay to the franchise but also a brand-new character, Blaze the Cat, who would become a staple of the series. Released exclusively for the Nintendo DS, Sonic Rush has been widely praised for its back-to-basics approach, gorgeous graphics and fast-paced action, and memorable soundtrack. While some criticised the level layouts and repetitive elements, the game impressed enough to warrant a sequel in 2007 and the game is largely fondly regarded as an oft-forgotten gem of the franchise.

The Plot:
When Doctor Eggman steals the seven Sol Emeralds, their stoic guardian, Blaze the Cat, journeys to Sonic’s world to recover them. However, her nemesis, Doctor Eggman Nega, has followed her and in search of the seven Chaos Emeralds, leading Sonic the Hedgehog to oppose his mad plot for worldwide destruction.

Gameplay:
Sonic Rush is a 2.5D action platformer much like most classic Sonic titles and his 2D outings on the Game Boy Advance. Players can initially only control Sonic but will unlock new character Blaze after clearing the first level (known as a “Zone”). As is often the case, each Zone is comprised of two stages (or “Acts”), with a third dedicated to a boss battle against either Dr. Eggman or Eggman Nega. By entering the “Options” menu on the main menu screen, players can tweak some of the game’s settings, setting it to Easy, Normal, or Hard (which I believe impacts the amount of lives you start with and hits bosses take), disable the ten minute time limit for Acts, listen to the game’s soundtrack, or allow a friend to download a demo version of the game to their Nintendo DS. One new feature rarely seen in 2D Sonic titles is the presence of a world map; styled after the map screen in Sonic Adventure 2 (Sonic Team USA, 2001), this allows players to wander about a static screen to replay previous Zones or visit their allies. Miles “Tails” Prower and Cream the Rabbit will offer encouragement and enthusiastic support to each character, keeping track of how many lives they have, how many of the Chaos and Sol Emeralds they’ve collected, and the percentage that their worlds have unmerged (reduced as you clear Zones). Despite visually appearing very different, and their contrasting personalities (Sonic is all brash and happy-go-lucky and Blaze is quiet and reserved), Sonic and Blaze play in almost exactly the same way, visit the same Zones (albeit in a different order), and battle the same bosses (just with different madmen at the helms), though Blaze doesn’t have to worry about beating Special Stages to acquire her Emeralds.

Sonic and new ally Blaze can blast through Zones with their new Boost mechanic and abilities.

Both characters can jump with a press of A or B; holding the button lets them jump a bit higher and pressing down and A or B charges up either the Spin Dash or the Burst Dash so you can blast ahead in a burst of speed. When jumping, you can press the right bumper to perform an air dash as Sonic or Blaze’s Burst Hover, which gives her a little more airtime courtesy of a rocket boost from her boots. Unfortunately, Blaze is little more than a reskin of Sonic; her gameplay is slightly different thanks to her limited hover but it’s essentially exactly the same as Sonic’s, lacking additional features such as climbing or flying to really make her stand out despite her visual appeal, to the point where I wonder if it might’ve been better to have Blaze be incapable of boosting just to make her gameplay a bit different and challenging compared to Sonic’s. When flying off ramps, springs, or propelled through the air, you can press B, A, and R to perform tricks; these will both boost you higher and further, which is necessary to reach platforms and switches, and build up your “Tension Gauge”. When partially or completely full, you can hold down X or Y to blast off with the Super Boost or Fire Boost, respectively, which sees you plough through Badniks and breakable walls at breakneck speeds, completely invulnerable and surrounded by waves of supersonic or flaming energy. This boost mode allows Sonic Rush to reach speeds classic Sonic games could only dream of and is essential for outrunning giant rolling balls, blasting through enemies and Acts alike, building momentum with some of the game’s gimmicks, and entering Special Stages. It can be unwieldy at times, though; just as you should exercise caution with your trick moves, you should use the boost sparingly as you could overshoot platforms or run head-first into one of the game’s many bottomless pits. Sonic and Blaze can also grind on rails to pick up speed and perform tricks, fill the Tension Gauge by defeating enemies, and make use of giant bullets and hovering UFO-like vehicles, though these latter two are equally cumbersome due to being difficult to control and having to use the Nintendo DS’s dual screens to navigate.

Despite a few new gimmicks, both characters sadly share the exact same playstyle.

Sonic Rush uniquely uses the dual screens to spread its action out vertically; you’ll often by sprinting down slopes from the top screen to the bottom, which is quite fun, and you’ll need to pay attention to the top screen when planning jumps to avoid Badniks or spot platforms and switches. Otherwise, the bottom touchscreen is mostly relegated to menus and the Special Stages, which I’ll talk about later, and the bulk of the game is comprised of tried-and-true Sonic gimmicks. You’ll grab Golden Rings to survive hits and earn extra lives when you collect 100, suck in air bubbles when lumbering underwater, run through loops, bounce from springs, and avoid or be frustrated by sudden spiked hazards as you blast through the game’s seven Zones. There’s a lot that’s familiar about Sonic Rush; the ramps, boosters, and many of the Zones and enemies are modelled after Sonic Adventure 2 and married with a tweaked version of the classic gameplay mechanics, effectively bridging the gap between the “Classic” and “Modern” iterations of Sonic and laying the foundation for Sonic’s mid-2000s Boost-centric gameplay. You’ll spring from bungees, be blasted about by water jets and cannons, jump to moving or temporary platforms, boost into giant propellers to cover greater distances, resist the urge to pull off tricks after being blasted through the sky by rocket sledges, temporarily light up rails and platforms or ride blocks of light by hitting switches, run along the ceilings, and even be whisked through the cloudy sky on a hang glider (though, thankfully, it’s a largely automated section that’s much easier to control this time). Often, you’ll be trapped in a small arena and have to destroy all onscreen enemies to escape, sometimes while avoiding crushing hazards; other times, you’ll swing from chains and ropes (again resisting the urge to press any inputs except to jump to safety) and desperately avoiding instant-kill lasers or the numerous bottomless pits. These cheap hazards crop up from the first Zone and only increase by the time you reach Dead Line; it can be extremely aggravating being in the swing of a fun boost run, pulling off nifty tricks and building momentum, only to cause yourself to fly past a platform or spring or through a rail and plummet to your death.

