Story Title: “In the Claws of Doctor Robotnik” Published: October 1994 Writer: Smoldo Artist: Mister B
The Background: It didn’t take long at all for SEGA’s supersonic mascot to achieve an unprecedented level of mainstream success; Sonic basically single-handedly allowed SEGA to usurp Nintendo’s position at the top of the videogame industry and the company almost immediately set about capitalising on the Blue Blur’s popularity with a slew of videogames and merchandise such as cartoons and comic books. While the most notable Sonic comic books were the long-running series published first by Archie Comics and then by IDW and the United Kingdom’s Sonic the Comic (StC), there have been a number of lesser known Sonic books, comics, and mangareleased over the years but one of the most intriguing for me has always been the two Sonic Adventurescomics published only in France by Sirène in 1994 to promote the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (SEGA Technical Institute, 1994). The series only ran for two issues, with one being the full-length comic book I’m talking about today and the other being more of a character/game guide to Sonic 3. As a lifelong fan of the Astérix series (Various, 1959 to present), I was immediately drawn to the expressive and vibrant art style of “Dans Les Griffes De Robotnik” but what really makes this comic stand out is how obscure it is. I’ve never been able to find a copy only but, thankfully, a fan translation by Sonknuck and Manic Man is readily available to read online. Like a lot of Sonic media outside of Japan at the time, Sonic Adventures pulls much of its lore from the now defunct Mobius and Doctor Ovi Kintobor storyline, depicts Doctor Eggman (or “Robotnik” as he was widely known then) as his Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993 to 1996) counterpart, and features an interesting twist on Sonic 3 & Knuckles’ story that omits Knuckles the Echidna altogether, includes Amy Rose, and actually has some similarities to later narrative elements introduced in Sonic Adventure(Sonic Team, 1998).
The Review: “In the Claws of Doctor Robotnik” begins in the skies of Mobius, specifically on board Doctor Robotnik’s airship. Robotnik, whose design is ripped directly from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, basks in his victory and own magnificence when his Penguinators present him with Sonic bound in chains. Although initially musing on why Sonic was doing wandering about the “Marble Temple” on Angel Island, he is driven into a rage when Sonic taunts him by briefly referring to Robotnik’s origin as the kindly Professor Kintobor.
Sonic makes a desperate escape from Robotnik’s air ship.
Robotnik’s mood lightens once more, however, when the Penginators present him with a bag full of Chaos Emeralds (which Sonic had been carrying on him) and the mad scientist boastfully proclaims himself to be the “king of the world!” Robotnik’s victory is extremely short-lived, though; Sonic breaks free on his chains, punches the Chaos Emeralds from Robotnik’s grasp, and leaps out of the airship to plummet back to the planet alongside the legendary gems. Luckily, Sonic had spotted his friend, Miles “Tails” Prower, skulking about outside the ship and the two-tailed fox is able to save Sonic just in the nick of time.
After fending off the local wildlife, Sonic and Tails retreat from Robotnik’s all-out attack.
The two land in an “unexplored [region]” of Mobius; although Robotnik immediately leads his Badniks down in pursuit, Sonic’s primary concern is shaking himself loose from the jaws of ordinary piranhas using the same technique players used in Hydrocity Zone. Unlike his videogame counterpart (but similar to Sonic’s depictions in cartoons at the time), Sonic has no problem swimming once he shakes off the critters but he and Tails are soon forced to make a desperate retreat when Robotnik and his Badniks bombard the area with fire (similar to Angel Island Zone; Robotnik’s craft even somewhat resembles his contraption from the finale of that Zone).
Sonic and Tails are swept away to an ancient city populated by savage echidnas!
With RhinoBots literally raining down around them (on cute little parachutes, no less), Sonic and Tails are driven down a waterfall (Tails having, apparently, forgotten how to fly despite flying in the panels leading up to this plummet). Luckily for them, they find a cache of Golden Rings at the bottom of the river; Sonic, however, decides that discretion is the better part of valour and allows the river to carry them away from danger rather than use the Rings for a power boost. Instead, though, the river leads to another waterfall and the two are dumped into a hidden echidna society that bares a resemblance to the one seen in Sonic Adventurethat is too uncanny to just be a coincidence. The echidna “savages” (whom Sonic describes as being “fools [that] are descents of Mobius’ first race” and all of which look exactly like Knuckles despite him being entirely absent from the story) attack the two with spears in an attempt to kill them, leading to Sonic destroying their wooden boats with his patented Spin Attack and a “knuckle sandwich”.
Robotnik holds the feisty Amy hostage while Sonic and Tails are condemned to death by Princess Alucion.
Meanwhile, Robotnik has captured Amy Rose (whose hair, much like in StC, has been erroneously stylised into a high sweep because of that one piece of Sonic the Hedgehog CD(SEGA, 1993) artwork) and plans to use her as leverage against Sonic. While Amy was characterised as a meek, lovesick damsel in distress in Sonic CD, here she’s a snarky, defiant tomboy who openly mocks Robotnik at every opportunity. Back at the ruins, the echidnas have captured Sonic and Tails (mainly because the two are more used to smashing robots and didn’t want to hurt the savages). They are taken to Princess Alucion, the ruler of the echidna tribe, who has the long-lost Grey Emerald imbedded in her crown. Alucion showcases the grandeur of “the antique city of the first people” and then prepares to push them down a tube so that they can be roasted alive inside a volcano that somewhat resembles the one from Lava Reef Zone.
Once again, Robotnik seems to have claimed total victory in the finale.
Fortunately, Robotnik attacks at exactly the right moment; Sonic and Tails dive down the tube, taking Alucion with them, to avoid Robotnik’s missile attack and, while the mad doctor believes them to be dead, Sonic revels in the twisting, turning slide that carries them to their doom. When a Penguinator shows Robotnik that his prey has survived, he moves to intercept them and, in to process, kidnaps Princess Alucion. Tails saves Sonic from a dip in molten lava (again, right at the last second) and, despite the obvious trap, rushes to save Amy when she is flown past tied up to a bunch of Jawz Badniks. Amy berates Sonic’s plan, since the two are left suspended over the volcano, and Robotnik swoops in to cut the rope and send them plunging to the burning crater (taking a picture for prosperity).
After clearing the Special Stage, Sonic assumes a powered-up form to battle Robotnik.
When Robotnik moves to retrieve the Grey Emerald from Alucion, she bites him and dives after Sonic and Amy while Tails is left wailing in despair and vows that everyone will know of their bravery and courage. His lamentations are premature, however, as the volcano is home to a Big Ring, which transports Sonic and Amy to a Blue Sphere Special Stage. Thanks to his super speed, Sonic easily bests the challenge and Alucion praises his achievement and awards him with the seven “magical emeralds, the golden armour, and the power to be transported wherever [he] wants”. While Tails is regaling their friends in Green Hill Zone with the tale of Sonic’s end, Sonic and Amy miraculously materialise before them. Tails is elated to see his friends and awestruck to see Sonic transformed by the “golden armour” into a glowing, super-powered form and the comic ends with Super Sonic promising the Robotnik’s problems are just starting.
The Summary: “In the Claws of Doctor Robotnik” is one of the best of Sonic’s obscure comic tales; similar to Sonic the Hedgehog Story Comic (Unknown, 1991), the comic is full of some truly gorgeous artwork that reminds me of the Astérix comics and contains many of the gameplay mechanics and hazards from the source material. While Sonic is sporting his much-maligned Mohawk design, I seriously cannot get enough to the artwork here; characters are cartoony and exaggerated, similar to in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, but also full of snark and attitude, exactly like Sonic should be.
The comic is full of humour but also suffers a bit from the translation.
Of course, being that it’s a fan translation, there are some oddities to be found in the comic; referring to Super Sonic as the “golden armour” sticks out the most but there are a number of odd grammatical errors and inclusions to be found as well. Still, Sonknuck does a pretty good job at adapting the original French text for an English-speaking audience and the story is peppered with all kinds of quirky comedy and phrases; Sonic loves to exclaim “Darn and blast!” and there’s some amusing sayings such as “I haven’t seen the movie” and “No need to send me post cards!” Other translations don’t land quite so well, however, and I would love to see this comic officially translated and released some time.
A fun piece of obscure Sonic media with some excellent artwork and humour.
Still, “In the Claws of Doctor Robotnik” is a lot of fun; it appears to read like this quirky amalgamation of the Western Sonic lore and as a prelude to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, though obviously the Mobius story doesn’t really align with that presented in the videogames. The imagery used, though, is fascinating; it’s amazing how closely the echidna civilisation seen in Sonic Adventure resembles what we see in the comic and it was fun seeing mechanics from the videogames crop up. Obscurity and nostalgia also play a large part in my appreciation for “In the Claws of Doctor Robotnik” but that doesn’t change the fact that you should try and seek this one out online and give it a read sometime.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Fantastic
Have you ever read “In the Claws of Doctor Robotnik”? If so, what did you think of it? Haveyou read the original French comic and, if so, how does this translation measure up? Did you enjoy the art style and quirky humour in the comic or do you prefer the Archie and IDW comics? What did you think to the original characters and would you like to see this comically officially translated and more widely available some day? How are you celebrating the anniversary of Sonic 3’s release today? Whatever your thoughts, please feel free to share them and your memories of Sonic 3 & Knuckles below.
Released: 14 July 2021 Developer: Dotemu/Lizardcube/Guard Crush Games Also Available For: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4
A Brief Background: After an absence of almost twenty-five years, the Streets of Rage series (SEGA, 1991 to 1994) finally made a long-awaited comeback in 2020. As a massive fan of the series, and sidescrolling beat-‘em-ups in general, I was very surprised, and excited, to see Streets of Rage make a reappearance; Streets of Rage 4sold extremely well and was received generally positively but even I could never had guessed that it would do well enough to gain any kind of downloadable content (DLC). Yet, surprisingly, that’s exactly what we got as some additional character, gameplay modes, and difficulty settings were made available for the game and a physical Anniversary Edition was even released (for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch only but still…)
The Review Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare adds some additional features to the original game, which was a sidescrolling beat-‘em-up that saw you attacking enemies with X, busting out a life-draining special attack with Y, jumping with A, and clearing out large groups of enemies with a screen-clearing special move if you have enough Stars in your quest to clean up the streets of Wood Oak City. The first thing you’ll notice when playing Mr. X Nightmare is the addition of three playable boss characters: Estel Aguirre, Max Thunder, and Shiva. Two of these (Max and Shiva) were previously playable but only in their 16-bit variants and all three are ripped straight from their boss battles in the base game. When playing as each of them through the story mode, however, none of these characters have any real impact on the narrative; the cutscenes don’t change or acknowledge them and the only thing that’s different is that when you fight the character’ boss variants, the boss’s taken on a neon, shadowy colour scheme.
Mr. X Nightmare adds Estel, Max, and Shiva as playable characters.
Like the game’s other playable characters, each of these new characters plays slightly different. Of the three, only Shiva can dash towards enemies, for example, but unlike the other two, Shiva cannot pick up weapons (instead, he dramatically flips them up and kicks them at enemies). Estel and Shiva also attack much faster than Max, utilising kicks and fast combos where Max uses slower, more powerful wrestling moves and grapples. Each of them also has Y-based special attacks that will slightly drain their health unless they attack enemies soon after; these seen Estel toss grenades and pounce on opponents with a beatdown, Max charge or slam down on enemies, and Shiva teleport across the screen or out of the air. Each of them also has their own special moves that are executed by pressing Y and B when you have at least one Star. Estel’s is very similar to her boss’s special and sees her call in a bombardment of rockets; Max unleashes a big axe-handle smash and also sees enemies by struck by lightning, and Shiva blasts enemies away with a purple, wing-like aura. The best thing about playing as these new characters is how over-powered a lot of their attacks are; Max, for example, has a super useful Power Slide attack that is easily spammed while Shiva can perform a nifty mid-air kicking combo for decent damage.
Play as Roo and/or test your skills in the new ‘Survival’ mode!
It’s been a while since I played Streets of Rage 4 so I may be forgetting some things but Mr. X Nightmare appears to add a few new weapons into the game’s stages (such as a golf club, an umbrella, and a branch) and the ability to select different colour palettes for every character. The DLC also adds a new difficulty to the game, Mania+, if you fancy taking on an additional challenge and, best of all, the inclusion of a hidden fighter. By highlighting ‘Story on the main menu screen and pressing up and X and then pressing Start, you’ll get to play as a 16-bit version of Roo the boxing kangaroo, which is pretty cool but it’s a bit of a shame that Roo doesn’t have an alternative skin to match his cameo from the base game. Another addition appears to be that whenever you fight on the hidden, or new, 16-bit stages, every character, even the new ones and altered ones, is rendered as a classic 16-bit sprite. While there isn’t any new story-based content to the game, Mr. X Nightmare does add a new ‘Survival’ mode. Here, you pick a character and play through a series of simulations in a variety of brand new arenas, including new 16-bit levels, and fighting increasingly-difficult waves of enemies. Enemies and destructible boxes will spawn into each area, giving you access to health-restoring good, Stars, and weapons, which you’ll need as you only get one life to play through this mode; when you clear each level, you can pick from one of two perks that stack up and carry over to each level. These can up your attack or defence, add an additional jump, add elemental effects to your strikes or weapon attacks, spawn in Stars, award you more powerful weapons, spawn in an ally, or dramatically increase your attack power and the cost of your durability, among other effects.
The addition of more 16-bit stages, random buffs, and a Training mode add replayability to the game.
The levels and enemies get tougher and tougher as you go but you can make use of environmental hazards to damage enemies; meteors will fall from the sky, lasers and flames will spew up in some levels, wind will blow you about, electrified walls and crushers can harm you and your enemies, and you’ll be able to toss them over edges and such. While you’ll earn Stars instead of lives in this mode, it also includes a whole bunch of new weapons to use and, as you clear levels, you’ll unlock enemies to battle in the new Training mode (essentially a traditional one-on-one fighter), concept art and artwork, and also additional alternative modes for each playable character to customise them to your specifications. Even better, the DLC adds not only some new music tracks but also eight new Achievements to earn that are specifically tied to you completing the story mode as the three new characters, performing Roo’s special move and spawning in clowns, and mastering the new Survival mode, all of which is a great incentive to return to the game.
The Summary: I was super happy with how Streets of Rage 4 turned out; it was everything I could have asked for from a sidescrolling beat-‘em-up and had a decent amount of features and replayability to it. it could be a little unforgiving at times but it was a blast to play through and I was very surprised and excited to hear that the game would be expanded upon with some DLC. The addition of new characters was very welcome, though it is a little disappointing that they don’t factor into the story more; like, maybe they could have played through slightly altered versions of the stages and fought against the existing protagonists rather than shadow versions of themselves. The addition of new Achievements was very much appreciated and the ‘Survival’ mode is pretty great, though, and sees you battling against every character and boss from not only this game but also the others in the series. Again, it can be tough but playing alongside a friend should make it quite the entertaining time and, overall, I’d say it’s well worth picking this DLC up to add a few more hours onto an already enjoyable title.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Great Stuff
Did you pick up the Mr. X Nightmare DLC? If so, what did you think to it? Which of the new playable characters was your favourite? Did you manage to unlock Roo? How far did you get in ‘Survival’ mode? What is your favourite piece of DLC for a videogame? Whatever you think about Streets of Rage 4 drop a comment below.
After the release of Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic Team, 1991), Sonic had firmly established himself as the hot new icon on the block and catapulted SEGA to the forefront of the Console Wars. Anticipation was high for a sequel and, in keeping with their aggressive marketing strategies, SEGA dubbed November 24, 1992 as “Sonic 2sday”, a marketing stunt that not only heralded the worldwide release of the bigger, better sequel but changed the way the videogame industry went about releasing games for years to come.
Released: September 2007 Originally Released: November 1992 Developer: Sonic Team Original Developer: SEGA Technical Institute Also Available For: Gamecube, iPod, Mega Drive, Mobile, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Portable, SEGA Saturn, Xbox, Xbox 360
The Background: Sonic the Hedgehog was a massive success for SEGA; thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign and packing the game with their all-power 16-bit Mega Drive, SEGA saw sales of over 15 million copies upon its release. And yet all was not right at SEGA; Yuji Naka, the mastermind behind Sonic the Hedgehog, quit the company and was convinced to join the California-based SEGA Technical Institute. After bringing in many of his own Japanese staff, Naka began spearheading the creation of a sequel while an entirely separate, Japan-based team worked on Sonic the Hedgehog CD(SEGA, 1993). Debates could rage on for years about which of these two games would be the “true” follow-up to the original title, and many ideas and concepts were reused and reworked for each title but, as if the massive “2” in Sonic 2’s title wasn’t enough, it’s clear to me based on graphics alone that Sonic CD was always meant to take place shortly after the first game. Yet Sonic 2’s development was mired by an influx of ideas and concepts; another internal contest was held to design Sonic’s new sidekick, Miles “Tails” Prower, and many Zones were scrapped from the final game despite being relatively close to complete. The pressure was on to top their efforts with Sonic the Hedgehog but, thanks to improved graphics and gameplay and the efforts of SEGA’s aggressive marketing machine, Sonic 2 proved incredibly successful; 400,000 copies were sold in its first week alone and over 6 million units were sold during the Mega Drive’s lifespan. SEGA’s control of the home console market shot up by 40% as a result of Sonic 2 and the game was widely praised upon its release and is still held in high regard, with many claiming that it is the best in the series. For me, I first played Sonic on the Master System but, upon acquiring a Mega Drive, played Sonic 2 before the first game and, as a result, I do prefer it over the original because of its faster, tighter, far more accessible gameplay.
