Three myths I believed about Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that I know now are false: Tails is a girl, running back and forth over bubbles makes a large one spawn faster, Sonic 2 is the best game in the series.
This is the first Sonic game I actually owned. I still remember visiting my father one Summer and going with him to the Toys R' Us to pick out a game and debating with myself whether I wanted Sonic 2 more than Sonic 3. Well, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has more levels, I reasoned, and who am I to argue with the immutable law of More = Better Than?
You better believe I played all 10 of those levels to death. After all, I owned very few Genesis carts, most of the games I played were on weekend rentals. In fact, until my teenage years the only two Sonic games I owned for the system was this and Sonic & Knuckles. Every pixel of those games is tattooed on my brain, I could draw the layout of Mystic Cave Act 2 blindfolded and with my off-hand by this point. I suppose then that there's an argument to be made that I'm mostly just burnt out on Sonic 2, and that may play a bigger factor in why it's my lowest ranked of the Genesis games than any real grievance with its design.
Whereas Sonic the Hedgehog's levels were designed around tricky platforming, often requiring the player to slow down and carefully maneuver moving blocks, conveyors, and crumbling pathways, Sonic 2 favors pure speed, with levels that are designed more like raceways. Springs and bumpers send Sonic rushing forward just as much as they help him reach new heights, loops and declines are in abundance to help the player maintain their momentum, and levels tone down the more vertical nature of Sonic 1 and CD's stage design for more horizontal pathways that keep the player moving. This new emphasis on speed over platforming redefined what people's perception of Sonic was very early on, and arguably has become the basis for what they define as "classic Sonic."
It makes for a pretty good time, at least until the last third of the game where everything just kinda falls apart. I think Oil Ocean might be the last "good" level even if I personally don't care that much for it (frankly I think it's gimmicks are underwhelming and too much of the level's structure repeats, just a boring zone all around), but I suspect I won't get any argument when I say Metropolis is a low point not just for Sonic 2 but perhaps the entire Genesis era of Sonic level design. Three overly long braindead acts filled with enemies that have forward facing attacks you're prone to running directly into both due to the way the level funnels you into them and as a consequence of screen crunch. I tend to find Sonic games more fun when not playing as Super Sonic, but I always go Super for Metropolis just to get it over with more quickly.
Sky Chase is an iconic Zone, one that I think is fairly popular, but I sure as hell don't like it. I don't think there's much room for auto-scrollers in Sonic games give how they're antithetical to the series design ethos, at least for that era. For it to be a particularly sluggish auto-scroller with uninspired enemy patterns and a theme that has an almost lullaby-esque quality to it, well, I think it really ruins the pacing that Sonic 2 has otherwise maintained to that point. Wing Fortress is at least fun, albeit short and perhaps too straight-forward for a final Zone, but Death Egg can just eat me. It's not so much the lack of rings that's the issue, more that the Death Egg robot has exactly two attack patterns it repeats on loop with few open windows to retaliate, some of which will just cause you to clip right through and die. It is at least a more engaging final battle than Robotnik's weird crusher machine from the last game, but good god it's a lousy note to go out on. The series thankfully got better final boss battles, and even the Death Egg robot was redeemed in later games, for what that's worth.
The special stages are another point of contention, and I think probably a more commonly shared complaint of this game. The half-pipe Sonic and Tails race down is technically impressive, but hindered by the choppy way rings and hazards appear down the track. These stages become more about memorization than they do skill, and god help you if you have Tails with you, losing rings due to the slight delay he has in mimicking your movement. It may be helpful to know that resetting the console will preserve your emerald progress while resetting all the star posts used to enter the special stages, allowing you to game the system and collect all the emeralds in Emerald Hill. If you'd prefer not to cheat, the method of entering these special stages is more numerous, making a botched run much more forgiving than Sonic 1 or CD.
All this negativity aside, I do think Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a great game. It's hard to dismiss how much it pushed the series and the Genesis forward. Graphically it's far more impressive than Sonic 1, more vibrantly colored and much more packed with detail and character. Badniks no longer repeat between levels, which each zone having its own tailored set built not only around the zone's theming but its layout, creating hazards that (to a point) never feel cheap but provide enough of a challenge as to be a threat. Bosses are more inventive, aggressive, and visually interesting. The addition of Super Sonic and Tails add in even more replayability as well. It's a bit surprising to know that Sonic 2 is massively scaled down from Sonic Team's original 18 zone vision, which we've only learned more and more about in decades following its release. The betas of this game that ended up on the net in the early 2000s no doubt helped kickstart the current fascination so many game enthusiasts have with cut content. Hell, one of the leading sites for such content, Hidden Palace, directly lifts their name from an axed Sonic 2 level.
The point is, Sonic 2 is important for many reasons, and it's still a damn good game to play today. I have my issues with it, most of which are loaded in the last act of the game, but it's also hard for me to deny that burn out plays a factor in me preferring the other Genesis Sonics over it. Maybe it's true that you can have too much of a good thing. One thing's for sure, though: when I'm old and decaying in a nursing home, mind addled by dementia that has robbed me of my agency and relationships, the one piece of me that will remain is my memories of Sonic 2. Played too much of it. It's ruined me.
