fluffymoon
It's Sonic 2 but with Knuckles. And they didn't even tweak his look or anything to try to make him fit in, it's just literally his Sonic 3 sprite running around in Sonic 2. It just constantly feels like "Knuckles, WHAT are you doing there." It's kinda amazing.
I don't revisit this one often because playing Sonic 2 any way but with Sonic and me together just feels wrong. Like. It goes from a game that feels truly special to just a pretty good game.
Oh, I have MAJOR beef with the fact that they gave my & Sonic's ending, even the little illustrated cutscene, to me & Knux. I like Knux. A lot. I even like the idea of being in a polycule with him. But he isn't Sonic.
I don't revisit this one often because playing Sonic 2 any way but with Sonic and me together just feels wrong. Like. It goes from a game that feels truly special to just a pretty good game.
Oh, I have MAJOR beef with the fact that they gave my & Sonic's ending, even the little illustrated cutscene, to me & Knux. I like Knux. A lot. I even like the idea of being in a polycule with him. But he isn't Sonic.
1994
This game is great even by itself, but there’s a major flaw!!! No Tails!!! NO TAILS!!! How can you have a Sonic game without Tails!!!! (Okay I show up in Sonic’s ending cutscene I think BUT STILL.) So yeah, I almost never play this game not locked on.
One general thing about this game is it goes to a lot more trouble to hide the giant rings than Sonic 3 so it’s extremely possible to get to the end of the game without having even had a chance to collect all the Chaos Emeralds if you’re not careful! So keep that in mind.
But, yeah. In spite of its deplorable lack of me, this game still rules, so I’m excited to be getting back to it! I’ll be even more excited to get to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, though!
Mushroom Hill Zone (2/26)
Nails the green first level thing while still being unique!! I’m a huge fan of this one. Those mushrooms look fun as heck to bounce on!!
The first mini boss is alright, and the first major boss is a pretty cool running boss! Pretty good start here!
Flying Battery Zone (2/27)
There’s some excellent continuity here because we saw this asshole bombing Angel Island Zone last game, so that’s pretty cool! And the zone itself is one of the better Eggman’s turf kinda levels, so that’s neat!
Both of the mini bosses (yeah we get two this time) are pretty decent! I’ve always really liked how trolly the Act 1 one is, and seeing Barrier Eggman back as a mini boss before Act 2’s true boss was a nice touch that made a lot of sense for the setting! So yeah, good stuff all around here.
It’s starting to feel really lonely playing as just Sonic, though. Really can’t wait to get back to this game in its full glory locked on to Sonic 3.
Sandopolis Zone (2/27)
I mean. See my entry about Oil Ocean Zone I guess, except this zone would even better if it weren’t for the racism. It has some badass mechanics, including GHOSTS in Act 2!
Act 2 is pretty challenging, and it’s pretty easy to time out on it. The bosses are pretty terrific aside from the Act 2 boss being super racist. But, yeah. This zone rules aside from... y’know.
Lava Reef Zone (2/27)
How good is Sonic & Knuckles? The midpoint of the game is between this zone and the following zone, and from this point on every single zone is S-Rank. Every. Single. One.
Act 1 is just a great lava zone with molten lava and all kinds of theme-appropriate obstacles, Act 2 has the lava cool off and is full of gorgeous crystals and stuff. It’s just brilliant. I find that I’m not having as much to say about these zones, because like all I really have to say is gushing about how good they are!!
Hidden Palace Zone (2/27)
Okay admittedly this zone is hella boring if you’re playing as Knuckles. It’s basically just a hallway. But as Sonic, you get to FIGHT KNUCKLES, and Knuckles finally realizes he’s been the biggest dummy ever when Eggman steals the Master Emerald, electrocuting Knux in the process when he tries to stop him. A weakened Knuckles then helps Sonic get to Sky Sanctuary.
Anyway, the reason this zone rules is because YOU GET TO FIGHT A MOBIAN. Like. I’m obviously not a big fan of that in terms of the idea of actually doing it, but in a video game that RULES. And I cannot tell you how excited I was about this as a kid. Like, Eggman is pure evil and needs to be stopped, but idk, I just find Mobians inherently more interesting? And the idea of a story with a Mobian antagonist is just so much more compelling than fighting Eggman’s overengineered garbage over and over. Just saying.
Sky Sanctuary Zone (2/27)
I mean. It’s a great zone just on its own, but on top of that all of the Badniks are Eggrobos, there’s two mini-bosses which are literally recreations of two S-Rank bosses from two previous games (the iconic Green Hill Zone boss from Sonic 1 and the genuinely challenging Metropolis Zone boss from Sonic 2) but with Mecha Sonic instead of Robotnik piloting them. So, yeah. That rules. And then the actual boss of the level is Mecha Sonic.
Like. I still find robotic versions of Sonic existentially horrifying, but even I had to admit that’s freaking COOL.
If you’re playing as Knuckles, this is actually the last zone and it’s way shorter. When you emerge from the teleporter, an Eggrobo is waiting for you to snatch you up in an Egg-O-Matic with a giant claw at the bottom of it (kind of like the one that kidnaps me in the opening cutscene of 8-bit Sonic 2, come to think of it!). He then hovers over to where Mecha Sonic is waiting to finish you off while you’re held in place by the hook, but you manage to escape just in time and Mecha Sonic ends up destroying the Egg-O-Matic instead of you.
The Mecha Sonic fight proceeds as normal from here, but after you defeat him he jumps onto the Master Emerald and, gasp, goes Super! So then it’s Knux vs. Super Mecha Sonic and while this lacks the epic scale of The Doomsday Zone, WOW does it ever rule. It’s one of my favorite boss fights in the entire series, even though it’s not all that difficult once you figure out his pattern. It’s just so cool conceptually that I don’t even care.
Death Egg Zone (2/27)
Wellp.
The Death Egg is legit terrifying. If you’re aboard it for any reason you’re gonna have a bad time. But letting it get up to space where it can operate with impunity is much, much worse. So in we go.
Gameplay-wise, this zone RULES. I know I’ve been saying that about a lot of these zones, but this game is just really good, okay? It’s pretty difficult and has a lot of unique obstacles, the background goes from the terrifying & cavernous interior of the Death Egg in Act 1 to being IN SPACE in Act 2 (with a lovely view of Mobius, serving as a reminder of what we’re fighting for).
And while the first two bosses are decent, Great Eggman Robo is iconic and the subsequent chase of Robotnik’s Egg-O-Matic with the Master Emerald in tow while the ground collapses behind you is super great.
This is a fantastic final-ish zone. It feels scary and dangerous, fighting your way through it feels brave... but it never quite feels like too much to handle. It’s just within your limit. You have to be on edge, the consequences for failing are dire, it’s not comfortable... but you can do it. It just does a really great job of capturing what fighting Eggman is like.
The Doomsday Zone (2/27)
So this is the first of the “Super Sonic in space fighting a big scary thing” sort of zones, so that rules. The scope of this is just incredible. It’s very much the logical next step from Sonic 2’s epic final showdown on the Death Egg. And it’s such a fitting end to the first run of main series Sonic games.
As far as feels... yeah, I’m kinda TERRIFIED when he does stuff like this, but also just... so awestruck and so proud of him. I know I can technically do this stuff too, but... yeah. I don’t know. It’s scary!
Ending
My one appearance in the game! I fly up in the Tornado to meet Sonic when he falls back down from space, a la Sonic 2, and then we take the Master Emerald back to Angel Island which ascends back into the sky! Bet that makes Knux happy!
In Knuckles’ case, the final boss battle takes place in the sky, not in space! And Sonic shows up in the Tornado to save him.
So, yeah. I don’t actually have a lot to say about this one because it’s just kinda... great? And a pretty natural extension of Sonic 3 (which isn’t surprising given they were originally supposed to be one game), so basically everything I said for that one also applies.
But, yeah. Sonic & Knuckles rules! Despite its deplorable lack of me. Which is no small feat!
As always, let’s rank some stuff! (I didn’t include any of the soundtrack that Sonic & Knuckles recycles from Sonic 3, which is mostly just the major bosses and the “final” boss.)
Zones
The Doomsday Zone (S-Rank)
Sky Sanctuary Zone (S-Rank)
Hidden Palace Zone (S-Rank)
Lava Reef Zone (S-Rank)
Death Egg Zone (S-Rank)
Flying Battery Zone (S-Rank)
Sandopolis Zone (A-Rank)
Mushroom Hill Zone (A-Rank)
Bosses
Mecha Sonic’s Super State (S-Rank)
The Doomsday Zone (S-Rank)
Mecha Sonic (S-Rank)
Knuckles the Echidna (S-Rank)
Great Eggman Robo (S-Rank)
Egg Mobile-H (A-Tier)
Flying Eggman (A-Tier)
Jet Mobile (A-Rank)
Egg Golem (A-Rank)
Hot Mobile (A-Rank)
Barrier Eggman (B-Rank)
Death Ball (B-Rank)
Red Eye (B-Rank)
Hang Mobile (B-Rank)
Hei Hou (B-Rank)
Gapsule (B-Rank)
Guardian (B-Rank)
Heat Arms (B-Rank)
Soundtrack
Lava Reef Zone Act 2/Hidden Palace Zone (S-Rank)
Lava Reef Zone Act 1 (S-Rank)
The Doomsday Zone (S-Rank)
Flying Battery Zone Act 1 (S-Rank)
Flying Battery Zone Act 2 (S-Rank)
Sky Sanctuary Zone (S-Rank)
Act 1 Boss (A-Rank)
Death Egg Zone Act 1 (A-Rank)
Death Egg Zone Act 1 (A-Rank)
Mushroom Hill Zone Act 1 (A-Rank)
Mushroom Hill Zone Act 2 (A-Rank)
Sandopolis Zone Act 2 (B-Rank)
Sandopolis Zone Act 1 (B-Rank)
Glowball Bonus (B-Rank)
Slot Machine Bonus (B-Rank)
One general thing about this game is it goes to a lot more trouble to hide the giant rings than Sonic 3 so it’s extremely possible to get to the end of the game without having even had a chance to collect all the Chaos Emeralds if you’re not careful! So keep that in mind.
But, yeah. In spite of its deplorable lack of me, this game still rules, so I’m excited to be getting back to it! I’ll be even more excited to get to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, though!
Mushroom Hill Zone (2/26)
Nails the green first level thing while still being unique!! I’m a huge fan of this one. Those mushrooms look fun as heck to bounce on!!
The first mini boss is alright, and the first major boss is a pretty cool running boss! Pretty good start here!
Flying Battery Zone (2/27)
There’s some excellent continuity here because we saw this asshole bombing Angel Island Zone last game, so that’s pretty cool! And the zone itself is one of the better Eggman’s turf kinda levels, so that’s neat!
Both of the mini bosses (yeah we get two this time) are pretty decent! I’ve always really liked how trolly the Act 1 one is, and seeing Barrier Eggman back as a mini boss before Act 2’s true boss was a nice touch that made a lot of sense for the setting! So yeah, good stuff all around here.
It’s starting to feel really lonely playing as just Sonic, though. Really can’t wait to get back to this game in its full glory locked on to Sonic 3.
Sandopolis Zone (2/27)
I mean. See my entry about Oil Ocean Zone I guess, except this zone would even better if it weren’t for the racism. It has some badass mechanics, including GHOSTS in Act 2!
Act 2 is pretty challenging, and it’s pretty easy to time out on it. The bosses are pretty terrific aside from the Act 2 boss being super racist. But, yeah. This zone rules aside from... y’know.
Lava Reef Zone (2/27)
How good is Sonic & Knuckles? The midpoint of the game is between this zone and the following zone, and from this point on every single zone is S-Rank. Every. Single. One.
Act 1 is just a great lava zone with molten lava and all kinds of theme-appropriate obstacles, Act 2 has the lava cool off and is full of gorgeous crystals and stuff. It’s just brilliant. I find that I’m not having as much to say about these zones, because like all I really have to say is gushing about how good they are!!
Hidden Palace Zone (2/27)
Okay admittedly this zone is hella boring if you’re playing as Knuckles. It’s basically just a hallway. But as Sonic, you get to FIGHT KNUCKLES, and Knuckles finally realizes he’s been the biggest dummy ever when Eggman steals the Master Emerald, electrocuting Knux in the process when he tries to stop him. A weakened Knuckles then helps Sonic get to Sky Sanctuary.
Anyway, the reason this zone rules is because YOU GET TO FIGHT A MOBIAN. Like. I’m obviously not a big fan of that in terms of the idea of actually doing it, but in a video game that RULES. And I cannot tell you how excited I was about this as a kid. Like, Eggman is pure evil and needs to be stopped, but idk, I just find Mobians inherently more interesting? And the idea of a story with a Mobian antagonist is just so much more compelling than fighting Eggman’s overengineered garbage over and over. Just saying.
Sky Sanctuary Zone (2/27)
I mean. It’s a great zone just on its own, but on top of that all of the Badniks are Eggrobos, there’s two mini-bosses which are literally recreations of two S-Rank bosses from two previous games (the iconic Green Hill Zone boss from Sonic 1 and the genuinely challenging Metropolis Zone boss from Sonic 2) but with Mecha Sonic instead of Robotnik piloting them. So, yeah. That rules. And then the actual boss of the level is Mecha Sonic.
Like. I still find robotic versions of Sonic existentially horrifying, but even I had to admit that’s freaking COOL.
If you’re playing as Knuckles, this is actually the last zone and it’s way shorter. When you emerge from the teleporter, an Eggrobo is waiting for you to snatch you up in an Egg-O-Matic with a giant claw at the bottom of it (kind of like the one that kidnaps me in the opening cutscene of 8-bit Sonic 2, come to think of it!). He then hovers over to where Mecha Sonic is waiting to finish you off while you’re held in place by the hook, but you manage to escape just in time and Mecha Sonic ends up destroying the Egg-O-Matic instead of you.
The Mecha Sonic fight proceeds as normal from here, but after you defeat him he jumps onto the Master Emerald and, gasp, goes Super! So then it’s Knux vs. Super Mecha Sonic and while this lacks the epic scale of The Doomsday Zone, WOW does it ever rule. It’s one of my favorite boss fights in the entire series, even though it’s not all that difficult once you figure out his pattern. It’s just so cool conceptually that I don’t even care.
Death Egg Zone (2/27)
Wellp.
The Death Egg is legit terrifying. If you’re aboard it for any reason you’re gonna have a bad time. But letting it get up to space where it can operate with impunity is much, much worse. So in we go.
Gameplay-wise, this zone RULES. I know I’ve been saying that about a lot of these zones, but this game is just really good, okay? It’s pretty difficult and has a lot of unique obstacles, the background goes from the terrifying & cavernous interior of the Death Egg in Act 1 to being IN SPACE in Act 2 (with a lovely view of Mobius, serving as a reminder of what we’re fighting for).
And while the first two bosses are decent, Great Eggman Robo is iconic and the subsequent chase of Robotnik’s Egg-O-Matic with the Master Emerald in tow while the ground collapses behind you is super great.
This is a fantastic final-ish zone. It feels scary and dangerous, fighting your way through it feels brave... but it never quite feels like too much to handle. It’s just within your limit. You have to be on edge, the consequences for failing are dire, it’s not comfortable... but you can do it. It just does a really great job of capturing what fighting Eggman is like.
The Doomsday Zone (2/27)
So this is the first of the “Super Sonic in space fighting a big scary thing” sort of zones, so that rules. The scope of this is just incredible. It’s very much the logical next step from Sonic 2’s epic final showdown on the Death Egg. And it’s such a fitting end to the first run of main series Sonic games.
As far as feels... yeah, I’m kinda TERRIFIED when he does stuff like this, but also just... so awestruck and so proud of him. I know I can technically do this stuff too, but... yeah. I don’t know. It’s scary!
Ending
My one appearance in the game! I fly up in the Tornado to meet Sonic when he falls back down from space, a la Sonic 2, and then we take the Master Emerald back to Angel Island which ascends back into the sky! Bet that makes Knux happy!
In Knuckles’ case, the final boss battle takes place in the sky, not in space! And Sonic shows up in the Tornado to save him.
So, yeah. I don’t actually have a lot to say about this one because it’s just kinda... great? And a pretty natural extension of Sonic 3 (which isn’t surprising given they were originally supposed to be one game), so basically everything I said for that one also applies.
But, yeah. Sonic & Knuckles rules! Despite its deplorable lack of me. Which is no small feat!
As always, let’s rank some stuff! (I didn’t include any of the soundtrack that Sonic & Knuckles recycles from Sonic 3, which is mostly just the major bosses and the “final” boss.)
Zones
The Doomsday Zone (S-Rank)
Sky Sanctuary Zone (S-Rank)
Hidden Palace Zone (S-Rank)
Lava Reef Zone (S-Rank)
Death Egg Zone (S-Rank)
Flying Battery Zone (S-Rank)
Sandopolis Zone (A-Rank)
Mushroom Hill Zone (A-Rank)
Bosses
Mecha Sonic’s Super State (S-Rank)
The Doomsday Zone (S-Rank)
Mecha Sonic (S-Rank)
Knuckles the Echidna (S-Rank)
Great Eggman Robo (S-Rank)
Egg Mobile-H (A-Tier)
Flying Eggman (A-Tier)
Jet Mobile (A-Rank)
Egg Golem (A-Rank)
Hot Mobile (A-Rank)
Barrier Eggman (B-Rank)
Death Ball (B-Rank)
Red Eye (B-Rank)
Hang Mobile (B-Rank)
Hei Hou (B-Rank)
Gapsule (B-Rank)
Guardian (B-Rank)
Heat Arms (B-Rank)
Soundtrack
Lava Reef Zone Act 2/Hidden Palace Zone (S-Rank)
Lava Reef Zone Act 1 (S-Rank)
The Doomsday Zone (S-Rank)
Flying Battery Zone Act 1 (S-Rank)
Flying Battery Zone Act 2 (S-Rank)
Sky Sanctuary Zone (S-Rank)
Act 1 Boss (A-Rank)
Death Egg Zone Act 1 (A-Rank)
Death Egg Zone Act 1 (A-Rank)
Mushroom Hill Zone Act 1 (A-Rank)
Mushroom Hill Zone Act 2 (A-Rank)
Sandopolis Zone Act 2 (B-Rank)
Sandopolis Zone Act 1 (B-Rank)
Glowball Bonus (B-Rank)
Slot Machine Bonus (B-Rank)
(This review refers to the 8-bit version, which I would have given a 1 star rating but since the vastly different 16-bit & 8-bit versions are filed under the same game, I cannot do that.)
The development meeting for this one:
“Hey guys, you know how we usually put a little bit of effort into our 8-bit ports so they have some new and different stuff in them and aren’t just the exact same game but worse in every measurable way?”
“Yeah?”
“What if we didn’t do that this time?”
“Heck yeah! Sounds great. Can we make some of the bosses way less cool, though?”
“Yeah, for sure! Make sure we keep the nightmare fuel boiler with the floating Robotnik heads, though!”
“Obviously!”
The thing that’s even more frustrating here is that the fact that the 16-bit version of Sonic Spinball is good (and it is, eat me haters) is actually kind of a miracle??? Lilke, the game is the result of Sega realizing way too late that they weren’t going to have Sonic 3 in time for the holiday season and then frantically looking around like, “Uhhhh, what do we got?” And someone nervously offering, “Uhhhh, people liked that pinball stuff in Sonic 2?” and Sega saying “Perfect!! Let’s build a whole game out of that in a very short amount of time with most of our resources still (correctly) committed to Sonic 3!!” and that somehow resulted in a great game? (Again, eat me haters.) Improbable, to say the least.
I’m just not even gonna talk about how I looked in my one appearance in the opening cutscene. (This port doesn’t show me saving Sonic, so what happens to him when he falls back to Mobius from space? Shrug!) Or the fact that they just couldn’t even be bothered to have BOSS MUSIC? A feature that checks notes literally every single other game in this series (that has bosses) has???
Just play the Genesis/Mega Drive version. There is NO REASON to play this version unless you’re a completionist or just very morbidly curious. It’s BAD.
Anyway let’s rank some stuff and get the heck out of here.
Zones
1. The Machine (D-Rank)
2. Toxic Pools (D-Rank)
3. Final Showdown (D-Rank)
4. Lava Powerhouse (D-Rank)
Bosses
1. Veg-O-Machine (B-Rank)
2. Final Showdown Boss (D-Rank)
3. Toxic Pools Boss (D-Rank)
4. Roboboiler (D-Rank)
Soundtrack
1. Final Showdown (B-Rank)
2. The Machine (C-Rank)
3. Bonus Level (C-Rank)
4. Toxic Pools (C-Rank)
5. Lava Powerhouse (C-Rank)
The development meeting for this one:
“Hey guys, you know how we usually put a little bit of effort into our 8-bit ports so they have some new and different stuff in them and aren’t just the exact same game but worse in every measurable way?”
“Yeah?”
“What if we didn’t do that this time?”
“Heck yeah! Sounds great. Can we make some of the bosses way less cool, though?”
“Yeah, for sure! Make sure we keep the nightmare fuel boiler with the floating Robotnik heads, though!”
“Obviously!”
The thing that’s even more frustrating here is that the fact that the 16-bit version of Sonic Spinball is good (and it is, eat me haters) is actually kind of a miracle??? Lilke, the game is the result of Sega realizing way too late that they weren’t going to have Sonic 3 in time for the holiday season and then frantically looking around like, “Uhhhh, what do we got?” And someone nervously offering, “Uhhhh, people liked that pinball stuff in Sonic 2?” and Sega saying “Perfect!! Let’s build a whole game out of that in a very short amount of time with most of our resources still (correctly) committed to Sonic 3!!” and that somehow resulted in a great game? (Again, eat me haters.) Improbable, to say the least.
I’m just not even gonna talk about how I looked in my one appearance in the opening cutscene. (This port doesn’t show me saving Sonic, so what happens to him when he falls back to Mobius from space? Shrug!) Or the fact that they just couldn’t even be bothered to have BOSS MUSIC? A feature that checks notes literally every single other game in this series (that has bosses) has???
Just play the Genesis/Mega Drive version. There is NO REASON to play this version unless you’re a completionist or just very morbidly curious. It’s BAD.
Anyway let’s rank some stuff and get the heck out of here.
Zones
1. The Machine (D-Rank)
2. Toxic Pools (D-Rank)
3. Final Showdown (D-Rank)
4. Lava Powerhouse (D-Rank)
Bosses
1. Veg-O-Machine (B-Rank)
2. Final Showdown Boss (D-Rank)
3. Toxic Pools Boss (D-Rank)
4. Roboboiler (D-Rank)
Soundtrack
1. Final Showdown (B-Rank)
2. The Machine (C-Rank)
3. Bonus Level (C-Rank)
4. Toxic Pools (C-Rank)
5. Lava Powerhouse (C-Rank)
1994
This is a kart racing game. I am not good at kart racing games. Shockingly I am not very good at this game. It lets you play as Sonic, the obviously correct choice Tails, Ames, or the obviously wrong choice Robuttnik. It has a bunch of tracks that are loosely based on Sonic 1 stages. It’s fine, I guess, if you’re into this kind of thing? I’m not.
