Beaten on the GG2SMS patch (yes, with all that junk on screen)

My family's moved house two days ago on march 15th 2024, and amidst the memories I had in that other home, fights between my family and all that, I remember waking up early as a kid to go boot up Sonic Gems Collection on the PS2. I even remember trying to beat Sonic Triple Trouble in that collection, the game in which the character I have as a pfp originated from (this pic goes hard, feel free to screenshot) before going to an english exam in the morning and not being able to beat Tidal Tempest Act 2.

And yeah, among all those Game Gear titles there were two that didn't caught my attention so much as a kid, Tails' Skypatrol, which as an adult feels like an unrelated game with weird characters with the character slapped on it; and this one, which sadly feels like a special stage stretched to a whole game, bizarre just for the sake of being bizarre (oh, and with some epilepsy inducing special effects), but damn if I didn't enjoy most other things in that collection as a kid.

With the house no longer of our property, even with the posibilty of being destroyed, at least I hope this review and some videos I recorded in there keep the memories alive.

An isometric maze/platform game made for the Game Gear and it’s quite poor. The object of the game is to find three keys hidden in the level and then make your way though the exit. With it being isometric, is means that the entire game is spent going diagonally, which D-pads weren’t designed to do constantly. Your one move is a spin dash, where you charge up for a more powerful one.

After three acts, you fight a boss which involves avoiding attacks and then spin dashing into. It’s a fairly short game, but some levels are confusing and involve doors that connect to each other differently (so come out of one and go back and you’ll be somewhere else).

Could definitely be worse, honestly. It's not really worth the time but it gets a lot of ridicule primarily due to the dumbass premise. Eggman swaps Sonic's shoes while he's asleep and now he's slow? Alright, man. He's not even really that slow because he still has the spin dash and bounces around all over the place.

Now he's confined to a mediocre, but not terrible, isometric puzzle platformer. It's not that labyrinthine honestly until the last couple of levels, otherwise it's actually pretty straightforward. Not very long at all either. The worst aspect is probably not even gameplay related, I want to say it's the absurd flashing when you pick up a few specific items, like the speed shoes or invincibility. It doesn't really bother me, but I have to wonder why this was so prevalent in the 90s. Surely forerunners such as Sega and Nintendo knew of epilepsy risks by that point. It's more likely they didn't give a shit, actually.

To be positive first, this game has surprisingly nice visuals for what it is, and a solid enough soundtrack. It does a surprisingly good job pulling off isometric 3D, and I'd argue that it's a better companion to the Genesis' 'Sonic 3D Blast' than the tie in 'Sonic Blast'. Obviously, this game is really slow, and trying to correct for that with the spindash maneuver makes you unruly to control in most circumstances. There's really just no purpose behind this game. The level design is fine, mostly too easy, the bosses are fine, it runs fine (although the jittering while moving can be a little rough), overall it's just fine. A very mediocre, fine game, with a short runtime.

Much to my shock, it is actually not the most unplayable offering of Sonic platforming ever made, maaaybe excluding a contender for one of the worst final levels in the franchise. That said, it’s just sorta dull with little to no challenge and I often questioned if this even needed to be a Sonic game in the first place while playing, because really, the only Sonic-ish traits to be found here are in the presentation: You got the blue hamster himself, Dr Robotnik, rings, a boppin’ soundtrack, and that’s pretty much it.

Slow, clunky and tedious. Sonic Labyrinth spends most of it's time being boring with occasional breaks of being confusing or frustrating instead. Sonic is slow and miserable to control when you're not spindashing and when you are he's so wild and bouncy that the only close-to-sensible way to move around it to tap the spindash followed by the brakes over and over again to get where you're going, leaving you vulnerable to clipping an enemy and tossing your keys everywhere. The levels are same-y looking mazes, the key mechanic uninspired, and the whole game just generally not very fun. I went to the bonus stage and should have had the sixth emerald but it gave me the bad ending anyway, fuck you too Sonic Labyrinth.

"We took away Sonic's speed aka the one thing that's supposed to make him unique."

What could possibly go wrong?

Looks at average rating

Oh...

Veredito: Muito estranho, mas é bom, só não precisava ser Sonic.

Imagine Sonic 3D Blast. Agora imagine Sonic 3D Blast sem sessões de plataforma, sem a sensação de velocidade, e com foco em puzzles de explorar a sala, a la Zelda. Este jogo é literalmente isso.

Você não tem pulo, só spindash. Você não corre, só anda e dá spindash. Cada fase tem só um objetivo: encontrar 3 chaves e depois achar a saída dentro do limite de tempo. E rolam umas fases bônus pelo caminho. O limite é sempre bem curto mas as fases são bem rápidas (de 30 segundos a 3 minutos por fase) então isso nunca vira um problema. É um sistema bem arcade, próprio para um portátil sem sistema de salvar: você tem que ser rápido na busca pelas chaves e ter um bom senso de direção. Tem até um extra no final pra quem zerar de perfect.

Os puzzles e labirintos são decentes, os inimigos e chefes são bons o bastante. Com exceção das últimas 2 ou 3 fases, que são obtusas pra caralho e que cada chave tá escondida atrás de 5 bullshits diferentes, a priori este era pra ser um jogo sólido.

O único problema mesmo é... cara, por que isso é um jogo do Sonic? Não é só a jogabilidade. Mas toda a parte visual, sonora, o enredo, os chefes, nada aqui lembra Sonic. Eu não acho ruim os spinoffs da franquia serem experimentais, não ligo mesmo. A lentidão de Tails Adventure e as mecânicas de Sonic Spinball não me incomodaram em nada. Mas esses jogos ainda pareciam spinoffs de Sonic, por mais defeitos que tivessem eles ainda davam a sensação de fazerem parte desta franquia.

Sonic Labyrinth só dá a sensação de um jogo bacaninha que poderia ser qualquer coisa, mas enfiaram Sonic pra ver se vendia mais. E esse, pelo menos pra mim, foi o grande calcanhar-de-Aquiles dele.