Played as part of the Sonic Gems collection for the Nintendo GameCube.
I can feel the Game Gear's hold on me loosening, which means it's almost time to get back to playing Sonic games I enjoy. Before I do, though, I need to talk about Sonic Triple Trouble, arguably the best Sonic game on the handheld. I think I might like the quaintness of the original Sonic the Hedgehog a little bit more, but that game doesn't haveFang the Sniper Nack the Weasel, so I can see why everyone gravitates towards this one.
Remember in the Archie comics how Nack had a sister named Nicolette - you know, like to play on "nick-nack" - who was basically just Nack with curves? What a stupid comic. I hope it was one of the designs Ken Penders took Archie to court over and that judge had to look at a picture of Nicollete and just like, mentally process it.
They could've left it at Nack and simply had him serve as Sonic's main rival, but Sega clearly wanted to go big with Triple Trouble, so Knuckles is here, too. Once again he's triggering traps, punting Sonic from zone to zone, and laughing his smug head off the whole time. Dude loves being a heel. It's obvious the intent here was to approach Triple Trouble as the Game Gear equivalent of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, though much of the smoothness and spectacle of that game gets caught in the filter. Zones are bigger and more complex than previous Game Gear Sonic games, and level gimmicks feel much more organic, but familiar issues like slowdown and screen crunch really drag the whole experience down. I must sound like a broken record at this point, but the key metric by which I seem to be judging all of these games is how much screen crunch affects the flow of gameplay. Though the severity varies between each title, it's an undeniable issue in all of them.
Triple Trouble is definitely a case where ambition clashes against limitations, and though the end result is a game that's pretty good for what it is, it suffers in ways that are difficult to ignore. I think that's what made Triple Trouble the perfect candidate for a 16-bit remake. Being modeled after Sonic the Hedgehog 3 allowed the remake to feel like a spiritual and mechanical successor to that game, but those qualities are baked into the original and are only encumbered by the hardware.
While it may only be a high note because of the impressively low bar set by the Game Gear's dire software library, it's absolutely the one Sonic should've gone out on. Unfortunately, it was not, which means I have to suffer through Sonic Blast in the very near future.
I can feel the Game Gear's hold on me loosening, which means it's almost time to get back to playing Sonic games I enjoy. Before I do, though, I need to talk about Sonic Triple Trouble, arguably the best Sonic game on the handheld. I think I might like the quaintness of the original Sonic the Hedgehog a little bit more, but that game doesn't have
Remember in the Archie comics how Nack had a sister named Nicolette - you know, like to play on "nick-nack" - who was basically just Nack with curves? What a stupid comic. I hope it was one of the designs Ken Penders took Archie to court over and that judge had to look at a picture of Nicollete and just like, mentally process it.
They could've left it at Nack and simply had him serve as Sonic's main rival, but Sega clearly wanted to go big with Triple Trouble, so Knuckles is here, too. Once again he's triggering traps, punting Sonic from zone to zone, and laughing his smug head off the whole time. Dude loves being a heel. It's obvious the intent here was to approach Triple Trouble as the Game Gear equivalent of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, though much of the smoothness and spectacle of that game gets caught in the filter. Zones are bigger and more complex than previous Game Gear Sonic games, and level gimmicks feel much more organic, but familiar issues like slowdown and screen crunch really drag the whole experience down. I must sound like a broken record at this point, but the key metric by which I seem to be judging all of these games is how much screen crunch affects the flow of gameplay. Though the severity varies between each title, it's an undeniable issue in all of them.
Triple Trouble is definitely a case where ambition clashes against limitations, and though the end result is a game that's pretty good for what it is, it suffers in ways that are difficult to ignore. I think that's what made Triple Trouble the perfect candidate for a 16-bit remake. Being modeled after Sonic the Hedgehog 3 allowed the remake to feel like a spiritual and mechanical successor to that game, but those qualities are baked into the original and are only encumbered by the hardware.
While it may only be a high note because of the impressively low bar set by the Game Gear's dire software library, it's absolutely the one Sonic should've gone out on. Unfortunately, it was not, which means I have to suffer through Sonic Blast in the very near future.