This is the first Sonic game I actually owned. I still remember visiting my father one Summer and going with him to the Toys R' Us to pick out a game and debating with myself whether I wanted Sonic 2 more than Sonic 3. Well, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has more levels, I reasoned, and who am I to argue with the immutable law of More = Better Than?
You better believe I played all 10 of those levels to death. After all, I owned very few Genesis carts, most of the games I played were on weekend rentals. In fact, until my teenage years the only two Sonic games I owned for the system was this and Sonic & Knuckles. Every pixel of those games is tattooed on my brain, I could draw the layout of Mystic Cave Act 2 blindfolded and with my off-hand by this point. I suppose then that there's an argument to be made that I'm mostly just burnt out on Sonic 2, and that may play a bigger factor in why it's my lowest ranked of the Genesis games than any real grievance with its design.
Whereas Sonic the Hedgehog's levels were designed around tricky platforming, often requiring the player to slow down and carefully maneuver moving blocks, conveyors, and crumbling pathways, Sonic 2 favors pure speed, with levels that are designed more like raceways. Springs and bumpers send Sonic rushing forward just as much as they help him reach new heights, loops and declines are in abundance to help the player maintain their momentum, and levels tone down the more vertical nature of Sonic 1 and CD's stage design for more horizontal pathways that keep the player moving. This new emphasis on speed over platforming redefined what people's perception of Sonic was very early on, and arguably has become the basis for what they define as "classic Sonic."
It makes for a pretty good time, at least until the last third of the game where everything just kinda falls apart. I think Oil Ocean might be the last "good" level even if I personally don't care that much for it (frankly I think it's gimmicks are underwhelming and too much of the level's structure repeats, just a boring zone all around), but I suspect I won't get any argument when I say Metropolis is a low point not just for Sonic 2 but perhaps the entire Genesis era of Sonic level design. Three overly long braindead acts filled with enemies that have forward facing attacks you're prone to running directly into both due to the way the level funnels you into them and as a consequence of screen crunch. I tend to find Sonic games more fun when not playing as Super Sonic, but I always go Super for Metropolis just to get it over with more quickly.
Sky Chase is an iconic Zone, one that I think is fairly popular, but I sure as hell don't like it. I don't think there's much room for auto-scrollers in Sonic games give how they're antithetical to the series design ethos, at least for that era. For it to be a particularly sluggish auto-scroller with uninspired enemy patterns and a theme that has an almost lullaby-esque quality to it, well, I think it really ruins the pacing that Sonic 2 has otherwise maintained to that point. Wing Fortress is at least fun, albeit short and perhaps too straight-forward for a final Zone, but Death Egg can just eat me. It's not so much the lack of rings that's the issue, more that the Death Egg robot has exactly two attack patterns it repeats on loop with few open windows to retaliate, some of which will just cause you to clip right through and die. It is at least a more engaging final battle than Robotnik's weird crusher machine from the last game, but good god it's a lousy note to go out on. The series thankfully got better final boss battles, and even the Death Egg robot was redeemed in later games, for what that's worth.
The special stages are another point of contention, and I think probably a more commonly shared complaint of this game. The half-pipe Sonic and Tails race down is technically impressive, but hindered by the choppy way rings and hazards appear down the track. These stages become more about memorization than they do skill, and god help you if you have Tails with you, losing rings due to the slight delay he has in mimicking your movement. It may be helpful to know that resetting the console will preserve your emerald progress while resetting all the star posts used to enter the special stages, allowing you to game the system and collect all the emeralds in Emerald Hill. If you'd prefer not to cheat, the method of entering these special stages is more numerous, making a botched run much more forgiving than Sonic 1 or CD.
All this negativity aside, I do think Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a great game. It's hard to dismiss how much it pushed the series and the Genesis forward. Graphically it's far more impressive than Sonic 1, more vibrantly colored and much more packed with detail and character. Badniks no longer repeat between levels, which each zone having its own tailored set built not only around the zone's theming but its layout, creating hazards that (to a point) never feel cheap but provide enough of a challenge as to be a threat. Bosses are more inventive, aggressive, and visually interesting. The addition of Super Sonic and Tails add in even more replayability as well. It's a bit surprising to know that Sonic 2 is massively scaled down from Sonic Team's original 18 zone vision, which we've only learned more and more about in decades following its release. The betas of this game that ended up on the net in the early 2000s no doubt helped kickstart the current fascination so many game enthusiasts have with cut content. Hell, one of the leading sites for such content, Hidden Palace, directly lifts their name from an axed Sonic 2 level.
The point is, Sonic 2 is important for many reasons, and it's still a damn good game to play today. I have my issues with it, most of which are loaded in the last act of the game, but it's also hard for me to deny that burn out plays a factor in me preferring the other Genesis Sonics over it. Maybe it's true that you can have too much of a good thing. One thing's for sure, though: when I'm old and decaying in a nursing home, mind addled by dementia that has robbed me of my agency and relationships, the one piece of me that will remain is my memories of Sonic 2. Played too much of it. It's ruined me.