Graphics and Sound:
Although Sonic Rush employs traditional sprite art for its backgrounds and environments and even oddly includes some Sonic Advance-style sprites in its endings, character models are all polygonal this time around, which is a bit hit and miss. Sonic and Blaze make a big show of looking up, dying, and encouraging you to get a move on but lack a lot of the detail seen in the Game Boy Advance games as their character models are a bit blocky and indistinct at times. Sure, they express a lot of personality when pulling off tricks, vocalising their enthusiasm, and when clearing an Act and getting their final letter grade, but I can’t help but think it might’ve been better if the environments were polygonal and the characters were nicely-animated sprites instead. On the plus side, despite the bland title screen and menu selection, Sonic Rush has an absolutely killer soundtrack; Hideki Naganuma and Teruhiko Nakagawa went above and beyond to really produce some infectious ear worms. This is evident from Sonic’s first Zone, Leaf Storm and its upbeat “Right There, Ride On” tune and continues with tracks like “Back 2 Back”. Every Zone makes an impression with its soundtrack, which really helps the game stand out from the usual punk rock tunes of the main console games and the traditional chirpy music from the classics. Cutscenes are a bit of a mixed bag; the story is primarily told using barely animated in-game models accompanied by dialogue boxes and you’ll see the same cutscenes repeated over and over after you defeat each boss, though there are some fun cameos here and there.

While the environments looks great, I’m not impressed with the polygonal models.

As mentioned before, Sonic Rush’s Zones are modelled after Sonic Adventure 2’s, for the most part. Leaf Storm is like a 2.5D version of Green Forest, Mirage Road resembles Hidden Base/Sand Ocean, and Huge Crisis takes place on battleships and in the middle of a Naval fleet like Metal Harbor. Other Zones are a little more traditional, with the Casino Night/Carnival Night Zone-inspired Night Carnival and Dead Line essentially being another run-through of a Death Egg-style space station. There’s quite a bit of detail packed into each Act, though they can be a little barren of enemies at times; you’ll see critters freed from every enemy or fluttering about, vines twisted over rails, flashing neon billboards, and fighter jets all lurking in the background. Hieroglyphics, giant stone statues, and fast sand slides await in Mirage Road, with these latter two gimmicks enlarging the character models as they’re brought closer to the camera. Similarly, you’ll precariously run along fencing, parachute past enemies and spikes in Altitude Limit, and illuminate entire areas with spotlights or glowing platforms in Night Carnival. Sonic’s opening Zones, Leaf Storm and Water Park, made the strongest impression on me; I enjoyed the ripple effect on the water, that you can run across it, and the Greece-inspired architecture in Water Park and the sheer colourful depth of Leaf Storm that helped to showcase the upgrade in power from the Game Boy Advance. Sadly, even these Zones are let down by an abundance of death pits, but the way the action spreads across both screens can be really fun, especially when you’re building up speed. The touchscreen comes to the forefront in the Special Stages, which are modelled after Sonic 2’s half-pipe stages and see you using the stylus (or your finger) to control a fully 3D Sonic model as he grabs Rings, avoids obstacles, and hits numbered targets to score extra Rings.

Enemies and Bosses:
There are two types of robotic enemies you’ll encounter in Sonic Rush: Egg Pawns and the minions of the Eggman Empire modelled after those seen in Sonic Heroes (Sonic Team USA, 2003) and security droids not unlike those employed by the Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N.) in Sonic Adventure 2. Egg Pawns are the most common and have a few variants, from being relatively harmless to packing rifles and bazookas and even blocking your direct attacks with shields. A larger variant, the Egg Hammer, also appears, usually when you’re confined to on area, and takes multiple hits to defeat and could be classified as a mini boss. You’ll also encounter Dr. Eggman’s flying forces, often placed right where you’re about to spring into the air or dive-bombing you when you’re navigating a bottomless pit or bed of spikes or dropping bombs on you at the worst possible time. Egg Bishops also reappear from Sonic Heroes, though they’re limited to simply firing projectiles from their wands. Knight Pawns also appear but, despite their fun armoured appearance and lance, they’re simply another Egg Pawn to plough through, same with the G.U.N. Hunter that can catch you with its bullets but is otherwise just there to build up your Tension Gauge. Sadly, no classic Badniks appear but you often get a great feeling of empowerment ploughing through multiple enemies with your boost attack, which I guess is a good compromise.

Though large, bosses are repetitive and time consuming chores you fight multiple times.

Each Zone ends in a boss battle against either Dr. Eggman or Eggman Nega; sadly, both pilot the same machines so, while you’ll battle them in a different order with each character, both Sonic and Blaze have the same boss encounters with the same strategies employed each time, making for a bit of a repetitive experience. Bosses are fought either on a single platform or a circular loop, with their health measured on the bottom screen where Tails or Cream constantly shout encouragement, end in a dramatic freeze frame, and the arenas hold a handful of Rings to keep you going. The first boss you fight is the Egg Hammer Mega, a snake-like mech that tries to crush you with singular or multiple head slam and sends its cockpit rolling across the ground to try and damage you. Simply dash out of the way then its head slams down, jumping over any shockwaves, and ram the cockpit to do damage. This boss is repeated in Huge Crisis, where it now launches missiles from the battleship in the background and charges up an instant-kill slam, and it was during this fight that I realised how long-winded the game’s bosses are as there’s a lot of waiting around and few opportunities to attack. Water Park sees you battling the Egg Turtle; although much of this fight is underwater, you won’t have to worry about drowning and must simply avoid the mech’s belly flop and propeller butt, smacking its glowing head whenever you get the chance. Things pick up a little when you fight the Egg Beetle; you need to hit the explosive ball it sends rolling at you when its spikes are withdrawn and it’s flashing to do damage, often a couple of times when it jumps over you, and avoid the bombardment of projectiles when the mech takes to the sky. Similarly, you’ll need good timing when fighting the Egg Libra; you need to hit the weighted ball when its shield drops to lower the cockpit and land a hit, then avoid the bolts running across the ground and use the springing robot to score an extra hit, which can be a bit frantic as there’s a lot happening onscreen. Finally, in Altitude Limit, you’ll battle the Egg Eagle, one of the toughest and most annoying bosses because of how long the battle takes. You’ll need to avoid its bullet barrage and frantically mash A and B when it lands and tries to blow you off the platform! You can score a hit when it lands and tries to peck at you, but it’s a small window and it’s easy to take damage so you’ll need to be quick with your reactions.

After settling their differences, Sonic and Blaze must team up against the Eggmans!

When you reach the end of Dead Line, you’ll battle ither Sonic or Blaze in a one-on-one fight not unlike the Hidden Palace Zone bout against Knuckles the Echidna. Both have the exact same moves as they do when playing as them in the game but seem to be nerfed in their intelligence, meaning it’s pretty simply to bop or dash into them to whittle their health down, but you’ll need to mash A and B to win the boost-off head-to-head at the end. The main story ends in a battle against the titanic Egg King, which sees you frantically dodging its sporadic eye lasers and jumping over up to three shockwaves when it smacks your platform. You then need to hit its arm and run towards the cockpit for a hit, but hold down when prompted or you’ll be flung off. The Egg King also tries to smush you with a double axhandle smash and speeds up its attacks as the fight progresses, eventually ramming into the platform for a kamikaze attack at the end that you have to quickly avoid to land the final blow. Once you’ve acquired all seven Chaos Emeralds, Sonic and Blaze power-up to their Super forms for a Doomsday Zone-esque showdown with the two Eggman’s underwhelming Egg Salamander. This is fought on each screen, with each hero taking it in turns to avoid or destroy asteroids, dodge lasers, and land a hit, which switches the action to the other screen and character. The Egg Salamander shoots laser orbs at Super Sonic which must be awkwardly bounced back into it using the Super Boost (A or B); it also swipes at you with its claws, and you’ll need to grab Rings to keep from powering down. Burning Blaze has to charge up and launch a fireball with A, which has a significant delay and is equally difficult to aim. She can also have her Rings sapped when the mech tears open a hole in the fabric of space/time, and this is another fight made unnecessarily tense and frustrating by how long it drags on, how difficult it is to land hits, and how few windows of opportunity you get (though I found that when I respawned after a late stage death, I didn’t have to start all over again, which was unexpected).

