I played this on Master System. I pretty much always go with Master System when there’s a choice between that and Game Gear, as you may have noticed. And yeah, this game was... fine, I guess? The Chaos Emeralds are a lot easier to get than in other games, which is a bit of a relief. But the zones themselves aren’t really all that interesting gameplay-wise. This is masked somewhat when you need to really dive deeply into them to get 100 rings and get to the Special Stages, but once you knock that out they’re really easy to breeze through. If you stick to the high path you can usually just skip most of the obstacles.
This game does have a couple noteworthy firsts! It’s the first 8-bit title where I’m playable, and it’s also the first first time I can fly as a controllable in-game thing! So that’s pretty cool.
Given the relatively low scope of this game (I played through it in one sitting without much trouble) this is another one where I don’t think it makes much sense to have separate entries for each zone, so let’s go ahead and get into them.
First up is Turquoise Hill Zone, and boy does this ever scream, “We barely tried!” I’m fine with just having the opening zone be a Green Hill clone--in fact, I kinda prefer it--but I don’t even get why they called this one Turquoise Hill! There’s nothing turquoise about it! It’s like they were planning on naming it a synonym of green and decided “no wait” at the last second. I don’t know. I don’t want to be overly critical here.
We once again get Robotnik’s “Master Robots” like in 8-bit Sonic 2, and Turquoise Hill starts us out with a giant Boing-o-Bot that’s extremely easy to defeat and doesn’t even really have any offensive moves unless you stand still and let it run over you or something. Shrug!
Next up we’ve got Gigalopolis Zone, or Gigapolis Zone according to Game Gear’s smaller screen. This is kind of reminiscent of Starlight Zone, and is one of the better zones in the game imo. It introduces a new mechanic in the form of those lego-ass-looking bridges you can fall off of, and it also has all those tunnels to walk through, so that’s pretty dope! It wouldn’t be anything special in most games, but it shines here largely due to lack of competition. The boss for this one is a giant worm made up of a bunch of different large balls that you have to knock apart and avoid taking damage from. Honestly? It’s alright as far as these kinds of bosses go. Glowing endorsement over here, I know.
Sleeping Egg Zone is... kinda weird and unchallenging? Like, at least it’s different, I guess? But I don’t know.. There isn’t a lot to it. You’re just kinda bouncing around on springboards a lot and occasionally bashing floor or ceiling blocks. Shrug. The boss for this one is pretty alright, at least! It’s a robotic facsimile of Robotnik and the Egg-O-Matic with a giant spring on the bottom of it. So yeah, honestly one of the better bosses in the game! Though it still wouldn’t be much in any other game.
Mecha Green Hill Zone... WOOF. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t the worst zone in the game or anything. But what a gap between concept and execution. This is one of the better ideas I’ve seen in any 8-bit Sonic game, and I find the entire concept viscerally terrifying on a level that’s difficult to put into words... but this zone just doesn’t live up to that at all, and it’s just so easy and so short. A huge disappointment. The boss for this one is alright I guess especially judging by the standards of this game, and it’s actually a little challenging which is nice, but that’s about all this zone has going for it. What a waste.
Aqua Planet Zone is the obligatory underwater level and it’s similarly just totally phoned in. I’m not even gonna bother with my usual schtick about my hedgehog and whether or not I like him being underwater, though honestly there’s so little peril from being underwater in this stage that it’s surprising they even bothered. There aren’t even any air bubbles, you just can pretty much always access the surface. And the boss is pretty okay aside from bearing far more of a resemblance to the previous boss than is necessarily advisable.
Electric Egg Zone would be a lot better if it weren’t for that darn tube muze gimmick they’re so enamored with, but yeah. The boss actually gave me trouble when I played through as Sonic because I didn’t find the hidden rings towards the very end of Act 3 on that playthrough, so I had to fight the final boss without rings! I just kinda figured you weren’t supposed to have rings for it, but I found them on my Tails playthrough. Whoops. Anyway, yeah. Not great, but not a terrible final zone. And a pretty decent final boss fight!
So, yeah. This game is pretty aggressively mediocre. It’s not terrible or anything, but yeah.
So, yeah! Let’s rate some stuff! Only some of the zones have two different soundtracks for the Master System and Game Gear releases, so I’ll rate those separately when they come up but otherwise just one entry for both games. Get it? Got it? Good.
Zones
Gigalopolis Zone (C-Rank)
Turquoise Hill Zone (C-Rank)
Electric Egg Zone (C-Rank)
Mecha Green Hill Zone (C-Rank)
Sleeping Egg Zone (C-Rank)
Aqua Planet Zone (C-Rank)
Bosses
Laser Walker (B-Rank)
Bouncy Boss Robot (C-Rank)
Bead Worm (C-Rank)
Sphere-o-Bot (C-Rank)
Tree Crawler (C-Rank)
Lady Bug (D-Rank)
Soundtrack
Mecha Green Hill Zone (B-Rank)
Gigalopolis Zone, Master System (C-Rank)
Gigalopolis Zone, Game Gear (C-Rank)
Electric Egg Zone Act 3 (C-Rank)
Turquoise Hill Zone (C-Rank)
Laser Walker (C-Rank)
Boss (C-Rank)
Aqua Planet Zone (C-Rank)
Electric Egg Zone (C-Rank)
Sleeping Egg Zone (C-Rank)
Special stage (C-Rank)
Special Stage 2 (C-Rank)
Bad Ending (D-Tier)
Ending (D-Tier)
This game does have a couple noteworthy firsts! It’s the first 8-bit title where I’m playable, and it’s also the first first time I can fly as a controllable in-game thing! So that’s pretty cool.