Oh, I watched all the ending cutscenes on YouTube (because I knew I’d never get them myself) and mine is by far the cutest. Just saying. Also, Amy’s is... extremely this era Amy. It’s v uncomfy. Do not recommend.
Oh, I watched all the ending cutscenes on YouTube (because I knew I’d never get them myself) and mine is by far the cutest. Just saying. Also, Amy’s is... extremely this era Amy. It’s v uncomfy. Do not recommend.
1994
Here we go.
If you ask me to pick a favorite, and don’t let me count Sonic 3 & Knuckles as one game, this is probably it. It’s just everything I love about these games turned up to 11. It’s SO FREAKING GOOD, guys. Aaaaaaaaa I am so excited I finally got to this game!! I love it so much!!
This is the first Sonic game I distinctly remember being uber excited to come out. I remember devouring magazine articles about it. I remember playing a demo at some department store. I remember being so, so excited that the game had a Mobian baddie! Ugh I can totally still feel the hype for this thing and it’s making me grin like a little kid.
I love this game!!
Angel Island Zone (2/25)
Talk about starting out on a high note! Angel Island Zone is one of the best opening zones of any Sonic game. The lush rainforest is distinct from the other Green Hill-esque openers while still maintaining the same theme. And like the rest of this game, it’s just absolutely gorgeous. The developers have clearly had a lot of time to master creating these games, and I just can’t get over what a leap forward Sonic 3 is in every way.
The game opens with me and Sonic flying together in the Tornado and spotting the floating island. Sonic is excited to explore, and goes Super, zooming ahead of the plane while I smile fondly and shake my head, murmuring, “Showoff.” (Okay that one’s not explicitly portrayed in the game but you KNOW it happened.) No sooner has Sonic made landfall than the (at the time) mysterious Knuckles explodes from the ground and collides with him, somehow knocking all the Chaos Emeralds out of Sonic and forcing him out of his Super form! (IDK.) Rude!
I remember being so excited to have a new Mobian character, and for him to be an antagonist at that! Little did I know I would like him way better as a giant dork who acts tough but has a soft, squishy core that he doesn’t want anyone to know about.
Ahem. ANYWAY. Yeah, this zone rules! The mini-boss and main boss, both fire-based, are pretty great! And I love the way Knuckles is given a very impactful role both in stealing the Chaos Emeralds and in sending us plummeting to the next zone at the end of this one!
So, I kinda intentionally decided to show off as much as I could in Act 1, and the result was 227 rings, two Chaos Emeralds (with a perfect on both Special Stages), and 10 lives (as always you start with 3). Soooooo yeah. I might be kinda good at this game or something.
My performance on Act 2 wasn’t quite as impressive. For one thing from here on out I won’t really be going for perfects on the Special Stages, I kinda did that just to prove to myself that I could. Anyway, I lost all my rings like halfway through Act 2 so only ended up finishing the first zone with 12 lives. I also hecked up on one of the Special Stages in Act 2, so only added a third Chaos Emerald. Still, not bad for the first zone!!
Onward!
Hydrocity Zone (2/25)
Alright. So. I know you think you know what I’m gonna say here, and in fairness I’ve basically conditioned you to expect it at this point. But OMG THIS ZONE IS SO GOOD I kinda don’t even want to say it.
Also, like. The fact that you can get a water shield and stay underwater for an unlimited amount of time helps! Once I had one of those bad boys, I actually still found myself stopping at air bubbles, but to make sure A.I. Tails could get a breath! One time he celebrated this by spindashing off in the opposite direction, which, good job buddy. (Yes it is surreal to be patronizing towards an A.I. version of myself. Shrug!)
Oh I should say that from this point on (so, other than playing Angel Island before work) I played the entire game in one sitting last night because I just couldn’t force myself to stop playing to write these entries. So, yeah! Didn’t really keep track of lives and Emeralds and stuff. Know I finished the game with better than 20 lives and I got my last Chaos Emerald in Act 2 of Ice Cap Zone, but we’ll get to that story later!
So, yeah! Hydrocity Zone. It’s pretty! And there are so many cool features and traps and stuff! And I don’t know, it just rules! Also you get to see a ton of my swimming animation, which, HI? I think might just be the best visual representation in any of these games of how my entire deal is just TRYING REALLY HARD YOU GUYS.
The bosses for this one are pretty great! The mini boss is alright, and the major boss is iconic! Just such a great concept and execution for a water level boss.
I’m very tempted to say this is pretty easily the best water level in any Sonic game, and it honestly very well might be!
Marble Garden Zone (2/25)
This is the kind of zone in these classic Sonic games that usually bores the crap out of me! But this one doesn’t!! They took the ancient ruins theme that they usually phone in and made a genuinely interesting zone out of it with a lot of unique gameplay features! I’m hella into this!!
I think this gets into one of the biggest strengths of Sonic 3 (and Sonic & Knuckles, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles). There is just so much variety to the level design! And it really makes all the different zones pop!!
Also, I freaking love the boss for this zone!! The mini boss is good too, but the major boss is a flying boss and I fly and carry Sonic and IT RULES!!! and I’m kinda upset that we don’t get more bosses like that, it’s such a great concept!!
I don’t have much else to say about this zone, except that I’m sure me and Sonic have definitely explored ruins like this one and the previous zone. Specifically on Angel Island, even, I’m sure. Those Echidnas left a bunch of mysterious stuff behind!
Carnival Night Zone (2/25)
Another theme that often gets phoned in, and another genuinely terrific zone! Like a lot of people, I got stuck on Act 2 FOREVER the first few times I played this game, and when I was listening to the soundtrack on YouTube it was hella validating to see tons of comments from people being like “THAT DAMN BARREL” (the puzzle that took me forever to figure out back then). Also, Act 2 is just hella LONG! I actually timed out during the boss fight this time! And saw a lot of comments from others suggesting this is a pretty common experience.
So, yeah, Eggman is obsessed with amusement park/casino/etc type dealies, so yeah this felt familiar. It’s frustrating because like... I like amusement parks etc too, but you can’t really let yourself enjoy them here or you’re gonna fall into some kind of trap. (Yes, I’m absolutely sure this has happened to me at least once.)
Can’t say I’m too impressed with either of the bosses in this one!! The major boss is fine, I guess. The mini boss is one of those really annoying ones where it just sorta destroys itself and you just have to facilitate that, and honestly I’ve never been a fan of that kinda boss! Although, this is the first time I’ve had occasion to look up the thing’s official name, and finding out that it was called the “Self D-Struct Machine” gave me a good chuckle. Hey Eggy, you kay?
IceCap Zone (2/25)
THIS ZONE RULES.
YOU START OFF SNOWBOARDING, AND THE MUSIC IS SO GOOD, AND THE THEMING IS SO GOOD, AND EVERYTHING IS SO GOOD. WHAT THE HECK. THIS IS SO GOOD.
I don’t really know what else to say! This is one of the best zones in any Sonic game. I love it so much.
Oh, hey! Actually! I promised y’all the story of collecting my last Chaos Emerald! So, there’s a giant ring basically right before the major boss of this zone. And I got there with over 200 rings. And I got my last Chaos Emerald.
So, yeah. To reiterate. Right before the boss, I collected my Final Chaos Emerald and came out of the Special Stage with 200 rings and the ability to go Super.
Yeah. It really sucked to be that boss.
Launch Base Zone (2/25)
This is a pretty good final zone! And Act 2 ends with an A-Rank boss and TWO S-Rank bosses! So I had to be careful not to go overboard and rank this one ahead of other zones in the game that overall impressed me more, but like, don’t get me wrong! The zone itself is pretty great too. It’s just that this game is an embarrassment of riches. Like. This is the FOURTH best zone in this game! What! That’s ridiculous!
And yeah, as far as kinfeels it just does the usual “ugh Robotnik’s base, anxiety” stuff. Nothing more specific than that. Oh, the Death Egg, though. There is that. Yeah. Ugh.
Ending
Although it doesn’t have clips from the various zones like some classic Sonic games do, which is kind of tragic, it has easily the best end credits music, so that’s not nothing!
But, yeah. I love this game! I mean heck, scroll down! OVER HALF OF THIS GAME’S ZONES ARE S-RANK! Sonic & Knuckles might put up similar or better numbers, but if you play Sonic & Knuckles by itself THERE’S NO TAILS you guys! NO TAILS! So obviously if I have to pick one, Sonic 3 is gonna be my favorite. (Sonic 3 & Knuckles is my true favorite, obviously, but if I had to pick just one.)
Oh, also, I’m gonna have to abandon my “couples depicted in this game” joke from here on out, because I don’t wanna disrespect any of the Mobian polycule by actually ranking relationships!! It was a cute little joke when it was only me and Sonic together in these games, but yeah. From Sonic & Knuckles on, you at least have Knux in the mix, and then Shads joins later, and yeah. Don’t wanna be rude.
Couples Depicted in this Game
1. Sonic/Tails (S/T-Rank)
Zones
1. Ice Cap Zone (S-Rank)
2. Angel Island Zone (S-Rank)
3. Hydrocity Zone (S-Rank)
4. Launch Base Zone (S-Rank)
5. Marble Garden Zone (B-Rank)
6. Carnival Night Zone (B-Rank)
Bosses
1. Big Arm (S-Rank)
2. Flame Craft (Act 2) (S-Rank)
3. Beam Rocket (S-Rank)
4. Waterspout and Depth Charge Machine (A-Rank)
5. Jet Drill Pod (A-Rank)
6. Ball Shooter (A-Rank)
7. Flame Craft (Act 1) (A-Rank)
8. Iceball (B-Rank)
9. Swing ‘m Spikez (B-Rank)
10. Tunnelbot (B-Rank)
11. Freeze-O-Matic (B-Rank)
12. Whirlpool Machine (B-Rank)
13. Energy Ship (C-Rank)
14. Self D-Struct Machine (C-Rank)
Soundtrack
1. Final Boss (S-Rank)
2. Ice Cap Zone Act 1 (S-Rank)
3. Ice Cap Zone Act 2 (S-Rank)
4. Ending (S-Rank)
5. Major Boss (S-Rank)
6. Angel Island Zone Act 1 (S-Rank)
7. Angel Island Zone Act 2 (S-Rank)
8. Hydrocity Zone Act 2 (A-Rank)
9. Hydrocity Zone Act 1 (A-Rank)
10. Special Stage (A-Rank)
11. Launch Base Zone Act 1 (A-Rank)
12. Launch Base Zone Act 2 (A-Rank)
13. Endless Mine Zone (A-Rank)
14. Bonus Stage (A-Rank)
15. Azure Lake Zone (B-Rank)
16. Marble Garden Zone Act 1 (B-Rank)
17. Marble Garden Zone Act 2 (B-Rank)
18. Minor Boss (B-Rank)
19. Carnival Night Zone Act 1 (B-Rank)
20. Carnival Night Zone Act 2 (B-Rank)
21. Desert Palace Zone (B-Rank)
22. Chrome Gadget Zone (B-Rank)
23. Balloon Park Zone (B-Rank)
If you ask me to pick a favorite, and don’t let me count Sonic 3 & Knuckles as one game, this is probably it. It’s just everything I love about these games turned up to 11. It’s SO FREAKING GOOD, guys. Aaaaaaaaa I am so excited I finally got to this game!! I love it so much!!
This is the first Sonic game I distinctly remember being uber excited to come out. I remember devouring magazine articles about it. I remember playing a demo at some department store. I remember being so, so excited that the game had a Mobian baddie! Ugh I can totally still feel the hype for this thing and it’s making me grin like a little kid.
I love this game!!
Angel Island Zone (2/25)
Talk about starting out on a high note! Angel Island Zone is one of the best opening zones of any Sonic game. The lush rainforest is distinct from the other Green Hill-esque openers while still maintaining the same theme. And like the rest of this game, it’s just absolutely gorgeous. The developers have clearly had a lot of time to master creating these games, and I just can’t get over what a leap forward Sonic 3 is in every way.
The game opens with me and Sonic flying together in the Tornado and spotting the floating island. Sonic is excited to explore, and goes Super, zooming ahead of the plane while I smile fondly and shake my head, murmuring, “Showoff.” (Okay that one’s not explicitly portrayed in the game but you KNOW it happened.) No sooner has Sonic made landfall than the (at the time) mysterious Knuckles explodes from the ground and collides with him, somehow knocking all the Chaos Emeralds out of Sonic and forcing him out of his Super form! (IDK.) Rude!
I remember being so excited to have a new Mobian character, and for him to be an antagonist at that! Little did I know I would like him way better as a giant dork who acts tough but has a soft, squishy core that he doesn’t want anyone to know about.
Ahem. ANYWAY. Yeah, this zone rules! The mini-boss and main boss, both fire-based, are pretty great! And I love the way Knuckles is given a very impactful role both in stealing the Chaos Emeralds and in sending us plummeting to the next zone at the end of this one!
So, I kinda intentionally decided to show off as much as I could in Act 1, and the result was 227 rings, two Chaos Emeralds (with a perfect on both Special Stages), and 10 lives (as always you start with 3). Soooooo yeah. I might be kinda good at this game or something.
My performance on Act 2 wasn’t quite as impressive. For one thing from here on out I won’t really be going for perfects on the Special Stages, I kinda did that just to prove to myself that I could. Anyway, I lost all my rings like halfway through Act 2 so only ended up finishing the first zone with 12 lives. I also hecked up on one of the Special Stages in Act 2, so only added a third Chaos Emerald. Still, not bad for the first zone!!
Onward!
Hydrocity Zone (2/25)
Alright. So. I know you think you know what I’m gonna say here, and in fairness I’ve basically conditioned you to expect it at this point. But OMG THIS ZONE IS SO GOOD I kinda don’t even want to say it.
Also, like. The fact that you can get a water shield and stay underwater for an unlimited amount of time helps! Once I had one of those bad boys, I actually still found myself stopping at air bubbles, but to make sure A.I. Tails could get a breath! One time he celebrated this by spindashing off in the opposite direction, which, good job buddy. (Yes it is surreal to be patronizing towards an A.I. version of myself. Shrug!)
Oh I should say that from this point on (so, other than playing Angel Island before work) I played the entire game in one sitting last night because I just couldn’t force myself to stop playing to write these entries. So, yeah! Didn’t really keep track of lives and Emeralds and stuff. Know I finished the game with better than 20 lives and I got my last Chaos Emerald in Act 2 of Ice Cap Zone, but we’ll get to that story later!
So, yeah! Hydrocity Zone. It’s pretty! And there are so many cool features and traps and stuff! And I don’t know, it just rules! Also you get to see a ton of my swimming animation, which, HI? I think might just be the best visual representation in any of these games of how my entire deal is just TRYING REALLY HARD YOU GUYS.
The bosses for this one are pretty great! The mini boss is alright, and the major boss is iconic! Just such a great concept and execution for a water level boss.
I’m very tempted to say this is pretty easily the best water level in any Sonic game, and it honestly very well might be!
Marble Garden Zone (2/25)
This is the kind of zone in these classic Sonic games that usually bores the crap out of me! But this one doesn’t!! They took the ancient ruins theme that they usually phone in and made a genuinely interesting zone out of it with a lot of unique gameplay features! I’m hella into this!!
I think this gets into one of the biggest strengths of Sonic 3 (and Sonic & Knuckles, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles). There is just so much variety to the level design! And it really makes all the different zones pop!!
Also, I freaking love the boss for this zone!! The mini boss is good too, but the major boss is a flying boss and I fly and carry Sonic and IT RULES!!! and I’m kinda upset that we don’t get more bosses like that, it’s such a great concept!!
I don’t have much else to say about this zone, except that I’m sure me and Sonic have definitely explored ruins like this one and the previous zone. Specifically on Angel Island, even, I’m sure. Those Echidnas left a bunch of mysterious stuff behind!
Carnival Night Zone (2/25)
Another theme that often gets phoned in, and another genuinely terrific zone! Like a lot of people, I got stuck on Act 2 FOREVER the first few times I played this game, and when I was listening to the soundtrack on YouTube it was hella validating to see tons of comments from people being like “THAT DAMN BARREL” (the puzzle that took me forever to figure out back then). Also, Act 2 is just hella LONG! I actually timed out during the boss fight this time! And saw a lot of comments from others suggesting this is a pretty common experience.
So, yeah, Eggman is obsessed with amusement park/casino/etc type dealies, so yeah this felt familiar. It’s frustrating because like... I like amusement parks etc too, but you can’t really let yourself enjoy them here or you’re gonna fall into some kind of trap. (Yes, I’m absolutely sure this has happened to me at least once.)
Can’t say I’m too impressed with either of the bosses in this one!! The major boss is fine, I guess. The mini boss is one of those really annoying ones where it just sorta destroys itself and you just have to facilitate that, and honestly I’ve never been a fan of that kinda boss! Although, this is the first time I’ve had occasion to look up the thing’s official name, and finding out that it was called the “Self D-Struct Machine” gave me a good chuckle. Hey Eggy, you kay?
IceCap Zone (2/25)
THIS ZONE RULES.
YOU START OFF SNOWBOARDING, AND THE MUSIC IS SO GOOD, AND THE THEMING IS SO GOOD, AND EVERYTHING IS SO GOOD. WHAT THE HECK. THIS IS SO GOOD.
I don’t really know what else to say! This is one of the best zones in any Sonic game. I love it so much.
Oh, hey! Actually! I promised y’all the story of collecting my last Chaos Emerald! So, there’s a giant ring basically right before the major boss of this zone. And I got there with over 200 rings. And I got my last Chaos Emerald.
So, yeah. To reiterate. Right before the boss, I collected my Final Chaos Emerald and came out of the Special Stage with 200 rings and the ability to go Super.
Yeah. It really sucked to be that boss.
Launch Base Zone (2/25)
This is a pretty good final zone! And Act 2 ends with an A-Rank boss and TWO S-Rank bosses! So I had to be careful not to go overboard and rank this one ahead of other zones in the game that overall impressed me more, but like, don’t get me wrong! The zone itself is pretty great too. It’s just that this game is an embarrassment of riches. Like. This is the FOURTH best zone in this game! What! That’s ridiculous!
And yeah, as far as kinfeels it just does the usual “ugh Robotnik’s base, anxiety” stuff. Nothing more specific than that. Oh, the Death Egg, though. There is that. Yeah. Ugh.
Ending
Although it doesn’t have clips from the various zones like some classic Sonic games do, which is kind of tragic, it has easily the best end credits music, so that’s not nothing!
But, yeah. I love this game! I mean heck, scroll down! OVER HALF OF THIS GAME’S ZONES ARE S-RANK! Sonic & Knuckles might put up similar or better numbers, but if you play Sonic & Knuckles by itself THERE’S NO TAILS you guys! NO TAILS! So obviously if I have to pick one, Sonic 3 is gonna be my favorite. (Sonic 3 & Knuckles is my true favorite, obviously, but if I had to pick just one.)
Oh, also, I’m gonna have to abandon my “couples depicted in this game” joke from here on out, because I don’t wanna disrespect any of the Mobian polycule by actually ranking relationships!! It was a cute little joke when it was only me and Sonic together in these games, but yeah. From Sonic & Knuckles on, you at least have Knux in the mix, and then Shads joins later, and yeah. Don’t wanna be rude.
Couples Depicted in this Game
1. Sonic/Tails (S/T-Rank)
Zones
1. Ice Cap Zone (S-Rank)
2. Angel Island Zone (S-Rank)
3. Hydrocity Zone (S-Rank)
4. Launch Base Zone (S-Rank)
5. Marble Garden Zone (B-Rank)
6. Carnival Night Zone (B-Rank)
Bosses
1. Big Arm (S-Rank)
2. Flame Craft (Act 2) (S-Rank)
3. Beam Rocket (S-Rank)
4. Waterspout and Depth Charge Machine (A-Rank)
5. Jet Drill Pod (A-Rank)
6. Ball Shooter (A-Rank)
7. Flame Craft (Act 1) (A-Rank)
8. Iceball (B-Rank)
9. Swing ‘m Spikez (B-Rank)
10. Tunnelbot (B-Rank)
11. Freeze-O-Matic (B-Rank)
12. Whirlpool Machine (B-Rank)
13. Energy Ship (C-Rank)
14. Self D-Struct Machine (C-Rank)
Soundtrack
1. Final Boss (S-Rank)
2. Ice Cap Zone Act 1 (S-Rank)
3. Ice Cap Zone Act 2 (S-Rank)
4. Ending (S-Rank)
5. Major Boss (S-Rank)
6. Angel Island Zone Act 1 (S-Rank)
7. Angel Island Zone Act 2 (S-Rank)
8. Hydrocity Zone Act 2 (A-Rank)
9. Hydrocity Zone Act 1 (A-Rank)
10. Special Stage (A-Rank)
11. Launch Base Zone Act 1 (A-Rank)
12. Launch Base Zone Act 2 (A-Rank)
13. Endless Mine Zone (A-Rank)
14. Bonus Stage (A-Rank)
15. Azure Lake Zone (B-Rank)
16. Marble Garden Zone Act 1 (B-Rank)
17. Marble Garden Zone Act 2 (B-Rank)
18. Minor Boss (B-Rank)
19. Carnival Night Zone Act 1 (B-Rank)
20. Carnival Night Zone Act 2 (B-Rank)
21. Desert Palace Zone (B-Rank)
22. Chrome Gadget Zone (B-Rank)
23. Balloon Park Zone (B-Rank)
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)
From this one I mostly learned that I’m no good at Puyo Puyo, which believe it or not is already a thing I knew! So arguably a waste of time there. But seriously, the story mode in this is punishingly difficult if you’re not extremely good at Puyo Puyo. Other than that, all I can really say is the choice to set it in the world of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon instead of the continuity of the other games or the somewhat more popular Archie Comics/SatAm series world is intriguing. But that’s about all I got.
Uh, yeah. Enjoy your reskinned Puyo Puyo if you’re into that kinda thing!
Uh, yeah. Enjoy your reskinned Puyo Puyo if you’re into that kinda thing!
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.
I played this one a lot when I was younger. I think I just appreciated that it was still a Sonic game but it was a change of pace! It was also a lot shorter and felt a little less “serious” so it was a good game to play more casually. For instance, I beat this game in one sitting this morning without it making much of a dent in my day.
I don’t think it really makes sense for me to go through this one in depth like I do most of the standard games given that you’re effectively just doing one thing (using pinball mechanics to collect way more Chaos Emeralds than there have ever been before or since and then fighting bosses, also with pinball mechanics) over and over. So let’s just talk about it all briefly.
The game opens with me and Sonic flying towards a scary-looking mountain with a giant Robotnik face on it in our plane, the Tornado. Robotnik’s defenses open fire on us, and I manage to bank out of the way of the first volley but the second catches the tornado in the wing, knocking Sonic down to the water below. Oh, no!
According to the instruction book some of Sonic’s animal friends save him, and he emerges wet but no worse for the wear in the first zone, Toxic Caves. Toxic Caves is a pretty great opening level, and a unique setting! It makes story sense for his infiltration of Robotnik’s fortress to start in a sewer level. And this level does what any good first level of a Sonic game does: teaches you how to play the game. Its boss is a... kind of weird giant scorpion thing with Robotnik’s face. It’s a bit unnerving, but easy to beat.