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
All the power-ups seen in the Sonic Advance games return here; you can add anywhere from one to fifty Rings to your tally with a Super Ring box, gain temporary invincibility or earn an extra life, or protect yourself from a bit with a barrier or attract nearby Rings with its magnetic variant. The new power-up on the block here are the two Tension Gauge boxes, which partially or fully fill your boost meter, usually right before you need to use it to get past a section of an Act.

Additional Features:
When playing as Sonic, you’ll need to keep your Tension Gauge filled to the maximum for when you stumble upon Special Generators; grab onto these and hold X or Y to open the rift to the Special Stage, though keep in mind that you can only challenge one Special Stage per Act. So, if you want to try for a different Chaos Emerald, you’ll need to complete the Act and replay it; if you earn a Chaos Emerald in an Act and then enter another Special Stage in the same Act, you simply replay the same Special Stage. Special Stages aren’t too bad this time around; based on Sonic 2’s half-pipe, they task you with acquiring two totals of Rings, avoiding spikes and other hazards and flicking Sonic off the pipes to grab Ring clusters or hit springs. When you do, you’ll need to quickly tap the numbered icons for a Ring bonus; you can also hit boost pads and switches to grab bigger Ring clusters, but your skill at Sonic Rush’s Special Stages all comes down to the quality of your touchscreen and how good your stylus game is. It can be janky and awkward making precise or quick movements and you’ll often miss large clusters of Rings trying to get others, though the fact you can easily access and practise the Special Stages makes them leagues better than any in the Game Boy Advance games. Collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds unlocks the final “Extra” story, which is the only way you can play as Super Sonic and Burning Blaze. Otherwise, you can replay previous Acts to try and get all S-ranks for bragging rights or try out the game’s multiplayer mode, in which two players race head-to-head as Sonic and Blaze to finish Acts the fastest, though I’ve never played this mode. Sadly, there’s no boss rush to unlock or even the ability to watch back the game’s cutscenes, though I guess you could try playing on a harder difficulty if you want a bit more of a challenge.

The Summary:
This is my first time playing Sonic Rush in over a decade, certainly since I first completed it. I always had pretty fond memories of it; the visuals, Blaze’s design, and the action-packed gameplay stood out, especially because it was the first Sonic game to incorporate the Boost mechanic, but it was surpassed not just by the sequel but by other, bigger Sonic games. Revisiting it now was a lot of fun; the environments, especially, look fantastic, really translating a lot of the visual style of the 3D games of the time into a handheld title and I especially enjoyed being able to let loose with the boost and plough through enemies. Sadly, the polygonal models aren’t as appealing and I didn’t like how long-winded and repetitive the bosses were; sure, Blaze fights them in a different order but nothing else is different about them, which is very disappointing. Blaze, in general, was a bit of a let-down in this regard; she plays the same as Sonic except for a bit more airtime and her Zone order being mixed up, meaning the difficulty curve of her story is a bit out of whack yet she’s paradoxically easier to play as since you don’t have to worry about Special Stages. I like her design, but I do think her gameplay should’ve been altered to make her more like a “Hard Mode” compared to Sonic’s “Normal”. While the Special Stages can be finnicky, I liked that I was actually able to access and beat them all and the Act layouts, while sometimes a bit barren and strewn with instant-death traps, where much improved, showing the developers learned from their mistakes on the Game Boy Advance. I really liked the verticality of the game and how it used the dual screens in an interesting way, but this was a bit of a barebones presentation for such a powerful handheld. It’s great as a fun, back-to-basics return to Sonic’s roots, with just enough familiar and new mechanics to make things exciting, but there’s not a lot of incentive to revisit it once you’ve unlocked and beaten the “Extra” story and there are a few too many missed opportunities to really make Blaze’s gameplay as unique as her appearance.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Was Sonic Rush a part of your Nintendo DS library back in the day? What did you think to the new boost mechanic and the way it utilised the dual screens? Were you a fan of Blaze, and were you also disappointed that she was basically a reskin of Sonic? What did you think to the game’s bosses and Special Stages? Did you ever defeat the Egg Salamander, and were you a fan of Eggman Nega? Which of Sonic’s handheld adventures is your favourite and how are you celebrating him this month? I’d love to know your thoughts and memories of Sonic Rush so leave them in the comments, or on my social media, and be sure to check out my other Sonic content.

Game Corner [Sonic Month]: Sonic Advance (Game Boy Advance)

Dr. K9 Comments

Sonic the Hedgehog was first introduced to gamers worldwide on June 23 1991 and, since then, has become not only SEGA’s most enduring and popular character but also a beloved videogame icon and, in keeping with tradition, I have been dedicating the entire month to celebrating SEGA’s supersonic mascot.

Released: 20 December 2001
Developer: Dimps / Sonic Team
Also Available For: Android, Nintendo Wii U (Virtual Console, Japan only), J2ME, and N-Gage

The Background:
After a long development process and strategic planning to create a mascot iconic enough to rival Super Mario, SEGA’s initial success with Sonic the Hedgehog expanded into mainstream popularity with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (SEGA Technical Institute, 1992). Sonic was on a serious roll at this time; the spectacular Sonic 3 & Knuckles (ibid, 1994) was too big for one cartridge, became one of the best classic Sonic games, and was naturally followed by…numerous disappointing spin-offs before making the jump to 3D in 1999. As well received as Sonic Adventure (Sonic Team, 1999) and Sonic Adventure 2 (Sonic Team USA, 2001) were, however, SEGA was in dire straights; numerous delays, blunders, and over spending saw them lose their foothold in the home console market, bringing the “Console War” of the nineties to an anti-climatic end. Now focusing on software development, the unthinkable happened when SEGA produced ports of the Sonic Adventure games for Nintendo’s often-underappreciated GameCube console and, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the franchise, SEGA turned to Dimps to create a 2D throwback to the classic games that also incorporated the art style and some mechanics from the 3D games. The result was Sonic Advance, which became a best-selling Game Boy Advance title and was met with largely positive reviews. Critics lauded the presentation and tight gameplay mechanics, though elements like the Special Stages and an overreliance on nostalgia were criticised. Still, Sonic Advance was regarded as one of the best Nintendo games and helped solidify SEGA ’s new relationship with Nintendo; it was followed not just by two sequels, but numerous handheld spin-offs and spiritual successors that further refined the gameplay and mechanics for Sonic’s portable adventures.