The Plot: Doctor Eggman is back! This time, he’s set his sights on Westside Island, home of the fabled seven Chaos Emeralds. Eggman unleashes his robotic Badniks upon the island, polluting and destroying the environment to find the gems and power his ultimate weapon: the Death Egg! However, Sonic the Hedgehog is hot on his heels and this time he’s not alone…
Gameplay: Like its predecessor, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a 2D, sidescrolling action platformer in which you travel eleven stages (known as “Zones”). Unlike the previous game, the majority of Sonic 2’s Zones are split into two “Acts” rather than three (though there is, oddly, one three-Act Zone and two one-Act Zones just to confuse things) and, this time, you’ll battle Eggman in one of his diabolical contraptions at the end of each second Act before facing him once and for all on the Death Egg. Essentially, everything that worked so well in the original game returns here, bigger, shinier, and much more refined; Sonic is faster than ever, now able to zip through every single Zone of the game at breakneck speed thanks not only to his new “Spin Dash” attack but also vastly improved level design that ditches the slower, more tedious elements on the first game and focuses on speed and split-second reactions. Improved obstacles and enemy placement also help speed up the game, as does the implementation of more loop-de-loop, slopes, the introduction of Möbius strips, and very little instances where the game grinds to a halt.
Help or hinder Sonic as Tails or simply choose to play solo with either character.
As before, you can still roll into a ball when you jump or press down while running to break monitors and smash apart Badniks. This time, though, you won’t do it alone; by default, the game has you take control of Sonic with the computer-controlled by his side but, by entering the “Options” menu, you can switch to playing alone as either character. When Tails is onscreen, though, a second player can join in at any time; Tails has all of Sonic’s abilities and essentially plays as a reskin as, though he is seen flying with his unique two tails, this isn’t a feature you can utilise in the game. When playing as Sonic and/with Tails, Tails can collect Golden Rings, destroy Badniks, and dish out damage to Eggman all while being functionally immortal and largely invulnerable. Attacks won’t damage Tails and the only way to lose him is to run so fast that he cannot keep up; unfortunately, second players can also screw you over by jumping onto temporary or crumbling platforms ahead of time, essentially sending you to your death.
It’s easy to get distacted by Casino Night Zone’s pinball-based mechanics and gimmicks.
Thankfully, Sonic is much faster this time around. Zones are bigger than ever, with more branching paths to take and areas to explore and, best of all, there’s no tedious pushing of switches or blocks to slow things down. Perhaps the slowest Zone is Mystic Cave Zone (which also features a notorious pit that you cannot escape from), which features far more platforming elements and instant-death traps compared to the game’s other Zones; Sonic will have to grab levers and pulleys to create bridges and avoid floating blocks in this Zone but it’s got nothing on the seriously gruelling platforming and obstacles in the increasingly maze-like Metropolis Zone but, for the most part, Sonic 2 hits the ground running and doesn’t stop. Sonic 2introduces many firsts for the series; gone are the checkpoint-creating Lamposts of the first game, replaced with Starposts that perform exactly the same function but also double as the gateway to the game’s Special Stages (replacing the Giant Rings from the last game) when you pass them with fifty Rings or more. Be warned, though, after finishing or failing a Special Stage, you’ll be deposited back in the Zone with no Golden Rings to protect you (though the Zone’s Rings (and Badniks) will have respawned). The pinball-like mechanics of Spring Yard Zone are expanded upon in Casino Night Zone, a giant, pinball-themed Zone filled with so many little score-increasing mini games and distractions that it’s easy to run out the ten minute time limit in this Zone alone.
Many of Sonic 2‘s elements became recurring themes in the franchise.
Another first is the inclusion of Sonic’s biplane, the Tornado, which mixes up the speed-based gameplay by having you ride atop the plane’s wings in Sky Chase Zone and, of course, the final showdown with Eggman on his space station. This latter element, clearly evoking imagery from the Star Wars trilogy (Various, 1977 to 1983), would become a recurring element in the franchise from this game onwards as subsequent games sought to either recreate the success of, or cash in on the nostalgia for, Sonic’s bigger, better sequel. As before, Sonic can collect Golden Rings to keep himself alive but, when submerged under water in Aquatic Ruins Zone or in toxic gunk in Chemical Plant Zone, will find himself under threat of drowning if he doesn’t escape to fresh air or find an air bubble before the all-too-familiar sinister countdown reaches its end. You’ll still gain points for collecting Rings, bashing Badniks, and clearing Acts and Zones as fast as possible but you no longer gain bonus points by jumping dramatically at the end of an Act. Thankfully, all the little niggling issues that slowed down and counted against the first game have been largely addressed and eliminated; there’s no real danger here of being unfairly squashed or glitching the game (unless you perform some very specific actions) and the only real issue the game has in this regard is that it’s sometimes very easier to run or fly so fast off the screen that the game struggles to catch up. there some instances where you’re forced to use a little more thought than just speeding ahead, though; Oil Ocean Zone, for example, requires you to think a bit before making jumps as you can easily end up trapped in the quicksand-like oil or getting turned around. Like the first game, Sonic 2 isn’t especially difficult game; there are no difficulty settings to choose from as, again, the game’s difficulty gradually increases as you progress from Zone to Zone. This time, there are seven Chaos Emeralds to collect; the now-iconic half-pipe Special Stages are arguably much easier (or, at least, more interesting) than those in the first game, and you get an actual, in-game reward for collecting these gems.
Graphics and Sound: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 improves on its predecessor in every way: Sonic’s sprite is larger and now a vivid, eye-catching blue and Tails is visually very appealing thanks to his unique twin tails and cute appearance. Zones are as visually interesting and unique as ever; Emerald Hill Zone, while functionally similar to Green Hill Zone, has enough in it to separate it from its predecessor, such as coconut trees, Möbius strips, waterfalls, and underground areas. The game’s later Zones are some of the most iconic in the series; moving away from cliché element-themed platforming levels, you’ll roll around an industrial nightmare full of toxic waste in Chemical Plant Zone, frantically jump to escape from rising lava in Hill Top Zone (which improves upon Marble Zone’s lava gimmick in every way), and explore dark, dank caves in Mystic Cave Zone. Each Zone has different gimmicks to separate them not only from each other but those of the last game; Casino Night Zone is far less random than Spring Yard Zone, for example, with no bottomless spits to worry about and Metropolis Zone is nothing like Scrap Brain Zone beyond being the game’s toughest area to get through.
Each Zone has a variety of unique gimmicks to mix keep things interesting and exciting.
This is largely due to the Zone having three Acts, which means it soon outstays its welcome. Add to that and some annoying enemies and the Zones maze-like layout and you would have a fitting final Zone for the game if it wasn’t for Wing Fortress Zone. Taking place aboard Eggman’s vast airship, this Zone is your last chance to get any remaining Chaos Emeralds before the game’s final Zone and features a whole host of dangerous taps; for one thing, you can fall to your death at any moment, never mind precariously jumping from platforms and hooks and riding gusts of wind to progress further. Once again, there are no transitions or cutscenes or story included in the game until you clear Wing Fortress Zone, then a little cutscene plays showing how the player gets aboard the Death Egg and another shows how he escapes. Generally, though, the same obvious environmental message of the first game is repeated, but dialled up a notch as you end up in space! Both Sonic and Tails have idle animations this time around, giving them each their own distinct personalities, and the game’s soundtrack is, arguably, the best of the series. It’s everything the soundtrack was in the first game but far more bombastic and triumphant, far more foreboding and sinister, far more catchy and memorable.
Enemies and Bosses: Once again, Sonic and Tails must do battle with Eggman’s Badniks; these cute-looking mechanical monsters are just as deadly as before but their danger increases as you progress further in the game. To start off with, it’s no bother at all to bounce off of Mashers and Buzzers just like in the first game but, soon, you’ll encounter Spinys and Flashers, both of which can throw up defences to sap your precious Rings. While their placement is generally much fairer in this game, you’ll still have to contend with Badniks like Grounder and Crawlton popping out to surprise you but the absolutely worst enemies in the game are found in Metropolis Zone. The mantis-like Slicer will toss its boomerang-like pincers at you and they’re a pain in the ass to dodge, to say nothing of Shellcracker’s massive spiked claw that will almost always catch you unawares or the self-destructive Asterons which always shoot out their damn spikes when you’re halfway up one of those corkscrews!
Dr. Eggman slowly steps up his game after a disappointing first few encounters.
As before, you’ll face Doctor Eggman numerous times throughout the game; this time, he attacks at the end of every second Act and each time he has a deadlier contraption to try and end your adventure with. If you thought the wrecking ball from the last game was easy, you’ll be begging for a challenge even half of that when you encounter Eggman for the first time at the end of Emerald Hill Zone. Rather than trying to squash or zap Sonic, Eggman instead casually drives towards him back and forth, leaving himself wide open for the attack and only being a problem when he detaches his drill appendage at the last second. This mockery of a boss battle is quickly forgotten when you take on Eggman in Chemical Plant Zone, however. Here, Eggman tries to drop sludge on your head, which isn’t as much of a problem as the temporary ground that borders the arena and it’s very easy to fall to your death after landing the killing blow or while trying to escape Eggman’s attacks. Thankfully, most of the game’s boss battles aren’t as tough; Aquatic Ruin Zone’s boss can be a chore because of the jumping involved and Casino Night Zone’s is quite tough if you struggle with Sonic’s perfectly-attuned momentum-based physics but you shouldn’t really encounter an issue until you reach the Oil Ocean and Metropolis Zone bosses; thanks to Eggman’s shielding and strategy, it can be tough to land hits on his Egg-O-Matic in these bosses but, if you have a second player alongside you as Tails, they’re a breeze.
After besting your robotic double, the gloves come off for the final showdown with Dr. Eggman!
Things really ramp up once you reach Death Egg Zone, though; no matter how you play the game, you’ll have to tackle this final Zone alone and with no Rings to help you. Unlike the first game, where the final boss was pathetically easy, Sonic 2 has you run a gauntlet as you must first take on the armour-plated Mecha Sonic (or “Silver Sonic” depending on your preference, and not to be confused with the far more recognisable Metal Sonic). Mecha Sonic is a dangerous foe thanks to its buzzsaw-like spikes and fast-paced attacks but, luckily, its attack pattern is easily memorised; it’ll stand there posing, allowing you to hit it, then charge across the screen before either rolling at you or jumping over you. it can also shoot out its spines in a spread but, if you’re quick and smart enough, you can trash this dubious doppelgänger in no time. Once you do, though, you’ll find Eggman leaping into a massive robotic suit, the lazily named “Death Egg Robot”, which takes a whopping twelve hits to put down. Thankfully, again, this boss battle is very predictable; Eggman stomps towards you, allowing you to get a few hits in (as long as you’re careful to avoid his spike arms), then flies off-screen. A targeting reticule will appear and follow you around; simply wait in one of the far corners charging your Spin Dash and blast away when Eggman comes crashing down. Stay at the far end of where you end up to avoid his rocket-powered arms and repeat until he goes down. I wouldn’t recommend getting trapped behind him as he drops egg bombs that are difficult to avoid and you can also land a hit when he comes crash down from the ceiling if you’re fast enough. All in all, though, it’s a far more dramatic, taxing, and entertaining last boss than the one from the first game with some kick-ass music to boot.
Power-Ups and Bonuses: As before, numerous computer monitors are scattered throughout the game’s Zones to help tip the odds in your favour. Breaking these open will award you with exactly the same rewards as the first game (ten extra Rings, a shield, an extra life, a speed up, or an invincibility) with the only difference being their appearance, sound effects, and the music that plays when you acquire them. Sadly, the only new power-up to be found is exclusive to the game’s two-player mode, which is a bit disappointing considering every other aspect of the first game was expanded and improved upon.
Additional Features: As you might expect, this version of Sonic 2 comes with a handful of Achievements for you to earn. If you’ve played Sonic 2, or any Sonic game, before, these aren’t exactly difficult to get and include standard fare such as reaching certain Zones, collecting all the Chaos Emeralds, and completing the game though the online and time limit-specific Achievements may be trickier to accomplish depending on your skill level (finishing Chemical Plant Zone, Act 1, in under forty-five seconds is no joke!) As in the first game, players can access Special Stages to try and earn one of the Chaos Emeralds. This time, you must pass by a Starpost with at least fifty Rings to challenge for an Emerald, making the process a hell of a lot faster and easier. Additionally, the God-awful, head-trippy rotating mazes of the first game are gone as you now race down a half-pipe, collecting Rings and avoiding bombs. While these Special Stages are much better, they can be more difficult as it’s hard to know what is coming up without a lot of trial and error, you must collect a certain amount of Rings to qualify for an Emerald, and the delay between your jumps and Tails’ can cost you precious Rings if you’re not careful. Special Stages start off deceptively easy but, by the time you go for that damn fourth Chaos Emerald, you’ll start to notice how fast and unrelenting they can be; the seventh and final Emerald is, fittingly, the most difficult to get because it barely has enough Rings to hit the target.
Collect all seven Chaos Emeralds to transform into Super Sonic and get the game’s best ending.
Luckily, you can cheese save states to make this so much easier than it was on the original hardware. Collect all seven Chaos Emeralds, though, and rather than jus earning a slightly different ending, you’ll be awarded with the ability to turn into the Super Saiyan-like Super Sonic. “Simply” collect all seven Chaos Emeralds, collect fifty Rings, and jump and you’ll transform into this super-fast golden upgrade of Sonic that has a constant speed up and invincibility. Don’t get too cocky, though, as you can still drown and be crushed and your Rings will slowly be lost over time; once they run out, the transformation ends so be sure to collect all the Rings you can to keep the form up as long as possible. The addition of Tails also means that Sonic 2 has a multiplayer component; not only can a second player play alongside you in the main game but you can also race against a friend in a woefully-realised split screen mode. While the screen is awfully crushed and you can only pick from four Zones, this mode was decent enough back in the day; it’s fun to blast ahead and leave your friend in the dirt only for them to smash a monitor and have you both switch places. Sadly, while this version of Sonic 2 won’t allow you to enter the iconic cheat codes and doesn’t feature any of the tweaks, upgrades, and additions for the far superior mobile port, a save state system and online leaderboards are included and, best of all, if you also purchaseSonic & Knuckles (SEGA Technical Institute, 1994), you’ll gain the ability to play as Knuckles the Echidna. Be warned, though; while Knuckles’ abilities mean there’s much more room for exploration, his rubbish jump makes battling certain bosses (particularly the Death Egg Robot) far more challenging.
The Summary: As great as Sonic the Hedgehog was, it’s nothing compared to Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Bigger, bolder, faster, and better in every way, Sonic 2 is the quintessential example of how not only to do a sequel title right but how to do a Sonic title right. While the first game laid the foundation, Sonic 2 set the standard that subsequent games in the franchise tried to hold themselves up against (or surpass, with mixed results). Sonic 2 introduced numerous elements than immediately became staples of the series; add to that the fascination with all the content that was cut from the game and you have a title that continues to be relevant and influential even now, nearly thirty years after its release. While I, personally, prefer the next game in the series, Sonic 2 is still a highly regarded entry in the franchise for me and I’d always pick to play it over the first game if given a choice.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Fantastic
What did you think about Sonic the Hedgehog 2? Where does it rate against the other games in the franchise for you? Which Zone is your favourite? Were you the younger sibling always being forced to play as Tails or were you the older sibling who got the privilege of playing as Sonic? Would you like to see a spruced up version of the game released one day, with all the cut content restored as originally conceived? Perhaps you think Sonic 2 doesn’t live up to the hype and prefer a different game in the series; if so why, and what is it? How are you celebrating “Sonic 2sday” this year? Whatever your thoughts on Sonic 2, and Sonic in general, drop a comment below.
It’s November 18th, which means that it’s Mickey Mouse Day! Disney’s beloved mascot first debuted in Steamboat Willie (Disney and Disney, 1928) and has since become one of the most recognisable and influential cartoon characters in the world, the face of an entire multimedia conglomerate, and one of the most enduring and popular characters of all time, featuring in a variety of cartoons, videogames, and other merchandise.
