So, yeah. This one’s pretty difficult to emulate. I coulda jumped through a lot of hoops to do so, and then ended up with a game that’s very difficult to control the way you’re supposed to control it because I don’t have a trackball, and I just don’t think it’s worth the effort? I heard there was some vague gesturing by Sega that they might be open to doing a Sega Ages release of this, and that would be pretty terrific, but in the meantime I decided to just watch a longplay of it. Consequently I don’t think it makes any sense for me to try to rate the zones etc, so I won’t.
Honestly without the gimmick of playing with a trackball it doesn’t look like there’s that much here? It’s cool seeing what our boy looks like in an arcade game given that arcade cabinets were capable of a lot more than consoles at the time. It’s also cool seeing Mighty and Ray’s first appearance. But it just kinda doesn’t seem like there’s a lot to the game?
The opening cutscene, with Sonic, Ray, and Mighty (or whatever combination thereof you’re playing as) getting captured is pretty neat, and breaking out of prison to start the game is a pretty good setup. So I will say that.
The levels are just extremely short, though. They do technically have the first appearance of a few popular series themes like ice levels and desert levels, so that’s something, but for the most part they’re alright-looking but they’re nothing special? Especially Eggman’s Tower which is inexplicably had brick walls and stone floors, not exactly his style. And the one truly unique-sounding setting here, Trap Tower, is extremely one-note. I was excited for a dungeon of traps, but it turns out it’s just this metal roller chasing you the whole time. Yawn. The one exception imo is Desert Dodge, that one looks pretty rad. Its obstacles include cacti, quicksand, sinkholes, and frigging dust devils??? So that’s pretty cool.
All in all, I really don’t feel like I’m missing out on too much here? It would be cool to play this as a curiosity I guess, but I just don’t think it has much impact on the main series.
Honestly without the gimmick of playing with a trackball it doesn’t look like there’s that much here? It’s cool seeing what our boy looks like in an arcade game given that arcade cabinets were capable of a lot more than consoles at the time. It’s also cool seeing Mighty and Ray’s first appearance. But it just kinda doesn’t seem like there’s a lot to the game?
The opening cutscene, with Sonic, Ray, and Mighty (or whatever combination thereof you’re playing as) getting captured is pretty neat, and breaking out of prison to start the game is a pretty good setup. So I will say that.
The levels are just extremely short, though. They do technically have the first appearance of a few popular series themes like ice levels and desert levels, so that’s something, but for the most part they’re alright-looking but they’re nothing special? Especially Eggman’s Tower which is inexplicably had brick walls and stone floors, not exactly his style. And the one truly unique-sounding setting here, Trap Tower, is extremely one-note. I was excited for a dungeon of traps, but it turns out it’s just this metal roller chasing you the whole time. Yawn. The one exception imo is Desert Dodge, that one looks pretty rad. Its obstacles include cacti, quicksand, sinkholes, and frigging dust devils??? So that’s pretty cool.
All in all, I really don’t feel like I’m missing out on too much here? It would be cool to play this as a curiosity I guess, but I just don’t think it has much impact on the main series.