Given the relatively low scope of this game (I played through it in one sitting without much trouble) this is another one where I don’t think it makes much sense to have separate entries for each zone, so let’s go ahead and get into them.
First up is Turquoise Hill Zone, and boy does this ever scream, “We barely tried!” I’m fine with just having the opening zone be a Green Hill clone--in fact, I kinda prefer it--but I don’t even get why they called this one Turquoise Hill! There’s nothing turquoise about it! It’s like they were planning on naming it a synonym of green and decided “no wait” at the last second. I don’t know. I don’t want to be overly critical here.
We once again get Robotnik’s “Master Robots” like in 8-bit Sonic 2, and Turquoise Hill starts us out with a giant Boing-o-Bot that’s extremely easy to defeat and doesn’t even really have any offensive moves unless you stand still and let it run over you or something. Shrug!
Next up we’ve got Gigalopolis Zone, or Gigapolis Zone according to Game Gear’s smaller screen. This is kind of reminiscent of Starlight Zone, and is one of the better zones in the game imo. It introduces a new mechanic in the form of those lego-ass-looking bridges you can fall off of, and it also has all those tunnels to walk through, so that’s pretty dope! It wouldn’t be anything special in most games, but it shines here largely due to lack of competition. The boss for this one is a giant worm made up of a bunch of different large balls that you have to knock apart and avoid taking damage from. Honestly? It’s alright as far as these kinds of bosses go. Glowing endorsement over here, I know.
Sleeping Egg Zone is... kinda weird and unchallenging? Like, at least it’s different, I guess? But I don’t know.. There isn’t a lot to it. You’re just kinda bouncing around on springboards a lot and occasionally bashing floor or ceiling blocks. Shrug. The boss for this one is pretty alright, at least! It’s a robotic facsimile of Robotnik and the Egg-O-Matic with a giant spring on the bottom of it. So yeah, honestly one of the better bosses in the game! Though it still wouldn’t be much in any other game.
Mecha Green Hill Zone... WOOF. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t the worst zone in the game or anything. But what a gap between concept and execution. This is one of the better ideas I’ve seen in any 8-bit Sonic game, and I find the entire concept viscerally terrifying on a level that’s difficult to put into words... but this zone just doesn’t live up to that at all, and it’s just so easy and so short. A huge disappointment. The boss for this one is alright I guess especially judging by the standards of this game, and it’s actually a little challenging which is nice, but that’s about all this zone has going for it. What a waste.
Aqua Planet Zone is the obligatory underwater level and it’s similarly just totally phoned in. I’m not even gonna bother with my usual schtick about my hedgehog and whether or not I like him being underwater, though honestly there’s so little peril from being underwater in this stage that it’s surprising they even bothered. There aren’t even any air bubbles, you just can pretty much always access the surface. And the boss is pretty okay aside from bearing far more of a resemblance to the previous boss than is necessarily advisable.
Electric Egg Zone would be a lot better if it weren’t for that darn tube muze gimmick they’re so enamored with, but yeah. The boss actually gave me trouble when I played through as Sonic because I didn’t find the hidden rings towards the very end of Act 3 on that playthrough, so I had to fight the final boss without rings! I just kinda figured you weren’t supposed to have rings for it, but I found them on my Tails playthrough. Whoops. Anyway, yeah. Not great, but not a terrible final zone. And a pretty decent final boss fight!
So, yeah. This game is pretty aggressively mediocre. It’s not terrible or anything, but yeah.
So, yeah! Let’s rate some stuff! Only some of the zones have two different soundtracks for the Master System and Game Gear releases, so I’ll rate those separately when they come up but otherwise just one entry for both games. Get it? Got it? Good.
Zones
Gigalopolis Zone (C-Rank)
Turquoise Hill Zone (C-Rank)
Electric Egg Zone (C-Rank)
Mecha Green Hill Zone (C-Rank)
Sleeping Egg Zone (C-Rank)
Aqua Planet Zone (C-Rank)
Bosses
Laser Walker (B-Rank)
Bouncy Boss Robot (C-Rank)
Bead Worm (C-Rank)
Sphere-o-Bot (C-Rank)
Tree Crawler (C-Rank)
Lady Bug (D-Rank)
Soundtrack
Mecha Green Hill Zone (B-Rank)
Gigalopolis Zone, Master System (C-Rank)
Gigalopolis Zone, Game Gear (C-Rank)
Electric Egg Zone Act 3 (C-Rank)
Turquoise Hill Zone (C-Rank)
Laser Walker (C-Rank)
Boss (C-Rank)
Aqua Planet Zone (C-Rank)
Electric Egg Zone (C-Rank)
Sleeping Egg Zone (C-Rank)
Special stage (C-Rank)
Special Stage 2 (C-Rank)
Bad Ending (D-Tier)
Ending (D-Tier)