The Plot:
Doctor Eggman has returned, with his sights once again set on enslaving woodland creatures into metallic Badniks, gathering the legendary Chaos Emeralds, and constructing an elaborate space base! Luckily, Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends – Miles “Tails” Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, and Amy Rose – are on hand to oppose his evil schemes once more.

Gameplay:
When Sonic Advance released, the Sonic franchise was firmly in the midst of its 3D era. 2D, sidescrolling action-based platformers were out for the Blue Blur and elaborate, action-packed 3D rollercoasters with varying gameplay were in, so Sonic Advance was a bit of a throwback to Sonic’s classic 2D roots, and in many ways the long awaited fourth entry in the classic series. In addition to the plot being as basic as the classics, the control scheme is immediately familiar to anyone who’s played Sonic 3 & Knuckles: A lets you jump, pressing it again initiates a jump attack or move, you use up and down to scroll the screen and duck under obstacles, and press down and A to charge up a Spin Dash for a speed boost. You can pick from four characters – with Amy Rose making her playable debut in a sidescrolling game – and journey through seven levels (known as “Zones”), with two final Zones awaiting after clearing certain objectives, with each Zone split into two parts (known as “Acts”) and featuring a boss battle in each Act 2. Players must collect Golden Rings to stay alive, with the glittering Rings scattering when you’re hit so you can collect them again, and race against a ten-minute time limit, which can thankfully be disabled in the “Options” menu. This menu also allows you to pick between “Easy” or “Normal” mode (with the differences I believe boiling down to how many lives you start with and the amount of hits bosses take), configure the control scheme, and select different language options, though there is no story text to worry about here as everything’s taking its cue more from the 2D games than the 3D ones when it comes to storytelling.

Each character’s unique abilities changes the way you play and the game’s difficulty.

So far, so familiar. However, gameplay changes depending on which character you pick, with Tails effectively being the easy mode thanks to his propeller-like twin tails and Amy being the hard mode since she doesn’t curl into a ball. Each character has different abilities to traverse Zones and take out enemies; you can perform Sonic’s Insta-Shield by pressing A twice, pressing B sees him perform a sliding ground somersault, and you can perform a back jump by pressing B and then A (though I found little use for this). Sonic can also pull off a limited and frankly useless mid-air dash by pressing right and A twice and is somewhat limited in his options since he can’t fly or climb, so his gameplay is more about speed and ploughing head-first through obstacles. Tails can, of course, fly for a short time by pressing A twice, and his tails will often inflict damage on whatever’s underneath him. When in water, Tails can doggy paddle indefinitely by tapping A and pressing B on solid ground sees him whip his twin tails in a melee attack. Knuckles has a shorter jump height but makes up for it by being able to glide with a double tap of A and cling to and climb most walls. He can also swim by tapping A and perform a standing three-punch combo with A, though I didn’t have much use for this as the regular spinning and rolling methods work fine. Amy, however, is all about mele attacks; she can’t curl into a ball or Spin Dash, making her much more vulnerable, but she is armed with her signature Piko-Piko Hammer. You can smash enemies with B, use down and B to spring into the air with a hammer-assisted jump, and hold down and B when jumping to spin with the hammer, all of which is quite slow and clunky and makes battling bosses quite a chore for Amy. Amy can also take a giant leap by pressing down and A and can slide ahead by pressing right and B, but she sure does present a significant challenge even for seasoned players since she lacks all the basic Sonic abilities. Sonic and Amy can also hop on rails to do a bit of grinding and each character can grab overhead poles to shimmy along, bounce to higher areas using springs, run through loops, smash boulders or ice to occasionally reveal item capsules or springs, and must grab air bubbles to keep from drowning when underwater.

Gimmicks old and new are far more fun than the annoying enemy and hazard placement.

In terms of gameplay and stage design, Sonic Advance keeps things quite safe: Zones start off pretty simple, utilising recycled gimmicks and certain aesthetic themes from the classic games, but things become very cheap, frustrating, and difficult as the game progresses. You’ll be hopping to moving and temporary platforms, avoiding spikes, and trying to stick to the higher, faster path in most Acts but you’ll also be forced into the sluggish water, have to ride zip-wires, be blown into the air by fans, and pinball all over the place on bumpers. At first, enemies and hazards aren’t too difficult to avoid; the Game Boy Advance screen does limit your view a lot of the time, meaning it’s easy to jump or spring head-first into a projectile or unseen Badnik, but later Zones like Angel Island Zone and Egg Rocket Zone can easily see you jump, fall, or be blasted into a bottomless pit for a cheap death. Boost pads are used sparingly, thankfully, but are present, as are tunnels, air cannons, spinning spiked platforms, conveyer belts, bouncy platforms (and clouds), and lava pits. Ice Mountain Zone sees you riding iceberg floats, Angel Island Zone incorporates rolling boulders and sand gimmicks from Sandopolis Zone, and Egg Rocket Zone splits apart as you traverse higher, taking you further into the atmosphere, and briefly utilises the Death Egg Zone’s gravity mechanic. Claws will carry you across gaps, you’ll need to run on spheres to reach higher platforms, you’ll be jumping to swinging chained hooks, riding jets and streams of water, and dodging crushing hazards and warping across Zones. A lot of it is immediately familiar to long-time Sonic gamers, with just enough of a twist to make it more unique, but much of the game relies on slower, strategic platforming, blind jumps, or cheap deaths and enemy placements. Luckily, you can still hit lampposts to create a checkpoint if you die; collecting 100 Rings grants you an extra life, and there are 1-Up capsules hidden about the place. However, I actually found myself playing on zero lives at one point, which rarely, if ever, happens to me when playing 2D Sonic games and speaks to how challenging the later Zones can be largely due to placing Badniks, spikes, and bottomless pits just out of view to mess up your run.

Graphics and Sound:
There’s a reason I used the Sonic Advance sprites and backgrounds back when I used to make sprite comics; they are absolutely gorgeous and really capture the feel of the Sonic Adventure games and artwork. Sonic and his friends are full of life and personality, more than ever before; not only to they perform idle poses when left alone, urging you to get moving, but that also jig about with enthusiasm whenever you leave them standing. Although the introduction cutscene is extremely basic and focuses on the characters rather than delivering any kind of ground-breaking story, the in-game sprites more than make up for this; each character has lots of frames of animation, always pops against the background no matter how busy it gets, and performs a little victory pose when clearing Acts and bosses. Sadly, the music doesn’t fair as well; outside of some fun, if underutilised, remixes from the classic games, I found myself largely forgetting the themes for each Zone and the Game Boy Advance’s sound chip seems poorly suited to bringing the kind of energy I expect from a Sonic title. The stage select screen is also very basic and, while the ending makes up for this by featuring some fun sprite art and big victory poses, it’s simply a rehash of Sonic 2’s ending and doesn’t really offer anything new.

