Sonic CD
It's like if Sonic 1 kept going but on acid.
Played half of this game on 2x speed due to my monitor's refresh rate until metal sonic cooked me
Cons: travelling through time is annoying to do
Pros: time travel, bad end.
Cons: travelling through time is annoying to do
Pros: time travel, bad end.
If I had a metal counterpart, I would kill him with a laser as well.
I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Sonic CD for years, I used to despise this game with a passion, but over time I have grown to appreciate more of what this game tries to do, despite the fact I still stand by most of my criticisms.
At its core it’s a classic Sonic game, Dr Robotnick has set his sights on Little Planet, where he plans to use the 7 Time Stones to turn the planet into a weapons base. Sonic sets off to stop him in the first animated cutscene to grace the franchise, which is to this day, absolutely awesome. This was the game to introduce Amy Rose as well as her kidnapper, Metal Sonic, 2 iconic characters who would be here to stay.
Sonic’s control is about the same as in Sonic 1, there is a Spindash but in the original release it was pretty bad, requiring a lot more windup for a not so stellar performance. However you can use the Super Peel Out in this game, which allows sonic to take off at a much greater speed, at the cost of not being protected from hazards… unless you just roll after using it. So do that instead.
You can play the game as you normally would, but doing that isn’t going to be very fulfilling. Stages in this game are very vertical in design, so just going left to right takes almost no time at all. Bosses are mostly pathetic, including the final one, as a classic sonic game, CD has pretty simple level design that doesn’t make for the best adventure.
But it’s the other stuff you can do that makes the game much better. CD has 2 endings, The Bad ending where you rescue Amy but Little Planet goes on to be Eggmans base as he wanted, or the good ending where Sonic saves the planet and releases it from its shackles.
In order to do this you have 2 options, the first and main choice is time travelling, but finding a sign labelled “past” or “future” and running at a consistent speed, Sonic can travel to a different time period within the level, and this is such a cool concept. In the past of every zone you must locate an destroy a robot generator, which encourages exploration. Then you can see the fruits of your labour by optionally returning to the future and seeing little planet freed from Eggman’s oppression. It’s a really satisfying gameplay/story intergration, despite time travelling being harder than necessary at certain points, especially in the original with its dodgy hit detection.
If you don’t want to do that, simple collect 50 rings and enter the levels special stage at the end of an act. These special stages were horrid in the original, and I still find them very hard. But collecting all the time stones guarantees the good ending. So you have options.
With these elements, Sonic CD becomes a much bigger and more interesting game. This is helped by how colourful the presentation is, and the INCREDIBLE Japanese soundtrack. I don’t mind the US soundtrack, it gave us “Sonic Boom”, but the Japanese OST clears.
Sonic CD is an oddball for sure. I’m not sure I can even explain why it works when the pieces seem so lacking individually. But it does work, and nowadays I really enjoy it.
At its core it’s a classic Sonic game, Dr Robotnick has set his sights on Little Planet, where he plans to use the 7 Time Stones to turn the planet into a weapons base. Sonic sets off to stop him in the first animated cutscene to grace the franchise, which is to this day, absolutely awesome. This was the game to introduce Amy Rose as well as her kidnapper, Metal Sonic, 2 iconic characters who would be here to stay.
Sonic’s control is about the same as in Sonic 1, there is a Spindash but in the original release it was pretty bad, requiring a lot more windup for a not so stellar performance. However you can use the Super Peel Out in this game, which allows sonic to take off at a much greater speed, at the cost of not being protected from hazards… unless you just roll after using it. So do that instead.
You can play the game as you normally would, but doing that isn’t going to be very fulfilling. Stages in this game are very vertical in design, so just going left to right takes almost no time at all. Bosses are mostly pathetic, including the final one, as a classic sonic game, CD has pretty simple level design that doesn’t make for the best adventure.
But it’s the other stuff you can do that makes the game much better. CD has 2 endings, The Bad ending where you rescue Amy but Little Planet goes on to be Eggmans base as he wanted, or the good ending where Sonic saves the planet and releases it from its shackles.
In order to do this you have 2 options, the first and main choice is time travelling, but finding a sign labelled “past” or “future” and running at a consistent speed, Sonic can travel to a different time period within the level, and this is such a cool concept. In the past of every zone you must locate an destroy a robot generator, which encourages exploration. Then you can see the fruits of your labour by optionally returning to the future and seeing little planet freed from Eggman’s oppression. It’s a really satisfying gameplay/story intergration, despite time travelling being harder than necessary at certain points, especially in the original with its dodgy hit detection.
If you don’t want to do that, simple collect 50 rings and enter the levels special stage at the end of an act. These special stages were horrid in the original, and I still find them very hard. But collecting all the time stones guarantees the good ending. So you have options.