If Sonic is still wet from falling in the ocean (or lake or whatever it is) and making his way through the toxic sewers, he’s sure to dry off in Lava Powerhouse. So, yeah, Robotnik’s base is on a volcano, so a geo-thermal powerplant makes perfect sense as the next progression after the initial infiltration through the sewers. The boss for this one is kinda nightmare fuel, and I gotta say the first two bosses make way less story sense than the second two. Like, I can accept the scorpion bot even if it doesn’t 100% seem like Robotnik’s style. I kinda don’t know why he just has a boiler with giant Robotnik heads floating around in it lying around. Not sure what practical purpose that one’s supposed to serve apart from being creepy af.
As Sonic gets deeper into Robotnik’s base he next finds himself in The Machine. This one has your usual “Robotnik’s base” sorta aesthetic, everything is metal and mechanized. This zone is pretty easy but its aesthetics rule. And releasing all the animals trapped in the cells in the animal prison is very cathartic. And it has easily the best boss of the game imo. And speaking of catharsis, literally blowing up a new, more powerful roboticizer certainly fits the bill.
And lastly you have The Showdown, which is honestly kinda a letdown imo? Like, it’s not bad, I wouldn’t call anything in this game bad, I just don’t think it integrates its theme as effectively as the other levels. A lot of the mechanics and obstacles in it feel pretty arbitrary. Its aesthetics totally work, though! Like the fact that you can just look down and see craters full of lava that you need to avoid falling into. And the final boss is pretty good, too! It’s thematically appropriate, as Robotnik is preparing to try to escape in his spaceship, and it also feels appropriately difficult as a final boss.
The bonus stages in this one aren’t as essential as they usually are in terms of what they reward you with, but given that most of them allow you to free me (and some Archie characters, randomly), they’re actually crucial! Don’t leave your two-tailed foxes in (non-consensual) captivity!!
Oh yeah, and the ending is Robuttnik and Sonic falling from the sky after Sonic destroys the spaceship, and I swoop in on the Tornado to rescue Sonic!! Yay!!! Always a good way to end a Sonic game imo.
So, yeah! My understanding is a lot of people complain about this one, and I get it. It is the result of Sega rushing to have a game out for the holiday season when they realized they weren’t gonna have Sonic 3 in time. But I’ve always been a fan of this game, and still am. It’s a nice little diversion! And it’s something different.
Zones
Toxic Caves (B-Rank)
The Machine (B-Rank)
The Showdown (C-Rank)
Lava Powerhouse (C-Rank)
Bosses
Veg-O-Machine (A-Rank)
Robotnik's Ship (C-Rank)
Scorpius (C-Rank)
Robo-Boiler (C-Rank)
Soundtrack
Boss Battle (A-Rank)
Toxic Caves (B-Rank)
The Machine (B-Rank)
Special Stage (B-Rank)
Lava Powerhouse (B-Rank)
The Showdown (B-Rank)
Credits (D-Rank)
I don’t think it really makes sense for me to go through this one in depth like I do most of the standard games given that you’re effectively just doing one thing (using pinball mechanics to collect way more Chaos Emeralds than there have ever been before or since and then fighting bosses, also with pinball mechanics) over and over. So let’s just talk about it all briefly.
The game opens with me and Sonic flying towards a scary-looking mountain with a giant Robotnik face on it in our plane, the Tornado. Robotnik’s defenses open fire on us, and I manage to bank out of the way of the first volley but the second catches the tornado in the wing, knocking Sonic down to the water below. Oh, no!
According to the instruction book some of Sonic’s animal friends save him, and he emerges wet but no worse for the wear in the first zone, Toxic Caves. Toxic Caves is a pretty great opening level, and a unique setting! It makes story sense for his infiltration of Robotnik’s fortress to start in a sewer level. And this level does what any good first level of a Sonic game does: teaches you how to play the game. Its boss is a... kind of weird giant scorpion thing with Robotnik’s face. It’s a bit unnerving, but easy to beat.
If Sonic is still wet from falling in the ocean (or lake or whatever it is) and making his way through the toxic sewers, he’s sure to dry off in Lava Powerhouse. So, yeah, Robotnik’s base is on a volcano, so a geo-thermal powerplant makes perfect sense as the next progression after the initial infiltration through the sewers. The boss for this one is kinda nightmare fuel, and I gotta say the first two bosses make way less story sense than the second two. Like, I can accept the scorpion bot even if it doesn’t 100% seem like Robotnik’s style. I kinda don’t know why he just has a boiler with giant Robotnik heads floating around in it lying around. Not sure what practical purpose that one’s supposed to serve apart from being creepy af.
As Sonic gets deeper into Robotnik’s base he next finds himself in The Machine. This one has your usual “Robotnik’s base” sorta aesthetic, everything is metal and mechanized. This zone is pretty easy but its aesthetics rule. And releasing all the animals trapped in the cells in the animal prison is very cathartic. And it has easily the best boss of the game imo. And speaking of catharsis, literally blowing up a new, more powerful roboticizer certainly fits the bill.
And lastly you have The Showdown, which is honestly kinda a letdown imo? Like, it’s not bad, I wouldn’t call anything in this game bad, I just don’t think it integrates its theme as effectively as the other levels. A lot of the mechanics and obstacles in it feel pretty arbitrary. Its aesthetics totally work, though! Like the fact that you can just look down and see craters full of lava that you need to avoid falling into. And the final boss is pretty good, too! It’s thematically appropriate, as Robotnik is preparing to try to escape in his spaceship, and it also feels appropriately difficult as a final boss.
The bonus stages in this one aren’t as essential as they usually are in terms of what they reward you with, but given that most of them allow you to free me (and some Archie characters, randomly), they’re actually crucial! Don’t leave your two-tailed foxes in (non-consensual) captivity!!
Oh yeah, and the ending is Robuttnik and Sonic falling from the sky after Sonic destroys the spaceship, and I swoop in on the Tornado to rescue Sonic!! Yay!!! Always a good way to end a Sonic game imo.
So, yeah! My understanding is a lot of people complain about this one, and I get it. It is the result of Sega rushing to have a game out for the holiday season when they realized they weren’t gonna have Sonic 3 in time. But I’ve always been a fan of this game, and still am. It’s a nice little diversion! And it’s something different.
Zones
Toxic Caves (B-Rank)
The Machine (B-Rank)
The Showdown (C-Rank)
Lava Powerhouse (C-Rank)
Bosses
Veg-O-Machine (A-Rank)
Robotnik's Ship (C-Rank)
Scorpius (C-Rank)
Robo-Boiler (C-Rank)
Soundtrack
Boss Battle (A-Rank)
Toxic Caves (B-Rank)
The Machine (B-Rank)
Special Stage (B-Rank)
Lava Powerhouse (B-Rank)
The Showdown (B-Rank)
Credits (D-Rank)
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.
1993
HUH. TURNS OUT IF YOU ACTUALLY LOOK UP HOW TO PLAY THIS GAME IT’S A LOT MORE FUN. WHO WOULDA THUNK IT.
Like, okay. It’s understandable that the first time I played this (going in thinking, “Oh, sweet, a classic Sonic game I haven’t played!!”) I had a bad time. Like. Sonic games are usually shockingly brilliant at teaching you how to play them? And Sonic CD kinda just... doesn’t do that at all? I guess if I had taken the time to look at the instruction manual and figure out how the time travel mechanic works instead of just being like “huh, that’s a confusing thing that I can’t figure out intuitively what to do with it, oh well!” like I did the first time, it mighta helped. But, yeah! I didn’t do that! So I decided that Sonic CD was just The Only Bad One.
Now, it’s a whole new ballgame! I don’t know where I’m gonna land on this thing as of yet, just to be clear. But if my experience playing the first zone is any indication, there’s a decent chance I’m gonna have a good time.
Before we get to that, though. Let me just also say that one thing my feelings didn’t change about was that opening cinematic. That one was love at first sight, and yeah. I mean. The whole point of it is basically, “Sonic is so cool oh my gosh look how cool he is!” So. Kinda hard to imagine not getting my buy-in on that one.
Palmtree Panic Zone (2/13)
Okay technically this is “Palmtree Panic Round,” and the acts are called zones, because Sonic CD is weird!! But I get stubborn about dumb shit sometimes and I’ve decided to make this one of those things, so, we’re gonna call them zones anyway! Deal with it. (I don’t know who I’m telling to deal with it. The game I guess? You probably don’t care XD)
So, yeah! I played through Act 1 once without reading up on how time travel actually works, and it turns out when you finish this zone in the present right before you get to the goal plate Amy gloms onto you and you have to escape to finish the act. Yikes! I also saw the bad future in that first playthrough and the whole zone was basically roboticized (not actually the right term for this but you get the idea) and polluted, so that sucked!
Anyway, at this point I’m like, “Y’know what? I bet this whole time travel thing is important. I’m gonna read up on it and start over.” And WOW was that ever a great idea!! This time around I got good futures for both Acts 1 & 2, and picked up a time stone in a Special Stage after Act 1. I also collected 3 extra lives in Act 1 and 2 in Act 2, ending the zone with a total of 8! So that kinda ruled.
So, yeah! I’m understanding now that the gameplay in this one is really a lot more interested in exploring the zones fully! Or at the very least going back to the past to destroy the robot transporter, unlocking the good future! And you don’t have to go forward to the future once you do so, but it’s super helpful because you can run around the zone with no Badniks whatsoever, collecting rings and extra lives (I got over 200 rings in Act 1!). So, yeah. It seems like a good idea! And also something I totally missed when I was trying to play this like a usual Sonic game, where yeah getting plenty of rings and whatnot is great and all, but it’s still a very linear experience where you’re just trying to get to the goal relatively fast.
Palmtree Panic is your usual Green Hill-esque starting level, but there’s a lot going on here that makes it super unique! Probably due to greater capabilities of the Sega CD, the layout of the zone is way more complex. But yeah, like these opening zones pretty much always are, it’s just totally gorgeous! It feels like a pretty great introduction to the game.
The boss here is super easy. I remember not really finding any of the bosses in this game particularly challenging, but yeah. It’s basically an AT-ST-looking bipedal mech with bumpers for arms. These arms move very fast and can knock you back when you try to hit the machine, but it doesn’t really do a lot offensively and it’s pretty easy to hit it with some experimentation. And it only takes three hits--one for each of its arms, and then another when it’s unprotected. So, yeah. Super easy!
All in all, this is a pretty darn good zone. I’m looking forward to reevaluating the others!
Collision Chaos Zone (2/13)
I’m worried that these entries for Sonic CD zones are gonna start sounding kinda samey since I just don’t have much history with this game and I’m really only just learning how to play it properly? Um this one is kinda a pink forest (the wiki entry says “possibly psychedelic” which is neat I guess!) with a bunch of pinball mechanics.
Oh, I guess the fact that the level is hella pink themed is kinda appropriate since the beginning of Act 1 is where Amy gets kidnapped. She runs after Sonic all fangirly, then Metal bashes out of a wall and nabs her. It’s actually rather well-animated.
And, uh. Embarrassingly, I... got a little jealous. So. Yeah. Not that I WANT to be kidnapped or anything! Especially not by Metal. But like. If I’m not gonna be a playable character in a game and someone is gonna get kidnapped to provide motivation for Sonic anyway ¯\(ツ)/¯
Uh. Yeah. I’ll stop embarrassing myself now. The boss for this one is hella easy. I think I remember that being a theme in this game. But yeah, you’re in a pinball machine and Robotnik kinda lazily lobs bombs at you while you use the flippers to hit him a few times. It’s not hard. And it’s not that fun to look at, either. While the first boss was also super easy at least it was interesting to look at. Shrug!
Anyway, I finished with 10 lives, and unfortunately failed to get a time stone after either act. These UFO special stages take some getting used to! But I’ll get there. I think. Honestly as long as I keep getting good futures on every act (and I have so far, btw) apparently that unlocks the good ending anyway, so yeah! But I do wanna collect all the stones anyway, because why not?
Tidal Tempest Zone (2/13)
... it’s an underwater level. You already know what I’m feeling, I don’t need to say it.
I got stuck on the second act for an embarrassingly long time because the only way to get to the past is by using a past time warp sign that’s in a hidden room next to a pair of sideways springboards pointed at each other, and I got hyperfocused on trying to find my way back to those springboards after getting a red herring past sign later in the act. Blarg.
It’s still kinda hard to compare this to other 2D Sonic levels because it’s like apples and oranges. But yeah. Judging Sonic CD by its own standards, all of the zones have been pretty good so far I guess? I’m finding I don’t actually have a lot else to say with this game, probably just the lack of familiarity.
Oh, speaking of broken records, the boss was hella easy again but this one was at least kinda fun conceptually? You chase the Egg-O-Matic through an underwater labyrinth, hit it a few times, and eventually catch up and fight the Egg-O-Matic while it’s surrounded by air bubbles that you breathe instead of hitting him. And he shoots projectiles at you. But yeah, once you get an opening in the air bubbles, it takes literally one hit to defeat. Shrug.
Quartz Quadrant (2/13)
Yeah, I mean. I guess what I’m starting to run into here is a lot of these zones just kinda blur together. I’m glad I know how to play the game more now, but Sonic CD is still just very... Sonic CD. Like, it’s hard to relate anything in here to any of the other 2D games because this game is just very... itself. All I really feel like after finishing a Sonic CD Zone is, “Yeah, that’s a Sonic CD Zone.” So While I like this game a lot more than I did in the past, it still just doesn’t really hit me in the places Sonic games often do. It’s not a bad game and I’m having fun playing it, but it’s just hard to get much of substance out of it right now. At least for me.
The boss for this one was kinda interesting conceptually, finally! Robotnik is in this seemingly indestructible booth and has a bomb launcher that drops bombs at you while you run on a conveyor belt with spikes behind you. You just keep avoiding the bombs while the conveyor belt wears down Robotnik’s booth from below. I really liked this boss because it seemed like a really realistic trap Robotnik would set for Sonic, and a very believable way to escape it! So, yeah. Hard to say for sure given how weird these bosses have been, but probably my favorite boss of the game so far? Maybe.
Wacky Workbench Zone (2/14)
Okay this one is just bad.
Look, I've been very intentionally trying to play this game with an open mind but this one actually almost broke me. It's just so poorly designed and the whole gimmick where touching the ground bounces you up and all of it is just so hecking dumb.
I'm at least gratified that as I've looked around online I've found nigh universal hate for this zone. I thought maybe it was a Me problem, because I pretty much always assume things are a Me problem, but nope.
The boss for this one is Eggman in a kinda cool rocket-looking thing, but the gameplay is just as boring as the other bosses have been so far. Shrug.
Stardust Speedway Zone (2/16)
So if you’ve heard of one Sonic CD zone it’s probably this one. And honestly that’s mostly because of the boss fight against Metal. The zone itself is... eh. Honestly the longer I spent with this game, the more I kinda got bored with the relatively unchallenging, non-linear zones. Find past signpost. Find somewhere you can run uninterrupted. Time travel to past. Find robot generator. Destroy. Repeat for Act 2. Fight ridiculously easy boss. Rinse. Repeat.
Honestly? Despite being the flagship zone of the game, there is really nothing special about Stardust Speedway. (Again, until you get to the boss.) The background does look gorgeous, so there is that. But the zone itself is honestly kinda boring. It’s just a bunch of I guess highways? That look basically like the vines you see in like Mushroom Hill or whatever. Y’know. Zones that usually have a lot more besides just that.
The fight with Metal is even a little underwhelming considering that it’s just a race, but like I’m not gonna be a total downer here. It’s still pretty dang cool. One of the highlights of the game, for sure.
Metallic Madness Zone (2/16)
Okay, honestly? This one kinda rules.
Like. Yeah, at a base level you’re still following that time travel/destroy thing/repeat pattern that I’m super bored of at this point. But the zone itself is an upgraded Scrap Brain Zone. And it’s genuinely challenging! I timed out a couple times on Act 2!
This one didn’t hit me as hard in the kinfeels department as its predecessors, mostly because I was too caught up in being relieved that this game actually has good zones sometimes!!
Oh, but don’t get me wrong. There’s still disappointment to be had. The final boss, while somewhat difficult to get to, is boring personified. It’s just Robotnik in an Egg-O-Matic-ish vehicle with four blades spinning around him. And it only takes four hits to destroy!
Still, on the whole, this is pretty easily the best zone in the game. Honestly, if you took this zone and gave it the previous zone’s boss fight, it would stand comfortably with a lot of the better zones in these games, but alas.
Ending
I mean, we get another fully animated cutscene, which rules! More Amy than I woulda liked, but y’know. And to be clear, Ames is cool in other contexts, just... please stay away from my hedgehog? I mean, not away-away, unless he wants that, but like. Stop bein’ a creeper!
When I sit here and try to compose final thoughts about this game I just... don’t have a lot. I started this playthrough with a lot more optimism than I’ve felt about this game in a long time, and I just... didn’t really end up thinking much of it. And I’m pretty disappointed about that. Especially considering it had way more system resources available to it than any other Sonic game of its era and it really just feels like it wasted them.
Like, don’t get me wrong. I had a much better experience playing it this time than I did the first time. I’m not saying it’s worthless trash or anything. It just doesn’t click with the rest of the games, and I don’t think that’s just because I didn’t play it growing up. I think it’s because there was parallel development going on with this and Sonic 2, and Sonic 2 took the franchise in better directions.
And I know I don’t need to connect with every piece of Sonic media on an intimate level for it to be worthwhile, but I just... remember how excited I was when it came out on PC in 2011 and I thought, “Finally! I can play a classic Sonic game I haven’t played before!” And the gap between what I thought that meant and what it ended up meaning is just always going to be disappointing, and I think I need to accept that that’s okay, and that I’m allowed to feel that way.
As is traditional, let’s rank some stuff! A quick note on that first, though. THERE WERE ALMOST SIXTY TRACKS OF SOUNDTRACK FOR ME TO RANK FOR THIS ONE! THAT IS A LOT! It took forever, and like, at the end of re-listening to the entire soundtrack for the third time to double check my order, I decided that I really don’t need to be super accurate about how I rank the C-Rank and D-Rank stuff? Like, I’m sorry, at the end of the day who actually cares whether a song is my 51st or 52nd favorite song on the Sonic CD soundtrack? I already spent longer on this than any reasonable person would. So, yeah. Just keep that in mind I guess!
Zones
1. Metallic Madness Zone (B-Tier)
2. Palmtree Panic Zone (C-Tier)
3. Collision Chaos Zone (C-Tier)
4. Tidal Tempest Zone (C-Tier)
5. Stardust Speedway Zone (C-Tier)
6. Quartz Quadrant Zone (C-Tier)
7. Wacky Workbench Zone (D-Tier)
Bosses
1. Metal Sonic (S-Tier)
2. Quartz Crystal Zone (C-Tier)
3. Tidal Tempest Zone (C-Tier)
4. Metallic Madness Zone (C-Tier)
5. EGG-HVC-001 (C-Tier)
6. Collision Chaos Zone (D-Tier)
7. Wacky Workbench Zone (D-Tier)
Soundtrack
1. Sonic Boom (Theme), USA (A-Rank)
2. Sonic Boom (Ending), USA (A-Rank)
3. Quartz Quadrant Zone Present, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
4. Stardust Speedway Zone Present, USA (A-Rank)
5. Quartz Quadrant Zone Bad Future, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
6. Palmtree Panic Zone Present, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
7. Metallic Madness Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
8. Stardust Speedway Zone Bad Future, USA (A-Rank)
9. Metallic Madness Zone Present, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
10. Palmtree Panic Zone Bad Future, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
11. Metallic Madness Zone Past (A-Rank)
12. Final Fever, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
13. Tidal Tempest Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
14. Collision Chaos Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
15. Tidal Tempest Zone Present, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
16. Boss, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
17. Metallic Madness Zone Bad Future, USA (B-Rank)
18. Tidal Tempest Zone Bad Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
19. Palmtree Panic Zone Present, USA (B-Rank)
20. Palmtree Panic Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
21. Cosmic Eternity - Believe in Yourself, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
22. You Can Do Anything, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
23. Metallic Madness Zone Bad Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
24. Palmtree Panic Zone Good Future, Sonic CD USA (B-Rank)
25. Palmtree Panic Zone Past (B-Rank)
26. Stardust Speedway Good Future, USA (B-Rank)
27. Metallic Madness Zone Good Future, USA (B-Rank)
28. Wacky Workbench Bad Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
29. Quartz Quadrant Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
30. Special Stage, USA (B-Rank)
31. Final Fever, USA (B-Rank)
32. Boss!!, USA (B-Rank)
33. Stardust Speedway Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (C-Rank)
34. Special Stage, JP/PAL (C-Tier)
35. Palmtree Panic Zone Bad Future, USA (C-Rank)
36. Wacky Workbench Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (C-Rank)
37. Metallic Madness Zone Present, USA (C-Rank)
38. Stardust Speedway Zone Present, JP/PAL (C-Rank)
39. Stardust Speedway Zone Bad Future, JP/PAL (C-Rank)
40. Tidal Tempest Zone Bad Future, USA (C-Rank)
41. Wacky Workbench Zone Present, JP/PAL (C-Rank)
42. Collision Chaos Zone Good Future, USA (C-Rank)
43. Stardust Speedway Zone Past (C-Rank)
44. Collision Chaos Zone Bad Future, JP/PAL (C-Rank)
45. Wacky Workbench Zone Present, USA (D-Rank)
46. Wacky Workbench Zone Bad Future, USA (D-Rank)
47. Wacky Workbench Zone Good Future, USA (D-Rank)
48. Quartz Quadrant Zone Good Future, Sonic CD USA (D-Rank)
49. Quartz Quadrant Zone Bad Future, Sonic CD USA (D-Rank)
50. Quartz Quadrant Zone Past (D-Rank)
51. Tidal Tempest Zone Past (D-Rank)
52. Collision Chaos Zone Present, JP/PAL (D-Rank)
53. Tidal Tempest Zone Good Future, USA (D-Rank)
54. Tidal Tempest Zone Present, Sonic CD USA (D-Rank)
55. Wacky Workbench Zone Past (D-Rank)
56. Collision Chaos Zone Bad Future, USA (D-Rank)
57. Collision Chaos Zone Present, USA (D-Rank)
58. Collision Chaos Zone Past (D-Rank)
59.Quartz Quadrant Zone Present, USA (D-Rank)
Like, okay. It’s understandable that the first time I played this (going in thinking, “Oh, sweet, a classic Sonic game I haven’t played!!”) I had a bad time. Like. Sonic games are usually shockingly brilliant at teaching you how to play them? And Sonic CD kinda just... doesn’t do that at all? I guess if I had taken the time to look at the instruction manual and figure out how the time travel mechanic works instead of just being like “huh, that’s a confusing thing that I can’t figure out intuitively what to do with it, oh well!” like I did the first time, it mighta helped. But, yeah! I didn’t do that! So I decided that Sonic CD was just The Only Bad One.
Now, it’s a whole new ballgame! I don’t know where I’m gonna land on this thing as of yet, just to be clear. But if my experience playing the first zone is any indication, there’s a decent chance I’m gonna have a good time.
Before we get to that, though. Let me just also say that one thing my feelings didn’t change about was that opening cinematic. That one was love at first sight, and yeah. I mean. The whole point of it is basically, “Sonic is so cool oh my gosh look how cool he is!” So. Kinda hard to imagine not getting my buy-in on that one.