Released: 14 December 1992 Developer: SEGA AM7 Also Available For: Mega Drive Mini
The Background: As I’ve talked about a few times in the past, videogames based on popular Disney characters and licenses had quite the reputation back in the nineties and resulted in some of the best 8- and 16-bit action/platformers of the era. As Disney’s loveable and successful mascot, Mickey Mouse was obviously at the forefront of this but Disney’s foul-tempered fowl, Donald Duck, had his fair share of pixelated adventures over the years as well and what better way to guarantee a success than to team these two popular characters up in their own fantasy adventure. Taking inspiration from a variety of Disney’s animated feature films, most prominently Alice in Wonderland (Geronimi, Jackson, and Luske, 1951) and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Hand, et al, 1937), and, despite how easy the game was, it was both reviewed very well at the time of release and fondly remembered years later.
The Plot: While practising for their magic show, Mickey and Donald discover a magical box that sucks them into a bizarre magical world. Now, the two must join forces to travel across five treacherous fantasy worlds, defeat the evil Magic Master, and return home safely.
Gameplay: World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck is a 2D action/platformer in which, as you might be able to guess, players can pick between playing as Mickey or Donald or team up to play as both in simultaneous play. Whichever character you select, the game’s controls are basically the same and can be customised from the main “Options” menu; you can jump, hold down a button to dash ahead, and press down on the directional pad to duck. Although you cannot defeat enemies by jumping on their heads as is the standard of the majority of 2D platformers, Mickey and Donald can attack enemies with a swipe of their magician’s capes.
Attack with your magical cape and lend a hand to your partner to get through tight spots.
The cape produces a small flurry of magical sparkles, which can stun enemies if it grazes them or if they need more than one hit to defeat, and defeated enemies will be transformed into harmless forms (such as flowers or butterflies) when hit. There are actually some notable gameplay differences between Mickey and Donald as well; Mickey is able to crawl through small gaps but Donald gets his wide load stuck and will need pulling through with Mickey’s help. This means that, when playing as Donald alone, you’ll explore different levels compared to Mickey, which encourages at least two playthroughs of the game in order to see everything it has to offer. Additionally, when playing with a friend, you can help them out further by dropping a rope so they can reach higher level.
While not especially difficult, there are some annoying moments you’ll have to deal with.
Mickey and Donald’s vitality is measured in magical playing cards; you begin the game with five cards, meaning you can take five hits before you lose one of your three “Tries”. You can, however, pick up Candy and Cake to restore one of all of your cards and are gifted with unlimited continues. However, when you lose all of your Tries and choose to continue, you’ll have to restart from the very first part of the level you were last on. When playing with a friend, you’ll share a stock of six Tries; when your partner loses a Try, you can expend one to revive them and, when you only have one left, the last player to die can choose to continue solo.
Some tricky jumps are made clunky thanks to the game’s extremely slow pace.
World of Illusion isn’t an especially long game; there are only five levels to venture through, with each one split into smaller sub-sections and with some minor puzzles and hidden paths or areas that you can find by exploring a bit. While these generally just lead you towards Candy or other power-ups, other times you’ll find short sub-areas to playthrough for similar bonuses. Each level only has a handful of enemies and none of them are particularly menacing but they do respawn if you end up having to backtrack and can cause you to fall down a bottomless pit if you’re hit mid-jump thanks to a bit of knockback damage. The game is also extremely slow; the dash function helps with that but, still, Mickey and Donald move painfully slowly and the game is more about taking your time and enjoying the moment rather than blasting through at breakneck speed, which is fine but it does feel like playing underwater sometimes since everything’s so sluggish.
Donald has his own unique levels and hazards to contend with.
Your main concern in most levels will be dealing with the game’s platforming sections; mostly, this involves reaching the exit on the far right of the screen but other times you’ll be hopping from spider’s webs and web lines, floating leaves or clouds, and other similar platforms. These will invariably be large, small, moving, or even temporary; even solid ground isn’t safe in this respect as you’ll have to contend with floorboards cracking under your feet and dropping you to your death. Levels also contain a number of helpful gimmicks as well, though, such as see-saws, flowers, staples, and bottle corks that fling and spring you higher and further up the level and towards the goal.
Graphics and Sound: Like all of the 2D Disney videogames, World of Illusion features large, colourful, and charming cartoony graphics. Mickey and Donald both have amusing edge and idle animations and little reactions that perfectly capture their distinct personalities. There’s also a very small number of voice clips in the game; Mickey and Donald will yelp and squeal when attacked and give a cry of “Alakazam!” when performing their magic tricks, which is a lot of fun.
The game definitely looks the part but can be a bit muted and empty at times.
Enemies are similarly colourful and instantly recognisable from Disney’s classic animated films, such as Alice in Wonderland. The game also draws aesthetic influences form Pinocchio (Sharpsteen, Luske, et al, 1940) and The Little Mermaid (Clements and Musker, 1989), with all three films (and others) likewise evoked in the levels you’ll journey through. However, while levels are bright and very fitting, they’re every short and also very bland and empty in a lot of ways. Levels can be a bit inconsistent like that; the chocolate-and-sweetie-filled level is bursting with colour and sometimes there’s large trees or vines or other elements in the foreground or little details in the background, but other times they’re just very barren a bit muted.
The story is told using a fairytale book and in-game sprites with brief dialogue boxes.
The game’s story is told through text in a storybook that can be skipped through, or entirely, at will; while these are only accompanied by static images, the supplementary music (and the music of the entire game) is suitably jaunty and uplifting (if nothing spectacular). After defeating the game’s bosses, a similar cutscene will play in which the characters learn their new magic and, at a few points, the game will use the in-game sprites and a speech box to convey dialogue. As is the case for many 2D videogames from this era, the cutscenes are most impressive for the opening (which pans through the theatre’s backstage area) and the ending (which differs for each character and in which the two perform their magic show before an auditorium full of Disney cameos) before heading off through the forest as the credits roll.
Enemies and Bosses: While they draw inspiration from many of Disney’s most celebrated animated features, World of Illusion’s enemies aren’t really anything to shout or worry about. You’ll take on armoured bugs, avoid literal tiger sharks, swipe at carnivorous starfish, toy bi-planes, and spiders but none of them are really a threat as they come at you quite slowly and make for large targets. Eventually, you’ll have to contend with wild lightning striking at the ground and conjuring little flaming imps and come up against some more colourful and zany opponents, such as anthropomorphic biscuit men, sharks wielding saws, and rose-throwing playing cards from Alice in Wonderland.
While the spider boss couldn’t be simpler, the little dragons can be a bit tricky to land a hit on.
Each of the game’s levels culminates in a battle against a boss. The first of these is a giant spider that crawls down and across the webbing that is spreading across the background of the boss arena; sometimes it’ll crawl down harmlessly on the other side of the web and taunt you but, for the most part, it’s pretty easy to edge out of the way and swipe at it with your cape. The second boss you’ll face is a series of small dragons that resemble the one from The Sword in the Stone (Reitherman, 1963) or Pete’s Dragon (Chaffey, 1977); these little buggers will pop out from blocks, hop around, and spit fireballs at you but, again, it’s not exactly difficult to avoid them and it helps that they attack one at a time.
The sharks speed and unpredictability, and Mim’s erratic flight, make for challenging boss fights.
At the bottom of the sea, you’ll battle against a giant shark that rushes at you ominously beneath the floorboards of a sunken ship. When it charges towards you, jaws snapping, or leaps out from the ground to pounce at you, this is your moment to quickly attack and hop out of danger, but the shark’s speed and unpredictability actually makes this a somewhat challenging bout. Next, you’ll battle against Madam Mim, which was an amusing and entertaining surprise Mim flies about just above you on her broomstick and tosses flames down to the floor. You can easily jump up to attack her, though, and she stupidly drops down to the ground to taunt you, leaving herself wide open to reprisals in the process.
The Magic Master might be big and ugly but he’s sadly as simple as any of the other bosses.
Finally, you’ll take on not the anthropomorphic cloud beast seen in the game’s cover art but the Magic Master, who is a gigantic background sprite and greatly resembles Mickey’s long-time nemesis, Pete. Taking place up in the clouds, this battle features randomly rising and falling columns that you can use to get close to the Magic Master’s big ol’ head and swipe at him with your cape. The boss conjures smaller, ghost-lime doubles of himself that resemble the Grim Reaper and float around the arena for a bit to damage you but, otherwise, is a bit of a pushover (especially if you have full health, which you probably will as there’s a number of health-restoring items on the way to the final confrontation).
Power-Ups and Bonuses: There aren’t too many power-ups to pick up in World of Illusion; as I mentioned before, Candy and Cake will partially or full refill your health but you can also earn yourself an extra Try by either finding a magician’s hat or collecting fifty-two playing cards. You can also occasionally find a firework that will shower the screen in explosions and destroy all onscreen enemies or a Silver Card for a brief period of invincibility.
Mickey and Donald learn new magic tricks to help them progress through the game.
After defeating each of the bosses, Mickey and Donald will learn a new magical ability to help them progress in the next level. The first of these is a magic carpet, which you can cause to ascend by tapping the jump button and ride through the skies avoiding tornados and buzzards. Next, you’ll get a magic bubble that allows you to slo-oo-wly navigate the underwater stage, again by tapping the jump button. The next spell allows you to teleport across the library when you’re shrunk down and is probably the least interesting of all of the magic tricks. Finally you’ll be able to cause specific playing card enemies to arrange themselves into platforms and bridges to help you get through the iconic garden and dining hall from Alice in Wonderland. All of these are performed in specific circumstances rather than at will and don’t really afford you any useful in-game benefits beyond allowing you to get to the end of the level you’re on, though.
Additional Features: That’s about it for World of Illusion. The game uses a password feature that allows you to warp to later levels as either Mickey, Donald, or both if you have to suddenly top playing but that’s about it. I’m a bit confused as to why the game has this password system, though, as it’s not exactly difficult and easy to fly through it in about a hour or so.
The Summary: World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck certainly looks and sounds the part of a typical 1990s D16-bit Disney videogame; it’s bright, fun, and full of gorgeously animated sprites and instantly recognisable Disney characters and locations. Mickey and Donald are always two of the most versatile characters in videogames, I find, and excel when dropped into fantastical environments and tasked with getting through them using a number of gimmicks; while the attack range of their magic capes leaves a lot to be desired, I enjoyed the magical spin on their arsenal and, especially, the flying carpet sections of the game. Sadly, though, it’s just a bit too short and bland in a lot of ways; two of the five bosses are just generic, large creatures and the game is just way too slow and sluggish through and through rather than being action-packed and entertaining. It’s a decent way to send an hour or so and fun to be able to team up with a friend for simultaneously play; it’s pretty cool how you get a slightly different experience when playing as each character but it’s lacking in a lot of content and options, some of which (such as score and certain gimmicks) actually featured in Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (SEGA AM7, 199) which released three years earlier and stuff like that does bring the score down a little bit for me despite how striking the game’s presentation is.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Pretty Good
What did you think about World of Illusion? Where does it sit in your hierarchy of 16-bit Disney games? Which of the 16-bit Disney was your favourite, or least favourite, and who is your favourite Disney character? How are you celebrating Mickey Mouse Day today? Whatever your thoughts on World of Illusion, and Disney and Mickey games in general, drop a comment below and share your thoughts and have a great Mickey Mouse Day!
On 29 October 1988, SEGA released the 16-bit Mega Drive (known as the SEGA Genesis in North America); far superior to Nintendo’s 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and bolstered by both an aggressive marketing campaign and the eventual release of Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic Team, 1991), this release kicked off the “Console Wars” of the mid-nineties and changed the face of home consoles forever. This year, to celebrate this momentous occasion, I’m going to share some of my memories of this sleek, beautiful machine and the impact it had on my childhood. I was just a kid, something like six or eight, when I had what I am pretty sure was my first ever home console (and videogame) experience; I remember being at my aunt’s house and being introduced to the SEGA Master System II and, more specifically, Sonic the Hedgehog for the first time when I sat down to fumble my way through Sonic the Hedgehog’s (Ancient, 1991) Green Hill Zone. The colours, the sounds, and the user-friendly nature of the system clearly struck a chord with me and it wasn’t long (it was probably my birthday that same year) before my parents gifted me that very same machine and, as I recall, three titles: Spider-Man (Technopop, 1991), Trivial Pursuit: Genius Edition (Domark, 1992), and the aforementioned Sonic built-into the machine.
The Master System II served me well until I got a convertor unit for the Mega Drive.
For a long time, probably something like two or maybe even three years, the Master System more than met my demands. I amassed a pretty decent library considering money was a bit tight back in those days and wasted many hours playing a variety of 8-bit titles. One memory that sticks out for me in particular was when I had a friend come over to play games (this was, of course, back in the days when kids mostly only owned one machine so you had to actually go around someone’s house to play other consoles and games) and he was struggling to get past the Green Hill Zone boss. I took the controller from him and reached the last Zone of the game for the first time, which was quite the achievement for me at the time; though I distinctly recall not actually completing Sonic that day, I did eventually, and many times over. Another memory for me was when I discovered the elaborate method of activating Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s (Aspect, 1992) level select and actually being able to bypass the God-awful Sky High Zone. My love for videogames had well and truly began. I played the NES at a friend’s house, the PC at another friend’s, and enjoyed a handful of ZX Spectrum, MSX, and Amiga titles while routinely playing the Master System, reading Sonic the Comic(Fleetway, 1993 to 2002), and watching the likes of Captain N: The Game Master (1989 to 1991), Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993 to 1996), and GamesMaster (1992 to 1998).
The article I most attribute for selling me on the Mega Drive.
I bought videogame magazines from car boot sales, drooled over Master System games in the local game’s shop, and doodled pictures of Sonic and his friends at every opportunity. Then, one fateful day, I became aware of another SEGA console; one with far more detailed graphics, bigger, better games, and, more importantly, more Sonic titles. I can’t be exactly sure when I first became aware of the Mega Drive but I distinctly recall owning issue two of Mega (Future Publishing/Maverick Magazines, 1992 to 1995) which had a whole article devoted to the upcoming (or recently released) Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (SEGA Technical Institute, 1992). I was awe-struck; the sprites were so big and colourful, the graphics so crisp and detailed. Unlike in the 8-bit Sonic 2, Miles “Tails” Prower was actually a playable character…and he followed Sonic around onscreen, too! I’m sure I must have seen other photos, articles, and gameplay footage of the Mega Drive across the other magazines and shows I watched but this particular issue of Mega really sticks out in my mind; I read that article over and over, each time more and more attracted to the power and superior graphics of the Mega Drive.
The Mega Drive was for sharing back when I first got it but that was fine by me.
Another memory I distinctly have is pointing the machine out to my parents in an Argos catalogue and trying to explain the benefits of upgrading to SEGA’s newer, sexier console. As I said, money was tight back then for us; we weren’t exactly poor and destitute but we also weren’t rolling in disposable income so I’m sure the decision to buy a Mega Drive didn’t come easily for my parents. Thankfully, however, unlike a lot of parents these days, mine were cleaver and, that Christmas, I received the coveted SEGA Mega Drive and two games (Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker (SEGA, 1990) and my equally-coveted Sonic 2) on one proviso: it was to be a joint present for me to share with my older sister. I’m pretty sure that that gorgeous black machine, with its two control pads and those two fantastic games, was the only present either of us got that year, as well, but I didn’t care: I had it and that’s all that mattered. In 1983, an influx of home consoles, poorly-made titles, and a vastly oversaturated market caused the videogame industry to crash in spectacular fashion; what had once been a booming, attractive business had crumbled under the weight of expectation, success, and a market inundated with machines and titles that retailers just couldn’t sell. A few years later, the industry began to recover thanks to the release of the Nintendo Family Computer (Famicom); known as the NES outside of Japan, the machine was marketed not as a home videogame console but more as an “Entertainment System” (it wasn’t a “home console”, it was a “control deck” and the cartridges were “Game Paks” rather than “videogames”) to give it a better chance at selling in toy shops.
Super Mario Bros. catapulted Nintendo to mainstream success as the home console market leader.
Thanks to a lack of competition and the blockbuster success of Super Mario Bros.(Nintendo EAD, 1985), 30% of American households owned the NES by 1990 and Nintendo absolutely dominated the slowly re-emerging videogame market after the NES sold over 35 million units in the United States, a number that was far beyond those of other consoles and computers. Videogames were back, and more popular than ever, thanks to Nintendo’s efforts and high quality titles, and the industry once again became lucrative and profitably so, naturally, others wanted in on the action. Enter SEGA; formally one of the top five arcade game manufactures in the US, the videogame crash and a decline in the popularity of arcades had seriously hurt the company and led to its purchase by Bally Manufacturing and an eventual restructure towards the home console market with the SG-1000, a precursor to my beloved Master System. Though the console sold well in Japan, it barely made a dent thanks to Nintendo’s stranglehold on the market so, amidst growing competition, SEGA’s research and development team, led by Masami Ishikawa decided that the only way for SEGA to remain competitive was to incorporate a 16-bit microprocessor by adapting their successful SEGA System 16 arcade board into the architecture for a new home console. Mitsushige Shiraiwa led the team that designed the Mega Drive, drawing inspiration from audiophile equipment and automobiles, and the machine was purposely designed to appeal to gamers of all ages, rather than just children like Nintendo’s console.