Despite some impressive sprites, some Zones are needlessly cluttered and unsightly.

The same can also be said of the Zones; while it’s great to start off in a beach location for a change, Neo Green Hill Zone owes a lot to Green Hill Zone and Emerald Coast. Casino Paradise Zone is simply Casino Night Zone, though lacking a few of its gimmicks; Ice Mountain is basically Ice Cap Zone, Angel Island is an ancient ruins retread of Sky Sanctuary, and Egg Rocket Zone is a mish-mash of Launch Base Zone, Wing Fortress Zone, Flying Battery Zone, and Death Egg Zone. This continues in Cosmic Angel Zone and X-Zone, which are basically Death Egg Zone all over again, and even the final area, Moon Zone, is a reskin of Doomsday Zone. However, for the most part, the recycled gimmicks and aesthetics are presented just differently enough to make them unique: Neo Green Hill Zone has sandy beaches, wooden piers, and a thick overgrowth; Secret Base Zone is an industrial hell-hole full of lava, girders, and swamped by searchlights; you can see fireworks in the background of Casino Paradise, which incorporates balloons to reach higher areas; snow falls in Ice Mountain Zone, where snow and ice cover the trees and rails and ground, there’s a hell of a view of what I assume is the Mystic Ruins in Angel Island Zone, and I enjoyed seeing the big rocket boosters and the separating sections of Egg Rocket Zone. Unfortunately, many areas are also quite loud and cluttered; Secret Base Zone is a mess of conflicting oranges and browns, for example, and Cosmic Angel Zone is a nauseating kaleidoscope of purple and grey that is distracting to look at. For the most part, the game runs really well; it can be slow at times, but mostly you’ll be blasted along at breakneck speed, outrunning the camera and most likely smashing into an obstacle or to your death. Had the game been a little more zoomed out, featured some catchier tunes, and rethought its colour palette and layout, it might’ve improved my experience. As is, though, these elements make the later Zones a chore to play and the homages to the classics more annoying than endearing.

Enemies and Bosses:
Dr. Eggman’s Badniks are all heavily inspired by the mechanical enemies seen in the classic Sonic games and Sonic Adventure; we’ve got the Crabmeat-like GamiGami, the Rhinobot-like Rhinotank, the Coconuts-like Kiki, the Jaws-like Drisame that burst out of walls at the worst possible moments, and the Burrobot-like Mogu that are also placed in the most annoying areas, like right when you need to jump or dash through. Lizard- and frog-like Badniks Hanabii and KeroKero roll or hop about spitting projectiles, Stingers do their best Buzzer and Buzz Bomber impression by blasting projectiles at you right as you’re making a tricky jump, bat-like Slots swoop in from offscreen, and the jellyfish-like Kuraa add to their annoyance by briefly erecting an electrifying shield. As is tradition for a Sonic title, smashing Badniks releases a cute little woodland critter and nets you some points, and they’re often placed at the apex of jumps, right in your path, or near spikes. Speaking of which, spikes can be on the floor, walls, and ceilings, sometimes shoot up from the ground to ruin your day, and are occasionally on spinning platforms. You’ll also need to avoid being roasted by fireballs in Secret Base Zone, watch for crushing cubes in Casino Paradise Zone, hop to small rising stone platforms (often while avoiding spikes) in Angel Island Zone, and trust your fate to the will of the gaming gods when making blind jumps over the constant death pit in Egg Rocket Zone.

While bosses start off easily enough, later game encounters can be quite tricky, especially with Amy.

Naturally, every Zone culminates in a boss battle; you’ll face off against Dr. Eggman eight times in a regular playthrough, and a final time after finding all seven Chaos Emeralds, with each encounter seeing him man a new contraption and featuring two phases to the battle. The Egg Hammer Tank awaits in Neo Gren Hill Zone; a strange combination of the Egg Wrecker and Egg Mobile from Sonic 1 and 2, this fight sees Dr. Eggman driving from left to right and right to left trying to smash you with a massive hammer, and erratically bouncing about when near defeat. Dr. Eggman mans the Egg Press machine in Secret Base Zone for a boss not a million miles away from the first phase of the final boss of Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble (Aspect, 1994); Dr. Eggman hops around trying to squash you, then does a big jump off screen that you need to anticipate to finish him off. Casino Paradise Zone features one of the easiest boss battles; Dr. Eggman emerges from one of several pipes, while his spiked Egg Ball tries to hurt you. Simply duck down in the middle and ram him when he appears; not even the two speeding up near the end present much challenge here. Ice Mountain Zone’s Egg Spider ramps up the difficulty, however, as the fight takes place underwater and Dr. Eggman is completely out of reach. You need to use the icicle hazards he drops to reach him, and take a breath of air, but this can be tricky as they fall randomly, in greater numbers near the end, and your movements are super sluggish underwater. Dr. Eggman isn’t fought in Angel Island Zone or Egg Rocket Zone, but returns in the Egg Snake in Cosmic Angel Zone, a boss that’s considerably difficult for Amy. Dr. Eggman’s pod is protected by spikes so you and to wait for him to flip over to hit him, all while dodging his projectiles and his craft as it slides back and forth, which is particularly hard to do with Amy since she can’t Spin Attack.

Despite a fun fight with Mecha Knuckles, the final battles with Dr. Eggman are disappointing affairs.