Palmtree Panic Zone (2/13)
Okay technically this is “Palmtree Panic Round,” and the acts are called zones, because Sonic CD is weird!! But I get stubborn about dumb shit sometimes and I’ve decided to make this one of those things, so, we’re gonna call them zones anyway! Deal with it. (I don’t know who I’m telling to deal with it. The game I guess? You probably don’t care XD)
So, yeah! I played through Act 1 once without reading up on how time travel actually works, and it turns out when you finish this zone in the present right before you get to the goal plate Amy gloms onto you and you have to escape to finish the act. Yikes! I also saw the bad future in that first playthrough and the whole zone was basically roboticized (not actually the right term for this but you get the idea) and polluted, so that sucked!
Anyway, at this point I’m like, “Y’know what? I bet this whole time travel thing is important. I’m gonna read up on it and start over.” And WOW was that ever a great idea!! This time around I got good futures for both Acts 1 & 2, and picked up a time stone in a Special Stage after Act 1. I also collected 3 extra lives in Act 1 and 2 in Act 2, ending the zone with a total of 8! So that kinda ruled.
So, yeah! I’m understanding now that the gameplay in this one is really a lot more interested in exploring the zones fully! Or at the very least going back to the past to destroy the robot transporter, unlocking the good future! And you don’t have to go forward to the future once you do so, but it’s super helpful because you can run around the zone with no Badniks whatsoever, collecting rings and extra lives (I got over 200 rings in Act 1!). So, yeah. It seems like a good idea! And also something I totally missed when I was trying to play this like a usual Sonic game, where yeah getting plenty of rings and whatnot is great and all, but it’s still a very linear experience where you’re just trying to get to the goal relatively fast.
Palmtree Panic is your usual Green Hill-esque starting level, but there’s a lot going on here that makes it super unique! Probably due to greater capabilities of the Sega CD, the layout of the zone is way more complex. But yeah, like these opening zones pretty much always are, it’s just totally gorgeous! It feels like a pretty great introduction to the game.
The boss here is super easy. I remember not really finding any of the bosses in this game particularly challenging, but yeah. It’s basically an AT-ST-looking bipedal mech with bumpers for arms. These arms move very fast and can knock you back when you try to hit the machine, but it doesn’t really do a lot offensively and it’s pretty easy to hit it with some experimentation. And it only takes three hits--one for each of its arms, and then another when it’s unprotected. So, yeah. Super easy!
All in all, this is a pretty darn good zone. I’m looking forward to reevaluating the others!
Collision Chaos Zone (2/13)
I’m worried that these entries for Sonic CD zones are gonna start sounding kinda samey since I just don’t have much history with this game and I’m really only just learning how to play it properly? Um this one is kinda a pink forest (the wiki entry says “possibly psychedelic” which is neat I guess!) with a bunch of pinball mechanics.
Oh, I guess the fact that the level is hella pink themed is kinda appropriate since the beginning of Act 1 is where Amy gets kidnapped. She runs after Sonic all fangirly, then Metal bashes out of a wall and nabs her. It’s actually rather well-animated.
And, uh. Embarrassingly, I... got a little jealous. So. Yeah. Not that I WANT to be kidnapped or anything! Especially not by Metal. But like. If I’m not gonna be a playable character in a game and someone is gonna get kidnapped to provide motivation for Sonic anyway ¯\(ツ)/¯
Uh. Yeah. I’ll stop embarrassing myself now. The boss for this one is hella easy. I think I remember that being a theme in this game. But yeah, you’re in a pinball machine and Robotnik kinda lazily lobs bombs at you while you use the flippers to hit him a few times. It’s not hard. And it’s not that fun to look at, either. While the first boss was also super easy at least it was interesting to look at. Shrug!
Anyway, I finished with 10 lives, and unfortunately failed to get a time stone after either act. These UFO special stages take some getting used to! But I’ll get there. I think. Honestly as long as I keep getting good futures on every act (and I have so far, btw) apparently that unlocks the good ending anyway, so yeah! But I do wanna collect all the stones anyway, because why not?
Tidal Tempest Zone (2/13)
... it’s an underwater level. You already know what I’m feeling, I don’t need to say it.
I got stuck on the second act for an embarrassingly long time because the only way to get to the past is by using a past time warp sign that’s in a hidden room next to a pair of sideways springboards pointed at each other, and I got hyperfocused on trying to find my way back to those springboards after getting a red herring past sign later in the act. Blarg.
It’s still kinda hard to compare this to other 2D Sonic levels because it’s like apples and oranges. But yeah. Judging Sonic CD by its own standards, all of the zones have been pretty good so far I guess? I’m finding I don’t actually have a lot else to say with this game, probably just the lack of familiarity.
Oh, speaking of broken records, the boss was hella easy again but this one was at least kinda fun conceptually? You chase the Egg-O-Matic through an underwater labyrinth, hit it a few times, and eventually catch up and fight the Egg-O-Matic while it’s surrounded by air bubbles that you breathe instead of hitting him. And he shoots projectiles at you. But yeah, once you get an opening in the air bubbles, it takes literally one hit to defeat. Shrug.
Quartz Quadrant (2/13)
Yeah, I mean. I guess what I’m starting to run into here is a lot of these zones just kinda blur together. I’m glad I know how to play the game more now, but Sonic CD is still just very... Sonic CD. Like, it’s hard to relate anything in here to any of the other 2D games because this game is just very... itself. All I really feel like after finishing a Sonic CD Zone is, “Yeah, that’s a Sonic CD Zone.” So While I like this game a lot more than I did in the past, it still just doesn’t really hit me in the places Sonic games often do. It’s not a bad game and I’m having fun playing it, but it’s just hard to get much of substance out of it right now. At least for me.
The boss for this one was kinda interesting conceptually, finally! Robotnik is in this seemingly indestructible booth and has a bomb launcher that drops bombs at you while you run on a conveyor belt with spikes behind you. You just keep avoiding the bombs while the conveyor belt wears down Robotnik’s booth from below. I really liked this boss because it seemed like a really realistic trap Robotnik would set for Sonic, and a very believable way to escape it! So, yeah. Hard to say for sure given how weird these bosses have been, but probably my favorite boss of the game so far? Maybe.
Wacky Workbench Zone (2/14)
Okay this one is just bad.
Look, I've been very intentionally trying to play this game with an open mind but this one actually almost broke me. It's just so poorly designed and the whole gimmick where touching the ground bounces you up and all of it is just so hecking dumb.
I'm at least gratified that as I've looked around online I've found nigh universal hate for this zone. I thought maybe it was a Me problem, because I pretty much always assume things are a Me problem, but nope.
The boss for this one is Eggman in a kinda cool rocket-looking thing, but the gameplay is just as boring as the other bosses have been so far. Shrug.
Stardust Speedway Zone (2/16)
So if you’ve heard of one Sonic CD zone it’s probably this one. And honestly that’s mostly because of the boss fight against Metal. The zone itself is... eh. Honestly the longer I spent with this game, the more I kinda got bored with the relatively unchallenging, non-linear zones. Find past signpost. Find somewhere you can run uninterrupted. Time travel to past. Find robot generator. Destroy. Repeat for Act 2. Fight ridiculously easy boss. Rinse. Repeat.
Honestly? Despite being the flagship zone of the game, there is really nothing special about Stardust Speedway. (Again, until you get to the boss.) The background does look gorgeous, so there is that. But the zone itself is honestly kinda boring. It’s just a bunch of I guess highways? That look basically like the vines you see in like Mushroom Hill or whatever. Y’know. Zones that usually have a lot more besides just that.
The fight with Metal is even a little underwhelming considering that it’s just a race, but like I’m not gonna be a total downer here. It’s still pretty dang cool. One of the highlights of the game, for sure.
Metallic Madness Zone (2/16)
Okay, honestly? This one kinda rules.
Like. Yeah, at a base level you’re still following that time travel/destroy thing/repeat pattern that I’m super bored of at this point. But the zone itself is an upgraded Scrap Brain Zone. And it’s genuinely challenging! I timed out a couple times on Act 2!
This one didn’t hit me as hard in the kinfeels department as its predecessors, mostly because I was too caught up in being relieved that this game actually has good zones sometimes!!
Oh, but don’t get me wrong. There’s still disappointment to be had. The final boss, while somewhat difficult to get to, is boring personified. It’s just Robotnik in an Egg-O-Matic-ish vehicle with four blades spinning around him. And it only takes four hits to destroy!
Still, on the whole, this is pretty easily the best zone in the game. Honestly, if you took this zone and gave it the previous zone’s boss fight, it would stand comfortably with a lot of the better zones in these games, but alas.
Ending
I mean, we get another fully animated cutscene, which rules! More Amy than I woulda liked, but y’know. And to be clear, Ames is cool in other contexts, just... please stay away from my hedgehog? I mean, not away-away, unless he wants that, but like. Stop bein’ a creeper!
When I sit here and try to compose final thoughts about this game I just... don’t have a lot. I started this playthrough with a lot more optimism than I’ve felt about this game in a long time, and I just... didn’t really end up thinking much of it. And I’m pretty disappointed about that. Especially considering it had way more system resources available to it than any other Sonic game of its era and it really just feels like it wasted them.
Like, don’t get me wrong. I had a much better experience playing it this time than I did the first time. I’m not saying it’s worthless trash or anything. It just doesn’t click with the rest of the games, and I don’t think that’s just because I didn’t play it growing up. I think it’s because there was parallel development going on with this and Sonic 2, and Sonic 2 took the franchise in better directions.
And I know I don’t need to connect with every piece of Sonic media on an intimate level for it to be worthwhile, but I just... remember how excited I was when it came out on PC in 2011 and I thought, “Finally! I can play a classic Sonic game I haven’t played before!” And the gap between what I thought that meant and what it ended up meaning is just always going to be disappointing, and I think I need to accept that that’s okay, and that I’m allowed to feel that way.
As is traditional, let’s rank some stuff! A quick note on that first, though. THERE WERE ALMOST SIXTY TRACKS OF SOUNDTRACK FOR ME TO RANK FOR THIS ONE! THAT IS A LOT! It took forever, and like, at the end of re-listening to the entire soundtrack for the third time to double check my order, I decided that I really don’t need to be super accurate about how I rank the C-Rank and D-Rank stuff? Like, I’m sorry, at the end of the day who actually cares whether a song is my 51st or 52nd favorite song on the Sonic CD soundtrack? I already spent longer on this than any reasonable person would. So, yeah. Just keep that in mind I guess!
Zones
1. Metallic Madness Zone (B-Tier)
2. Palmtree Panic Zone (C-Tier)
3. Collision Chaos Zone (C-Tier)
4. Tidal Tempest Zone (C-Tier)
5. Stardust Speedway Zone (C-Tier)
6. Quartz Quadrant Zone (C-Tier)
7. Wacky Workbench Zone (D-Tier)
Bosses
1. Metal Sonic (S-Tier)
2. Quartz Crystal Zone (C-Tier)
3. Tidal Tempest Zone (C-Tier)
4. Metallic Madness Zone (C-Tier)
5. EGG-HVC-001 (C-Tier)
6. Collision Chaos Zone (D-Tier)
7. Wacky Workbench Zone (D-Tier)
Soundtrack
1. Sonic Boom (Theme), USA (A-Rank)
2. Sonic Boom (Ending), USA (A-Rank)
3. Quartz Quadrant Zone Present, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
4. Stardust Speedway Zone Present, USA (A-Rank)
5. Quartz Quadrant Zone Bad Future, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
6. Palmtree Panic Zone Present, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
7. Metallic Madness Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
8. Stardust Speedway Zone Bad Future, USA (A-Rank)
9. Metallic Madness Zone Present, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
10. Palmtree Panic Zone Bad Future, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
11. Metallic Madness Zone Past (A-Rank)
12. Final Fever, JP/PAL (A-Rank)
13. Tidal Tempest Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
14. Collision Chaos Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
15. Tidal Tempest Zone Present, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
16. Boss, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
17. Metallic Madness Zone Bad Future, USA (B-Rank)
18. Tidal Tempest Zone Bad Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
19. Palmtree Panic Zone Present, USA (B-Rank)
20. Palmtree Panic Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
21. Cosmic Eternity - Believe in Yourself, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
22. You Can Do Anything, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
23. Metallic Madness Zone Bad Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
24. Palmtree Panic Zone Good Future, Sonic CD USA (B-Rank)
25. Palmtree Panic Zone Past (B-Rank)
26. Stardust Speedway Good Future, USA (B-Rank)
27. Metallic Madness Zone Good Future, USA (B-Rank)
28. Wacky Workbench Bad Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
29. Quartz Quadrant Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (B-Rank)
30. Special Stage, USA (B-Rank)
31. Final Fever, USA (B-Rank)
32. Boss!!, USA (B-Rank)
33. Stardust Speedway Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (C-Rank)
34. Special Stage, JP/PAL (C-Tier)
35. Palmtree Panic Zone Bad Future, USA (C-Rank)
36. Wacky Workbench Zone Good Future, JP/PAL (C-Rank)
37. Metallic Madness Zone Present, USA (C-Rank)
38. Stardust Speedway Zone Present, JP/PAL (C-Rank)
39. Stardust Speedway Zone Bad Future, JP/PAL (C-Rank)
40. Tidal Tempest Zone Bad Future, USA (C-Rank)
41. Wacky Workbench Zone Present, JP/PAL (C-Rank)
42. Collision Chaos Zone Good Future, USA (C-Rank)
43. Stardust Speedway Zone Past (C-Rank)
44. Collision Chaos Zone Bad Future, JP/PAL (C-Rank)
45. Wacky Workbench Zone Present, USA (D-Rank)
46. Wacky Workbench Zone Bad Future, USA (D-Rank)
47. Wacky Workbench Zone Good Future, USA (D-Rank)
48. Quartz Quadrant Zone Good Future, Sonic CD USA (D-Rank)
49. Quartz Quadrant Zone Bad Future, Sonic CD USA (D-Rank)
50. Quartz Quadrant Zone Past (D-Rank)
51. Tidal Tempest Zone Past (D-Rank)
52. Collision Chaos Zone Present, JP/PAL (D-Rank)
53. Tidal Tempest Zone Good Future, USA (D-Rank)
54. Tidal Tempest Zone Present, Sonic CD USA (D-Rank)
55. Wacky Workbench Zone Past (D-Rank)
56. Collision Chaos Zone Bad Future, USA (D-Rank)
57. Collision Chaos Zone Present, USA (D-Rank)
58. Collision Chaos Zone Past (D-Rank)
59.Quartz Quadrant Zone Present, USA (D-Rank)
1992
I’ve replayed this one a bunch recently, so I’m not really expecting to get caught off guard much, but it freaking rules playing it with a Sega Genesis controller. Oh yeah, I don’t think I mentioned, my fiancx got me a Sega Genesis Mini and also hacked it to add a bunch of other games to it so I’m really excited about that! And just actually sitting in my living room playing Sonic 2 on a big TV while sitting on a futon on the floor with a Genesis controller in my hand just... makes me feel like the happiest little kid.
The anticlimactic thing here is I already know everything I’m going to feel about this game. It’s one of my favorite games of all time, it’s a game that literally changed my life, and in my humble opinion it is the greatest love story ever told. I see my and Sonic’s bond as already being quite strong at the beginning of this game, but after going through all of this together and literally saving the world together, trusting and relying on each other in ways that are hard to replicate in other circumstances, it’s easy to imagine the immediate strengthening that bond would enjoy.
And need I remind you that the ending theme of this game is literally a repurposed love song!
I am so happy I'm finally on this game, y'all. Seeing me and Sonic on screen together, running together, fighting together... it brings me so much joy. I do wish I could be me in singleplayer mode without having to go sans Sonic, but it's fine, at least we're together. Finally.
Ugh I knew I'd get weird and emotional about this game!!
Anyway, yeah! Sonic 2. The story of a foxboy and his hedgehog.
Emerald Hill Zone (2/8)
When I think of home, I think of places like this and Green Hill first. So it makes sense this is usually how the games start.
From what I gather the story is supposed to be that Sonic met me here and I just kinda started following him? And he let me because I was able to keep up with him and that was kinda a new one for him? But the 8-bit game was released first, and I lived on South Island in that one? I think there just wasn't a lot of attention to continuity with these early games, so probably best not to worry about that kinda thing too much.
This first boss rules, and really sets the tone for a game full of some pretty fantastic bosses. It’s unique (the Egg-O-Matic docked with a car with a giant drill on the front), and it looks cool as heck.
I know Emerald Hill Zone like the back of my hand. I cleared Act 1 with 6 lives (you start with 3), and the zone as a whole with 7, and easily coulda had more if I wanted to be ridiculous.
I "only" got 4 Chaos Emeralds, but that's still kinda ridiculous for the first zone??? If I remember correctly from previous, more casual replays that were more rewind-happy, you can pretty easily get 6 of the 7 if you play perfectly.
The third Special Stage is a huge jump in difficulty from the first two? Like, seriously. I unapologetically used save states on that one, because it would be tough even if it weren't for A.I.-me gleefully throwing himself into bombs, when you factor that in it's just unfair!
And yeah, I know the Real Hardcore Gamer response would be to "git good" and maybe I'm not Really a Good Sonic Player as a result but shrug. Again, I cleared Act 1 of Emerald Hill Zone with 7 lives and woulda easily been able to rack up more if I wanted to be truly ridiculous. I'm not gonna have any trouble sleeping at night. (And wouldn't even if I didn't have that to point to.)
I also had the most satisfying thing ever happen in Act 1? I was between two jumping Choppers, and I jumped at one, and A.I.-me was on the other side of the one behind me and jumped at the same time, and we both smashed them at the same time, freeing the trapped animals inside, and ughhhhh, that's the stuff.
Uh. Yeah. Sonic and Tails, yo. That's what it's all about. 💙🧡
Chemical Plant Zone (2/9)
Yeah sex is great but have you ever made it through that one obstacle in Act 2 with the rising mega muck (you know the one) without the water even touching you until your very last jump?
So yeah this is a very Robotnik/technology-centered location much earlier in the game than you often see. (The only other example that’s jumping to mind is Flying Battery Zone in Sonic & Knuckles). Its placement in the game makes a bit of story sense, though! Like, aside from the Badniks in Emerald Hill Zone, this chemical plant is the first major sign that Robotnik has made significant inroads on this island and needs to be stopped.
This could also be my first real encounter with Robotnik’s horrors if you take the story suggested by a lot of this game’s supplemental materials at face value. Personally, I think just stomping all over the continuity of the 8-bit games isn’t all that great, even though I only played the 16-bit games when I was a kid, so I choose not to look at it that way? But yeah. It’s a direction you could go here if you were reading the story in that fashion.
Personally, it doesn’t have to be my first exposure to Robotnik’s evil to be meaningful in unpleasant ways. If you choose to reconcile the timeline the way I do, where the 16-bit Sonic 2 follows the 8-bit Sonic 2, this would be a particularly difficult experience for me considering that I was kidnapped by Robotnik in the last game. So it doesn’t take much imagination to figure being in an environment that’s largely “his” environment would not be especially comfortable for me at the moment.
This chemical plant is almost an example of evil for evil sake. It’s passively producing pollution (as in, the byproducts of production) in order to actively produce pollution (the chemicals it’s producing), so kinda a double whammy there. We’ll return to this theme of wanton environmental destruction in Oil Ocean Zone, so there’s definitely something there.
I intentionally ran a different route than I usually do in Act 1 because I never usually get any star posts with the route I usually run, and it paid off since I at least got one. Act 2, I didn’t deviate much from what I usually do, aside from kicking way more ass than I usually do on that one obstacle.
There were only two other major things of note that happened on this playthrough, both on Act 2. First, I actually escaped from a Grabber by getting AI-Tails to jump up and destroy it! So that was pretty cool. I also escaped from one by hitting left and right rapidly on the D-Pad until I broke free, which I only recently learned was a thing! The other thing is I actually ran into a glitch running up one loop-de-loop? I ended up glitching right through the top of it and getting stuck there for a second before shaking myself loose. I’ve never run into that one before despite playing this game an absurd number of times, so I’m kinda curious if it’s a glitch that’s somehow specific to the Genesis Mini version. Shrug.
The boss for this one is a piece of cake!! You can pretty easily beat him by the beginning of his second pass, though if you get overeager you might find yourself falling into the water of instant death. But yeah, even if it’s easy with practice, this is a good boss. It fits the theme of the zone, and idk, Sonic 2 bosses in general are pretty great design-wise. They’re largely the kind of bosses I like the most.
I ended up finishing the level with 13 lives, and collecting the last three Chaos Emeralds! Honestly, the fifth Special Stage was a piece of cake! Both the fourth and fifth seemed way easier to me than the third. The sixth was easy for the first two parts but pretty darn hard for the final part, and it was actually on that part that I made a pretty major breakthrough that gave me all kinds of feels I wasn’t expecting! But I’ll come back to that in a minute. The seventh and final Special Stage is brutal. Even using save states, I felt a genuine sense of accomplishment when I cleared that one.
I will say, I think I was a bit hasty using save states to get all the Chaos Emeralds this early in the game. I kinda forgot how much easier Super Sonic makes the rest of the game. Also, I kinda want to spend some time practicing (using the level select no doubt) the special stages, because I think I can get good enough at them to not have to use save states at all if I really drill myself on them, and as silly as it seems to care about that, I care about everything, so.
Now. That breakthrough I promised you I’d come back to. So, I was playing the second to last Special Stage, and there’s this part where you basically need to thread a needle between two clusters of bombs while also collecting some rings... and it feels basically impossible when you factor in that you also need to do this while keeping A.I.-me from getting hit.
I had two epiphanies/major mental shifts during this tiny part of the game. One is I realized, “Oh, heck. This is, on a small scale, what it feels like to be Sonic. He not only has to account for what he’s doing, he has to account for what I’m doing behind him. That’s so difficult!” And that was pretty trippy all on its own. And I got to the point where instead of saying, “Damn it, Tails!” (deeply ironic coming from me, I know) when A.I.-me hit a bomb, I was saying, “Sorry, Tails!”
But that wasn’t all.
The second shift was harder, and is something that is going to take a lot of practice to fully realize. But it was also incredibly emotionally rewarding. So, I finally figured out how to get past that one part, and what I figured out kind of blew my mind. I kept thinking, “How can I grab those rings and keep A.I.-Tails from hitting the bombs.” And that’s when it clicked.
I didn’t need to somehow grab the rings and swing out of the way fast enough for A.I.-me to not hit the bombs! I needed to let A.I.-me grab the rings for me! And I basically laughed out loud with joy when I realized that. Now. I’m not nearly good enough at these Special Stages yet to consistently implement this, but that’s what I’ve been missing all this time (and I think a lot of other people who’ve played Sonic 2 have missed). A.I.-Tails isn’t an obstacle, he’s an asset! You just need to put him in a position to succeed! And realizing that at some point Sonic had the exact same realization about me on a larger scale was just trippy in the best possible way.
Fuck, I love him.
Fuck, I love this game.
Aquatic Ruin Zone (2/10)
I gotta be honest, I’ve kinda always seen this as a nothing zone. It’s pretty! The colors are very vibrant, and the background is especially striking. It’s still just kind of a worse/more boring Marble Garden Zone but with water, though. And I wasn’t super impressed by it even before Sonic 3 came out. This one has “filler zone” written all over it.