Aggressive marketing and strong third party support also helped give SEGA the edge.
To impress customers with the system’s power, “16-bit” was slapped right onto the console itself in impressive, striking gold yet, despite shipping 400,000 units in its first year and producing a number of additional peripherals, the console’s launch was overshadowed by the released of Super Mario Bros. 3(Nintendo EAD, 1988) and the system was unable to surpass the NES in terms of sales or popularity. For the Mega Drive’s release in North America, the system was rebranded as the “Genesis” and SEGA of America CEO Michael Katz spearheaded an aggressive marketing campaign to sell the power and superiority of the console compared to the NES. While the Genesis certainly did do what Nintendo didn’t, it still wasn’t enough to topple or compete with NES or their podgy little plumber. Thus, when Tom Kalinske replaced Katz as CEO, he developed a four-point plan that involved cutting the console’s price, create a U.S.-based team to develop games specifically for the American market, continue and expand their aggressive advertising campaigns, and bundle copies of the Genesis with the one game exclusively developed to overtake Mario once and for all: Sonic the Hedgehog. For a time, this plan worked wonderfully; bundling Sonic in with the Mega Drive gave SEGA the edge it needed as gamers who had been anticipating the release of Nintendo’s own 16-bit console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), bought a Mega Drive instead just to play Sonic. Sonic’s popularity also led to the Mega Drive outselling the SNES during the 1991 holiday season and, but 1992, SEGA had wrestling 65% of the market away from Nintendo and overtaken Nintendo as the home console market leader for the first time since 1985.
Had SEGAfocused on the Mega-CD, things might’ve beenvery different for them.
With a focus more on arcade-quality titles, a willingness to consider a greater variety of genres and videogames compared to Nintendo, and Sonic’s explosive popularity as not just a videogame icon but a mainstream icon, SEGA seemed unstoppable. A sleeker, more streamlined version of the Mega Drive released in 1993 and the company even produced a special convertor unit that would allow gamers (such as myself) to play their Master System cartridges on the 16-bit console. SEGA were ahead of the times in many ways; unlike Nintendo, they released Mortal Kombat(Midway, 1993) with its signature blood and Fatalities intact through use of a special code, showing the machine (and the company) to be the more mature and “edgier” of the two, and SEGA soon began to experiment in both CD-based games and 32-bit graphics with the Mega/SEGA-CD and Mega/SEGA-32X add-ons. Unfortunately, despite showcasing some impressive graphics, CD-quality sound, and the sheer potential of these peripherals, producing such expensive add-ons to prolong the Mega Drive’s lifespan ultimately proved financially disastrous for SEGA. When research SEGA and their tumultuous history for my PhD thesis, I was disappointed to see how the company squandered all their success with blunder after blunder in this way. To me, they had the right idea with the Mega-CD and should have stuck with that. Had SEGA simply made the little-known SEGA Multi-Mega the standard and ditched all plans for both the 32X and the SEGA Saturn, producing all the games that released for those console (and the Mega-CD) as CD-based games, the company may have fared better heading into the sixth generation of gaming. I don’t know if would have been enough to make the Dreamcast more competitive but SEGA would definitely have been in a much better financial position without wasting all that money making expensive add-ons and inferior consoles.
My Mega Drive collection is still a work in progress but has always had some quality titles.
Still, it is what it is and, for many years, even when I owned a Nintendo 64, I still returned to the Master System and the Mega Drive. My library of Mega Drive games grew respectfully as I continued to indulge my love of colourful, action-packed action/platformers like Rocket Knight Adventures(Konami, 1993), Marko’s Magic Football (Domark, 1994), The Revenge of Shinobi(SEGA, 1989) and, of course, every Sonic title released for the console. However, to say that I was a fan of Sonic was an understatement; I remember incurring the wrath of my mother for not pausing Sonic 2 right as I beat the game for the first time to go for dinner and I must have played that game endlessly, rejoicing every time I got to play as Sonic and someone else got to play as Tails for a change. I distinctly remember getting Sonic & Knuckles(SEGA Technical Institute, 1994) for a birthday and that I got the game before I owned Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (ibid). I’m not sure exactly how that happened but I remember being fascinated by Sonic & Knuckles’ unique “lock-on” technology and being able to play as Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic 2. Some time later, while at a game’s shop in Northampton, I picked up an unboxed copy of Sonic 3 for £9 and, after reading a guide in Sonic the Comic that showcased the awesomeness of Super Sonic, Hyper Sonic, and the Doomsday Zone, eventually made it my top priority to unlock these forms and reach this final Zone in a precursor to my newfound desire to obtain as many Achievements as possible.
The Mega Drive was pretty great for multiplayer experiences, too.
It wasn’t just about Sonic, though; the Mega Drive was a great two-player console and I lost a lot of hours playing T2: The Arcade Game(Probe Software, 1991), Captain America and the Avengers(Data East, 1992), and Mortal Kombat 3(Midway Games/Sculptured Software, 1995) even while I was playing the likes of WCW vs. nWo: World Tour(Asmik Ace Entertainment/AKI Corporation, 1997) and Quake 64(Midway Games, 1998). While not every title I played or owned for the Mega Drive was a smash hit, I still managed to find plenty to love thanks to the eye-catching graphics, catchy tunes, generally tight controls and gameplay, and the sheer attractiveness of those black boxes and cartridges. I even got a lot of enjoyment out of games that were short-lived in my collection, like Cosmic Spacehead (Codemasters, 1993) and The Aquatic Games Starring James Pond and the Aquabats (Millennium Interactive, 1992), even though they may not have necessarily been the easiest or most suitable games for my tastes at the time. Sadly, as I mentioned, money was always an issue in keeping me from having a truly expansive Mega Drive library; I borrowed a few titles I never actually owned, like Taz in Escape from Mars(HeadGames, 1994) and Street Fighter II’: Special Champion Edition(Capcom, 1993) but, while I played the likes of Golden Axe(SEGA, 1988) and Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension (Gremlin Graphics, 1992) on the Amiga, I never actually owned them for the Mega Drive back in the day.
My original mega Drive still sits proudly in the actual, physical game corner.
Thus, once we tore down our unused garage and had a little log cabin built and my dream of having an actual, physical game corner quickly became a reality, I knew what my first priority would be: to build a respectable library of physical, complete Mega Drive games to play at my leisure. It’s an expensive and long-winded process thanks to the fact that complete versions of Mega Drive games can be quite expensive but it’s a much easier prospect than collecting for Nintendo’s 8-, 16-, and 64-bit consoles as Nintendo favoured flimsy cardboard boxes for their games so the only Mega Drive game you really have to worry about having a battered or ripped box is Sonic & Knuckles. I first made my steps towards building this library when I finally bought a boxed and complete version of Sonic 3 a few years ago and, since then, the collection has grown slowly, but steadily. I’m prepared to play the long game when it comes to completing my collection as, while my Odroid console is great for emulating thousands of games and there’s plenty of ports or collections of classic Mega Drive titles available for modern consoles, there’s nothing quite like seeing a shelving unit full of those gorgeous, bulky, black or blue boxes and slotting a physical cartridge into that very same Mega Drive my parents gifted me all those years ago.
What are your memories of the SEGA Mega Drive? When did you first play or own one and which model did you have? Perhaps you preferred Nintendo’s consoles; if so, why and share your memories of those days? Do you also believe that SEGA might still be something of a competitor in the home console industry had they avoided the 32X and the Saturn or do you think their downfall was inevitable given how crowded and competitive the home console market became? What are some of your favourite Mega Drive titles? How are you celebrating this momentous day today? No matter what your thoughts, please feel free to share your opinions and memories of the Mega Drive and this era of gaming below.
With the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3(SEGA Technical Institute, 1994), gamers were introduced to Knuckles the Echidna. This mischievous, dreadlocked antagonist was created by Takashi Yuda and his debut was made all the more impressive by virtue of the fact that Sonic 3 was too big to fit on one cartridge, which meant that Knuckles was the first of Sonic’s supporting characters to co-star in a main series videogame when Sonic & Knuckles (ibid) was released on this very day in 1994.
Writers: Mike Kanterovich and Ken Penders – Artist: Art Mawhinney
Story Title: “Rites of Passage, Part One” Published: May 1996
Story Title: “Rites of Passage, Part Two” Published: June 1996
Story Title: “Rites of Passage, Part Three” Published: July 1996
The Background: When Sonic the Hedgehog blasted onto the videogame scene in 1991, he was an immediate hit thanks to his debut title being bundled with the Mega Drive and SEGA’s aggressive marketing campaign. His popularity exploded with Sonic the Hedgehog 2(SEGA Technical Institute, 1992), however, and Sonic merchandise was suddenly everywhere: not only did he feature in the Macy’s Day Parade and in cartoons but he also starred in a number of comic books. Following the initial four-part miniseries which mashed together narrative elements of Sonic’s cartoon adventures, Archie Comics began regular publication of what would become the longest-running videogame comic book ever. In time, to capitalise on Sonic’s continued popularity, a number of spin-off comics were produced, with one of the most prominent being the Knuckles the Echidna sister series. What began as a simple enough three issue miniseries soon expanded into a convoluted lore that eventually became the subject of a bitter lawsuit between Archie and writer/artist Ken Penders that forever changed the way subsequent Sonic comic books were handled.
The Review: Sonic’s Friendly Nemesis: Knuckles begins by first promoting the “mystery of Archimedes” and then giving a very brief rundown on Archie’s take on Knuckles, the downfall of the Echidna society, and his floating home. In these early appearances, Angel Island was known by the Western name of Floating Island and, in Archie Comics especially, was held aloft through the power of just the one Chaos Emerald (and not even the Master Emerald at this point) and incredibly advanced technology. With the Echidna’s long gone, nature has reclaimed much of the island, leaving it in disarray and causing long-forgotten secrets to be buried. Knuckles pays a visit to Mount Fate in search of his missing friends, Mighty the Armadillo, Vector the Crocodile, Espio the Chameleon, and Charmy Bee (collectively known as the Chaotix), who he strongly suspects are being held captive there by the mysterious Archimedes. Archimedes has been making Knuckles’ life a bit of a misery in recent issues and stories, taunting him with riddles about his past, and led Knux to discover that, generations ago, the Echidna brothers Edmund and Dimitri tried to use the Chaos Emerald to return Floating Island to Mobius and, in the process, Dimitri became the evil entity later identified as Enerjak, the “Harbinger of Chaos”. The entire experience caused the Echidnas to renounce technology in all its forms and bury their secrets away beneath Mount Fate and, when Knux arrives, he finds that the chamber is well guarded by a number of electronic lasers, booby traps, and other obstacles specifically designed to keep out (or kill) any intruders.
Knuckles’reunion with Chaotix is cut short by the sudden appearance of the all-powerful Enerjak.
As Knuckles explores his surroundings, he arms himself with a concussive blaster (because that’s what I always think when I think of Knuckles: guns!) and forces his way into the grand observatory at the heart of the temple…only to find that his friends are being treated to a glorious spread as guests of Archimedes, who is revealed to be a weird-looking anthropomorphic fire-ant (yeah…I don’t know, either). Considering all of the games, subterfuge, and questionable behaviour shown by Archimedes, Knuckles is understandably enraged and demands answers but any hostilities between the two are interrupted by the arrival of Enerjak, who broke free from his prison when Knuckles triggered Mount Fate’s traps. Although Knuckles dismisses the Pharaoh-esque madman as a fraud, Enerjak boasts the incredible, unmatched power of eleven Chaos Emeralds (Archie Comics had an almost incalculable number of the gems at the time) and proves his power (and to be more than a match for the combined might of Knuckles, Chaotix, and Archimedes) by overpowering them all, taking Chaotix captive, and blasting Knuckles and Archimedes to the blazing hot desert of the Sandopolis Zone. As the two begin the bleak, day-long journey across the outback, they are attacked by a giant sandcrawler. However, the beast is easily defeated and turned into late-night kebabs for the two when Archimedes uses himself as bait (and his ability to teleport) to trick it into colliding head-first with a stack of rocks. Afterwards, Archimedes regales Knuckles (and bores the shit out of me…) with the story of how his people watched as the Echidnas harnessed the power of many Chaos Emeralds to move the entire city of Echidnapolis out of the path of an incoming comet (why they didn’t just evacuate is beyond me) thanks to the fire-ants performing the “ground-breaking ceremony” to effectively birth Floating Island. Archimedes then recounts, in a little bit more detail, how Dimitri later fashioned the “Chaos Siphon” to absorb the power of eleven Chaos Emeralds and ended up burying himself in the process.
Stuck in the boiling desert, Knux is subjected to endless exposition and visions of his father.
Since then, generation after generation of Echidnas were named Guardian of the Chaos Emerald and the fire-ants watched over them, testing them with a rite of passage to ensure that they would be read to combat threats such as Enerjak. While Knux and Archimedes resolve to work together to face Enerjak, they still need to cross the boiling desert; in his desperate hunger, Knux amusingly tries to eat Archimedes and ends up getting his mouth burned as a result. Later, while succumbing to the heat, Knuckles has a vision of his long-dead father, Locke, who does his best Mufasa (James Earl Jones) impersonation and gives him not only the resolve to continue onwards but also a cryptic clue as to how to defeat Enerjak: “The key to your present peril is in our past!” After reinvigorating himself at a mysterious oasis, Knuckles and Archimedes forge onwards towards Nekronopolis, a mighty city erected by Enerjak’s vast Chaos powers. The city, which Enerjak has built as a dark and corrupt reflection of Echidnaopolis, is home to an army of disposable mechanical minions (known as “Mecha-Nauts”) and Enerjak’s imposing citadel. Knuckles decides that the best approach is to tackle the Mecha-Nauts head on, which earns him Archimedes’ disapproval until he reveals that it was part of a plan to lure the machines to a gate so that he could crush them all (or, at least, a lot of them) in one move. However, while they manage to get into the citadel with a minimum of fuss, inside he is confronted by the Chaotix, who have been brainwashed by Enerjak’s magic and attack the two on his command. The fight (which includes a timely reference to The Mask (Russell, 1994) and even, surprisingly, The Shadow (Mulcahy, 1994), two films that both released in the year prior to this issue) goes poorly for the Chaotix; despite them having the numbers advantage, Knuckles and Archimedes are able to hold them off, forcing Enerjak to intervene and render them both unconscious using his powers (kind of making controlling the Chaotix a waste of time…) With Knuckles and Archimedes helpless against Enerjak’s powers, the would-be tyrant recaps his origins again just in case we didn’t realise how he came to be what he is.
Enerjak’s power may be awesome but the fight ends unresolved.
Despite acknowledging that the Guardian and his newfound fire-ant companion are the only two who could possibly oppose him, Enerjak prefers to boast and monologue rather than destroy them while he has the perfect opportunity. Indeed, Knux goads him into releasing them from his energy field, which gives Archimedes the opportunity to contact his fellow fire-ants. While Knuckles creates a distraction by taunting Enerjak and absorbing the brunt of his anger, Archimedes is able to teleport them out of danger so that Knux can (literally) get the drop on him and, though stunned to learn that he is Knuckles’ great-uncle, Enerjak attacks with a ferocity that is only matched by his augmented strength. Still, the two are relatively evenly matched, potentially because Knuckles has successfully goaded Enerjak into a straight-up fist fight and continues to chastise his great-uncle for his selfish ways and lack of honour. Their fight is cut short when Enerjak’s citadel suddenly transforms into a rocket and blasts into space; Knuckles and Archimedes escape thanks to the efforts of the fire-ants and Chaotix are freed from their pointless mind control. In the aftermath, despite Knuckles not really learning anything from him or really acting in a way that’s that impressive, Archimedes gives Knux his respect. Although Enerjak escaped to live to fight another day, the group is victorious and decide not to worry too much about the mysterious happenings that they experienced along the way (such as the oasis disappearing and the aforementioned rocket) but the story concludes with the revelation (to us) that Locke is actually alive and actively monitoring and assisting Knuckles from a hidden, high-tech bunker.