In Angel Island Zone, you’ll battle Mecha Knuckles; at first, this fight is very similar to the one against regular Knuckles from Sonic 3 & Knuckles and sees Mecha Knuckles glide about, throw punches, and try to Spin Dash into you. A few hits destroys its outer shell and reveals its true metallic self, which now spits missiles at you! When you reach the X-Zone, you’ll first endure a fun gauntlet against two classic boss battles, the Egg Wrecker and the Egg Mobile, not unlike in Sky Sanctuary Zone and with nothing changed about your attack strategy. Sadly, this is followed by an underwhelming battle against Dr. Eggman’s Egg X, a spinning cannon-like mech that spits bouncy explosive balls, tries to ram you, and grabs and shakes you with a mechanical pincer. While this appendage can be tricky to avoid and jump over, it’s ridiculously easy to bash Dr. Eggman as he flies past or stops to fire a projectile, making for a really disappointing final boss to the main portion of the game. Naturally, after collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds with any character, you’ll unlock the true final boss, the Super Egg Robot, a humanoid mech fought by Super Sonic on the surface of the Moon. Unfortunately, as I’ll detail later, I’ve never experienced this boss battle but I can tell you that your time is limited as Super Sonic’s Rings constantly deplete, meaning you’ll need to grab more to stay alive and in the fight, and that you must use the Super Sonic Boost with the B button to dodge or destroy incoming lunar rocks spewed up by Dr. Eggman. The Super Egg Robot also blasts you with a sweeping eye laser, causes energy pillars to erupt from the ground, and spews out orbs that will either incapacitate you for a few seconds or yield Rings when destroyed. The Super Egg Robot can also block your attacks with its drill-like arms, is constantly flying away from you, and can only be damaged by hitting its head. Although the music and presentation seem quite epic, it does seem a relatively simple encounter, and defeating Dr. Eggman awards you with the true ending…which honestly isn’t really all that different to the regular ending, just with more of that impressive sprite art and animation.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
All the classic Sonic power-ups are on offer in Sonic Advance, this time in capsules like in Sonic Adventure. You can snag five, ten, or a random number of Rings, grab a temporary speed-up or invincibility, and occasionally gift yourself an extra life. You can also find a shield (or “Barrier”) that will protect you from damage for one hit, though it looks really unsightly here, or grab the Magnet Barrier for the same benefit with the added bonus of attracting any nearby Rings. That’s it, though; there are no other elemental shields, no new power-ups to find, and very little reason to explore your environment. As mentioned, each character boasts a mele attack, which is a fun alternative, but you can just as easily use the classic Spin Attack to defeat Badniks so there’s not much us for these attacks…unless you’re playing as Amy, who is entirely reliant upon them.

Additional Features:
As in the classic 2D Sonic titles, you can enter Special Stages to try and collect one of the seven Chaos Emeralds, however the way you get to these Special Stages is a bit different to what we’ve seen before. You need to find a Special Spring hidden in each Act, something Sonic and Amy will struggle to do, which grants you one try at easily one of the worst designed Special Stages in the franchise. You’re on a snowboard and constantly falling down a ringed shaft full of Rings, obstacles, and bombs. You can speed up your descent with A or perform a trick with B, which increases your Ring count, and can boost along paths of Rings, though it’s extremely difficult to actually collect Rings due to the odd angle. The perspective is all out of whack, meaning you often pass over or right by Rings, and in all my years of owning and playing this game, I’ve never completed a single Special Stage; hell, I’m lucky to even find a Special Spring, let along snag a Chaos Emerald! Collecting all seven unlocks the Moon Zone and the final battle against the Super Egg Robot, though this is the only way you get to play as Super Sonic. Beyond that, there’s a sound test in the “Options” menu, a Vs. mode that allows players to battle against each other or compete in races to collect the most Rings or find hidden Chao, even if you only have one cartridge between you, and a Time Attack mode for those who want to impress with their best clear times. If you enter a button code on the character select screen, you can play as Sonic with a computer-controlled Tails following him like in Sonic 2, and you can even visit the Tiny Chao Garden. In here. you can raise and pet a Chao, feeding it fruit or giving it toys to play with using Rings you collect in the main game and in the mini games within the garden that see you matching cards or playing rock/paper/scissors. You can also transfer this Chao to and from the GameCube Sonic Adventure games, which you’ll probably want to do as the Tiny Chao Garden’s features are far more limited than its bigger brothers.

The Summary:
I have a lot of nostalgia for Sonic Advance. It was still a novelty to see Sonic games released for Nintendo consoles at the time and I liked that it was a throwback to the classic 2D games, capturing the spirit of what made them so enjoyable, recontextualising a lot of the gameplay and gimmicks in new locations, and giving it that Yuji Uekawa aesthetic I enjoyed so much at the time (and even now). Technically, the game is solid enough; the physics work, Act layouts aren’t too dissimilar from the classics, and it offers a decent level of challenge, with some unfair moments peppered in the late-game Zones. I really liked that you could pick from four playable characters right from the start, and that Amy was included, and that their different abilities correlated with how difficult the game can be. I enjoyed most of the new Zones, despite how much they borrowed from the previous games, and really liked how this game bridged the gap between Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure by incorporating elements from both. Unfortunately, it’s not perfect; and when it’s bad, Sonic Advance is quite a chore. First of all, it’s quite slow and is restricted by the Game Boy Advance’s screen size; Act layouts can be aggravating at times, with enemies and hazards placed just offscreen for maximum frustration, and I really didn’t like the way you access and play Special Stages. It’s rare that I fail to collect the Chaos Emeralds in a Sonic game and I’m still frustrated that I can’t do it over twenty years later. The bosses were quite fun, if a little easy, but the X-Zone boss was pathetic and the soundtrack was pretty forgettable. I liked the addition of the Tiny Chao Garden, though more could’ve been done with this, and it’s safe to say that Sonic Advance just plays things a bit too safe, something its sequels would address and improve upon with new mechanics and unique features. Still, there’s a lot to like in Sonic Advance; it really was the closest thing we had to a Sonic 4 at the time, and it was surprising to me that later 2.5D throwbacks didn’t take more inspiration from it and its sequels, but it’s hard to deny that it’s a sub-par experience compared to its successors and even Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Did you own Sonic Advance back in the day? If so, did you enjoy it and how do think it’s aged, especially compared to its sequels? Which character was your favourite and did you like their expanded move sets? What did you think to the Zones on offer and the recycling of previous gimmicks? Do you think the game played it too safe or do you consider this the true Sonic 4? Did you ever collect the Chaos Emeralds and, if so, how and what did you think to the Special Stages? Which of Sonic’s Game Boy Advance titles is your favourite and how are you celebrating Sonic’s anniversary this year? Whatever your thoughts on Sonic Advance, leave a comment below or on my social media and go check out my other Sonic content!

Game Corner [Sonic Month]: Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos (Master System)

Dr. K2 Comments

Sonic the Hedgehog was first introduced to gamers worldwide on June 23 1991 and, since then, has become not only SEGA’s most enduring and popular character but also a beloved videogame icon. In keeping with tradition, I will be dedicating the entire month to celebrating SEGA’s supersonic mascot.

Released: 23 November 1993
Developer: Aspect
Also Available For: GameCube, Game Gear, Game Gear Micro, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Xbox One, Xbox Series S. Xbox Series X

The Background:
Sonic the Hedgehog was the major hit SEGA needed to knock Nintendo off their pedestal and assert themselves into the “Console Wars” of the nineties. However, while SEGA were all in on aggressively pushing their 16-bit Mega Drive console, Sonic also appeared on their 8-bit machines, the Master System and Game Gear, as part of their plan to capitalise on Sonic’s mainstream popularity and success. Though noticeably more obscure and divisive in their reception compared to their 16-bit counterparts, Sonic the Hedgehog (Ancient, 1991) and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Aspect, 1992) reviewed well and SEGA turned to Aspect to develop a third game, which the developers aimed to be faster and more detailed than its predecessors. Although Sonic Chaos only released on the Master System in PAL regions, the Game Gear version became a top-seller in the United States and it was highly praised at the time. Contemporary reviews may not be as favourable, but I’ve always had a soft spot for the Master System Sonic titles as they were my introduction to the franchise and I can still remember purchasing my copy of this game over thirty years ago and enjoying how much it mirrored its 16-bit cousins.