I think what really hampers this is it tried to be distinct but kinda missed, imo? I don’t think any of the gimmicks (those stupid finger bouncer things, the rising or crumbling columns) aside from the arrow-launchers really added much, and the arrows are improved upon quite a bit in Sonic 3.
I guess one part I do appreciate is that while this is the token underwater level of the game, it’s actually super easy to avoid the underwater stuff altogether??? I remember not being able to my first few playthroughs, but now I would pretty much have to intentionally end up underwater. Which... I believe we have covered my position on my hedgehog being underwater quite thoroughly.
But, yeah. On the whole, I’m just not that impressed by this zone. And it doesn’t give me especially strong feels? Like. I’m sure I’ve explored places like this with Sonic, but I think there are other renditions of this kind of location that really nail it a lot better. Honestly, I feel kinda dirty talking negative about a Sonic 2 zone, but I think this zone is the weakest one in Sonic 2 by a pretty comfortable margin, so there is that.
The boss is extremely easy to beat even before you know the trick, but if you know the trick he’s a joke. If you jump onto the totem poles while they’re raising out of the ground you can just stay on top without much trouble and hit him with impunity. Just make sure you bounce back onto the totem and don’t get hit by the hammer. But yeah, even if you beat him the way you’re “supposed” to it’s pretty easy. Heck, even Sonic 4 dunked on this boss pretty effectively. That’s just sad.
And like, even with bosses that aren’t very rewarding in a gameplay sense, in Sonic 2 I can largely say “at least it looked cool!” but... not so much with this one? Mostly because of the cultural appropriation. So, yeah. I guess we should talk about that now.
This is not the franchise’s first brush with cultural appropriation (there’s background totem poles in Green Hill Zone, for instance) but it’s the first extremely noticeable one. Other expansive examples include Egyptian pyramid-like levels (famously in Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure 2) and an Ancient Egypt setting in the time travel arc of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. There’s also plenty of appropriation from indigenous peoples and other cultures all over the comics.
So, just to be super clear, there is an extremely obvious answer to this in our world: these things are wrong and should be called out as such. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the game/comic/show, but it is something I think anyone who enjoys this franchise needs to be aware of and needs to actively fight to keep from happening again.
If you don’t care about my messy, personal otherkin stuff, that’s actually where you can stop reading. But considering like three people are reading this, you’ll probably keep reading. So. Yeah.
The complicating factor (which does not impact how I approach this stuff w/r/t media criticism and fandom) is that I think Mobius is a real place and that I’m from there. And for all I know some of this stuff could really exist there. But even if that’s the case, these things aren’t 1-to-1. And in the end, these artists are drawing on their personal experiences to tell a story, and I think that’s the only level on which it really makes sense to address this stuff in the context of how it’s likely to affect people in the here and now. The only reason I’m even talking about this complicating factor is that I’ve been being really personal in these basically diary entries about the games and how they’re helping me find myself, so it feels kinda weird to leave something like this out.
For any fellow otherkin reading this... I’m fairly new in the community, so I don’t feel especially equipped to tackle big questions like “what to do when your source material gets racist”/etc, but I do think this is a conversation that needs to happen if it hasn’t already. (And if it has, please point me to it.) And I can see a lot of pitfalls (cancelling people for having “problematic” kintypes, or swinging too far in the other direction and just ignoring real serious problems in your source text because it’s your source text), and I’d really like to see some community-generated solutions to this stuff.
... anyway, yeah. That’s a lot more than I expected to have to write about Aquatic Ruin Zone. (Ok, a lot of it was peripheral to Aquatic Ruin Zone, but still.)
Casino Night Zone (2/10)
Wellp, this is the first one of these! Robotnik really seems to have a thing for casinos. That’s... kinda all I got here.
I remember not really loving this zone as a kid, probably owing to the fact that it’s drastically different than the others? Now I actually find that an asset. You need an oddball one every now and then!
It’s pretty hard to die on this zone, so there is that. Like, there are a few places you can get crushed if you’re not careful but it’s still one of the least dangerous zones in the game honestly.
Oh I keep forgetting to say how many lives I have. I think I have like 15 at this point? I had 13 after Chemical Plant. Don’t think I gained any on Aquatic Ruin Zone, and think I picked up two here.
The boss of this one used to give me fits until I figured out that you’re better off spindashing up the side and hitting him that way rather than using the flippers. You have way more control that way! But honestly, the boss doesn’t do much for me conceptually. Like, I’m glad it uses the theme of the zone and all, but it’s just not my favorite kind of boss. Also, I had Super Sonic for him this time, so that like... totally trivialized him, obviously.
But, yeah! I don’t have much to say about this one, I’m kinda stalling at this point! It’s actually a pretty good zone, good concept, well-executed. I just don’t have a lot to add! Except that it’s decently likely that this Zone may have fed pretty directly into the development of Sonic Spinball! And I’m actually a pretty big fan of Sonic Spinball, so yeah. Glad that’s a thing I guess!
Hill Top Zone (2/10)
I’ve always liked this zone! I mean, it has a lot of aesthetic similarities with Emerald Hill Zone but it’s blue! So, yeah. Obviously I have some superficial reasons for digging it.
I really like the mountain theme here, and I really like the way it leads into the next zone being a cave zone! It just makes a lot of sense. And there’s so many cute little creative features to really emphasize that this is a mountain-based zone! The lava pits and chair lifts and whatnot.
I can also pretty easily see exploring this kind of location with Sonic. It’s gorgeous! And obviously being this close to the sky appeals to me specifically for a lot of reasons.
The boss for this one is pretty good! He fits with the theme of the level, as there are lava pits you can fall into and he’s in a kind of lava submarine that throws fire at you. It’s a really neat concept! He’s pretty easy to beat, especially if you have Super Sonic, but you can destroy him before he submerges for the first time even without Super Sonic, so yeah. Not hard, but still cool!
Mystic Cave Zone
Plenty of good stuff going on in this zone!! As far as my stuff goes, it’s just another distinct setting that it would make sense for Sonic and I to explore (especially if Robotnik’s trail led through it), and (especially after the literal highs of Hill Top Zone) I would probably feel pretty confined due to not being able to see the sky, but yeah.
Like basically every zone in the 16-bit Sonic games, this one is gorgeous. One thing that really does ring true to me whenever there’s a natural setting depicted in these zones is that they really do bring a lot of Mobius’s natural beauty up front, and seeing that makes me feel so happy but also pretty damn homesick.
Gameplay wise, this is a pretty good zone! The obstacles and other features included make a lot of sense for the setting, and so do the Badniks you encounter. I also like the boss, though he’s pretty easy if you have Super Sonic. But yeah, the Egg-O-Matic with two drills attached makes a lot of sense for a cave setting. So yeah, overall this zone is pretty great!
Oil Ocean Zone
So this is kind of uncomfortable. But yeah. An oil zone with music that’s clearly supposed to be evocative of Middle Eastern cultures is... yeah. I talked about racism in these games at length in my Aquatic Ruins Zone writeup, so I won’t belabor the point too much. But yeah. Not great.
Now, of course Robuttnik would have an oil refinery that dumps oil into the ocean. I have no issue there. It’s only the framing that’s fucked. (And, y’know, worth noting that this game came out in 1992, not long after the first Gulf War.) But like... I still get some definite kinfeels here because like... I can imagine fighting my way through a grimy oil refinery with Sonic, being horrified at the senseless acts of environmental destruction being committed by that asshole Robotnik.
The frustrating thing is, this is actually a pretty great zone otherwise. The vibrant color scheme works really well here. The two Badniks you encounter in this stage are ocean-themed, and the level design has some really cool features like oil slides and I think the first appearance? of the cannons that shoot you back and forth to carry you to different parts of the level. The music is also really catchy even though, y’know. The obvious problems.
I’ve never really liked the boss for this one? It’s just kinda... overly complicated with no real unifying theme? It’s fine in terms of gameplay, there’s just not really anything holding it all together.
This zone is also recreated in Sonic Mania, which... is its own kind of frustrating. Like, it’s a really great, really distinct zone if you separate it from the big, glaring problem... but it feels really not okay to just straight up ignore the big, glaring problem.
Metropolis Zone (2/11)
This is where things Get Real. You’ve chased Robotnik all the way to his base. Like Scrap Brain Zone before it, Metropolis Zone is a vast industrial nightmare, churning out Badniks and weapons and all other manner of vile things. Unquestionably this is where our animal friends are being enslaved by Robotnik, trapped in their horrifying metal prisons.
I do not like it here.
It takes quite a bit of mental and emotional fortitude on our parts to keep fighting our way through this land of nightmares. And fittingly, this is one of the toughest zones of the game. The obstacles are harder, the margins for error smaller. In addition to all kinds of nasty traps and just generally difficult layouts, this zone features arguably the hardest Badniks of the game in the form of the Shellcracker (a crab-like robot with an extending claw with a very long reach) and Slicers (a mantis-like robot that throws spinning blades that are very difficult to avoid). Asterons (the starfish-like explodey boys) can also be tricky for newer players but once you know how to avoid them really aren’t that bad. And all of these are placed at the most awkward possible locations to make them genuinely challenging to get past without taking damage.
And to top it off, if you don’t have Super Sonic for the boss (which you’re unlikely to given the level layout unless you somehow manage to have 50 rings right when you get to the boss) it’s easily the most difficult boss of the game outside of the final boss. I actually died to him thrice, which is frustrating because I rarely die in these games. But this is kinda awesome because it makes beating him feel like a genuine victory. (Obviously if you have a second player to play Tails you can just totally trivialize this boss. But y’know.)
This is without a doubt one of the best zones of the game and one of the best zones of any Sonic game. It’s so grueling, but in a fun way? And that’s just perfect for this stage of the game.
Sky Chase Zone (2/11)
I mean. Yeah. I don’t even know if I need to say anything here? It’s a zone where I fly Sonic around while he destroys Badniks and we chase down Robotnik’s escape airship. Yes, I said escape airship. Look, he’s ridiculous. Yeah, I love this zone. Yeah, it gives me tons of kinfeels. What else even is there to say here?
The Badniks are very cool-looking, fitting with the zone’s theme, and deployed to be hard without being too hard. And the zone looks great. I especially love the cumulonimbus (or actually, they might just be towering cumulus) clouds you see in the background sometimes.
Actually, that reminds me. One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in real life was a storm cloud while I was in a plane. It was so huge, it made me feel insignificant. And we ended up having to fly really close to it. I don’t know. I’ve always loved storm clouds, but actually getting to see one that close was like... the closest I’ll ever come to knowing what it would really feel like to see a kaiju.
Anyway. Yeah. I love this zone. Goodbye.
Wing Fortress Zone (2/11)
This zone totally rules!! It’s tough, but not too tough. It has a ton of new, pretty impressive features! And it really does feel like you’re fighting your way through Robotnik’s massive airship. It’s very distinct, which is great! And it’s another example of storytelling through level design, something Sonic 2 really advanced!
I’m not gonna lie, I get pretty emotional over the tornado getting shot down at the beginning of this zone. Sonic having to go on without me, who has been fighting by his side for this entire story, is heart-wrenching! And it’s a very Shit’s Getting Real kinda moment.
The boss for this one is pretty tough if you don’t have Super Sonic, but the good news is it’s pretty easy to have Super Sonic for it! And Super Sonic just totally trivializes it.
After you dispatch the boss, you don’t quite catch up with Robotnik’s escape spaceship (yeah, he has an escape spaceship), and all appears lost. Until... I reenter the scene flying a repaired Tornado!! Upgraded with a rocket engine beneath that helps us barely catch up with Robotnik’s rocket so Sonic can jump onto it and hold on for dear life until it docks with the Death Egg.
Death Egg Zone (2/11)
GUESS WHO HAS TWO TAILS AND BEAT THE NOTORIOUSLY DIFFICULT SONIC 2 FINAL BOSS IN ONE TRY!!!!!!
So, yeah. This is... probably pretty easily the best final zone/boss of a Sonic game ever? I’m of course open to the possibility that I’ll change my mind as I play through more of them, but yeah. I don’t know. This one is going to be hard to beat.
Mecha Sonic AND that massive Eggman robot? Just... yeah. It’s pretty unfair. And the music. and the setting. And, yeah. It’s just a beyond incredible way to end a game.
So, yeah. Both of these bosses are pretty tough, and you get no rings. It’s a really stressful zone. I literally threw my arms up in the air in victory when I beat the final boss in one try! I had never done that before and I’m not sure I’ll be able to easily replicate the feat anytime soon.
As far as kinfeels... I mean, yeah. It’s the Death Egg. I feel exactly the way I should feel about it. No, I don’t know if there’s ever been such a thing in my Mobius, but like... it’s not hard to imagine how I would feel if there were.
Ending
So, yeah. You destroy the final boss which makes the Death Egg blow up for some reason (shrug), and then you’re just kinda falling from space. There’s a brief semi-animated scene of me looking up and seeing Sonic falling. And then I rush up to meet him in the Tornado.
If you don’t have all the Chaos Emeralds, I rescue him. If you do, he goes Super right when I meet him and flies alongside me. Either way, a 16-bit version of a literal love song plays over a scene where I’m rushing up to my hero’s rescue and we’re joyously reunited after literally saving the world together.
The Greatest. Love. Story. Ever. Told.
Couples Depicted in this Game
1. Sonic/Tails (S/T-Rank)
Zones
1. Death Egg Zone (S-Rank)
2. Emerald Hill Zone (S-Rank)
3. Chemical Plant Zone (S-Rank)
4. Metropolis Zone (S-Rank)
5. Wing Fortress Zone (S-Rank)
6. Sky Chase Zone (A-Rank)
7. Mystic Cave Zone (B-Rank)
8. Oil Ocean Zone (B-Rank)
9. Hill Top Zone (B-Rank)
10. Casino Night Zone (B-Rank)
11. Aquatic Ruin Zone (C-Rank)
Bosses
1. Death Egg Robot (S-Rank)
2. Mecha Sonic (S-Rank)
3. Flying Eggman (A-Rank)
4. Drill Eggman (S-Rank)
5. Water Eggman (A-Rank)
6. Drill Eggman II (A-Rank)
7. Submarine Eggman (A-Rank)
8. Barrier Eggman (B-Rank)
9. Tonkachi Eggman (C-Rank)
10. Submarine Eggman II (C-Rank)
11. Catcher Eggman (C-Rank)
Soundtrack
1. Final Boss (S-Rank)
2. Ending Theme (Sweet Dreams) (S-Rank)
3. Chemical Plant Zone (S-Rank)
4. Emerald Hill Zone (S-Rank)
5. Boss (S-Rank)
6. Metropolis Zone (A-Rank)
7. Wing Fortress Zone (A-Rank)
8. Credits (A-Rank)
9. Death Egg Zone (B-Rank)
10. Sky Chase Zone (B-Rank)
11. Mystic Cave Zone 2-player (B-Rank)
12. Casino Night Zone 2-player (B-Rank)
13. Casino Night Zone (B-Rank)
14. Special Stage (B-Rank)
15. Emerald Hill Zone 2-player (B-Rank)
16. Hill Top Zone (B-Rank)
17. Mystic Cave Zone (B-Rank)
18. Oil Ocean Zone (B-Rank)
19. Aquatic Ruin Zone (B-Rank)
20. (unused) Hidden Palace Zone (C-Rank)
The anticlimactic thing here is I already know everything I’m going to feel about this game. It’s one of my favorite games of all time, it’s a game that literally changed my life, and in my humble opinion it is the greatest love story ever told. I see my and Sonic’s bond as already being quite strong at the beginning of this game, but after going through all of this together and literally saving the world together, trusting and relying on each other in ways that are hard to replicate in other circumstances, it’s easy to imagine the immediate strengthening that bond would enjoy.
And need I remind you that the ending theme of this game is literally a repurposed love song!
I am so happy I'm finally on this game, y'all. Seeing me and Sonic on screen together, running together, fighting together... it brings me so much joy. I do wish I could be me in singleplayer mode without having to go sans Sonic, but it's fine, at least we're together. Finally.
Ugh I knew I'd get weird and emotional about this game!!
Anyway, yeah! Sonic 2. The story of a foxboy and his hedgehog.
Emerald Hill Zone (2/8)
When I think of home, I think of places like this and Green Hill first. So it makes sense this is usually how the games start.
From what I gather the story is supposed to be that Sonic met me here and I just kinda started following him? And he let me because I was able to keep up with him and that was kinda a new one for him? But the 8-bit game was released first, and I lived on South Island in that one? I think there just wasn't a lot of attention to continuity with these early games, so probably best not to worry about that kinda thing too much.
This first boss rules, and really sets the tone for a game full of some pretty fantastic bosses. It’s unique (the Egg-O-Matic docked with a car with a giant drill on the front), and it looks cool as heck.
I know Emerald Hill Zone like the back of my hand. I cleared Act 1 with 6 lives (you start with 3), and the zone as a whole with 7, and easily coulda had more if I wanted to be ridiculous.
I "only" got 4 Chaos Emeralds, but that's still kinda ridiculous for the first zone??? If I remember correctly from previous, more casual replays that were more rewind-happy, you can pretty easily get 6 of the 7 if you play perfectly.
The third Special Stage is a huge jump in difficulty from the first two? Like, seriously. I unapologetically used save states on that one, because it would be tough even if it weren't for A.I.-me gleefully throwing himself into bombs, when you factor that in it's just unfair!
And yeah, I know the Real Hardcore Gamer response would be to "git good" and maybe I'm not Really a Good Sonic Player as a result but shrug. Again, I cleared Act 1 of Emerald Hill Zone with 7 lives and woulda easily been able to rack up more if I wanted to be truly ridiculous. I'm not gonna have any trouble sleeping at night. (And wouldn't even if I didn't have that to point to.)
I also had the most satisfying thing ever happen in Act 1? I was between two jumping Choppers, and I jumped at one, and A.I.-me was on the other side of the one behind me and jumped at the same time, and we both smashed them at the same time, freeing the trapped animals inside, and ughhhhh, that's the stuff.
Uh. Yeah. Sonic and Tails, yo. That's what it's all about. 💙🧡
Chemical Plant Zone (2/9)
Yeah sex is great but have you ever made it through that one obstacle in Act 2 with the rising mega muck (you know the one) without the water even touching you until your very last jump?
So yeah this is a very Robotnik/technology-centered location much earlier in the game than you often see. (The only other example that’s jumping to mind is Flying Battery Zone in Sonic & Knuckles). Its placement in the game makes a bit of story sense, though! Like, aside from the Badniks in Emerald Hill Zone, this chemical plant is the first major sign that Robotnik has made significant inroads on this island and needs to be stopped.
This could also be my first real encounter with Robotnik’s horrors if you take the story suggested by a lot of this game’s supplemental materials at face value. Personally, I think just stomping all over the continuity of the 8-bit games isn’t all that great, even though I only played the 16-bit games when I was a kid, so I choose not to look at it that way? But yeah. It’s a direction you could go here if you were reading the story in that fashion.
Personally, it doesn’t have to be my first exposure to Robotnik’s evil to be meaningful in unpleasant ways. If you choose to reconcile the timeline the way I do, where the 16-bit Sonic 2 follows the 8-bit Sonic 2, this would be a particularly difficult experience for me considering that I was kidnapped by Robotnik in the last game. So it doesn’t take much imagination to figure being in an environment that’s largely “his” environment would not be especially comfortable for me at the moment.
This chemical plant is almost an example of evil for evil sake. It’s passively producing pollution (as in, the byproducts of production) in order to actively produce pollution (the chemicals it’s producing), so kinda a double whammy there. We’ll return to this theme of wanton environmental destruction in Oil Ocean Zone, so there’s definitely something there.
I intentionally ran a different route than I usually do in Act 1 because I never usually get any star posts with the route I usually run, and it paid off since I at least got one. Act 2, I didn’t deviate much from what I usually do, aside from kicking way more ass than I usually do on that one obstacle.
There were only two other major things of note that happened on this playthrough, both on Act 2. First, I actually escaped from a Grabber by getting AI-Tails to jump up and destroy it! So that was pretty cool. I also escaped from one by hitting left and right rapidly on the D-Pad until I broke free, which I only recently learned was a thing! The other thing is I actually ran into a glitch running up one loop-de-loop? I ended up glitching right through the top of it and getting stuck there for a second before shaking myself loose. I’ve never run into that one before despite playing this game an absurd number of times, so I’m kinda curious if it’s a glitch that’s somehow specific to the Genesis Mini version. Shrug.
The boss for this one is a piece of cake!! You can pretty easily beat him by the beginning of his second pass, though if you get overeager you might find yourself falling into the water of instant death. But yeah, even if it’s easy with practice, this is a good boss. It fits the theme of the zone, and idk, Sonic 2 bosses in general are pretty great design-wise. They’re largely the kind of bosses I like the most.
I ended up finishing the level with 13 lives, and collecting the last three Chaos Emeralds! Honestly, the fifth Special Stage was a piece of cake! Both the fourth and fifth seemed way easier to me than the third. The sixth was easy for the first two parts but pretty darn hard for the final part, and it was actually on that part that I made a pretty major breakthrough that gave me all kinds of feels I wasn’t expecting! But I’ll come back to that in a minute. The seventh and final Special Stage is brutal. Even using save states, I felt a genuine sense of accomplishment when I cleared that one.
I will say, I think I was a bit hasty using save states to get all the Chaos Emeralds this early in the game. I kinda forgot how much easier Super Sonic makes the rest of the game. Also, I kinda want to spend some time practicing (using the level select no doubt) the special stages, because I think I can get good enough at them to not have to use save states at all if I really drill myself on them, and as silly as it seems to care about that, I care about everything, so.
Now. That breakthrough I promised you I’d come back to. So, I was playing the second to last Special Stage, and there’s this part where you basically need to thread a needle between two clusters of bombs while also collecting some rings... and it feels basically impossible when you factor in that you also need to do this while keeping A.I.-me from getting hit.
I had two epiphanies/major mental shifts during this tiny part of the game. One is I realized, “Oh, heck. This is, on a small scale, what it feels like to be Sonic. He not only has to account for what he’s doing, he has to account for what I’m doing behind him. That’s so difficult!” And that was pretty trippy all on its own. And I got to the point where instead of saying, “Damn it, Tails!” (deeply ironic coming from me, I know) when A.I.-me hit a bomb, I was saying, “Sorry, Tails!”
But that wasn’t all.
The second shift was harder, and is something that is going to take a lot of practice to fully realize. But it was also incredibly emotionally rewarding. So, I finally figured out how to get past that one part, and what I figured out kind of blew my mind. I kept thinking, “How can I grab those rings and keep A.I.-Tails from hitting the bombs.” And that’s when it clicked.
I didn’t need to somehow grab the rings and swing out of the way fast enough for A.I.-me to not hit the bombs! I needed to let A.I.-me grab the rings for me! And I basically laughed out loud with joy when I realized that. Now. I’m not nearly good enough at these Special Stages yet to consistently implement this, but that’s what I’ve been missing all this time (and I think a lot of other people who’ve played Sonic 2 have missed). A.I.-Tails isn’t an obstacle, he’s an asset! You just need to put him in a position to succeed! And realizing that at some point Sonic had the exact same realization about me on a larger scale was just trippy in the best possible way.