The Summary: Jesus, what a slog. I’ll be the first to admit that Knuckles is my absolute favourite Sonic the Hedgehog character and I remember being so excited when he debuted in Sonic the Comic (1993 to 2002) and to learn that he was a prominent feature in the Archie comics, which were seen as kind of a continuation/parallel to Sonic the Hedgehog/SatAM (1993 to 1994). Knuckles the Echidna was one of the longest-running spin-off of the Archie Sonic comics, which is a testament to the character’s appeal and popularity, but every time I read his solo run I can’t help but be astounded at how boring and preposterous it is. I don’t usually lark to harp on about this sort of thing but my God is the art terrible in these issues! The covers, drawn by the always amazing Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante, are the best part of the artwork in this miniseries as, while Knuckles generally looks kind of okay, a lot of the characters just look really weird and disproportionate. I can kind of understand it as the majority of the Chaotix are really weird character designs already but Archimedes and the rest of the fire-ants just look ugly, man. Environments are very bland and nonsensical as well and all three issues suffer from the same artistic inconsistency that plagued the Archie Sonic comics for about fifty issues or so. There are, however, some impressive moments in the issues, though. In the rare instances where Knuckles is gliding or in action, he looks suitably bold and striking and, while Enerjak’s design is a bit “busy”, he looks pretty distinct and intimidating and I love how he has all this Egyptian-inspired apparel on his armour. Thanks to having absorbed the powers of eleven Chaos Emeralds, he can fly, wields Chaos energy, and is able to render targets under his control or unconscious and seems to have enhanced durability and strength, and can even erect a fully-functional city and robot minions in just a few panels.
Enerjak has a striking design and is certainly powerful but this was a poor outing for him.
Yet, the exact limits of his powers remains a mystery; he is regarded as a bogeyman-type figure by Archimedes and, as we learn, the reason why the Echidnas eventually renounced technology and he’s certainly a maniacal force but the story ends before we really get to delve into exactly what he wants. And that’s interesting because Sonic’s Friendly Nemesis: Knuckles is about 75% dialogue and exposition. Look, I get it; you can’t assume that people who read issue two or three will have read issue one but every issue starts with a bit of swirling text recapping the previous issue’s events so I really don’t think it was necessary to recap the (literal) rise and fall of Echidna society or Enerjak’s origin three Goddamn times! Sure, have Archimedes explain the fire-ant perspective on it all and introduce the idea of Dimitri there and yeah, Enerjak could share his perspective as well, but they’re largely the same and it just felt like needless filler. Add to that the fact that neither Knuckles nor Archimedes ever shuts up and constantly narrates his every thought and action and you have a story that is more a chore than a thrill to get through, which is a shame as I find Enerjak to be a compelling villain and his slug-fest with Knuckles was gearing up to be something good. It doesn’t help that Archie constantly shoe-horned the Chaotix into Knuckles’ stories, bloating the cast to kind of make it like an alternative to Sonic and the Knothole Freedom Fighters and, considering how useless the Chaotix were in this miniseries, it might’ve been better to omit them entirely and focus solely on Knuckles (and Archimedes, I guess, even though I am not a fan of the character) and his efforts to prove himself a worthy Guardian and oppose Enerjak’s ambitions.
My Rating:
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Could Be Better
Have you ever read Sonic’s Friendly Nemesis: Knuckles? Did you pick the issues up when they were first released and, if so, what did you think about Knuckles’ first spin-off? What did you think to Archie’s introduction and characterisation of Knuckles and the increasingly-complex depiction of the Echidna society? Were you a fan of Archimedes and Enerjak? Did you like the Chaotix being Knuckles’ running buddies? Which of Archie’s Knuckles stories and/or characters was your favourite and why? Are you celebrating Knuckles’ big day today? Whatever you think about Archie’s Sonic comics, and especially Knuckles, leave a comment down below and let me know.
Easily Marvel Comics’ most recognisable and popular superhero, unsuspecting teenage nerd Peter Parker was first bitten by a radioactive spider and learned the true meaning of power and responsibility in Amazing Fantasy #15, which was first published in August 1962. Since then, the Amazing Spider-Man has featured in numerous cartoons, live-action movies, videogames, action figures, and countless comic book titles and, in celebration of his debut and his very own day of celebration, I’ve been dedicating every Wednesday to talk about everyone’s favourite web-head!
Released: 1991 Developer: Technopop Also Available For: Game Gear, Master System, and Mega-CD
The Background: Shortly after debuting in the pages of Amazing Fantasy, Peter Parker/Spider-Man graduated to his own solo title and quickly became Marvel’s most popular comic book character. Accordingly, Spider-Man was one of the first of Marvel’s superheroes to make the jump to videogames. In the early nineties, SEGA held the licensing rights to produce home console games based on Marvel Comics characters and one of the first, and most popular, of these was Spider-Man (also known as Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin), a game I first played on the Master System before switching to the 16-bit version after being won over by the superior graphics.
The Plot: Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime, has planted a nuclear bomb in New York City that is set to explode in twenty-four hours, distributed the keys to disarming the bomb to some of Spider-Man’s most lethal foes, and has even framed Spidey for the crime! And, as if all that wasn’t bad enough, Eddie Brock/Venom is stalking the city, further stacking the odds against the web-slinger.
Gameplay: Spider-Man is a 2D, sidescrolling action/platformer with an emphasis on exploration and combat; given the nature of the plot, players have just twenty-four in-game hours to complete the game. Dawdle too long in the game’s locations and you’ll doom the entire city to destruction, which places a real anxiety into the gameplay which is, sadly, not reflected in the game’s mechanics.
Spidey’s webbing allows him to take out crooks and quickly traverse levels.
Obviously, you take control of Spider-Man, a clunky, stilted, and awkward character who displays all of Spidey’s trademark abilities: he can punch out goons with B, jump with C (be sure to hold the button for a higher jump), and cling to walls, ceilings, and backgrounds by pressing jump twice. He can also shoot webbing with A, which is perfect for taking out goons from a distance or up high as you can diagonally direct Spidey’s web; while you can’t shoot upwards, you can shoot a web out while jumping to swing along horizontally but, while this is great for covering large distances quickly, it’s not so great for the many instances of vertical movement.
Spidey’s webbing is super useful but you’ll need to earn cash from selling photos to refill it.
From the pause menu, you can select between two webs: a sticky web projectile and a web shield to help protect Spidey from damage. However, Spidey has a finite supply of webbing and, when he runs out, you’ll have to rely on your punches and jump kicks. After retrieving Parker’s camera from the Daily Bugle though, you can select his camera from the pause menu and take pictures of goons and bosses to earn cash and refill your webbing, but you only have a limited number of shots available so it’s best to save these for getting pictures of Spidey’s more recognisable enemies.
Control is sluggish and awkward, meaning Spidey lacks his trademark grace and agility.
Control is a major issue in Spider-Man; Spidey is slow moving, his punch doesn’t have a lot of reach, and not only is his hit box quite large but so are the ones of his enemies. You can get around this a bit with his webbing, jump kick, and crouching kick but, more often than not, you’ll clip through enemies and fly backwards when hit with attacks. However, the most frustrating thing about Spider-Man, and the game in general, is how janky the jumping and wall-climbing mechanics are; some levels, such as the city streets, easily allow you to climb walls in the backgrounds but others, like the caverns, don’t. In the warehouse and sewers, you’ll need to climb up vertical walls and ceilings to get through air vents and tunnels and navigate past crates and such, but you need to keep C held down to stay attached to the surface. Nowhere is the control more annoying than in the caverns level, a cramped and maze-like environment that restricts your movement and requires you to perform some tricky web-swings and jumps to progress, which can be frustrating to pull off as Spidey prefers to either just drop off ledges or bump his head on ceilings (or just get shot when he finally makes the jump).
Graphics and Sound: Spider-Man is a bright and relatively detailed videogame; it was, however, an early release for the Mega Drive so it’s not exactly making the most of the 16-bit machine’s “blast processing” power. Spider-Man and his recognisable villains all look pretty good, especially Venom and Doctor Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus, but the regular goons and enemies leave a lot to be desired.
While sprites are colourful and detailed enough, the levels are noticeably lacking in detail.
Where the game’s graphics really fall flat, though, are in the environments; New York City looks pretty good and you can clamber up the sides of buildings, stop a random street mugging, and even encounter J. Jonah Jameson on the streets but the warehouse isn’t exactly exciting or impressive. Central Park is quite dynamic, with benches, trees, water fountains, and an intractable fire hydrant but, like all of the game’s locations, it’s surprising barren in the background and lacking in depth. The power station tries to make up for this but ends up being more of a mess of greys and yellows, though there are, occasionally, some interesting elements to some levels (debris floating in the polluted sewer water, for example).
A variety of cutscene styles are employed to tell the game’s story, though the music is pretty poor.
Spider-Man’s story is told through the use of various different types of cutscenes: one is simply the Kingpin making spurious claims through news reports, another is simply the Spider-Man sprite walking in a black void while text scrolls on screen, another uses comic book-like panels and text to show Spidey interrogating his foes, and another use in-game sprites and a bit of text. As you might expect, the comic book panels and sprite-based cutscenes are much more interesting to look at but, even for an early Mega Drive title, they’re very basic. The music is even worse, being bland and uninspiring and, overall, the graphics, music, and presentation were actually better on the Master System, which also featured additional characters and features.
Enemies and Bosses: While racing to confront his rogue’s gallery, Spidey comes up against a handful of hired goons; these guys will shoot at you with handguns from a distance and try to knife you when you get up close and, later, switch to using sniper rifles. You’ll also come up against such cliché enemies as bats, snakes, dogs, and rats and, in the first mission, will be attacked be one of New York’s finest as well. Levels also feature more formidable and elaborate enemies as well as alligators and “Mutant Jumpers” await you in the sewer, electrified bats fly at you at the power station, laser-firing turrets and ED-209-like robots patrol the caverns, and a giant ape will randomly show up in Central Park!
Ducking and using your webbing is the key to besting both Doc Ock and the Lizard.
The only way to disarm the Kingpin’s bomb is to retrieve five keys from some of Spidey’s most notorious foes; you’ll know when a boss or more powerful foe is near because Spidey’s spider-sense will go off and the music will change. The first you’ll battle (once getting past a rampant forklift truck) is Doc Ock, who awaits you in a dank warehouse and attacks you with his trademark arms. In the Master System version, you could web up his arms to hold his attacks at bay but, here, I found that didn’t seem to work so I just crouched under his attacks to get closer and attacked him that way. In the sewers, you’ll encounter Doctor Curt Connors/The Lizard, who scrambles about the place and whips at you with his tail; however, he also has a tendency to just crouch there looking scary so it’s pretty easy to fire webs at him and jump kick him into submission.
You’ll need to watch out for, and use, the environment to defeat Electro and the Sandman.
As you navigate through the power plant, you’ll be attacked by annoying bolts of electricity that, as you might expect, come from Max Dillon/Electro; Electro flies about the place on a cloud of lightning and shoots thunderbolts at you but his true threat comes from his ability to electrify the girders that you’ll no doubt be standing on so…make sure you’re not on them when that happens! Easily the most unique of the game’s bosses, though, is Flint Marko/The Sandman, who emerges from a sandpit in Central park, turns into sand to avoid your attacks, and attacks with extendable arms and by shooting sand-fists your way. He’s also invulnerable to your attacks so you need to turn around and web-swing back to the start of the level and use the fire hydrant to douse him in water and put an end to him.
Venom shows up more than once to constantly dog your progress and cause you grief.
One of the game’s more persistent bosses is Venom; Venom often shows up at the worst possible moments, such as during other boss fights and at the beginning of the street level (where you’ll also have to watch out for Jameson, who berates you and hurts you if you get too close). Each time you fight Venom, they bound overheard, fire webs at you, and punch you in the face but, generally, the best method of attack is to let them jump over your head, fire your own webs, and punch them whenever they come close. These fights get more difficult as the game progresses thanks to the presence of other enemies and bosses but, in the caverns, I found Venom got a bit stuck on a ledge just out of reach so I could just finish the level without fighting them.
After defeating Hobgoblin, you’ll battle basically every boss at once to get to the bomb!
The main enemy of the city level, though, is Jason Macendale, Jr/Hobgoblin, who flies around the rooftops of the city on his goblin glider and tosses a bunch of explosive pumpkin bombs down at you. Luckily, your diagonal webbing can make short work of Hobgoblin but his threat is magnified when you reach the Kingpin’s bomb, which is protected by all the bosses you’ve fought so far (with the odd exception of Doc Ock). Thus, you must battle the Lizard, Electro, Venom, and the Hobgoblin all at once, which is an impressive sight but extremely chaotic. It’s best to try and focus on one at a time, if possible, and take out guys like Hobgoblin and Electro because they can cause major headaches from the air.
If you’re able to keep M.J. from dying, you can batter the Kingpin into submission to win the day.
After defeating them all, you must select each of the five keys you’ve collected from the pause menu and insert them into the bomb in the correct order; each time you put a key in wrong, you’ll lose a chunk of time but, as long as you get it right and avoid a game over, you’ll be spared the constantly timer counting down. Next, you can pick up some health from the air vents and go one-on-one with a very squat and hunchback-looking Kingpin. This is easily the game’s toughest boss fight as the Kingpin deals massive damage with his big, meaty fists and it’s hard to tell when you’ve actually hit him. To make matters worse, Peter’s wife, Mary Jane Watson-Parker (who was kidnapped by Venom earlier in the game) is suspended over a fiery pit and you must web her chains to keep her from being lowered to her death. This is really tricky to do because your target is just off-screen and it’s hard to get the angle right to web her chains, to say nothing of the Kingpin’s persistent attacks. If M.J. is lowered into the pit, then it’s an instant game over…which is always fun.
Power-Ups and Bonuses: Scattered throughout many of the game’s levels, you’ll find little Spider-Man icons which, when collected, will refill your health. From the pause menu, you’ll also see a little head icon; this is Peter’s head and selecting it will instantly teleport you to Peter’s apartment, where his health bar will slowly refill at the cost of your precious time. This is somewhat pointless as, when you return to the game, you have to start the level from the beginning again but you may have to sacrifice time for health in the game’s tougher moments since you only get one life to finish the game. You can continue if you fail but, again, this will cost you precious time. Otherwise, that’s it; the only way to refill your webbing is to take pictures of Spidey’s famous foes and there are no temporary power-ups or abilities available throughout the game.
Additional Features: From the main “Options” menu, you can select from four different difficulty settings: Practice, Easy, Normal, and Nightmare. Be warned, however, as while these will, obviously make the game easier or harder depending on your choice, you can’t progress beyond the sewers if you play on “Easy”. From the same menu, you can also set your stamina level and the amount of web cartridges you carry, which can be beneficial to keeping you alive and in the fight on the game’s more challenging levels. Sadly, that’s technically as far as it goes; in the Master System version, you could perform a trick to have Spidey wear his black suit and even play a cheeky mini game but you can’t to that here so the only other benefit available to you are the cheats. While in the “Options” menu, place your cursor on the “Difficulty” option and hold Start on controller two; hold A, B, and C and controller one and press up/right and you’ll see a !!! icon appear in the menu. Once you start the game, if you pause the action and press A, you’ll completely refill your webbing; B will refill your health, C will grant you a few seconds of invincibility, and pressing A, B, and C will skip you ahead to the next level. This is useful to progress you through the game but means nothing if you screw up with the bomb or in the final battle as you’ll still fail the game if you don’t defuse the weapon or keep M.J. safe.
The Summary: I really enjoyed the Master System version of Spider-Man; I never finished it in the years when I owned it and stupidly sold it some time ago but it was bright and entertaining with some detailed sprites and backgrounds. As a result, I was really excited to play the Mega Drive version of the game, having been won over by screenshots of the game’s superior graphics. However, graphical superiority doesn’t actually translate into a better game; yes, Spidey and his villains look great but the game is a slow, plodding, awkward experience. Climbing walls and navigating through the game’s unfortunately cramped areas is a pain, the lack of viable health power-ups and extra web abilities is disappointing, and the challenge on offer is artificially high and ridiculously unfair at times. It’s a shame as it wouldn’t take much to make the game a bit more enjoyable; upping Spidey’s speed a bit and giving him a vertical web shot would have been a big help but, in the end, it’s a decent enough title but there are definitely better Spider-Man games to play on the 16-bit consoles.
My Rating:
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Could Be Better
Have you ever played the Mega Drive version of Spider-Man? If so, what did you think to it? How do you feel it holds up compared to the other versions of the game? How did you find the game’s controls and mechanics? Which of the bosses was your favourite? Did you ever defuse the Kingpin’s bomb and save M.J. or did you fail at the last hurdle? Which Spider-Man videogame is your favourite? Whatever your thoughts, feel free to leave a comment down below.
Sonic the Hedgehog CD (Sonic Team, 1993) released on this day back in 1993. Produced alongside the blockbusterSonic the Hedgehog 2(SEGA Technical Institute, 1992), Sonic CD expanded upon the Blue Blur’s original debut title with lush graphics, a time travel mechanic, gorgeous anime cutscenes, and introduced players to Metal Sonic (one of Sonic’s most popular and enduring rivals) and Amy Rose. Considered by many to be one of the best of the classic Sonic titles, Sonic CD might not be one of my favourites but it’s still a classic in it’s own right and it’s worth looking back on today of all days.