The Plot:
In another mad effort to conquer the world, Doctor Eggman steals the red Chaos Emerald, upsetting the balance between the remaining five jewels and causing them to not only scatter, but South Island to sink into the sea! South Island’s only hope are Sonic the Hedgehog and his two-tailed buddy, Miles “Tails” Prower, who set out to recover the Chaos Emeralds and stop Dr. Eggman before it’s too late!

Gameplay:
Like its predecessors, Sonic Chaos is an 8-bit action platformer in which you must race through six levels (known as “Zones”), each split into three parts (or “Acts”), with a boss battled in the third Act, collecting Golden Rings to stave off death and smashing Badniks for points. Unlike the last two 8-bit titles, Sonic Chaos is the closest to its 16-bit counterparts; not only are animations and mechanics from its bigger, better cousins included for the first time, but the game is much faster and finally includes Tails as a playable character, essentially making this closer to Sonic 2 than the actual 8-bit Sonic 2. Being that it’s a Master System title, there are only two buttons to worry about and they both do the same thing: pressing Button 1 or 2 will see your character jump and holding the button will see them jump a bit higher. However, when you use the directional pad (D-pad) in conjunction with Button 1 or 2, you get a few different results; both characters charge up and release a Spin Dash with down and a button and have unique abilities for when you press up and a button. Sonic will charge up a standing run (the “Strike Dash”) not unlike the Super Peel-Out and Tails will briefly fly for a short time. Because Tails’ flight isn’t activated by double pressing a button like on the Mega Drive, it’s a little clunky to pull off and not as useful for saving you from sudden bottomless pits, and the actual flying controls are equally awkward as Tails feels oddly “heavy” when in the air. Finally, you can press up and down to scroll the screen and check for hazards (and duck, in the latter case) and also hold down when running to roll into a ball, as standard, to plough through Badniks, monitors, and certain walls. Equally familiar is the ten-minute time limit assigned to every Act, though Acts are so short that it’s highly unlikely you’ll get caught out by this and you should breeze through every Act in under two minutes as they’re not very long, though there are often branching paths (with the highest being the fastest and safest route).

New abilities and visuals bring this 8-bit title closer to its 16-bit counterparts.

Since Sonic Chaos’ main unique gimmicks are in its power-ups, you won’t see much new in terms of Zone layout; loops, mobius strips, moving and crumbling platforms, and spikes all make an appearance, as you’d expect, but there are fair few boost pads scattered around to send you speeding ahead as well. Equally prominent in later Zones are the booster tubes that rocket you around at high speed, forcing you to make split second D-pad presses to reach secret monitors and new areas or avoid being sent around in a loop or plummeting to your death. Bottomless pits and spike beds are commonplace here, with some Acts requiring precision platforming to small or falling platforms to clear them, which can be a bit tricky as Sonic and Tails are noticeably slipperier this time around and struggle with their traction. You’ll venture underwater, where you’ll be blasted about by water jets and must grab air bubbles to avoid drowning, ride minecarts down slopes (hopping into tubes or to platforms at the last second), run across conveyor belts and laser-firing pressure pads, and encounter an unusual number of springs. Even Badniks have springs on them here, and they’re also at odd angles on walls, meaning you’ll be bounced around like a pinball, often precariously close to a death pit or under a ceiling full of spikes or destructible blocks, which can be somewhat disorientating. As the game progresses, cheap hazards and death pits increase, something that will Game Gear players to struggle thanks to the reduced screen size. When hit, some of your Rings will scatter for you to recollect, which is an improvement over the last game, and none of the finicky gimmicks from Sonic 2 return here, which is a blessing, though Sonic Chaos could’ve used a few of its own to make its Zones stand out a little more.

Graphics and Sound:
While I still prefer Sonic’s sprite from the first 8-bit title, Sonic had never looked better in 8-bit than at this point; he’s larger, a little more detailed, and much more expressive when left idle. Many of his animations (jumping, bouncing off springs) are taken from the 16-bit Sonic 2, which adds a degree of legitimacy to the game not shared by its previous 8-bit titles, and he even does a little victory lap upon defeating the Zone’s boss. Sadly, Tails doesn’t come off quite as well; while he’s cute enough and has his own idle animation, his tails only animate when flying or running and disappear completely when jumping; he also can’t swim, which is a bit of a shame, though I liked how he trots far behind Sonic in the opening cutscene. In terms of music, Sonic Chaos does alright but is painfully limited by its hardware. Many tracks are recycled from Sonic 2 or a garbled, distorted mess and the only tracks I really enjoyed were the various boss tunes, which create a sense of dread and excitement every time the heads-up display vanishes and the boss looms into view. Performance-wise, Sonic Chaos also struggles; if there’s a lot on the screen then the game slows down significantly, meaning you really don’t want to take damage when there’s moving platforms and Badniks on the screen as it slows to a crawl and can mess up your counterattack. Sprite flickering and screen tearing are equally common, which is a shame as it plays well – and much faster than the last two games – when everything’s running smoothly.

Despite some slowdown, the game is largely a visual upgrade compared to its predecessors.

Sonic Chaos follows a similar formula to the last game, beginning with a basic sprite-based cutscene and then throwing the title screen at you before you get into the action. Zones are nothing really new or special beyond some minor exceptions; you start out in Turquoise Hill Zone, the grassy, palm tree introductory Zone now so synonymous with Sonic titles. You can see the sea, some islands, and checkerboard walls in the background and run through loops and winding strips, making this feel like a statement that the Master System can pull off what the Mega Drive did so well. Gigalopolis Zone is a sprawling mechanical city with skyscrapers and twinkling lights in the background that showcases that the Master System was capable of more than just blank, low detail backgrounds; however, the Zone is a bit cluttered, especially in the foreground. Things are a little clearer in Sleeping Egg Zone, though you’ll be bouncing about the mossy ruins so much that you can easily fall down the many bottomless pits hidden from view. Green Hill Zone returns for the third time in a row, this time covered in metal, with bombs up the palm trees, bottomless pits everywhere, mechanical blocks sitting under the grass, and gears and other devices poking up from the ground. Aqua Planet Zone is, again, like a do over of Labyrinth Zone, featuring painfully slow underwater sections and ancient ruins, while Electric Egg Zone is a visual nightmare of conflicting colours, high speed tubes, lasers, and cheap hazards. If I’m honest, I think I preferred the visual variety in the 8-bit Sonic 2; take that and add in the faster, less aggravating gameplay of Sonic Chaos and you’d have something much more enjoyable and closer to the 16-bit games, for sure.