Fuck, I love him.
Fuck, I love this game.
Aquatic Ruin Zone (2/10)
I gotta be honest, I’ve kinda always seen this as a nothing zone. It’s pretty! The colors are very vibrant, and the background is especially striking. It’s still just kind of a worse/more boring Marble Garden Zone but with water, though. And I wasn’t super impressed by it even before Sonic 3 came out. This one has “filler zone” written all over it.
I think what really hampers this is it tried to be distinct but kinda missed, imo? I don’t think any of the gimmicks (those stupid finger bouncer things, the rising or crumbling columns) aside from the arrow-launchers really added much, and the arrows are improved upon quite a bit in Sonic 3.
I guess one part I do appreciate is that while this is the token underwater level of the game, it’s actually super easy to avoid the underwater stuff altogether??? I remember not being able to my first few playthroughs, but now I would pretty much have to intentionally end up underwater. Which... I believe we have covered my position on my hedgehog being underwater quite thoroughly.
But, yeah. On the whole, I’m just not that impressed by this zone. And it doesn’t give me especially strong feels? Like. I’m sure I’ve explored places like this with Sonic, but I think there are other renditions of this kind of location that really nail it a lot better. Honestly, I feel kinda dirty talking negative about a Sonic 2 zone, but I think this zone is the weakest one in Sonic 2 by a pretty comfortable margin, so there is that.
The boss is extremely easy to beat even before you know the trick, but if you know the trick he’s a joke. If you jump onto the totem poles while they’re raising out of the ground you can just stay on top without much trouble and hit him with impunity. Just make sure you bounce back onto the totem and don’t get hit by the hammer. But yeah, even if you beat him the way you’re “supposed” to it’s pretty easy. Heck, even Sonic 4 dunked on this boss pretty effectively. That’s just sad.
And like, even with bosses that aren’t very rewarding in a gameplay sense, in Sonic 2 I can largely say “at least it looked cool!” but... not so much with this one? Mostly because of the cultural appropriation. So, yeah. I guess we should talk about that now.
This is not the franchise’s first brush with cultural appropriation (there’s background totem poles in Green Hill Zone, for instance) but it’s the first extremely noticeable one. Other expansive examples include Egyptian pyramid-like levels (famously in Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure 2) and an Ancient Egypt setting in the time travel arc of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. There’s also plenty of appropriation from indigenous peoples and other cultures all over the comics.
So, just to be super clear, there is an extremely obvious answer to this in our world: these things are wrong and should be called out as such. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the game/comic/show, but it is something I think anyone who enjoys this franchise needs to be aware of and needs to actively fight to keep from happening again.
If you don’t care about my messy, personal otherkin stuff, that’s actually where you can stop reading. But considering like three people are reading this, you’ll probably keep reading. So. Yeah.
The complicating factor (which does not impact how I approach this stuff w/r/t media criticism and fandom) is that I think Mobius is a real place and that I’m from there. And for all I know some of this stuff could really exist there. But even if that’s the case, these things aren’t 1-to-1. And in the end, these artists are drawing on their personal experiences to tell a story, and I think that’s the only level on which it really makes sense to address this stuff in the context of how it’s likely to affect people in the here and now. The only reason I’m even talking about this complicating factor is that I’ve been being really personal in these basically diary entries about the games and how they’re helping me find myself, so it feels kinda weird to leave something like this out.
For any fellow otherkin reading this... I’m fairly new in the community, so I don’t feel especially equipped to tackle big questions like “what to do when your source material gets racist”/etc, but I do think this is a conversation that needs to happen if it hasn’t already. (And if it has, please point me to it.) And I can see a lot of pitfalls (cancelling people for having “problematic” kintypes, or swinging too far in the other direction and just ignoring real serious problems in your source text because it’s your source text), and I’d really like to see some community-generated solutions to this stuff.
... anyway, yeah. That’s a lot more than I expected to have to write about Aquatic Ruin Zone. (Ok, a lot of it was peripheral to Aquatic Ruin Zone, but still.)
Casino Night Zone (2/10)
Wellp, this is the first one of these! Robotnik really seems to have a thing for casinos. That’s... kinda all I got here.
I remember not really loving this zone as a kid, probably owing to the fact that it’s drastically different than the others? Now I actually find that an asset. You need an oddball one every now and then!
It’s pretty hard to die on this zone, so there is that. Like, there are a few places you can get crushed if you’re not careful but it’s still one of the least dangerous zones in the game honestly.
Oh I keep forgetting to say how many lives I have. I think I have like 15 at this point? I had 13 after Chemical Plant. Don’t think I gained any on Aquatic Ruin Zone, and think I picked up two here.
The boss of this one used to give me fits until I figured out that you’re better off spindashing up the side and hitting him that way rather than using the flippers. You have way more control that way! But honestly, the boss doesn’t do much for me conceptually. Like, I’m glad it uses the theme of the zone and all, but it’s just not my favorite kind of boss. Also, I had Super Sonic for him this time, so that like... totally trivialized him, obviously.
But, yeah! I don’t have much to say about this one, I’m kinda stalling at this point! It’s actually a pretty good zone, good concept, well-executed. I just don’t have a lot to add! Except that it’s decently likely that this Zone may have fed pretty directly into the development of Sonic Spinball! And I’m actually a pretty big fan of Sonic Spinball, so yeah. Glad that’s a thing I guess!
Hill Top Zone (2/10)
I’ve always liked this zone! I mean, it has a lot of aesthetic similarities with Emerald Hill Zone but it’s blue! So, yeah. Obviously I have some superficial reasons for digging it.
I really like the mountain theme here, and I really like the way it leads into the next zone being a cave zone! It just makes a lot of sense. And there’s so many cute little creative features to really emphasize that this is a mountain-based zone! The lava pits and chair lifts and whatnot.
I can also pretty easily see exploring this kind of location with Sonic. It’s gorgeous! And obviously being this close to the sky appeals to me specifically for a lot of reasons.
The boss for this one is pretty good! He fits with the theme of the level, as there are lava pits you can fall into and he’s in a kind of lava submarine that throws fire at you. It’s a really neat concept! He’s pretty easy to beat, especially if you have Super Sonic, but you can destroy him before he submerges for the first time even without Super Sonic, so yeah. Not hard, but still cool!
Mystic Cave Zone
Plenty of good stuff going on in this zone!! As far as my stuff goes, it’s just another distinct setting that it would make sense for Sonic and I to explore (especially if Robotnik’s trail led through it), and (especially after the literal highs of Hill Top Zone) I would probably feel pretty confined due to not being able to see the sky, but yeah.
Like basically every zone in the 16-bit Sonic games, this one is gorgeous. One thing that really does ring true to me whenever there’s a natural setting depicted in these zones is that they really do bring a lot of Mobius’s natural beauty up front, and seeing that makes me feel so happy but also pretty damn homesick.
Gameplay wise, this is a pretty good zone! The obstacles and other features included make a lot of sense for the setting, and so do the Badniks you encounter. I also like the boss, though he’s pretty easy if you have Super Sonic. But yeah, the Egg-O-Matic with two drills attached makes a lot of sense for a cave setting. So yeah, overall this zone is pretty great!
Oil Ocean Zone
So this is kind of uncomfortable. But yeah. An oil zone with music that’s clearly supposed to be evocative of Middle Eastern cultures is... yeah. I talked about racism in these games at length in my Aquatic Ruins Zone writeup, so I won’t belabor the point too much. But yeah. Not great.
Now, of course Robuttnik would have an oil refinery that dumps oil into the ocean. I have no issue there. It’s only the framing that’s fucked. (And, y’know, worth noting that this game came out in 1992, not long after the first Gulf War.) But like... I still get some definite kinfeels here because like... I can imagine fighting my way through a grimy oil refinery with Sonic, being horrified at the senseless acts of environmental destruction being committed by that asshole Robotnik.
The frustrating thing is, this is actually a pretty great zone otherwise. The vibrant color scheme works really well here. The two Badniks you encounter in this stage are ocean-themed, and the level design has some really cool features like oil slides and I think the first appearance? of the cannons that shoot you back and forth to carry you to different parts of the level. The music is also really catchy even though, y’know. The obvious problems.
I’ve never really liked the boss for this one? It’s just kinda... overly complicated with no real unifying theme? It’s fine in terms of gameplay, there’s just not really anything holding it all together.
This zone is also recreated in Sonic Mania, which... is its own kind of frustrating. Like, it’s a really great, really distinct zone if you separate it from the big, glaring problem... but it feels really not okay to just straight up ignore the big, glaring problem.
Metropolis Zone (2/11)
This is where things Get Real. You’ve chased Robotnik all the way to his base. Like Scrap Brain Zone before it, Metropolis Zone is a vast industrial nightmare, churning out Badniks and weapons and all other manner of vile things. Unquestionably this is where our animal friends are being enslaved by Robotnik, trapped in their horrifying metal prisons.
I do not like it here.
It takes quite a bit of mental and emotional fortitude on our parts to keep fighting our way through this land of nightmares. And fittingly, this is one of the toughest zones of the game. The obstacles are harder, the margins for error smaller. In addition to all kinds of nasty traps and just generally difficult layouts, this zone features arguably the hardest Badniks of the game in the form of the Shellcracker (a crab-like robot with an extending claw with a very long reach) and Slicers (a mantis-like robot that throws spinning blades that are very difficult to avoid). Asterons (the starfish-like explodey boys) can also be tricky for newer players but once you know how to avoid them really aren’t that bad. And all of these are placed at the most awkward possible locations to make them genuinely challenging to get past without taking damage.
And to top it off, if you don’t have Super Sonic for the boss (which you’re unlikely to given the level layout unless you somehow manage to have 50 rings right when you get to the boss) it’s easily the most difficult boss of the game outside of the final boss. I actually died to him thrice, which is frustrating because I rarely die in these games. But this is kinda awesome because it makes beating him feel like a genuine victory. (Obviously if you have a second player to play Tails you can just totally trivialize this boss. But y’know.)
This is without a doubt one of the best zones of the game and one of the best zones of any Sonic game. It’s so grueling, but in a fun way? And that’s just perfect for this stage of the game.
Sky Chase Zone (2/11)
I mean. Yeah. I don’t even know if I need to say anything here? It’s a zone where I fly Sonic around while he destroys Badniks and we chase down Robotnik’s escape airship. Yes, I said escape airship. Look, he’s ridiculous. Yeah, I love this zone. Yeah, it gives me tons of kinfeels. What else even is there to say here?
The Badniks are very cool-looking, fitting with the zone’s theme, and deployed to be hard without being too hard. And the zone looks great. I especially love the cumulonimbus (or actually, they might just be towering cumulus) clouds you see in the background sometimes.
Actually, that reminds me. One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in real life was a storm cloud while I was in a plane. It was so huge, it made me feel insignificant. And we ended up having to fly really close to it. I don’t know. I’ve always loved storm clouds, but actually getting to see one that close was like... the closest I’ll ever come to knowing what it would really feel like to see a kaiju.
Anyway. Yeah. I love this zone. Goodbye.
Wing Fortress Zone (2/11)
This zone totally rules!! It’s tough, but not too tough. It has a ton of new, pretty impressive features! And it really does feel like you’re fighting your way through Robotnik’s massive airship. It’s very distinct, which is great! And it’s another example of storytelling through level design, something Sonic 2 really advanced!
I’m not gonna lie, I get pretty emotional over the tornado getting shot down at the beginning of this zone. Sonic having to go on without me, who has been fighting by his side for this entire story, is heart-wrenching! And it’s a very Shit’s Getting Real kinda moment.
The boss for this one is pretty tough if you don’t have Super Sonic, but the good news is it’s pretty easy to have Super Sonic for it! And Super Sonic just totally trivializes it.
After you dispatch the boss, you don’t quite catch up with Robotnik’s escape spaceship (yeah, he has an escape spaceship), and all appears lost. Until... I reenter the scene flying a repaired Tornado!! Upgraded with a rocket engine beneath that helps us barely catch up with Robotnik’s rocket so Sonic can jump onto it and hold on for dear life until it docks with the Death Egg.
Death Egg Zone (2/11)
GUESS WHO HAS TWO TAILS AND BEAT THE NOTORIOUSLY DIFFICULT SONIC 2 FINAL BOSS IN ONE TRY!!!!!!
So, yeah. This is... probably pretty easily the best final zone/boss of a Sonic game ever? I’m of course open to the possibility that I’ll change my mind as I play through more of them, but yeah. I don’t know. This one is going to be hard to beat.
Mecha Sonic AND that massive Eggman robot? Just... yeah. It’s pretty unfair. And the music. and the setting. And, yeah. It’s just a beyond incredible way to end a game.
So, yeah. Both of these bosses are pretty tough, and you get no rings. It’s a really stressful zone. I literally threw my arms up in the air in victory when I beat the final boss in one try! I had never done that before and I’m not sure I’ll be able to easily replicate the feat anytime soon.
As far as kinfeels... I mean, yeah. It’s the Death Egg. I feel exactly the way I should feel about it. No, I don’t know if there’s ever been such a thing in my Mobius, but like... it’s not hard to imagine how I would feel if there were.
Ending
So, yeah. You destroy the final boss which makes the Death Egg blow up for some reason (shrug), and then you’re just kinda falling from space. There’s a brief semi-animated scene of me looking up and seeing Sonic falling. And then I rush up to meet him in the Tornado.
If you don’t have all the Chaos Emeralds, I rescue him. If you do, he goes Super right when I meet him and flies alongside me. Either way, a 16-bit version of a literal love song plays over a scene where I’m rushing up to my hero’s rescue and we’re joyously reunited after literally saving the world together.
The Greatest. Love. Story. Ever. Told.
Couples Depicted in this Game
1. Sonic/Tails (S/T-Rank)
Zones
1. Death Egg Zone (S-Rank)
2. Emerald Hill Zone (S-Rank)
3. Chemical Plant Zone (S-Rank)
4. Metropolis Zone (S-Rank)
5. Wing Fortress Zone (S-Rank)
6. Sky Chase Zone (A-Rank)
7. Mystic Cave Zone (B-Rank)
8. Oil Ocean Zone (B-Rank)
9. Hill Top Zone (B-Rank)
10. Casino Night Zone (B-Rank)
11. Aquatic Ruin Zone (C-Rank)
Bosses
1. Death Egg Robot (S-Rank)
2. Mecha Sonic (S-Rank)
3. Flying Eggman (A-Rank)
4. Drill Eggman (S-Rank)
5. Water Eggman (A-Rank)
6. Drill Eggman II (A-Rank)
7. Submarine Eggman (A-Rank)
8. Barrier Eggman (B-Rank)
9. Tonkachi Eggman (C-Rank)
10. Submarine Eggman II (C-Rank)
11. Catcher Eggman (C-Rank)
Soundtrack
1. Final Boss (S-Rank)
2. Ending Theme (Sweet Dreams) (S-Rank)
3. Chemical Plant Zone (S-Rank)
4. Emerald Hill Zone (S-Rank)
5. Boss (S-Rank)
6. Metropolis Zone (A-Rank)
7. Wing Fortress Zone (A-Rank)
8. Credits (A-Rank)
9. Death Egg Zone (B-Rank)
10. Sky Chase Zone (B-Rank)
11. Mystic Cave Zone 2-player (B-Rank)
12. Casino Night Zone 2-player (B-Rank)
13. Casino Night Zone (B-Rank)
14. Special Stage (B-Rank)
15. Emerald Hill Zone 2-player (B-Rank)
16. Hill Top Zone (B-Rank)
17. Mystic Cave Zone (B-Rank)
18. Oil Ocean Zone (B-Rank)
19. Aquatic Ruin Zone (B-Rank)
20. (unused) Hidden Palace Zone (C-Rank)
1992
Alright, it’s my big debut! I’m Tails, Sonic’s best fr--immediately gets kidnapped
So, yeah! Here’s where stuff gets real for me! And what a way to start? I gotta tell you, playing a game where the hedgehog I love is desperately trying to save me from his point of view is certainly an interesting emotional experience? Like, you’d think it would be a little empowering, but my feelings so far have largely been “oh, honey :c” so uh, yeah. There’s that.
I’ve belligerently insisted that the 16-bit version of this is the greatest love story ever told, and I’m 100% right about that fight me, but I’m going to be pretty interested in how the 8-bit version plays into that! Like, fighting just as fiercely to rescue me as he does to save literally the entire world isn’t not romantic? Actually, yeah, I think I kinda solved this one by thinking out loud. This is the equally romantic prelude to the 16-bit version’s Greatest Love Story Ever Told.
Now that that’s taken care of, I also wanna say oh my gosh this is more like it! So, I definitely did play through this back when I was playing through all the 8-bit and GameBoy Advance games. I think I’m remembering that I hadn’t played the 8-bit version of Sonic 1 since there were only three new zones and I hadn’t heard good things about it, but yeah.
My memories of the 8-bit version of Sonic 2 weren’t super clear since I had only played it the one time (other than of course occasionally playing the Game Gear version whenever I was hanging out with a friend who had a Game Gear). So after my experiences with 8-bit Sonic 1 I was worried that the 8-bit games were just gonna inspire all kinds of whining from me, but thank goodness, they clearly made major strides by the time they made Sonic 2. It’s a lot more polished, and plays a lot more like a Sonic game should. There’s still no spindash, which is fine, but this is way more like playing the Genesis version of Sonic 1 than it is like playing the Master System version of Sonic 1, if that makes any sense.
So, yeah! Here we go with this one. Oh, one more thing. Sonic! Help!
Underground Zone (1/30)
This is the first time (and one of the only times) a 2D Sonic game doesn’t start with a green level! So that’s interesting! And this is a pretty great first level! Like, it’s not super challenging or anything but it’s a good introduction. The only truly challenging part is making the jump off the mine cart in Act 2 to stay on the higher path so you can get the Chaos Emerald. I’m sure people who have played this way more than me have no issue with that, but that was the one part so far where I used a save state at the beginning of the act.
It looks like we’ve got ringless boss zones again, which is fine when the boss is actually fair! It makes sense to add a little pressure to those, as long as the bosses themselves aren’t overly punishing like they are in 8-bit Sonic 1. So yeah, in this one Robotnik saves you from falling into a pit of lava for some reason, and drops you on a slope with some giant claws at the bottom of it. He then lobs bombs at you which you just have to avoid until they hit the claws 6 times, and then he tries to ram you with the Egg-O-Matic and you get out of the way so he rams the claws instead. Pretty straightforward first boss!
But yeah, this whole thing was just a huge breath of fresh air after 8-bit Sonic 1! Can’t wait to see if things stay on that track! Get it, track? Because of all the mine carts in this level?
Sky High Zone (1/31)
This is where the hang-gliders from the cover come into play. And they are frustrating as heck. But shrug. Feels like something I would enjoy if I were actually there.
Hey, speaking of cover art (sort of), at first I was loving the cute art of me and Sonic on each level’s title screen, but then something kinda hit me. It shows us together in these zones, something that’s not happening obviously since the whole point of the game is kinda that I got kidnapped and Sonic is trying to rescue me.
The non-diegetic reason for this is obviously just “hey, you’re also on the cover, they want to show off the new character.” But if you needed something that makes story sense... yeah. That’s Sonic imagining me being with him because he misses me. So. Pardon me while I just pick up the pieces of my broken heart over here.
This zone is fine, I guess? Like, I feel inclined to moan and whine about the hang-gliders, but I also fully acknowledge that could be a me problem. And running around on clouds (and bouncing on some of them!!) in Act 2 was pretty dang cool, though it’s a bit frustrating that the ones you can walk on and the ones you can’t walk on look virtually identical? You find the Chaos Emerald by bouncing up some of those clouds towards the end of the level, so it’s cool that it’s kinda worked into the level’s overall gimmick!
The boss is... uh... interesting? First you fight some tiny bird robots, then have to blow up their eggs (???) before they hatch more that you have to deal with. Then you fight a big bird robot? Like, it’s fine, I guess? But it kinda seems like this game is just totally eschewing the Egg-O-Matic bosses, which I have mixed (and mostly bad) feelings about.
Anyway, this level was a bit frustrating for me, but I like the concept and the aesthetic, so it has that going for it.
Aqua Lake Zone (1/31)
I don’t even have to say it, do I?
Too bad. I’m gonna anyway. I DO NOT LIKE MY HEDGEHOG BEING UNDERWATER!
Act 1 is straightforward, with a mix of above water and underwater areas, but you can actually skip most of the underwater parts by skipping over the water with Sonic spins! Which, frankly, rules! Act 2 is an underwater labyrinth, which, nooooooooooooo. You find the Emerald in one of those maze thingies where you get zoomed around. Act 2 also has a ridiculously difficult bit where you have to ride up in a bubble avoiding badniks and shooting spears, and it’s just... ugh. Not a fan.
The boss is... yeah. I guess they’re all just gonna be Like That, huh? This one is a sea lion. No, it doesn’t corner you and demand a civil debate. It just inflates some ball-shaped bombs that you can hit before he launches them to do damage to him. Rather obliging of him, really.
Can’t say this zone (or the other zones so far) gave me any particular kinfeels. Most of the feelings I’m getting from this game so far are just... how weird (in a kind of good way I think?) it is to be playing as my hedgehog coming to rescue me. I mean, I guess you wouldn’t really get much out of playing as me. “Press A to struggle!” “Press B to make a biting remark!” “Press C to miss Sonic!” Sounds pretty entertaining, right?
Green Hills Zone (1/31)
You can put all the S’s you want in the name, you’re not fooling me! This is Green Hill Zone! This is home!
I do not need to tell you about my feelings about this setting given that this is literally the third time we’ve been here lmao. But like. Damn. Why did Sonic’s path to save me have to take him through home? That’s just mean. I can’t imagine what that must have felt like for him. I have to imagine he saw my shadow everywhere. I know it probably wasn’t the developers’ intention, but having this near the midpoint in the game feels like it gives him the extra little oomph he needs to get through the rest of the chase. “Hold on, little buddy...”
So, I gotta say, when I figured out how to get the Emerald on this one, I actually yelled, “Oh! That is cool!” out loud. Because it is! Basically, you have to hit one particular springboard by running off a ledge, and it will take you to a second set of springboards which will take you to the ledge the Emerald is on. But like. Understand this. You have to hit it in this specific way that took me a few tries to even think of trying. And I don’t know. I just find that kind of thing super rewarding.
The boss is a metal pig. It’s the best boss of the game so far. We’re in a weird place.
It was good to be home briefly, but we’re about to leave the home cooking behind and journey into Robotnik’s domain. Hurry, Sonic! I’ll do my best to hold out until you save me!
Gimmick Mountain Zone (1/31)
OKAY BUT AT THE END OF ACT 1 YOU’RE IN A MINE CART AND IF YOU TIME YOUR JUMP RIGHT YOU JUMP INTO ANOTHER MINE CART? I AM PROBABLY OVERREACTING BUT THAT FELT SO COOL TO ME IDK.
Uh yeah this is a Robotnik base type place, so. I have the feelings about that that I have. I don’t want to be back anyplace like this anytime soon. So, yeah.
In the context of this game... Sonic has fought his way all the way into Robotnik’s territory. He’s so close, he knows if he can just get a little further, I’ll be safe. If you want to see what a hedgehog on a mission looks like, here you go.