With these elements, Sonic CD becomes a much bigger and more interesting game. This is helped by how colourful the presentation is, and the INCREDIBLE Japanese soundtrack. I don’t mind the US soundtrack, it gave us “Sonic Boom”, but the Japanese OST clears.
Sonic CD is an oddball for sure. I’m not sure I can even explain why it works when the pieces seem so lacking individually. But it does work, and nowadays I really enjoy it.
The game is creative and has cool elementals but unfortunately they don't fit that well in the sonic gameplay formula.
Really cool game, I like the fact that you can travel through time, a little tricky but awesome!
this happened to my buddy Kyle once
Great game
This review contains spoilers
this game was better on my iPad
Level design feels like a hamster maze but I enjoyed this one a lot as a kid and I still do. The concept itself is worth playing for and the JP soundtrack blows everything out of the water
Replaying this game a couple months after getting all of the robot generators made me realize that this game is at its best when I’m hunting them down since the level design is mainly built for that. But I am still fond of this game and I like it more then Sonic 1.
soundtrack carried
Okay so this game aint that bad tbh
The Music is great which is a plus for me but when has sega messed up songs i mean hell even sonic's bad games have good music.
The bosses were fun kinda wish the last boss was more of a challange i mean i died once to him but then i found his weakness. I still think Sonic 2 had the hardest final Boss.
Also the animated OP was my fav to see and the opening song was a vibe.
Id reccomend it maybe not on the sega CD itsself but on something more modern.
The Music is great which is a plus for me but when has sega messed up songs i mean hell even sonic's bad games have good music.
The bosses were fun kinda wish the last boss was more of a challange i mean i died once to him but then i found his weakness. I still think Sonic 2 had the hardest final Boss.
Also the animated OP was my fav to see and the opening song was a vibe.
Id reccomend it maybe not on the sega CD itsself but on something more modern.
i really liked the exploration elements in this game! i did not so so great but it was fun trying to time travel and find all the secrets in the levels. also that SOUNDTRACK and the animations are godlike. plus metal sonic is so cool guys
The music and animation goes hard. Really good for it's time and still holds up today.
Played the mobile port on my old Kindle Fire, and made it all the way to Metallic Madness before calling it quits. After trying several classic Sonic games, and coming to terms with the fact that Sonic is not for me, I will not be returning to this game.
This is probably my favorite Sonic game, overall. It feels the best of the older sonics, and has the most fidelity of them due to it coming to the sega CD. Plus I can't tell you the amount of feelings I had at the anime opening back when I first encountered this on a ps2 collection.
One of my favorite soundtracks, the japanese soundtrack, i don't like the english one
Its good
There's a few good levels, banging music everywhere then there's like okay bosses. I like it.
best 2d sonic
I tried multiple times with this game but man it's just not for me. This game looks so unappealing to me. I don't think it's very fun but it's iconic so I'll give it that.
foi o meu primeiro sonic , mas infelismente tirando a nostalgia ele é bem mé
This game is a testament to how important level design truly is. The graphics are fantastic, the soundtrack is one of the best in a very impressive franchise, sonic plays like he always did and will continue to, the time travel concept is really damn cool and has a lot of effort put in, but all of this is held back by the fact that the levels suck ASSSSSSSSS. There are virtually NO places where it's fun to reach top speed to time travel. The levels are tiny being under a minute at worst just going through. They aren't fun to explore WHICH IS DAMN IMPORTANT. BRO THIS GAME INTRODUCED METAL SONIC AND IT STILL SUCKS ASS WTF.
Better than sonic one but still carries some of the issues of sonic one. Soundtrack bangs tho
Not as bad as Sonic 1 in my opinion, but not even close to being as good as Sonic 2 or any version of 3.
Sonic CD has a cool intro, a few decent levels and some neat ideas, but it still suffers from some questionable level design that seems like is trying to make you waste your time rather than complement and reward your speed and skill.
The time travel gimmick is a cool idea on paper, but it isn't well implemented. Sometimes it is impossible to time travel because of the way these levels are designed, so you have to pray you find a random corner of the map with two springs you can constantly bounce off of back and forth, in order to time travel. A very superficial way to build speed and solve the issue of the game stopping you on your tracks constantly.
I did finish it but I never even bothered to get the "good" ending.
Sonic CD has a cool intro, a few decent levels and some neat ideas, but it still suffers from some questionable level design that seems like is trying to make you waste your time rather than complement and reward your speed and skill.
The time travel gimmick is a cool idea on paper, but it isn't well implemented. Sometimes it is impossible to time travel because of the way these levels are designed, so you have to pray you find a random corner of the map with two springs you can constantly bounce off of back and forth, in order to time travel. A very superficial way to build speed and solve the issue of the game stopping you on your tracks constantly.
I did finish it but I never even bothered to get the "good" ending.
mfs hear stardust speedway bad future once and gaslight themselves into liking this shit
as a resident sonic hater i kind of fw this game
Stardust Speedway is genuinely the only good zone in this game