Enemies and Bosses:
Although four of Sonic Chaos’s small selection of Badniks will be familiar to seasoned Sonic players, the new ones don’t exactly break the bank and destroying them still doesn’t release a woodland critter back into the wild. The four you should recognise are the Buzz Bombers (who strangely lack their stinger projectile attack) and the Motobug-like Boing-o-Bit, which has a spring on its back to protect it from your jumping spin and to launch you into any ceiling spikes. The Bombin enemies are similar to the ones from the 16-bit Sonic 1; they sit right in your path, usually between laser hazards or on crumbling bridges, and explode in a shower of debris soon after. Anyone who’s played through the 8-bit Sonic 2 will remember the bird-like Mecha Hiyokos, who appear in clusters and hop about and also herald the appearance of the Aqua Planet Zone boss. New Badniks are the beetle-like Metal-o Turtle that just move back and forth trying to ram you, the bizarre Veg-o Bots that offer exactly the same attack pattern, and Frogger, a spring-loaded Badnik that bounces about. Badniks don’t appear all that often, though you’ll usually be surprised by them when you’re bouncing about and they’re often hovering near or over springs, pits, and spikes, slowing down the action and making you double think your jump.

Bosses range from ridiculously easy to annoyingly cheap, but are generally quite fun.

Like in the 8-bit Sonic 2, each Zone ends with a battle against one of Dr. Eggman’s “Master Robots”, larger Badniks or robotic creations that must be bested in a short third Act that hides some scarce Rings and miniature platforming challenges. The first Master Robot is the Lady Bug, essentially an enlarged Boing-o Bot that’s impervious to aerial attack thanks to the giant spring on its back but which folds like paper if you just ram it with the Spin Dash over and over. Gigalopolis Zone’s Bead Worm resembles a giant Caterkiller and puts up a bit more of a fight; it’ll launch its spherical body at you and can only be damaged by hitting its head, but as its body just bounces you away when still attached it’s not exactly a gruelling fight. Things get much trickier when battling the Bouncy Boss Robot; this Dr. Eggman-branded unit bounces about on a spring, occasionally performing a big jump to try and squish you, but it’s greatest threat comes from the bullets it fires and the bounce back upon hitting it, which can drop you right in the path of its fire so you really need to grab the Rings for this fight. Mecha Green Hill Zone’s Tree Crawler is a bit of a step back, especially if you continuously bounce on top of it, rendering its straight shot and spread projectile and crushing slam completely ineffectual. This is a good strategy for the Sphere-o Bot, too, though this boss can be troublesome; it also bounces around firing bullets, which is bad enough, but it’ll send missiles raining into the arena when you defeat it, which can be difficult to dodge because of janky hit boxes. The fight against Dr. Eggman is similarly two-phased; he plods back and forth in his Laser Walker mech, firing a single shot or an annoying bolt that ricochets all over the place, usually right into your bounce back off a successful hit to his cockpit or a useless blow to his craft. After enough hits, he transforms into a flying craft and tries to ram you; you must hit his cockpit or you’ll instantly die, but one well-timed hit and the game’s finished.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As ever, Sonic and Tails can grab Golden Rings for health and smash monitors for power-ups. You can grab ten additional Rings, a temporary speed up or period of invincibility, but no shield this time around. Passing by the Bonus Panel at the end of Act 1 or 2 will also grant you a Ring bonus or continue, depending on which character appears, and your Rings, speed, and final score are all tallied at the end of each Act. As mentioned, Sonic Chaos’ biggest unique gimmicks are in the new power-ups: Sonic can grab a pair of Rocket Shoes to temporarily (if awkwardly) rocket through the sky, passing over huge chunks of Acts or collecting Rings in Special Stages. Both characters can also jump on the new Hop Springs to be launched higher into the air, but these are also very difficult to control and bashing into platforms, even just a glancing blow, will cause you to lose the power-up and plummet to the ground (and, most likely, down a pit).

Additional Features:
I mentioned Special Stages just then and, yes, they do appear here, finally mirroring their format from the 16-bit games as they hide one of five Chaos Emeralds but, in typical 8-bit Sonic fashion, with a strange twist. First, only Sonic can enter Special Stages and he must do so by collecting 100 Rings; if Tails gets 100 Rings, all he gets is an extra life and he’ll never see the game’s true ending, effectively making Tails the game’s “easy mode”. Sonic, however, is teleported to a maze-like sub area and given about one minute to find a Chaos Emerald, collecting regular sixed Rings and Giant Rings for extra lives and the odd stopwatch to freeze time here and there. You’ll be racing through the sky on the Rocket Shoes, bouncing on platforms with the Hop Spring, steering Sonic through tubes, clearing gaps with your regular jump and hidden springs, and navigating a far larger, more complex tube maze to find all five gems. In my entire life of playing this game, which is some thirty years as of this writing, I’ve only ever gotten the first two Chaos Emeralds, so Dr. Eggman always escapes from me at the end of the game, but I’d wager save state manipulation on the modern ports of the game would make getting all five marginally easier.

The Summary:
My first exposure to Sonic the Hedgehog was on the Master System; I still praise his 8-bit adventures for daring to try something different and not just be downgraded ports of the 16-bit games, but it’s hard to argue against them being flawed, even sub-par experiences compared to the Mega Drive titles. Sonic Chaos seeks to rectify that and largely succeeds; it’s the closest to the 16-bit games the Master System would ever get, featuring far more detailed sprites and environments that make its predecessors seem crude by comparison. The addition of Tails was a welcome inclusion, and I was glad (and surprised) to see his flying abilities retained and Sonic’s skillset expanded at last. The structure of the Zones is also much closer to the 16-bit games, while still being their own thing (with a strange emphasis on springs), though they’re much too short to really be all that memorable and the slowdown really hampers the overall gameplay experience. I’m also not a fan of the Special Stage entry requirements or execution; again, it’s more like the 16-bit games to not have the Chaos Emeralds hidden in Acts but their maze-like structure is a bit of a pain. I did like the new Rocket Shoes, but they weren’t used as much as the cover art would lead you to believe, and I enjoyed most of the bosses, even though some were ridiculously easy, and others were a little cheap and/or frustrating. In the end, Sonic Chaos is the 8-bit Sonic adventure we should’ve gotten with Sonic 2 and shows the potential the Master System had at offering something much closer to its bigger, better counterpart and is definitely worth your time if you were unimpressed by the previous 8-bit games and wanted to see something more familiar.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Was Sonic Chaos apart of your Master System or Game Gear library back in the day? How do you think it compares to the previous 8-bit games and where would you rank it amongst them? Were you glad to see Tails added as a playable character and to see Sonic’s abilities expanded? What did you think to the Rocket Shoes and the Special Stages? Which of the Zones and bosses was your favourite? Did you ever find the five Chaos Emeralds and see the good ending? How are you celebrating Sonic’s anniversary this month and which games are your favourites? Whatever you think about Sonic Chaos, share your thoughts below and go check out my other Sonic content across the site!