The boss for this one is actually pretty cool, I guess, as far as these bosses go? It’s a pig-boar, I guess? And it charges at you a bunch. You have to do a Sonic Spin to meet its charge to daze it, and then jump or Sonic Spin to damage it. I don’t recommend the Sonic Spin for the second attack, though, because you don’t bounce off of it the second time and you’ll often end up taking damage. Which is death in a boss fight in this game since there are no rings.
Hurry, Sonic! You’ve almost got me!
Scrambled Egg Zone (1/31)
The aesthetics of this one kind of rule. It’s the deeper part of Robotnik’s mountain base. I really like the color palette here, lots of blue rocks. Most of the Zone is figuring out how to get through a maze of transport tubes with the occasional moving platform to complicate things. And it’s all leading to a confrontation with Silver Sonic, the series’ first metallic doppelganger adversary for Sonic.
These sorts of bosses always used to be my favorite kind because like, Sonic is cool! So obviously an evil version of Sonic is objectively the coolest enemy for him, right? But now I’m just struck by how... wrong and uncomfortable they all feel. And they represent one of my greatest fears, what could happen to my hedgehog if he ever loses. So it’s a good thing he never loses.
You don’t collect the Chaos Emerald by finding it somewhere in the level this time. Silver Sonic has it, and you get it after you beat him. Assuming you collected the other five. Also, apparently the story of the game is that Robotnik forced me to write a letter to Sonic telling him that Robotnik is demanding a ransom of the six Chaos Emeralds in exchange for my release. So with the sixth and final Emerald collected, it’s on to the Crystal Egg, where I’m being held prisoner.
It’s easy to imagine how fatigued Sonic is at this point. He was already probably near his limit by the time he got to Silver Sonic. And the difficulty presented by that adversary isn’t just a physical one, but also a profound psychological one.
He’s tired. And I badly want him to be able to rest, but I also know he can’t. Not when his goal is so close he can almost feel it.
You’re almost there, Sonic! Just a little further! You’ve got this! You’ve got me!
Crystal Egg Zone
(CW: Uhhh yeah. I do some emotional extrapolation from what almost happens at the end here, and... it’s rough, and deals with loss.)
This is pretty unique for a final level! As its name suggests, everything is brightly colored and largely transparent. A lot different than the soulless metal we’re used to seeing at this stage of a Sonic game. But also, this is where I’m being held prisoner. So let’s not lose sight of how genuinely dangerous this place is.
The zone itself is extremely straightforward and honestly pretty easy. It’s... eerie, almost. And like... that kind of fit the vicarious emotional state I was inhabiting here. It’s easy to imagine an exhausted Sonic running through this relatively obstacle-less zone with his attention darting around, looking for threats, suspicious of how easy this final stretch is.
And then you get to the final boss. You finally get to fight Robotnik himself instead of some robot based on an animal. Again, the bosses in this game are really weird. But it also kind of works with the story I’ve been reading into the game
The final boss fight takes place in some sort of lightning chamber. (... it’s... not difficult to imagine that Robotnik may have used this to torment me while he was holding me prisoner. Fuck.) Even for someone as fast as Sonic the attacks are basically impossible to avoid if you’re inside the chamber, but luckily there’s a way. There’s a transport tube surrounding the chamber, because of course there is. Freaking Robotnik overengineers everything. It’s so satisfying when that’s his downfall.
It’s not a difficult fight once you figure out how it works, unless you accidentally fall out of the tubes. It’s hard to imagine Sonic would, though. So it’s kind of funny. Robotnik’s plan worked. He threw down a gauntlet that was designed to wear my hedgehog down. He baited it with me, the bait he knew Sonic couldn’t resist. It all worked. My hedgehog is exhausted by the time he finally faces Robotnik... and in the end, the weak link that makes Robotnik’s plan fail is... Robotnik himself.
Pathetic.
Once you’ve beaten the boss, Robotnik flees like the coward he is, and you try to chase him down but don’t quite catch him before he gets on a teleporter, laughing maniacally like he always does.
What you see on the screen is Sonic curling into a ball like when you press the down button on the controller. 8-bit systems don’t have a lot of ways to show emotion. Let’s expand on that a little.
He slams his fist against the teleporter with frustration. No! He did it, he fucking did it! He bashed every Badnik that asshole threw at him! He went through every obstacle that was put in front of him! He was singleminded. He didn’t stop once. He did everything he could possibly do, and it wasn’t enough???
“Tails...”
The last time he saw me, I was being carried away by the Egg-O-Matic’s metal claws helplessly crying his name. The last time he heard from me, it was a letter Robotnik forced me to write.
No. No. This wasn’t over. The exhausted hedgehog dragged himself to his feet. His eyes fixed on the teleporter. He didn’t know where it would take him, likely as not it would take him to a trap he was too exhausted to deal with, but he had to... he had to...
The teleporter lit up before he could take a step towards it. Fuck. He bent his knees slightly and put his hands in a defensive posture, getting ready to jump or spin or run or--
When the light dissolved, it wasn’t some new adversary or weapon that greeted him. It was me.
(I don’t know how. The game doesn’t make it clear. I’m gonna headcanon that I managed to escape while Robotnik was having his final fight with Sonic, and Robotnik got to see me dissolving into the teleporter while yelling, “YOU LOSE, ASSHOLE!” right after he finished teleporting himself.)
I hadn’t expected him to be the first thing I saw. We both froze in place for a few seconds that felt like an eternity, our eyes meeting. And then we launched ourselves at each other at the same time and hugged each other fiercely.
“Sonic!” I cried out, tears of relief streaming down my face.
“Tails!” he cried at the same time, holding me so tightly.
It took a while before I could think of anything other than holding him tightly and never letting go. But when I could, I tried to pull away from the embrace, only to find his grip too tight.
“No.” he told me firmly.
“Sonic, we have to get out of here!” I urged him. “Robotnik--”
“... right,” Sonic sighed. “Base is gonna self destruct?”
I nodded into the hug, and he finally let me go. But he looked at me with determination. “I am never letting you out of my sight again, little buddy.”
And he never did.
Ending (1/31)
THIS ENDING IS SO GAY YOU GUYS. Like, I’m sorry, I know I’m predisposed. But after Sonic rescues me, we run together while the credits roll. And the sky cycles through several phases of the day ranging from what I assume is morning to what is definitely night. And while you might question the logic of us running together for an entire day after I’ve been held captive and Sonic has run and fought himself to exhaustion... I totally get it. Relief and catharsis are a hell of a drug. And a victory lap is understandable enough, but a victory lap after a reunion like this is probably a more powerful force than either of us can resist.
Anyway, after the credits, we stop and look up at the stars together (I'm gonna add "holding hands" but it's plenty gay even without that addition) and see a constellation that the game, in an act of supreme subtlety, superimposes a picture of us together over. Y'know. Like it's... written in the stars, or something. Tiny bit romantic.
THIS IS SO GAY!!!! I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!!! (And I love him so much 💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡)
Oh right I still have to rank stuff.
Couples Depicted in This Game
1. Sonic/Tails (S-Tier)
Zones
1. Green Hills Zone (B-Tier)
2. Under Ground Zone (B-Tier)
3. Scrambled Egg Zone (B-Tier)
4. Crystal Egg Zone (B-Tier)
5. Gimmick Mountain Zone (B-Tier)
6. Aqua Lake Zone (C-Tier)
7. Sky High Zone (C-Tier)
Bosses
1. Silver Sonic (A-Tier)
2. Crystal Egg Zone (B-Tier)
3. Mecha Pig (C-Tier)
4. Pig-Boar Mecha (C-Tier)
5. Antlion Mecha (C-Tier)
6. Mecha Sea Lion (C-Tier)
7. Goose Mecha (C-Tier)
Soundtrack
1. Scrambled Egg Zone (A-Tier)
2. Green Hills Zone (B-Tier)
3. Under Ground Zone (B-Tier)
4. Boss, Game Gear (B-Tier)
5. Gimmick Mountain Zone (C-Tier)
6. Boss, Master System (C-Tier)
7. Crystal Egg Zone (C-Tier)
8. Good Ending (C-Tier)
9. Bad Ending (C-Tier)
9. Sky High Zone (C-Tier)
10. Aqua Lake Zone (C-Tier)
So, yeah! Here’s where stuff gets real for me! And what a way to start? I gotta tell you, playing a game where the hedgehog I love is desperately trying to save me from his point of view is certainly an interesting emotional experience? Like, you’d think it would be a little empowering, but my feelings so far have largely been “oh, honey :c” so uh, yeah. There’s that.
I’ve belligerently insisted that the 16-bit version of this is the greatest love story ever told, and I’m 100% right about that fight me, but I’m going to be pretty interested in how the 8-bit version plays into that! Like, fighting just as fiercely to rescue me as he does to save literally the entire world isn’t not romantic? Actually, yeah, I think I kinda solved this one by thinking out loud. This is the equally romantic prelude to the 16-bit version’s Greatest Love Story Ever Told.
Now that that’s taken care of, I also wanna say oh my gosh this is more like it! So, I definitely did play through this back when I was playing through all the 8-bit and GameBoy Advance games. I think I’m remembering that I hadn’t played the 8-bit version of Sonic 1 since there were only three new zones and I hadn’t heard good things about it, but yeah.
My memories of the 8-bit version of Sonic 2 weren’t super clear since I had only played it the one time (other than of course occasionally playing the Game Gear version whenever I was hanging out with a friend who had a Game Gear). So after my experiences with 8-bit Sonic 1 I was worried that the 8-bit games were just gonna inspire all kinds of whining from me, but thank goodness, they clearly made major strides by the time they made Sonic 2. It’s a lot more polished, and plays a lot more like a Sonic game should. There’s still no spindash, which is fine, but this is way more like playing the Genesis version of Sonic 1 than it is like playing the Master System version of Sonic 1, if that makes any sense.
So, yeah! Here we go with this one. Oh, one more thing. Sonic! Help!
Underground Zone (1/30)
This is the first time (and one of the only times) a 2D Sonic game doesn’t start with a green level! So that’s interesting! And this is a pretty great first level! Like, it’s not super challenging or anything but it’s a good introduction. The only truly challenging part is making the jump off the mine cart in Act 2 to stay on the higher path so you can get the Chaos Emerald. I’m sure people who have played this way more than me have no issue with that, but that was the one part so far where I used a save state at the beginning of the act.
It looks like we’ve got ringless boss zones again, which is fine when the boss is actually fair! It makes sense to add a little pressure to those, as long as the bosses themselves aren’t overly punishing like they are in 8-bit Sonic 1. So yeah, in this one Robotnik saves you from falling into a pit of lava for some reason, and drops you on a slope with some giant claws at the bottom of it. He then lobs bombs at you which you just have to avoid until they hit the claws 6 times, and then he tries to ram you with the Egg-O-Matic and you get out of the way so he rams the claws instead. Pretty straightforward first boss!
But yeah, this whole thing was just a huge breath of fresh air after 8-bit Sonic 1! Can’t wait to see if things stay on that track! Get it, track? Because of all the mine carts in this level?
Sky High Zone (1/31)
This is where the hang-gliders from the cover come into play. And they are frustrating as heck. But shrug. Feels like something I would enjoy if I were actually there.
Hey, speaking of cover art (sort of), at first I was loving the cute art of me and Sonic on each level’s title screen, but then something kinda hit me. It shows us together in these zones, something that’s not happening obviously since the whole point of the game is kinda that I got kidnapped and Sonic is trying to rescue me.
The non-diegetic reason for this is obviously just “hey, you’re also on the cover, they want to show off the new character.” But if you needed something that makes story sense... yeah. That’s Sonic imagining me being with him because he misses me. So. Pardon me while I just pick up the pieces of my broken heart over here.
This zone is fine, I guess? Like, I feel inclined to moan and whine about the hang-gliders, but I also fully acknowledge that could be a me problem. And running around on clouds (and bouncing on some of them!!) in Act 2 was pretty dang cool, though it’s a bit frustrating that the ones you can walk on and the ones you can’t walk on look virtually identical? You find the Chaos Emerald by bouncing up some of those clouds towards the end of the level, so it’s cool that it’s kinda worked into the level’s overall gimmick!
The boss is... uh... interesting? First you fight some tiny bird robots, then have to blow up their eggs (???) before they hatch more that you have to deal with. Then you fight a big bird robot? Like, it’s fine, I guess? But it kinda seems like this game is just totally eschewing the Egg-O-Matic bosses, which I have mixed (and mostly bad) feelings about.
Anyway, this level was a bit frustrating for me, but I like the concept and the aesthetic, so it has that going for it.
Aqua Lake Zone (1/31)
I don’t even have to say it, do I?
Too bad. I’m gonna anyway. I DO NOT LIKE MY HEDGEHOG BEING UNDERWATER!
Act 1 is straightforward, with a mix of above water and underwater areas, but you can actually skip most of the underwater parts by skipping over the water with Sonic spins! Which, frankly, rules! Act 2 is an underwater labyrinth, which, nooooooooooooo. You find the Emerald in one of those maze thingies where you get zoomed around. Act 2 also has a ridiculously difficult bit where you have to ride up in a bubble avoiding badniks and shooting spears, and it’s just... ugh. Not a fan.
The boss is... yeah. I guess they’re all just gonna be Like That, huh? This one is a sea lion. No, it doesn’t corner you and demand a civil debate. It just inflates some ball-shaped bombs that you can hit before he launches them to do damage to him. Rather obliging of him, really.
Can’t say this zone (or the other zones so far) gave me any particular kinfeels. Most of the feelings I’m getting from this game so far are just... how weird (in a kind of good way I think?) it is to be playing as my hedgehog coming to rescue me. I mean, I guess you wouldn’t really get much out of playing as me. “Press A to struggle!” “Press B to make a biting remark!” “Press C to miss Sonic!” Sounds pretty entertaining, right?
Green Hills Zone (1/31)
You can put all the S’s you want in the name, you’re not fooling me! This is Green Hill Zone! This is home!
I do not need to tell you about my feelings about this setting given that this is literally the third time we’ve been here lmao. But like. Damn. Why did Sonic’s path to save me have to take him through home? That’s just mean. I can’t imagine what that must have felt like for him. I have to imagine he saw my shadow everywhere. I know it probably wasn’t the developers’ intention, but having this near the midpoint in the game feels like it gives him the extra little oomph he needs to get through the rest of the chase. “Hold on, little buddy...”
So, I gotta say, when I figured out how to get the Emerald on this one, I actually yelled, “Oh! That is cool!” out loud. Because it is! Basically, you have to hit one particular springboard by running off a ledge, and it will take you to a second set of springboards which will take you to the ledge the Emerald is on. But like. Understand this. You have to hit it in this specific way that took me a few tries to even think of trying. And I don’t know. I just find that kind of thing super rewarding.
The boss is a metal pig. It’s the best boss of the game so far. We’re in a weird place.
It was good to be home briefly, but we’re about to leave the home cooking behind and journey into Robotnik’s domain. Hurry, Sonic! I’ll do my best to hold out until you save me!
Gimmick Mountain Zone (1/31)
OKAY BUT AT THE END OF ACT 1 YOU’RE IN A MINE CART AND IF YOU TIME YOUR JUMP RIGHT YOU JUMP INTO ANOTHER MINE CART? I AM PROBABLY OVERREACTING BUT THAT FELT SO COOL TO ME IDK.
Uh yeah this is a Robotnik base type place, so. I have the feelings about that that I have. I don’t want to be back anyplace like this anytime soon. So, yeah.
In the context of this game... Sonic has fought his way all the way into Robotnik’s territory. He’s so close, he knows if he can just get a little further, I’ll be safe. If you want to see what a hedgehog on a mission looks like, here you go.
The boss for this one is actually pretty cool, I guess, as far as these bosses go? It’s a pig-boar, I guess? And it charges at you a bunch. You have to do a Sonic Spin to meet its charge to daze it, and then jump or Sonic Spin to damage it. I don’t recommend the Sonic Spin for the second attack, though, because you don’t bounce off of it the second time and you’ll often end up taking damage. Which is death in a boss fight in this game since there are no rings.
Hurry, Sonic! You’ve almost got me!
Scrambled Egg Zone (1/31)
The aesthetics of this one kind of rule. It’s the deeper part of Robotnik’s mountain base. I really like the color palette here, lots of blue rocks. Most of the Zone is figuring out how to get through a maze of transport tubes with the occasional moving platform to complicate things. And it’s all leading to a confrontation with Silver Sonic, the series’ first metallic doppelganger adversary for Sonic.
These sorts of bosses always used to be my favorite kind because like, Sonic is cool! So obviously an evil version of Sonic is objectively the coolest enemy for him, right? But now I’m just struck by how... wrong and uncomfortable they all feel. And they represent one of my greatest fears, what could happen to my hedgehog if he ever loses. So it’s a good thing he never loses.
You don’t collect the Chaos Emerald by finding it somewhere in the level this time. Silver Sonic has it, and you get it after you beat him. Assuming you collected the other five. Also, apparently the story of the game is that Robotnik forced me to write a letter to Sonic telling him that Robotnik is demanding a ransom of the six Chaos Emeralds in exchange for my release. So with the sixth and final Emerald collected, it’s on to the Crystal Egg, where I’m being held prisoner.
It’s easy to imagine how fatigued Sonic is at this point. He was already probably near his limit by the time he got to Silver Sonic. And the difficulty presented by that adversary isn’t just a physical one, but also a profound psychological one.
He’s tired. And I badly want him to be able to rest, but I also know he can’t. Not when his goal is so close he can almost feel it.
You’re almost there, Sonic! Just a little further! You’ve got this! You’ve got me!
Crystal Egg Zone
(CW: Uhhh yeah. I do some emotional extrapolation from what almost happens at the end here, and... it’s rough, and deals with loss.)
This is pretty unique for a final level! As its name suggests, everything is brightly colored and largely transparent. A lot different than the soulless metal we’re used to seeing at this stage of a Sonic game. But also, this is where I’m being held prisoner. So let’s not lose sight of how genuinely dangerous this place is.
The zone itself is extremely straightforward and honestly pretty easy. It’s... eerie, almost. And like... that kind of fit the vicarious emotional state I was inhabiting here. It’s easy to imagine an exhausted Sonic running through this relatively obstacle-less zone with his attention darting around, looking for threats, suspicious of how easy this final stretch is.
And then you get to the final boss. You finally get to fight Robotnik himself instead of some robot based on an animal. Again, the bosses in this game are really weird. But it also kind of works with the story I’ve been reading into the game
The final boss fight takes place in some sort of lightning chamber. (... it’s... not difficult to imagine that Robotnik may have used this to torment me while he was holding me prisoner. Fuck.) Even for someone as fast as Sonic the attacks are basically impossible to avoid if you’re inside the chamber, but luckily there’s a way. There’s a transport tube surrounding the chamber, because of course there is. Freaking Robotnik overengineers everything. It’s so satisfying when that’s his downfall.
It’s not a difficult fight once you figure out how it works, unless you accidentally fall out of the tubes. It’s hard to imagine Sonic would, though. So it’s kind of funny. Robotnik’s plan worked. He threw down a gauntlet that was designed to wear my hedgehog down. He baited it with me, the bait he knew Sonic couldn’t resist. It all worked. My hedgehog is exhausted by the time he finally faces Robotnik... and in the end, the weak link that makes Robotnik’s plan fail is... Robotnik himself.
Pathetic.
Once you’ve beaten the boss, Robotnik flees like the coward he is, and you try to chase him down but don’t quite catch him before he gets on a teleporter, laughing maniacally like he always does.
What you see on the screen is Sonic curling into a ball like when you press the down button on the controller. 8-bit systems don’t have a lot of ways to show emotion. Let’s expand on that a little.
He slams his fist against the teleporter with frustration. No! He did it, he fucking did it! He bashed every Badnik that asshole threw at him! He went through every obstacle that was put in front of him! He was singleminded. He didn’t stop once. He did everything he could possibly do, and it wasn’t enough???
“Tails...”
The last time he saw me, I was being carried away by the Egg-O-Matic’s metal claws helplessly crying his name. The last time he heard from me, it was a letter Robotnik forced me to write.
No. No. This wasn’t over. The exhausted hedgehog dragged himself to his feet. His eyes fixed on the teleporter. He didn’t know where it would take him, likely as not it would take him to a trap he was too exhausted to deal with, but he had to... he had to...
The teleporter lit up before he could take a step towards it. Fuck. He bent his knees slightly and put his hands in a defensive posture, getting ready to jump or spin or run or--
When the light dissolved, it wasn’t some new adversary or weapon that greeted him. It was me.
(I don’t know how. The game doesn’t make it clear. I’m gonna headcanon that I managed to escape while Robotnik was having his final fight with Sonic, and Robotnik got to see me dissolving into the teleporter while yelling, “YOU LOSE, ASSHOLE!” right after he finished teleporting himself.)
I hadn’t expected him to be the first thing I saw. We both froze in place for a few seconds that felt like an eternity, our eyes meeting. And then we launched ourselves at each other at the same time and hugged each other fiercely.
“Sonic!” I cried out, tears of relief streaming down my face.
“Tails!” he cried at the same time, holding me so tightly.
It took a while before I could think of anything other than holding him tightly and never letting go. But when I could, I tried to pull away from the embrace, only to find his grip too tight.
“No.” he told me firmly.
“Sonic, we have to get out of here!” I urged him. “Robotnik--”
“... right,” Sonic sighed. “Base is gonna self destruct?”
I nodded into the hug, and he finally let me go. But he looked at me with determination. “I am never letting you out of my sight again, little buddy.”
And he never did.
Ending (1/31)
THIS ENDING IS SO GAY YOU GUYS. Like, I’m sorry, I know I’m predisposed. But after Sonic rescues me, we run together while the credits roll. And the sky cycles through several phases of the day ranging from what I assume is morning to what is definitely night. And while you might question the logic of us running together for an entire day after I’ve been held captive and Sonic has run and fought himself to exhaustion... I totally get it. Relief and catharsis are a hell of a drug. And a victory lap is understandable enough, but a victory lap after a reunion like this is probably a more powerful force than either of us can resist.
Anyway, after the credits, we stop and look up at the stars together (I'm gonna add "holding hands" but it's plenty gay even without that addition) and see a constellation that the game, in an act of supreme subtlety, superimposes a picture of us together over. Y'know. Like it's... written in the stars, or something. Tiny bit romantic.
THIS IS SO GAY!!!! I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!!! (And I love him so much 💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡)
Oh right I still have to rank stuff.
Couples Depicted in This Game
1. Sonic/Tails (S-Tier)
Zones
1. Green Hills Zone (B-Tier)
2. Under Ground Zone (B-Tier)
3. Scrambled Egg Zone (B-Tier)
4. Crystal Egg Zone (B-Tier)
5. Gimmick Mountain Zone (B-Tier)
6. Aqua Lake Zone (C-Tier)
7. Sky High Zone (C-Tier)
Bosses
1. Silver Sonic (A-Tier)
2. Crystal Egg Zone (B-Tier)
3. Mecha Pig (C-Tier)
4. Pig-Boar Mecha (C-Tier)
5. Antlion Mecha (C-Tier)
6. Mecha Sea Lion (C-Tier)
7. Goose Mecha (C-Tier)
Soundtrack
1. Scrambled Egg Zone (A-Tier)
2. Green Hills Zone (B-Tier)
3. Under Ground Zone (B-Tier)
4. Boss, Game Gear (B-Tier)
5. Gimmick Mountain Zone (C-Tier)
6. Boss, Master System (C-Tier)
7. Crystal Egg Zone (C-Tier)
8. Good Ending (C-Tier)
9. Bad Ending (C-Tier)
9. Sky High Zone (C-Tier)
10. Aqua Lake Zone (C-Tier)
1991
Okay so. I haven’t ever heard of this game. You haven’t ever heard of this game. No one has ever heard of this game!
