Growing up, I only felt regret for not having a Sega Saturn whenever I'd sit up contemplating Sonic World. You know, as most 10-year-olds do. It was talked about in magazines, shown off in blurry pictures that were no substitute for the real deal... Sonic the Hedgehog was in 3D, but all I could do was replay the same three games over and over again on my Genesis.

Hey, you know what I would've done had I actually owned Sonic Jam in 1997? Play those same three games over and over again, only this time with worse sound quality!

Sonic Jam may not have been the first compilation of Sonic games to hit the market, but it was the first to come packed with extra content and features, owed in part to the power of the Compact Disc and the additional storage capacity it provides. Scans of character art, soundtracks, advertisements and other assorted promotional animations are all present and have been reproduced over the years in subsequent collections, but there was a distinct novelty to this sort of thing in the mid-90s, especially for American kids who probably hadn't seen the Man of the Year short, or even the Sonic CD intro with Toot Toot Sonic Warrior. Personally, I prefer Toot Toot over Sonic Boom, and if you have a problem with that, meet by the monkey bars after class.

Connecting all these galleries together is the aforementioned Sonic World, a small zone stylized after Green Hill which can be explored freely, and which even allows the player to take on small missions to really stretch the value out. The true Open Zone™ experience. You know Sonic Team was using this as a test bed for Sonic Adventure, cause the camera is bad and jumping don't feel no good, but placing myself into that child-like state of mind and evaluating it for what it was rather than what it is... Pretty good! Sonic's model is excellent, the world itself is charming, and I think it's an great way to get at Sonic Jam's side content and make the experience of doing so more engaging than simply tabbing through menus.

When not pouring over the sacred tomes (Japanese Sonic 1 commercials), you can actually play a damn Sonic game. Each of the mainline Genesis titles are here and accessible from the start, with Sonic & Knuckles allowing the same lock-on content as the real cart. These are true ports, but unfortunately they're also not the best versions even by 90s standards. Sonic the Hedgehog is fine for the most part, but Sonic the Hedgehog 2's performance is abysmal across the board. Granted, I am playing on a reproduction disc and it's possible something is just up with how it was written, but comparing Sonic 2 on Jam versus a cart is like comparing apples to oranges. The original had its problems, but this port is almost unplayable. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles perform fine but have sound issues that really take me out of the game, notably the ring collection chime and Badnik/monitor pop effects sounding way off. Why do the balloons in Carnival Night sound like the Egg-O-Matic explosions? What happened here? Given the overall level of quality, it's hard not to look at Sonic Jam and think, "Well at least I have a backup in case something happens to the dozens of other copies of these games I own."

That said, there is at least one unique feature that I think makes playing them worthwhile: easy mode. I first found out about this while watching DocFuture's LP of Sonic 1's easy mode years ago, and you know... it is a relaxing way to play Sonic. Don't need to worry about collecting all the Chaos Emeralds, or fighting bosses, or drowning. Just sit down with a stiff drink and take a leisurely jog through South Island. It's nice. Sadly, those rat fucks at Sega decided not to put Sonic 2: Special Edition on the disc, and I do have to deduct any points earned by easy mode purely for the absence of Failure Cresh. Sonic Team underdelivers yet again!

There was a time and a place for Sonic Jam, and it was 1997 on the Sega Saturn. And hey, that's fine. I'm not saying this doesn't have any value or isn't worth exploring today, but if you just want to play the classic Genesis Sonic games... boy, you've got options and this should not be one of them.