Released: 14 December 2011 Originally Released: 23 September 1993 Developer: Christian Whitehead Original Developer: Sonic Team Also Available For: GameCube, Mega-CD, PC, PlayStation 2, SEGA Mega Drive Mini II (Original); Mobile, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox 360, Xbox Series S/X (Remaster)
The Background: Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic Team, 1991) was specifically created and marketed as SEGA’s Nintendo-beater and, thanks to selling over 15 million copies, succeeded in its goal. Naturally, SEGA were eager to produce a sequel but, rather than create one game, they ended up making two! With Sonic creator Yuji Naka having moved to America to work on Sonic 2, Sonic’s designer, Naoto Oshima, spearheaded an entirely separate title built on the bones of the first game that would be exclusive to SEGA’s ill-fated CD add-on for the Mega Drive.
Sonic CD is largely known as one of the best Sonic games and was made widely available in 2011.
With Sonic 2 more focused on speed, Oshima placed Sonic CD’s focus more on platforming and exploration with its speed-based time travel mechanic (which was cut from Sonic 2) and included gorgeous anime cutscenes from Toei Animation (which would later be the basis for the feature-length original video animation). Artist Kazuyuki Hoshino designed Sonic’s metallic doppelgänger and biggest fan, Amy Rose (though that character actually debuted, in a slightly different form, in a 1992 manga), both of which were as pivotal to the game as the time travel elements. Despite the game’s U.S. release being delayed for an entirely new soundtrack, Sonic CD was met with widespread critical acclaim but, for many such as myself, the game was somewhat elusive since no one I knew had a Mega-CD and it just wasn’t the same playing the PC version. I first played the game properly when it was included in Sonic Gems Collection (Sonic Team, 2005) but jumped at the chance to play the HD remaster when it first dropped on the PlayStation 3. Developed by Christian Whitehead, this new version of the game was widely available, included Achievement support, numerous bug fixes, and a whole host of new elements that make it the definitive version of this cult classic entry in the franchise.
The Plot: When the mysterious Little Planet has makes its annual appearance, Sonic travels to Never Lake but finds the planet has been overtaken by Doctor Eggman’s Badniks! When Sonic’s number one fan, Amy Rose, is kidnapped by his robotic doppelgänger, Metal Sonic, Sonic must race across time itself to keep Eggman from polluting the past, recover the seven Time Stones, and ensure a good future for Little Planet!
Gameplay: Sonic CD is a 2D, sidescrolling action platformer that once again sees you guiding the titular blue hedgehog across seven stages (known as “Zones”), each split into three parts (simply called “Zone 1” to “Zone 3” rather than being called “Acts”). At the end of each third Act, Sonic must battle Eggman in one of his contraptions but there’s quite a twist this time around. This time, as well as passing Lampposts to create a checkpoint, Sonic will also run past special signposts; once one of these has been triggered, Sonic will begin to sparkle as he runs and, if he builds up enough uninterrupted speed, he will travel to the past or the future depending on which post he activated. While the general layout of the Zone remains the same in the past, present, and future, there are numerous aesthetic and difficulty differences in each one. The past is generally much more lush and vibrant, lacking many of Eggman’s traps and Badniks; the present is a standard-fare Sonic stage; and the future is a pollution and hazard-infested mechanical hell. When in the past, Sonic must search high and low for a Robot Transporter and a holographic projection of Metal Sonic; destroying both in Zone 1 and 2 ensures that Zone 3 earns a good future, which strips it of all Badniks and hazards and even makes the boss battles noticeably easier.
Sonic CD‘s biggest gimmick is the speed-based time travel mechanic.
If you’ve played the first Sonic game then you’ll be immediately familiar with Sonic’s controls and physics. Sonic’s speed, jumping power, and abilities all carry over, making him as tight and responsive as ever, but he is afforded two new abilities. One is a variation on the Sonic 2 Spin Dash (it’s not quite as useful or as fast as in that game, though) and the other is Sonic’s Super Peel-Out manoeuvre, which sees Sonic rev up his legs until they become little more than a blurry figure eight and then rocket ahead at full speed, which is perfect for the few instances where you have the room to travel fast enough to time travel. Sadly, there’s not always the opportunity to do this; like in the first game, Sonic has to earn his breakneck speeds and, all too often, you’ll go running or rolling ahead in a blur of spikes only to slam head-first into a wall, a pit, a bumper, or poorly-placed enemies and hazards. This makes the time travel much harder to pull off than it needs to be as you’ll constantly be fighting to find a long enough stretch of ground or the right opportunity to build up your speed only to accidentally screw up the attempt at the last minute. Similarly, there’s a much greater emphasis on exploration and platforming this time around; every Zone feels like a mixture of speed, loops, and obstacles and the level design is questionable at best and haphazard at worst, with Golden Rings floating inside of the environment and your progress to the many alternate paths either blocked or protected by dead-ends and endless loops. As a result, when you travel back to the past, it can be extremely difficult to navigate through the Zones to find the Robot Transporters and projectors even in the more linear Zones; the bigger, more complicated Zones like Wacky Workbench and Metallic Madness make it nearly impossible to do without a guide or copious amounts of trial and error.
There’s still plenty of opportunities to be bounced around despite the many stage hazards.
Still, speed is a prominent factor in the game; thanks to the Super Peel-Out and new gameplay mechanics, Sonic is much faster than he was in the first game and is still bounced all over the place like a pinball in Zones like Collision Chaos. Indeed, there are technically two ways to play; the slow, methodical Sonic CD way which has you hunting down objects in the past or the faster, more Sonic 2 way which has you racing through Zones as fast as possible and completing them holding fifty Rings or more to enter the game’s Special Stages. Once again, Golden Rings act as your protection from damage; they’ll scatter everywhere when you’re hit and, as always, Sonic is in danger of drowning when underwater in the distinctly Labyrinth Zone-like Tidal Tempest but, thankfully, you don’t seem to spend anywhere near as much time underwater in this Zone. As is to be expected, every Zone has different gimmicks (such as moving or crumbling platforms, tubes, conveyor belts, bumpers, and the like) but these actually change when you travel through time, meaning different routes become accessible in each time period. Zones also take on more and more gimmicks (most of them very dangerous) as you progress but even the first Zone, Palmtree Panic, is crammed full of different ways to navigate. As a result, you’ll be bouncing all over the place in Wacky Workbench but fighting against treadmills and cogs in Quartz Quadrant, racing along tunnels and vast stretches of ground in Stardust Speedway, and dodging spikes, buzzsaws, and a bevy of hazards in Metallic Madness (which also features a unique shrinking mechanic). Thankfully, bottomless pits are a rarity in Sonic CD but crushing weights, sudden spikes, electrified coils, and falling boulders and stalactites more than make up for that! Also, Sonic CD is as difficult as you make it be; if you choose not to try and take the higher, easier, and faster routes or purposely visit the bad futures, then you’re going to have a much tougher time of it than if you actively try and create a good future. This places much more emphasis on your actions actually having consequences as, normally, you only restore (or fail) the world when you lose all of your lives or fail to collect all the jewels but, in Sonic CD, you can actively affect and improve each Zone on a case-by-case basis by collecting the Time Stones or destroying Eggman’s machinery in the past.
Graphics and Sound: Thanks to the graphical enhancements of the Mega-CD, Sonic CD may very well be one of the most visually striking and vibrant games in the franchise, especially amongst the classic titles. Every Zone is awash with colour and life and full of little details and background elements; every time you travel to the past or future, the Zone gets a complete facelift and takes a much more verdant or ominous light depending on how well you play which really adds to the replayability of the game as every Zone has, essentially, four parts to it (past, present, good future, and bad future) that all present a different aesthetic and challenge while still maintaining the basic structure of the Zone.
Zones are packed full of details and vibrant colours but can look a little busy at times.
Zones have a real depth to them, allowing you to see into the distance and take in just how badly Eggman has affected each environment. You might see a vast sea full of ruins in the past of Palmtree Panic but all you’ll see is pollution and machinery in the bad future; similarly, Tidal Tempest is an unblemished cave in the past but has been transformed into a mechanical base in the future. Zones are also full of interesting and unique graphical mechanics, such as the pseudo-3D ramp at the start of Palmtree Panic, the Mode-7-like Special Stages, how a certain tube in Palmtree Panic will send Sonic smashing through the background and leave a Sonic-shaped hole in his wake, and the way graphics change size as you bounce and run all over the place. Unfortunately, though, I often find Sonic CD’s Zones to be a little too busy; there’s a lot going in the background and foreground, a lot of competing, clashing colours (especially in the garish pink of Collision Chaos), and it can be difficult to keep track of where you are and what’s going on sometimes.
The power of the Mega-CD makes for some gorgeous and well-animated sprites.
The sprites have, however, benefitted greatly from the graphical upgrade; Sonic has more animation frames and a more dynamic moveset and seems far more lively and energetic despite the majority of his assets being lifted from the first game. Sonic also speaks a little bit, shouting out “Yes!” when he grabs and extra life and “I’m outta here!” when left idle for a few minutes (which causes an instant game over). Other sounds, however, are not quite as appreciated, such as the sound Sonic makes when he jumps (which is decidedly squeakier and much more annoying and it also bugs me when it is recycled in both fan-made and official Sonic games). The bosses, too, are bigger and more elaborate than in the first game, requiring actual strategy on your part to defeat and even Amy Rose gets a lot of personality as she follows Sonic around like a love-sick puppy, desperately trying to hug him while love hearts adorably fly from her head.
The anime sequences really bolster the game’s appeal and capture Sonic’s essence.
Of course, you can’t talk about Sonic CD without mentioning the anime cutscenes and the soundtrack. The opening and ending of the game features gorgeously animated anime sequences that showcase Sonic at his best, in my opinion; I loved that these were expanded upon in Sonic the Hedgehog (Ikegami, 1999) and I would absolutely be over the moon if they were brought back for future Sonic games. Sonic CD’s soundtrack is also one of the most beloved and contested in the franchise; many prefer the original Japanese soundtrack and, while that is good, it’s much more peppy and vibrant and happy-go-lucky than Spencer Nilsen’s version for the U.S. As a result, while I prefer some tracks from the Japanese soundtrack, overall I prefer the U.S. one; the invincibility music is better, the boss theme is better, and the U.S. soundtrack is much more in the style of rock and metal than anything else, which I prefer.
Enemies and Bosses: Once again, Sonic must contend with Eggman’s Badniks; unlike in the majority of the classic Sonic titles, Badniks don’t drop cute woodland critters and, instead, blossom flowers upon defeat (again tying into the game’s overall theme of restoring Little Planet to health) and, honestly, they’re far less prominent than in other 2D Sonic titles. Indeed, Sonic CD’s Badniks mainly exist to screw up your run-up to a time travel attempt and cost you your hard-earned Rings right before the goal and they’re probably some of the most unremarkable in the original games. Eggman’s theme this time around is definitely geared more towards bugs than anything else as needle-nosed Mozzietrons try to skewer you from above, Arachnisprings jump out at you, Damsiltron and Buzz Bomber 2s hover overhead and take shots at you, and Poghoppers bounce around the place on their springy bases. Probably the worst enemies are the Snail-Spikers due to their spikes, Motherbombs (which are invulnerable to your attacks and explode into a shower of projectiles), and the Flashers, which must be hit at just the right time to avoid taking damage from their laser beams. Your main opponent, though, will be the abundance of spikes, springs, bumpers, and other obstacles that mess up your momentum and cost you valuable Rings.
The first boss is, quite possibly, the easiest of any of the classic Sonic videogames.
The bosses, though, are a completely different story. Sonic CD features some of the biggest and most unique and interesting boss battles of all the classic games and, while each boss only takes three hits to defeat, they all require different strategies on your part and are affected by whether you battle them in a good or bad future. The first time you battle Eggman, he’s inside of his EGG-HVC-001 mech, which is either a striking pink or an ominous red and sports spikes on the feet. Eggman protects himself from attacks with two bumpers but, after a couple of hits/bounces, these will break off and allow you to land the decisive blow. It’s, quite possibly, the easiest first boss in any Sonic game as even Sonic 2’s Eggmobile took eight hits to defeat.
Bosses require a bit of strategy on your part but are extremely fragile once you get your hits in.
In Collision Chaos, Eggman hides at the top of a giant pinball table and drops weighted balls down at you that can force you to drop down to the lowest level or into some annoyingly-placed spikes. The whole battle is structured very similar to the Star Light and Casino Night Zones and is a clear precursor to Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball(SEGA Technical Institute, 1993) in that players must make use of the flippers to bounce Sonic up each level of the arena, ricocheting off of bumpers and such to ram into Eggman’s machine three times. Your enjoyment of this boss may vary as it all depends on how well you get on with the pinball-based Zones and mechanics of Sonic games; for me, this meant it was quite an annoying boss as it can be tricky to get the angle of your trajectory right to go where you need to. At the end of Tidal Tempest Zone 3, you’ll have to chase Eggman around a short maze similar to the end of Labyrinth Zone; unlike in that encounter, though, this time it’s a simple loop that repeats until you land a few hits and you don’t need to worry about spikes or other hazards. Also, after Eggman flees, he floods the area and surrounds his craft with air bubbles and shoots projectiles at you; in order to finish Eggman off, Sonic has to suck up a couple of the bubbles to make a gap in his defences, which is certainly a unique spin on Sonic’s notorious underwater mechanics.
Compared to some of the other bosses, the final battle is a walk in the park!
Probably one of the more frustrating bosses is encountered in Quartz Quadrant; here, Eggman hides behind a giant piston and Sonic is forced to perpetually run on a treadmill lest he be skewered by spikes on the far left of the arena. Unlike the other Eggman bosses in Sonic CD, this boss isn’t about attacking but surviving as Eggman drops bombs onto you, which must be avoided, and you have to wait for the friction of the treadmill to destroy Eggman’s machine and defeat him. Because of how difficult it can be to maintain your speed and footing when avoiding the bombs and their projectiles, this can be a particularly challenging boss for your patience, if nothing else. In comparison, the final boss is a fairly anti-climatic and simple affair; Eggman surrounds his craft with four blades and hovers in a slow pattern around the arena, shooting them at you or occasionally spinning your way. However, it’s ridiculously easy to attack between the blades and, each time you land a hit, he loses one of them so, even though he speeds up and becomes more erratic, he’s made more vulnerable to attack and, honestly, this final boss is easier than the one in the first game!
The race against Metal Sonic might be Sonic CD‘s most iconic, and annoying, boss battle.
Of course, the most iconic boss battle of Sonic CD comes in Stardust Speedway where you’re forced to race against Metal Sonic! This is a thrilling, if frustrating, experience as Eggman flies along behind you firing an instant-death laser and it can be difficult to get up a good run of speed because, again, of spikes, obstacles, and sudden drops or edges in the path. Metal Sonic is completely invulnerable to harm and will charge at you full-speed or electrify its body, which is helpful for breaking spikes and clearing a path for you. Because of the way the screen is locked, though, this isn’t quite the fast-paced experience it’s often thought and interpreted as and is, instead, a strangely-paced, annoying affair that generally comes down more to luck than anything else. The best thing to do is to stay ahead where you can, jump over Metal Sonic, and then blast past it at every opportunity so that you’re on the right side of that wall when it comes crashing down.
Power-Ups and Bonuses: As is the standard for most Sonic games, a number of power-up monitors are scattered throughout the game’s Zones. Unfortunately, though, there are no new or exclusive items to be found in Sonic CD; instead, you’ll have to make do with either ten Rings, a shield that protects you from damage for one hit, an extra life, speed-up shoes, or a brief invincibility just like in the first two games.
Additional Features: Sonic CD has twelve Achievements for you to earn, some of which are pretty simple; you’d be hard-pressed to play through the game without travelling through time, for example, and you’re guaranteed to get a hug from Amy after defeating Metal Sonic. Others, though, are a bit trickier, requiring you to collect two hundred Rings rather than the usual one hundred, or to find the upper goal signpost in Collision Chaos 2 and a hidden angel statue in Wacky Workbench. Probably the most troublesome Achievements, though, involve beating Metal Sonic without being hit and destroying all of the Robot Transporter and holograms in the past.
Conquer the seven psychedelic Special Stages to get the Time Stones and the best ending.
As in the first game, finishing every Zone except the third with fifty Rings or more allows you to enter a Special Stage by jumping through a Giant Ring. These Special Stages are much more elaborate than in the first game, though, and arguably a bit more forgiving than in the second; here, you must race around a flat area against a tight time limit, avoiding water and other obstacles as you hunt down and destroy a number of UFOs. If you land on water, or similar surfaces, your time will drain exponentially so be sure to avoid these at all costs but don’t go too fast on the booster pads as it can be very difficult to make tight turns. As you destroy UFOs, you can earn Rings and even a time bonus, which is helpful, but while fans can be used to float into UFOs, spiked grates will cost you valuable time. Depth perception is a real issue here as you have to be very precise with your jumps but, if you see your time is about to run about (when it hits, say, ten seconds), you can pause and quit to the main menu and then retry the Special Stage from your save slot, meaning you basically have unlimited tries at each Special Stage and can easily grab all seven Time Stones and get the best ending.
The Xbox Live version of the game includes a host of bonus features, including a playable Tails!
I mentioned before that this was the definitive version of the game and it’s true; you can pick from a variety of display options in the menu, choose between the U.S. and Japanese soundtracks (but can’t mix and match, unfortunately), choose which Spin Dash you want (I recommend the superior Sonic 2 one), and have access to four save slots. Unfortunately, these don’t work like in Sonic the Hedgehog 3(SEGA Technical Institute, 1994), meaning you can’t pick and choose a Zone to replay, which is disappointing. You can, however, unlock a stage select, D.A. Garden (basically a sound test which you can also use to enter a variety of cheats, though Achievements can’t be earned this way), and “Visual Mode” (a gallery for viewing the anime scenes) by completing the “Time Attack” mode fast enough. Perhaps the most notable addition to this version of the game is that you unlock Miles “Tails” Prower after beating the game in any way; Tails controls exactly like he did in Sonic 3, meaning he can fly and swim, but Achievements are disabled when playing as Tails as it’d be too easy to get around Sonic CD’s more annoying level layouts.
The Summary: Sonic CD is an absolutely gorgeous game; it took everything that worked about the first game and expanded upon it wonderfully, bringing a much greater sense of speed and liveliness to the core gameplay and really utilising the power of the Mega-CD to its fullest with its anime sequences, animations, music, and unique time travel mechanic. Yet, as much as I love how visually appealing the game is, I find it lacking in a lot of ways; it’s frustrating at times, the level layouts are massively annoying for a game whose main mechanic is based on speed, and the amount of exploration and trial-and-error needed can get annoying at times. Still, I love how every boss battle is unique and how your actions have actual, visible consequences as you play; it really invites multiple playthroughs to see what each Zone looks like in different situations but, similar to the first game, I find myself less excited to replay Sonic CD and more aggravated as it can be a chore at times. When it shines, it shines brightly and I’d love to see more of this style of 2D Sonic in the future but its more irritating features and mechanics definitely need polishing up first.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Great Stuff
Did you enjoy Sonic CD? Did you own this, and a Mega-CD, back in the day or did you first experience it on PC or through some other port? What did you think to the game’s presentation and which of the two soundtracks is your favourite? Were you a fan of the level layouts and time travel gimmick or, like me, do you think they could have been better implemented? Which of the game’s Zones and bosses is your favourite? Are you a fan of Metal Sonic and Amy Rose? How are you celebrating Sonic CD’s anniversary this year? Whatever your thoughts on Sonic CD, or Sonic in general, feel free to leave a comment below.
Released: 9 February 2012 Developer: SEGA Sports R&D/Racjin Also Available For: Nintendo Wii
The Background: During the “Console Wars” of the nineties, there were no truer rivals than Nintendo’s Super Mario and SEGA’s Sonic the Hedgehog; both went head to head as their respective company’s mascots, spearheading the release of some of the greatest and most influential videogames of a generation, and both company’s went to great lengths over the years in a bid to prove that their consoles were the superior. In the end, though, thanks to a variety of expensive and poorly-conceived ideas and an ever-changing marketplace, SEGA were forced to withdraw from developing home consoles; now developing videogames for their competitors, SEGA’s supersonic mascot began appearing in games exclusive to Nintendo consoles and discussions of a long-awaited crossover began between Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Sonic creator Yuji Naka. Rather than have their two iconic mascots meet in a merging of their worlds for a traditional platform title, however, the two were brought together in the spirit of friendly competition after SEGA was awarded the 2008 Beijing Olympic licence. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (SEGA Sports R&D, 2007) followed as a result; though little more than a series of mini games featuring Mario and Sonic characters taking part in a number of Olympic events, the game was a commercial success and led to a series of annual titles being released in conjunction with a number of different Olympic events. After many years of putting it off, I finally got around to playing the 2012 edition of the game, which was set in London since we Brits won the right to host the games that year so, since the Tokyo Olympic Games are set to kick off today, I figured this was an ideal time to leech off of that event and share my thoughts about this title.
The Plot: Sonic, Mario, and all their friends have arrived in London for the 2012 Olympic Games; however, annoyed that they weren’t invited to compete, King Bowser of the Koopas and Doctor Eggman join forces to cover London in the “Phantasmal Fog”, disrupting the games and forcing our heroes to battle against fog-based duplicates of themselves to dispel the fog and allow the Olympic Games to proceed as planned.
Gameplay: I’ve played games in the Mario & Sonic series before so I knew what to expect heading into Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games; while the games do generally have a story mode these days to make the gameplay a bit more involved than just a simple party game, it is still, nevertheless, a collection of Olympic-themed mini games. Because I’ve never been a fan of the Wii’s motion controls (or the Wii in general, if I’m honest), I always opt for the handheld versions of these sorts of games in the hopes that they will be less frustrating to play. Sadly, for the most part, that isn’t the case with Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, a game which, seemingly, goes out of its way to use every single button, control, and aspect of the 3DS for its numerous events. The game features twenty playable characters, each of which falls into one of five different character classes (Heroes, Challengers, Girls, Wild Ones, and Tricksters) and, as a result, each character takes part in different events (Sonic, for example, can be used in the Marathon event, Yoshi in Shot Put, Blaze the Cat in Beach Volleyball, Bowser in Wrestling, and Metal Sonic in Hockey) and you cannot mix characters or classes.
The game’s events restrict which characters you can use according to their specific classes.
The moment you start a new game, Omochao rears his ugly little head to talk you through some of the game’s basic controls; you can then select from a few different customisation options, single or multiplayer events, or the game’s story mode. If you choose the single or multiplayer modes, you can select from all of the game’s many and varied events, each of which comes with an easy, normal, and hard criteria to get bronze, silver, and gold medals, respectively, with different goals, scores, or times to hit for each, as well as a brief overview of the event’s controls and objectives. I skipped this, however, and went straight to the story mode. The story allows you to take control of all of the game’s playable characters and the vast majority of the mini games and events the game has to offer, all while dialogue boxes and some limited voice clips and effects convey the game’s simple story. Generally, the story branches into two separate paths, one that follows primarily Mario characters and one that follows mainly Sonic characters, with the groups mixing up, overlapping, and interacting as they investigate the Phantasmal Fog, battle their shadowy doubles, and go head to head with Bower, Eggman, and their underlings.
Though you’re given a brief overview of each event’s controls, the actual gameplay can be tricky.
It’s a pretty simple story, one that is geared more towards teaching younger players a little about London and the Olympic Games more than anything, and it’s extremely linear. You can jump to a map screen to replay events (or just let the story take you from one episode to the next), skip cutscenes if you’re retrying an event, and are given a number of Challenges to complete to advance the plot. In the story’s early going, you’ll probably only be required to complete one or two Challenges but, as the story progresses, you’ll be asked to more, with each Challenge being comprised of harder or more complex events. Only first place will do here; if you don’t come first, you fail the Challenge and must either retry or choose a different Challenge if you want to see the story through to completion. As you play, you’ll be required to take part in a number of Olympic Games; it’s kind of weird that characters just spontaneously challenge their rivals to these games, and how the stadiums and arenas and locations and crowds and such just “appear” when you need to compete but…what do you expect? This is the best way, though, to experience a variety of the game’s events and get an idea of what is required of you. Sadly, however, many of the game’s events are an exercise in frustration; as I mentioned, you’ll be given a brief overview of what to do before an event but, sometimes, that doesn’t really help prepare you for the actual gameplay of that event. Generally, you’ll be rapidly tapping buttons, inputting specific button combinations, shouting or blowing into the microphone (which I can’t seem to find on my 3DS and which makes me a little lightheaded since I’m so unfit…), moving the 3DS about, or using the stylus to complete these events. Some, like the Pole Vault and 100M Backstroke, aren’t too difficult (you must angle the circle stick in a diagonal direction to charge your vault and release before the hidden meter overfills and your pole breaks or rapidly draw circles with the stylus to swim faster).
Be careful not to damage your touch screen trying to get to grips with the game’s controls…
Other events, like Archery (Solo) and BMX are maddeningly frustrating (you don’t just aim and shot in Archery, you need to account for wind currents which can screw up your shot, and BMX requires almost perfect hand co-ordination to tilt the 3DS in the right position to give you a much-needed boost). Almost all of the events have one thing in common and that is that they come down to split second timing as much as skill; if you do not time your inputs exactly right, you’re screwed but, often, the game’s button prompts and directions mislead you and cause you to fail. Take the Triple Jump, for example; it seems pretty easy (tap the touch screen left and right in an alternating pattern and then tap in time with the directions to leap) but if you tap for your first jump when the game/button prompt tells you then you will fail on a foul since you jumped too late! Similarly, Basketball only gives you an aiming reticule in the training mode, which makes landing a shot really difficult with the 3DS’s motion controls, and many games that have you draw on the bottom screen have the directions on the top, which is really confusing as you’d expect to tap targets on the touch screen when playing the Shooting events. Others seem incredibly random or unfair just for the sake of it; the 20km Racewalk event, for example, has you moving the stylus to a tempo at just the right speed. The game helpfully tells you when to speed up and penalises you if you need to slow down but it’s more annoying than anything to try and get the balance just right. The Canoe Slalom (Pair) event has you balancing with the circle pad and tapping A to pass through gates, which sounds easy but is super tricky as the control stick is overly sensitive, and you’ll be jerking your 3DS around like a moron trying to hit targets in the Double Trap event.
Other events are troublesome because of a dodgy camera angle and poor onscreen prompts.
Similarly, in a lot of events are handicapped by poor camera angles; it’s hard to see (or know) what you’re doing in the Sprint event as you’re stuck in a bad position and your opponent just rockets away too fast for you to catch, and it’s very difficult to judge your positioning in the ball-based games like Badminton and Football (to say nothing of the Goddamn Table Tennis (Doubles) event which requires you to switch between two characters but sometimes they swap independently and always right as you think you have the rhythm down). It’s equally difficult to make jumps in the 3000m Steeplechase event as the camera position means you don’t see which sort of button press is required of you until the very last second; the same goes for the Marathon event, where the angle is positioned just annoyingly enough to mean you need split-second accuracy to pick up the water bottle at the right time. It’s not all bad, though; some events (like 25m Rapid Fire Pistol, Trampoline, and Wrestling) can be fun but there’s very little room for error here; it may take some practice to understand exactly what is required of you but, generally, once you get the inputs down you can usually scrape by to advance the game’s story to the next episode. Other times, though, you’ll have to take on a number of quick-fire events in a row, with no way to restart if you fail one until you load into the next event (and then you have to restart the whole Challenge so be sure to retry before you fail), and by the end of it all you’ll be too burned out to really want to try out the other events in the game’s single player mode.
Graphics and Sound: Being that it’s a 3DS game, the graphics are serviceable enough; Mario, Sonic, and all their friends and enemies look pretty good and coexist decently enough thanks to their cartoony aesthetic but it’s a bit weird how some characters (the girls, mostly) are dressed to compete and others are not and how characters like Sonic are suddenly only able to communicate in pantomime.
The game’s presentation is decent enough and mixes cartoony characters with real-world locations.
Otherwise, there’s not much to the in-game graphics; the story mode sees the characters visit a number of iconic British landmarks but they’re mostly lifeless voids or obscured by thick, colourful fog. When you enter the events themselves, there’s a decent amount of detail, with minor Mario and Sonic characters filling out the crowds and the arenas sharing the same bright, cartoony aesthetic of the characters. Musically, though, aside from a few recognisable sound clips and sound effects, there’s nothing really Mario or Sonic about this title as it opts for simple trumpets and fanfares.
Enemies and Bosses: Outside of the game’s story mode, your choices for opponents are dictated by which character, class, and event you wish to play; you won’t be able to pit Sonic against Eggman in a Triathalon, for example, but you can pit Knuckles against Donkey Kong in a Boxing match. In the story mode, you’ll mostly compete against evil fog imposters of Mario and Sonic characters; Amy Rose and Princess Daisy, for example, get to take on the imposter versions of Blaze and Princess Peach in Beach Volleyball and Yoshi will have to compete against imposter versions of Shadow the Hedgehog and Silver the Hedgehog in the 1500m and 10km Marathon Swim events. As you progress, the amount of Challenges you have to clear increases, as does the difficulty of your opponents, and you’ll be allowed to choose between different characters to take on different events and imposters. In the course of the game’s story, you’ll also compete against a number of boss characters; it is only by clearing these challenges that you’ll bring that episode to an end and progress to the next part of the story. The first boss battle pits you (as Mario and Luigi) against the duo of Dry Bowser and Dry Bones and has you frantically blowing into the microphone and awkwardly steering your ship across boost panels in the 470 (Pair) event. This is a pretty ridiculous game as the controls are way too slippery and it’s ridiculously easy to just wander into the path of a whirlpool…yet it’s also stupidly easy to win even with minimum effort.
Time your stylus swipes perfectly to beat the Boos at Badminton.
Next, you’ll take on King Boo and Boo in Badminton (Doubles) as Sonic and Miles “Tails” Prower; this involves sliding the stylus (or your finger) down the touch screen as the shuttlecock comes towards you. Don’t do this too soon, though, or you’ll miss like an idiot; instead, you should aim to hit it when the shuttlecock flashes red but this gets tricky as the rallies get faster and faster and, one time, the ball went between Sonic and Tails and they just stood there like lemons! Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games sees the welcome return of Jet the Hawk as a boss character who challenges Shadow to a 3000m Steeplechase, and also has you competing against Rouge the Bat as Peach in the 100m Backstroke, neither of which are particularly challenging thanks to these events being two of the more user-friendly games. When you take on Bowser Jr, however, you must do so in a three-stage event that sees Yoshi having to fight with the poor game prompts in the Triple Jump, hold the 3DS like an idiot in the 10km Marathon Swim, and struggle through a 3000m Steeplechase, or Silver desperately try to aim for the centre and time button presses correctly in Trampoline, fumble through Basketball, and press and hold the stylus without messing up in Floor. Your best bet to beat Bowser Jr is to pick Shadow, whose events are much easier to get through. You’ll also come up against one of the most wasted characters ever introduced into the Sonic franchise, Eggman Nega, and have to compete against him in a 4 x 100 relay that simply asks you to slide the stylus to pass the baton between Luigi, Tails, Mario, and Sonic. Similarly easy-going is Donkey Kong’s encounter with E-123Ω “Omega”, which sees you timing presses of the A and B button and going for a super tackle in the Wrestling – Freestyle event. Unfortunately, when Sonic takes on Magikoopa, it’s in the God-awful BMX event which literally had me tearing my hair out as I just couldn’t figure out how the tilt the 3DS properly to land correctly!
Eggman and Bowser get a significant power up from their Phantasmal Fogfor the story’s finale.
You’ll battle against both Bowser and Dr. Eggman a couple of times in the story mode; you’ll first face Dr. Eggman with Wario and then alongside Waluigi to take on Eggman and Metal Sonic, but he isn’t really a challenge (the Hockey game you must complete is really just a glorified version of Pong (Atari, 1972)). Similarly, Bowser isn’t too difficult to get past if you choose the right events (the Hammer Throw, in particular, isn’t too taxing as long as you can rotate the 3DS fast enough) but they both get a significant power boost for the game’s final chapter. Here, powered up by the Phantasmal Fog, Bowser and Eggman take on Mario and Sonic in Sprint, 20km Race Walk, Judo, and 100m events. Judo isn’t especially hard (it’s just a question of timing your button presses and being a bit aggressive in your attack) and 100m is fine as long as you charge and release A and can tap the button as fast as possible but both Sprint and 20km Race Walk can crawl into a hole and die. Eventually, after much trial and error, I got Sprint down (ignore the onscreen prompts and don’t move or press anything until you’re sure you can dash past Eggman) but the 20km Race Walk mainly came down to luck.
Power-Ups and Bonuses: Being as this is a glorified collection of mini games, there’s not much on offer here; some events have you rapidly tapping A to recover stamina or splashing water on you for the same effect, or touching dash panels for a boost, and many reward a perfect finish with a fancy special flourish but there’s nothing tangible in-game to help increase your chances.
Additional Features: There are a couple of extra incentives on offer here for repeat and expansive play; first, when you first start the game, you can customise your in-game name, flag, and Badge (which is a nice touch for when you’re playing online, I’m sure). You can also aim to break world records in each event, win bronze, silver, and gold medals, and complete each of the game’s events and story modes to earn tickets and Badges. You can then use these tickets in a ball machine to unlock yet more Badges, all of which can be viewed in the game’s Record Log along with (obviously) your best times and records. After you beat the main story campaign, you’ll unlock a series of additional bonus episodes that see you compete as Bowser Jr, Bowser, Metal Sonic, Dr. Eggman, Peach, Blaze, and Amy in some of the toughest challenges yet. Unlike in the Wii version, there are no “Dream Events” to compete in, though you can cobble together custom events to take on both on and offline if you can bring yourself to play a little longer.
The Summary: When it comes to the Mario & Sonic series, you know what to expect: Olympic-themed mini games involving some of gaming’s most iconic characters. Yet, as inoffensive as these games often are, Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games takes things to the next level by needlessly overcomplicating so many of the events and controls. It’s as though the developers were forced to shoe-horn in everything the 3DS was capable of, which would be fine if there were the option to switch to more traditional controls but, nine times out of ten, there isn’t. Instead, you’re left to fumble about the place, shouting at your 3DS and trying to rotate it while alternating between hitting buttons or drawing on the touch screen and it’s just more frustrating than fun. Because I’m a big Sonic fan, I am kind of duty-bound to own these games wherever possible but I’ve never really been fond of them; I’m sure that for groups of players who like motion controls and unfairly-balanced party games, they’re a lot of fun but it can’t help but feel like Nintendo and SEGA left a lot of money on the table by not also producing a more traditional crossover for their iconic mascots.
My Rating:
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Could Be Better
How did you find the 3DS version of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games? Perhaps you also owned the Nintendo Wii version; if so, which was better, in your opinion? How did you find the game’s motion controls, assortment of games, and story mode? How do you feel about the Mario & Sonic series overall? Do you agree that the concept is somewhat wasted on the Olympic Games or have you enjoyed the series so far? Which country are you pulling for in this year’s Olympic Games? Either way, feel free to leave a comment below.
Sonic the Hedgehog was first introduced to gamers worldwide on 23 June 1991 and, since then, has become not only SEGA’s most enduring and popular character but also a beloved videogame icon. This year, the Blue Blur turns thirty and what better way to celebrate than by dedicating an entire month’s worth of content to SEGA’s supersonic mascot.
Released: July 2007 Originally Released: June 1991 Developer: Sonic Team Original Developer: Sonic Team Also Available For: Arcade, Game Boy Advance, Gamecube, Game.com, iPod, Mega Drive, Mobile, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Portable, SEGA Saturn, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Series X
The Background: You know the story by now: there was a time when videogames and home consoles ran rampant and, for a while, it was good. But, inevitably, the market became swamped with lacklustre releases and poorly conceived movie tie-ins; after the collapse of the videogame industry, Nintendo were there to pick up the pieces, dominating the market with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo EAD, 1985). Though they had successfully recaptured the flailing market and seemed unstoppable, one former slot machine developer dared to try and knock Nintendo from their perch. In 1990, SEGA ordered their developers to design a mascot and a title capable of leaving Mario in the dust and showcasing the power of their 16-Bit Mega Drive; after an internal contest produced numerous rejected designs (including a rabbit and an armadillo), SEGA soon settled on Naoto Ohshima’s design of a spiky hedgehog dubbed “Mr. Needlemouse”. With up-and-coming developer Yuji Naka, composer Masato Nakamura, and level designer Hirokazu Yasuhara also onboard, the character’s design was refined and defined, renamed to Sonic, and “Sonic Team” was born. Conceived to be as appealing as possibly, Naka wantedSonic the Hedgehog to focus on speed and user-friendliness; unlike his rival, Mario, Sonic controlled with only the directional pad and one button and his gameplay was based on physics, momentum, and an emphasis on action and speed. Thanks largely to an aggressive marketing campaign and copies of the game being bundled in with SEGA’s brand new console, Sonic the Hedgehog was an immediate success, selling over 15 million copies in this format alone and kick-starting the “Console War” between SEGA and Nintendo that would dominate the nineties. Since then, Sonic has become an enduring icon; he’s had a slew of critical and commercial hits alongside a number of unfortunate and very disappointing hiccups and yet his character and brand remain strong and he is still an iconic character in both videogames and other media to this day.
The Plot: South Island is under siege! The maniacal Doctor Eggman (widely known as “Robotnik” during the game’s original release) has been capturing the island’s animals and turning them into robotic Badniks! With Eggman’s machinery and pollution threatening the entire island, only one super-fast, super-cool hedgehog can stop him!
Gameplay: Sonic the Hedgehog is a 2D, sidescrolling action/platformer in which you control the titular blue hedgehog. Sonic must journey across six stages (known as “Zones”), each split into three “Acts”; at the end of each Zone’s third Act, Sonic must battle Eggman in one of his contraptions and, upon clearing all six Zones, face the diabolical doctor in the game’s Final Zone. Sonic is a smooth and responsive character to play as; slightly weighty, his speed and agility are dependant upon you building momentum and using the game’s level layout and gimmicks to your advantage. When you move Sonic, he quickly breaks from a trot, to a jog, to a run that is so fast his legs appear as little more than a rubber band of red, white, and blue but, in order to reach Sonic’s top speeds, you’ll need to make use of slopes, curves, the game’s signature loop-de-loops, and Sonic’s rolling mechanics.
It’s not all high-speed Badnik bashing; Sonic will also have to pull off some slower platforming.
Any time you press a button, Sonic jumps into a blazing spinning ball of spikes known as the “Super Sonic Spin Attack”. You can use this to destroy Badniks and bounce off of them, springs, and monitors to increase your height, momentum, and speed. Additionally, pressing down whilst running will see Sonic roll along for a similar effect. In the original release of the game, Sonic couldn’t utilise his patented Spin Dash as this wasn’t introduced until the bigger, better sequel but subsequent re-releases and ports have seen this function added in, which can be extremely helpful in moving Sonic along (unfortunately, though, it’s not available in this version of the game). And that’s a noteworthy point as, unlike in the sequels, Sonic is painfully slow in his debut title; the game’s first stage, the iconic and massively over-used Green Hill Zone, is a perfect playground for getting to grips with Sonic’s speed and abilities. You’ll blast through this Zone in no time at all, feeling the rush of adrenaline and action-packed speed, only to literally run into a brick wall with the next stage, Marble Zone, which slows the game down to a crawl so Sonic can navigate precarious platforms, push blocks, activate switches, and simply wait for the game to allow him to continue.
The game’s slower sections betray its marketing as a non-stop action platformer.
That’s not to say that speed doesn’t become a recurring factor in Sonic’s gameplay; both Spring Yard Zone and Starlight Zone give you a chance to stretch your legs again but the pinball mechanics of the former and the obstacle-course-like layout of the latter were definitely refined in the sequel. As a result, most of your time is spent using more traditional platforming skills to progress forward rather than simply blazing through as the game’s marketing would have you believe. This means jumping from platform to platform, navigating maze-like areas, activating switches, and hopping to disappearing, crumbling, or spinning platforms. In Starlight Zone, you’ll also have to use some see-saws to bounce up to higher areas and navigate a bottomless void while Scrap Brain Zone includes teleportation tubes and speed-sapping conveyor belts to screw up your momentum and sense of direction. You’ll also have to watch the in-game timer as well; if you take too long to finish an Act, you’ll lose a life, so it pays to keep moving but, fortunately, none of the game’s Zones or Acts are that long or difficult to get through within the required time limit.
There are many ways to keep Sonic alive and kicking.
Luckily, Sonic is a relatively sturdy videogame character, especially compared to Mario; collecting the many Golden Rings scattered throughout the game’s Zones allows you to survive a single hit. You’ll lose all of your Rings but you won’t lose a life unless you get squashed, fall into one of the game’s many bottomless pits, get hit without a Ring or a shield, or drown. Sonic’s momentum becomes sluggish and awkward when underwater and, unlike his rival, he cannot survive for long in the murky depths of the Labyrinth Zone; linger too long and an ominous, heart-pounding countdown will begin and, if it reaches zero, you’ll drown and lose a life. Fortunately, just as you can collect dropped Rings, you can save yourself from this fate by finding air bubbles. Sonic can also earn an extra life if he collects one hundred Rings or earns a high enough score and you’ll also be given a chance to continue should you lose all of your lives. You can earn extra continues in the game’s Special Stages but you’ll also lose your current accumulated high score if you have to use a continue. Sonic gains points for destroying Badniks, defeating Eggman, and clearing Acts; once you reach the end of Act signpost or break open the prison capsule, you’ll be awarded bonus points for your current score, the time you took to clear the Act, and the amount of Rings you were holding when you did so. As a result, you are actively encouraged to blast through Acts as quickly as possible as this will net you a higher score and more lives and continues.
Labyrinth Zone more than lives up to its name thanks to being far more vertical and maze-like.
Sonic the Hedgehog’s Zones are thus laid out in such a way to allow you to experiment to find the fastest routes; typically, the higher path is the most dangerous but also the fastest compared to the middle and lower paths. This isn’t always the case, however, and this mechanic is not as refined as in later games; some Zones, such as the aforementioned Labyrinth and Spring Yard, are more vertically constructed, meaning that your completion speed will be directly tied to your level of skill and precision with controlling Sonic. For the most part, this isn’t a problem but, unfortunately, Sonic the Hedgehog does suffer from a few noticeable issues that can unfairly impede your progress; early copies of the game featured an infamous glitch whereby, upon landing on a bed of spikes, Sonic would lose his shield, Rings, and then a life all without the usual few seconds of invincibility frames to save him. Other times, especially in Spring Yard Zone, you may find yourself crushed by blocks even though you’re not actually beneath them; Sonic also has a curious animation glitch where he will jump while running in the air if you try to jump to close to obstacles or items, though these issues are, admittedly, rare and minor. Sonic the Hedgehog isn’t an especially difficult game; there are no difficulty settings to choose from so the game’s difficulty is supposed to gradually increase as you progress from Zone to Zone. As you race through Zones, you’ll automatically activate Lampposts as you run past them, which acts as a checkpoint should you die in the Zone, however your skill is tested by the way the game requires you to finish every Act that doesn’t feature a boss battle holding fifty Rings or more in order to try for the game’s six Chaos Emeralds.
Graphics and Sound: Sonic the Hedgehog is still one of the most impressive and visually appealing games of its kind. Everything from the sprites to the background art pops out in gorgeous colours and the game’s Zones are full of life and character, despite being largely cliché in hindsight. You’ll race through verdant fields, explore lava-filled ruins, slog through the sunken remnants of an ancient civilisation, careen around a bonkers pinball-inspired obstacle course, and face a myriad of deadly hazards in Scrap Brain Zone, the heart of Eggman’s operation on South Island.
As much as I like Starlight Zone, it’s quite empty compared to other Zones in the game.
Just about the only Zone that isn’t interesting or fun is Starlight Zone and I say this with a heavy heart as it’s actually one of my favourite Zones in the game and a welcome return to the more speed-orientated gameplay after the annoyance of Labyrinth Zone. However, Starlight Zone is largely empty and lifeless; the wind-based mechanic is clunky, the bottomless pits are insufferable, and the Badniks are far harder to destroy than in other Zones.
Leave Sonic idle and he’ll grow impatient, something videogame avatars have apedever since.
What saves Starlight Zone, however, is its music; in fact, Sonic the Hedgehog has some of the best and most memorable music in videogame history. From the catchy title theme to the iconic sounds of Green Hill Zone, every Zone has an excellent, jaunty, and fitting theme to go with it. This is also true of the game’s boss battles, which all feature the same ominous-yet-lively tune that let you know Eggman is inbound. The game doesn’t feature any cutscenes or story-telling elements; this isn’t entirely unexpected as a lot of games released around this time didn’t and, to be fair, the game’s story is pretty simple to pick up either through association (the Zones change from lush and vibrant to polluted and desolate and woodland critters bounce around the Zones after being freed from captivity) or from the game’s manual. One thing that the game does excel at, though, is giving Sonic a distinct personality; if you leave him idle, he’ll turn to the screen and impatiently tap his foot, a quirk that has been aped and emulated but almost every videogame avatar since.
Enemies and Bosses: In each Zone of the game, Sonic will face opposition from Eggman’s Badniks; these mechanical monsters may look cute and quirky but they can be extremely deadly. Mostly themed after animals, Badniks will fly across the screen shooting fireballs at Sonic, slink along the floor and break into spiked balls upon defeat, toss bombs at his head, and even explode in his face, among other things. Generally, Badniks are exclusive to each Zone but there is some crossover in later stages. While most of these Badniks aren’t too much bother, their placement in the Zones can be frustrating; others, like Roller and Burrobot, can be a pain due to the speed and surprise of their attacks while Badniks like Spike and Orbinaut cause issues due to their spiked defences.
Eggman may have a lot of different attachments for his craft but he’s not much of a challenge.
At the end of each Zone’s third Act, you’ll battle Doctor Eggman in his Egg-O-Matic hovercraft; each time you face him, he has a new, deadly appendage attached to his craft but his attack pattern remains generally the same. He’ll come puttering in, flying from right to left, and trying to attack with his appendage all while remaining a large, open target for Sonic’s Spin Attack. Unfortunately, while Eggman’s wrecking ball is simple to get around, his later appendages become more dangerous thanks to the presence of other hazards; in Marble Zone, he’ll drop fireballs that briefly render the ground too dangerous to stand on but there’s also a pit of lava to watch out for, for example. Attack too fast in Spring Yard Zone and you might drop to your death as Eggman uses his spike to remove parts of the platform you’re standing on. Labyrinth Zone’s boss battle is more of a race than a fight as, no matter how often you hit Eggman, he won’t be defeated; instead, you need to jump up the flooded vertical shaft dodging spikes and fireballs and desperately hoping to reach the top before you drown.
The final boss battle is pretty disappointing and stupidly easy.
Once you’ve cleared all six Zones, you’ll reach the Final Zone; in this final showdown with Eggman, you’re stuck in a room with no escape and no Rings as Eggman tries to crush you with four weights and fry you alive with electrical balls. Fortunately, however, there is always a gap between these sparkling orbs for you to safely jump through and, by simply waiting at the far right of the screen, you can just take your time and ram Eggman whenever he pops up. Compared to the final boss battles of later Sonic games, this one is a bit of a joke, to be honest, and ends the game not with a bang but with a kind of shrug.
Power-Ups and Bonuses: To help tip the odds in your favour, you’ll find a number of computer monitors scattered throughout the game’s Zones. Breaking these open will award you with such gifts as an instant hit of ten Rings, a shield that protects you from losing Rings or a life for one hit, or even an extra life. You can also find monitors containing Power Sneakers, which immediately increase Sonic’s running speed for a short time, or an invincibility, which coats Sonic in a sparkling protective aura. Combine these two together and you’re basically unstoppable unless you run head-first into a bottomless pit.
Additional Features: Playing Sonic the Hedgehog on the Xbox One allows you to earn some pretty simple and easy Achievements; if you’ve played Sonic before, it should be no challenge at all to reach the game’s later Zones, collect one hundred Rings, or complete the game. As I mentioned above, finishing every Act except Act 3 with fifty Rings or more allows you to enter a Special Stage (why they’re not called “Special Zones” I don’t know…); these are accessed by Giant Rings that appear when you pass the end of Act signpost, so jump in quickly before you miss your chance!
Collect all six Chaos Emeralds to earn the game’s best ending.
The Special Stages are a psychedelic maze-like area filled with bright colours and weird effects; here, you’ll have to bounce and roll Sonic (who is in a constant spin) around the arena trying to avoid the flashing “Goal” lights. Touch these and you’re instantly ejected from the Special Stage with nothing to show for it but, if you manage to avoid them, you’ll find a Chaos Emerald hidden within each Special Stage. Collect all six of these and you’ll be awarded with the game’s true ending; without them, Eggman will mock you for failing to collect them all but, aside from seeing flowers blooming in Green Hill Zone and an Achievement, there’s little incentive to collect all six as you don’t unlock anything else. Sadly, thanks to the way Sonic the Hedgehog works on the Xbox One, there’s no way to enter the iconic cheat codes from the original game and, while a save state system is included, it only allows you to save to three separate slots. You can, however, access online leaderboards to compare your score, time, and progress with other players, if that’s your thing.
The Summary: Sonic the Hedgehog will forever be an iconic, classic platformer; its place in the echelon of videogame history was cemented upon its bombastic release and, even to this day, it remains as a solid action/platformer. Unfortunately, years of enjoying the bigger, better, much improved sequels somewhat dampens the appeal of Sonic the Hedgehog. Playing the game in hindsight, you can see how the developers took the very best aspects and elements of this game and improved upon them in the sequel, removing the slower, clunkier elements and focusing more on action and speed. The game’s marketing made Sonic out to be this superfast character with a radical attitude but the actual game is quite slow, for the most part, and elevated above its peers thanks to its eye-catching graphics, distinct personality, and catchy music. It’s still a great game and obviously laid the foundations for even better things to come but is far less impressive than its sequels.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Pretty Good
What did you think about Sonic the Hedgehog? Where do you rate it against the other games in the franchise? Did you purchase a Mega Drive simply to play Sonic? Which port or re-release of the game is your favourite? Are you as annoyed as I am that the excellent mobile version of the game isn’t available to play on the Xbox One? How are you celebrating Sonic’s thirtieth anniversary? Whatever you think, feel free to share your thoughts and memories regarding Sonic below.
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