Here’s why. To quote one of the numerous Sonic the Hedgehog wikis: “Sonic Eraser is a video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series that was available to owners of the Sega Game Toshokan on the Sega Mega Modem with a Sega Meganet subscription. All the three aforementioned enhancements for the Sega Mega Drive are exclusively released in Japan.” And apparently even after all those caveats, it wasn’t even a popular game on the Meganet! Sooo, yeah.
And I’m here to tell you that you shouldn’t waste your time playing this game! Especially if you’re doing it because you’re a completionist and want to play all the Sonic games. This is not in any way, shape, or form a Sonic game!! It’s just a not particularly good puzzle game that has nothing to do with Sonic. It’s not like Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, which despite literally being a reskinned Puyo Puyo goes to way more effort to actually be a Sonic game. And as far as I’ve been able to determine this isn’t some random puzzle game they tried to market as a Sonic game to sell more copies, it’s a totally original game. And I just. Don’t get it?
The only thing that makes it kind of a Sonic game is that each side has a Sonic sprite and when you get combos yours punches or spindashes the other player’s Sonic sprite. So uh. The only way in which this is a Sonic game is something I HATE???? Yeah. I am very not here for my hedgehog getting punched? Sorry.
Anyway. Yeah. This is nothing.
Here’s why. To quote one of the numerous Sonic the Hedgehog wikis: “Sonic Eraser is a video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series that was available to owners of the Sega Game Toshokan on the Sega Mega Modem with a Sega Meganet subscription. All the three aforementioned enhancements for the Sega Mega Drive are exclusively released in Japan.” And apparently even after all those caveats, it wasn’t even a popular game on the Meganet! Sooo, yeah.
And I’m here to tell you that you shouldn’t waste your time playing this game! Especially if you’re doing it because you’re a completionist and want to play all the Sonic games. This is not in any way, shape, or form a Sonic game!! It’s just a not particularly good puzzle game that has nothing to do with Sonic. It’s not like Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, which despite literally being a reskinned Puyo Puyo goes to way more effort to actually be a Sonic game. And as far as I’ve been able to determine this isn’t some random puzzle game they tried to market as a Sonic game to sell more copies, it’s a totally original game. And I just. Don’t get it?
The only thing that makes it kind of a Sonic game is that each side has a Sonic sprite and when you get combos yours punches or spindashes the other player’s Sonic sprite. So uh. The only way in which this is a Sonic game is something I HATE???? Yeah. I am very not here for my hedgehog getting punched? Sorry.
Anyway. Yeah. This is nothing.
1991
Alright, on to the next one! For the record, I’m playing the Master System version, not the Game Gear version, because I like having a fuller screen. Makes it feel more like a Serious Video Game.
I think I played this once when I was playing a bunch of the 8-bit games and the Sonic Advance games on an emulator, but I’m not 100% sure. And either way, I don’t have a lot of distinct memories about it so I don’t have a lot to say in this intro, so yeah! Hopefully that just means I’ll have a lot to talk about in my last entry!
One thing I did notice as I started playing this is there are a few times when it feels like the game is laboring when there’s too many things on the screen. Sometimes the framerate drops a ton, other times Sonic sort of blinks in and out of existence, which is a little existentially terrifying for me. I don’t know if that’s an emulation problem or a limitation that existed in the original game, but I suspect the latter. I definitely remember seeing artifacts like that in Mario games when I had an NES.
Also, I like the fact that shields carry over from one act to another! That’s a neat little mechanic. And the sound effects and stuff are pretty good approximations given the limitations of 8-bit systems. They still evoke similar feelings to the 16-bit version despite being drastically different.
Anyway! Yeah. Not as much to say about this one yet, so let’s just get to it.
GREEN HILL ZONE
Hey, this one’s familiar! The 8-bit version of the zone and its music still give me very strong home vibes, even if it’s not quite as striking as the 16-bit version. Having the little underground section in the second act with some water and waterfalls was a clever way to change things up! And you aren’t really underwater for any serious length of time so that’s good. (Don’t worry, I’m not gonna say it this time.)
The Chaos Emeralds are just hidden in the zones themselves this time around, and for this zone it’s hiding in this neat little waterfall area! So that was pretty cool.
The boss for this one is super easy. Robuttnik just sorta shows up in the Egg-O-Matic and flies out of reach until he slowly lowers and then zooms at you. You can actually easily beat him in two passes, four hits each, which is exactly what I did. I don’t expect the entire game to be this easy, but it’s honestly super validating to be this good at a Sonic game I’ve only played once at most!
BRIDGE ZONE
This one’s kinda an extension of Green Hill! So that’s neat. But as its name suggests it’s a lot of bridges over water! Some of those bridges have individual pieces that fall down and drop you into bottomless pits if you stand on them for too long, some are just normal bridges, occasionally with Choppers jumping at you. The second act is an auto-scrolling level, which was honestly kinda weird to see in a Sonic game! I guess it’s a way to keep things interesting given the limitations of 8-bit systems.
Despite the severe limitations of the 8-bit system, the background is lovely! You can see mountains and a forest, and the whole setting seems very serene. I feel like I would love running or flying here. It’s basically just an extension of Green Hill, like I said, so you already know how I feel about it kinfeel wise!
The Chaos Emerald on this one is easier to find, but a little harder to get to! It’s in plain sight, but you have to stand on one of the bridge pieces long enough to let it fall on purpose and then jump up to grab the Emerald before you fall to your doom!
The boss is punishingly difficult compared to the first one! And so far both bosses have been without rings so I’m assuming that’s just gonna be a thing for all of them, which adds quite a bit of difficulty! This one has you jumping between three platforms separated by water which the Egg-O-Matic with a submarine attachment surfaces and shoots at you. Avoiding the projectiles it shoots is super difficult! You pretty much have to time things perfectly so it’s shooting in the opposite direction, which if you get the timing perfect you can do by hitting him twice. I actually ended up using save states, and am going to allow myself to use save states on the bosses going forward, because figuring out the timing was rough!
I ended up finishing up with 4 lives! But that’s a bit deceiving because I actually gained three extra lives, not just one. One from getting 100 rings on the first Act, one from a one-up box also in the first Act, and one from a one-up box at the very beginning of the third Act that you have to run backwards to get. Idk if you can see it in the GameGear version, but it’s just peeking out of the side of the screen in the Master System version. But I also lost two lives! Once by being a dummy and falling in a bottomless pit (I don’t get it, it says right in the name that I shouldn’t be in it!), the other time I got killed by the boss before I started using save states.
JUNGLE ZONE
Or: “The one where Tails decided, ‘Screw it, this game is baloney, I’m using save states.’”
Act 1 is a pretty straightforward platformer where you go across vines, ground that appears to be growing out of trees??? (idk) and jump across waterfalls with logs and such. There’s even parts where you run across the river on logs, which rules! And also the water seems to resist you more here, which makes sense because rivers have currents! But still, it’s neat. It kinda rules! And the Chaos Emerald can be found by riding a log almost to the bottom of a waterfall and then jumping onto a platform.I wouldn’t have been able to find it without looking it up.
Act 2 is a vertical level, which seemed neat at first as far as doing something different, but the way it’s implemented (you’re probably getting tired of hearing this, but: likely because of the limitations of the 8-bit systems) SUCKS. The camera pans up with you, and if you try to jump back down to a platform that YOU KNOW IS BELOW YOU, you just immediately die instead because since the camera panned up it must not exist anymore. I mean... HECK. I know you’re working with limited resources here, but if that’s the best you can do, maybe just don’t have a vertical level???
Add to that the fact that like 50% of the time if you take any damage you’re gonna die, because Sonic’s recovery in this version SUCKS (you get knocked backwards ridiculously far with no ability to control where you’re going and once that’s over you’re immediately killable at the same point where you can first move, not to mention how often you’ll just fall over ledges in this state) and it’s a recipe for me saying “screw it.” If the game’s gonna be unfair, so am I, and I don’t think there’s any shame in that. So yeah. Not gonna share my stats anymore on this one because I won’t have come by any of them honestly.
The boss is super difficult at first mostly because of that issue I just mentioned with how you recover! The Egg-O-Matic flies overhead and lowers down to drop some rolling bombs that you have to jump out of the way of. Oftentimes there are two of them at a time for you to avoid, while also trying to hit Robotnik eight times. Pretty rough until you figure out the timing! Honestly all the bosses so far except for the first one have been harder than the 16-bit version! So that’s interesting.
Anyway, this zone has some interesting ideas and Act 1 is pretty solid, but Act 2 is just a total dumpster fire due to bad mechanics. It’s a shame.
LABYRINTH ZONE
I. DO NOT. LIKE. MY. HEDGEHOG. BEING. UNDER. WATER!!!!
I like it even less when this game slows him to a crawl when he’s underwater, making it really hard to time anything or judge what jumps you can make, even adjusting for the fact that the controls here are kinda wonky if you’re used to 16-bit.
Basically, this is about as frustrating as I remember Labyrinth Zone being before I was good at it, but for much more genuinely frustrating reasons. Like, I’m sorry to say it just isn’t... good? I know it sounds like I’m just constantly complaining about 8-bit Sonic 1, but I just... it’s really not good, guys! I’m sorry! I’m giving it a chance because these games are hella important to me, but it’s got a lot of issues where it’s difficult in ways that just aren’t fair. But I’m a completionist so... I’m gonna keep trucking along.
The boss was kinda alright! Another one of those toughies until you figure out what to do. But once you do, it’s pretty straightforward. And hey, it’s pretty neat that the submarine Egg-O-Matic comes back!
But, as always. I DO NOT LIKE MY HEDGEHOG BEING UNDERWATER!
SCRAP BRAIN ZONE
Yeah, so. We know this one too, huh? The setting of the entire zone is the outdoor industrial sprawl from Act 1 in the 16-bit version of the game, but the zone itself is drastically different. Act 1 is actually a piece of cake and very straightforward? Like, I genuinely don’t get why it’s so easy? Acts 2 and 3 are basically mazes. And in Act 2 you don’t just have to figure out how to get out, you have to figure out how to get the Chaos Emerald. I guess at least that’s kinda a unique concept for a Sonic game? And unlike the previous zones there’s nothing gamebreaking about it or anything. My major criticism is just that I think it’s a bit too easy.
Weirdly, Act 3 doesn’t even have a boss! I know Scrap Brain Zone Act 3 didn’t have a boss in the 16-bit version of the game, but that seems like a weird thing to carry over here given that the context is completely different? Shrug.
In this one go through another maze, collecting rings along the way. (At first I was like, “Am I actually gonna have rings for a boss fight???”) Then you emerge outside and see Eggman waiting for you and he runs away and, in an inexplicable contrivance that will be repeated several other times in the series (but you probably remember it most prominently from Death Egg Zone in Sonic 2), he outruns Sonic??? And makes it onto a platform that carries him up into the sky. And then you follow him by taking the same platform to end the Zone.
SKY BASE ZONE
Now this is podracing! (Look... I'm not sorry.) Sky Base Zone is by far the best zone in this game, thanks to a strong concept buoyed (for once!) by strong execution!
For one thing, it’s the third original zone in the game. To recap, the other two were Bridge Zone (a nice little extension of Green Hill Zone, but nothing much to write home about) and Jungle Zone (a decent concept executed horribly). In this one, after you chase Robotnik all the way to Scrap Brain Zone, his base of operations in both this and the 16-bit version of the game, he escapes to an airship! We’ll see this type of escalation in a lot of other future games, but this is the first incidence of it!
Act 1 sees you go through what I assume is some kind of air base to get to the airship. The main challenges you face are platforms that you have to take over bottomless pits (well, ok, in this case it’s less pits and more just kinda the sky?) and (gulp) lightning generators. I guess Robuttnik thought he was fighting me instead of Sonic despite my not having appeared in the series yet.
It’s also worth noting that Act 1 is gorgeous, which is something I haven’t been able to say much about this game thus far!! It’s simple, of course. But there’s a deep blue sky behind you and everything else is kinda shaded blue as a result, even the rings you collect. And it really sets a particular kind of mood.
Act 2 sees you on the airship proper, and yeah parts of it are for sure blatant ripoffs of Mario 3 but guess who doesn’t care. And while there are parts that you could describe that way the Act as a whole still feels very much like a Sonic level. Also, it’s actually pretty difficult, but in ways that make sense and aren’t just objectively bad game design/hardware limitations!! Heck yeah. They really saved the best zone for last, guys!
Lastly, you have the final boss. He’s not the most punishingly difficult boss of the game by any stretch of the imagination, but he does get pretty difficult to beat after lulling you into a false sense of security with the first few hits and then suddenly drastically changing his pattern! Also, it’s a suitably dramatic final boss! Robotnik is standing inside of protective glass working controls while you get attacked by electricity and projectiles. It makes a heck of a lot more sense than the 16-bit version’s boss, actually! Even though I think I do slightly prefer the 16-bit boss all the same.
But, yeah! This is easily the best zone in the game, and it ranks right up there with a lot of the zones in the 16-bit version! Like, not the same tier as Green Hill or Scrap Brain, but still pretty hecking good!! So, somewhat improbably given that most of the entries about this game had me being a lot whinier than I would prefer, the game ended up finishing up on a high note! And I gotta say, it’s a bit of a relief!
ENDING
The ending of this one is similar to the 16-bit version, but a bit different and pretty satisfying in its own way! After you destroy his protective glass tube, Robotnik flees (once again outrunning you for some reason because why the heck not) and jumps into a teleporter, laughing. You jump in after him, and then we cut to Green Hill Zone! Robotnik is fleeing in the Egg-O-Matic when suddenly you fall from the sky and smash the Egg-O-Matic!
As Robotnik flees in his exploding vehicle, you run to the middle of Green Hill and release the Chaos Emeralds, healing the South Island! And it’s actually a little more clear than it is in the 16-bit version, because the game zooms out to a map of the whole island with visible pollution, which disappears after a bright flash! You did it! The credits roll. The only theme from the rest of the game that recurs in the credits is Green Hill’s theme, so that’s kind of a bummer, but oh well!
So. Clearly I didn’t like this as much as the 16-bit version, and I definitely didn’t get as many kinfeels from it except for secondhand ones that I also got (but better) in the 16-bit version, but I’m still glad I played it! Even a mediocre Sonic game is way past cool, and honestly I’m often going to get more out of them than an objectively better game from a series I care about less.
Anyway! Let’s just make this a tradition, shall we? Time for some arbitrary and highly subjective rankings that you might not care about! Woo!
Zones
Sky Base Zone (B-Tier)
Bridge Zone (C-Tier)
Green Hill Zone (C-Tier)
Scrap Brain Zone (C-Tier)
Labyrinth Zone (D-Tier)
Jungle Zone (D-Tier)
Bosses
Sky Base Zone (B-Tier)
Bridge Zone (B-Tier)
Green Hill Zone (C-Tier)
Labyrinth Zone (C-Tier)
Jungle Zone (C-Tier)
Soundtrack
Green Hill Zone (A-Tier)
Sky Base Zone (B-Tier)
Scrap Brain Zone (B-Tier)
Ending (B-Tier)
(unused) Marble Zone (B-Tier)
Labyrinth Zone (B-Tier)
Boss Theme (C-Tier)
Bridge Zone (C-Tier)
Bonus Zone (C-Tier)
Jungle Zone (C-Tier)
I think I played this once when I was playing a bunch of the 8-bit games and the Sonic Advance games on an emulator, but I’m not 100% sure. And either way, I don’t have a lot of distinct memories about it so I don’t have a lot to say in this intro, so yeah! Hopefully that just means I’ll have a lot to talk about in my last entry!
One thing I did notice as I started playing this is there are a few times when it feels like the game is laboring when there’s too many things on the screen. Sometimes the framerate drops a ton, other times Sonic sort of blinks in and out of existence, which is a little existentially terrifying for me. I don’t know if that’s an emulation problem or a limitation that existed in the original game, but I suspect the latter. I definitely remember seeing artifacts like that in Mario games when I had an NES.
Also, I like the fact that shields carry over from one act to another! That’s a neat little mechanic. And the sound effects and stuff are pretty good approximations given the limitations of 8-bit systems. They still evoke similar feelings to the 16-bit version despite being drastically different.
Anyway! Yeah. Not as much to say about this one yet, so let’s just get to it.
GREEN HILL ZONE
Hey, this one’s familiar! The 8-bit version of the zone and its music still give me very strong home vibes, even if it’s not quite as striking as the 16-bit version. Having the little underground section in the second act with some water and waterfalls was a clever way to change things up! And you aren’t really underwater for any serious length of time so that’s good. (Don’t worry, I’m not gonna say it this time.)
The Chaos Emeralds are just hidden in the zones themselves this time around, and for this zone it’s hiding in this neat little waterfall area! So that was pretty cool.
The boss for this one is super easy. Robuttnik just sorta shows up in the Egg-O-Matic and flies out of reach until he slowly lowers and then zooms at you. You can actually easily beat him in two passes, four hits each, which is exactly what I did. I don’t expect the entire game to be this easy, but it’s honestly super validating to be this good at a Sonic game I’ve only played once at most!
BRIDGE ZONE
This one’s kinda an extension of Green Hill! So that’s neat. But as its name suggests it’s a lot of bridges over water! Some of those bridges have individual pieces that fall down and drop you into bottomless pits if you stand on them for too long, some are just normal bridges, occasionally with Choppers jumping at you. The second act is an auto-scrolling level, which was honestly kinda weird to see in a Sonic game! I guess it’s a way to keep things interesting given the limitations of 8-bit systems.
Despite the severe limitations of the 8-bit system, the background is lovely! You can see mountains and a forest, and the whole setting seems very serene. I feel like I would love running or flying here. It’s basically just an extension of Green Hill, like I said, so you already know how I feel about it kinfeel wise!
The Chaos Emerald on this one is easier to find, but a little harder to get to! It’s in plain sight, but you have to stand on one of the bridge pieces long enough to let it fall on purpose and then jump up to grab the Emerald before you fall to your doom!
The boss is punishingly difficult compared to the first one! And so far both bosses have been without rings so I’m assuming that’s just gonna be a thing for all of them, which adds quite a bit of difficulty! This one has you jumping between three platforms separated by water which the Egg-O-Matic with a submarine attachment surfaces and shoots at you. Avoiding the projectiles it shoots is super difficult! You pretty much have to time things perfectly so it’s shooting in the opposite direction, which if you get the timing perfect you can do by hitting him twice. I actually ended up using save states, and am going to allow myself to use save states on the bosses going forward, because figuring out the timing was rough!
I ended up finishing up with 4 lives! But that’s a bit deceiving because I actually gained three extra lives, not just one. One from getting 100 rings on the first Act, one from a one-up box also in the first Act, and one from a one-up box at the very beginning of the third Act that you have to run backwards to get. Idk if you can see it in the GameGear version, but it’s just peeking out of the side of the screen in the Master System version. But I also lost two lives! Once by being a dummy and falling in a bottomless pit (I don’t get it, it says right in the name that I shouldn’t be in it!), the other time I got killed by the boss before I started using save states.
JUNGLE ZONE
Or: “The one where Tails decided, ‘Screw it, this game is baloney, I’m using save states.’”
Act 1 is a pretty straightforward platformer where you go across vines, ground that appears to be growing out of trees??? (idk) and jump across waterfalls with logs and such. There’s even parts where you run across the river on logs, which rules! And also the water seems to resist you more here, which makes sense because rivers have currents! But still, it’s neat. It kinda rules! And the Chaos Emerald can be found by riding a log almost to the bottom of a waterfall and then jumping onto a platform.I wouldn’t have been able to find it without looking it up.
Act 2 is a vertical level, which seemed neat at first as far as doing something different, but the way it’s implemented (you’re probably getting tired of hearing this, but: likely because of the limitations of the 8-bit systems) SUCKS. The camera pans up with you, and if you try to jump back down to a platform that YOU KNOW IS BELOW YOU, you just immediately die instead because since the camera panned up it must not exist anymore. I mean... HECK. I know you’re working with limited resources here, but if that’s the best you can do, maybe just don’t have a vertical level???
Add to that the fact that like 50% of the time if you take any damage you’re gonna die, because Sonic’s recovery in this version SUCKS (you get knocked backwards ridiculously far with no ability to control where you’re going and once that’s over you’re immediately killable at the same point where you can first move, not to mention how often you’ll just fall over ledges in this state) and it’s a recipe for me saying “screw it.” If the game’s gonna be unfair, so am I, and I don’t think there’s any shame in that. So yeah. Not gonna share my stats anymore on this one because I won’t have come by any of them honestly.
The boss is super difficult at first mostly because of that issue I just mentioned with how you recover! The Egg-O-Matic flies overhead and lowers down to drop some rolling bombs that you have to jump out of the way of. Oftentimes there are two of them at a time for you to avoid, while also trying to hit Robotnik eight times. Pretty rough until you figure out the timing! Honestly all the bosses so far except for the first one have been harder than the 16-bit version! So that’s interesting.
Anyway, this zone has some interesting ideas and Act 1 is pretty solid, but Act 2 is just a total dumpster fire due to bad mechanics. It’s a shame.
LABYRINTH ZONE
I. DO NOT. LIKE. MY. HEDGEHOG. BEING. UNDER. WATER!!!!
I like it even less when this game slows him to a crawl when he’s underwater, making it really hard to time anything or judge what jumps you can make, even adjusting for the fact that the controls here are kinda wonky if you’re used to 16-bit.
Basically, this is about as frustrating as I remember Labyrinth Zone being before I was good at it, but for much more genuinely frustrating reasons. Like, I’m sorry to say it just isn’t... good? I know it sounds like I’m just constantly complaining about 8-bit Sonic 1, but I just... it’s really not good, guys! I’m sorry! I’m giving it a chance because these games are hella important to me, but it’s got a lot of issues where it’s difficult in ways that just aren’t fair. But I’m a completionist so... I’m gonna keep trucking along.
The boss was kinda alright! Another one of those toughies until you figure out what to do. But once you do, it’s pretty straightforward. And hey, it’s pretty neat that the submarine Egg-O-Matic comes back!
But, as always. I DO NOT LIKE MY HEDGEHOG BEING UNDERWATER!
SCRAP BRAIN ZONE
Yeah, so. We know this one too, huh? The setting of the entire zone is the outdoor industrial sprawl from Act 1 in the 16-bit version of the game, but the zone itself is drastically different. Act 1 is actually a piece of cake and very straightforward? Like, I genuinely don’t get why it’s so easy? Acts 2 and 3 are basically mazes. And in Act 2 you don’t just have to figure out how to get out, you have to figure out how to get the Chaos Emerald. I guess at least that’s kinda a unique concept for a Sonic game? And unlike the previous zones there’s nothing gamebreaking about it or anything. My major criticism is just that I think it’s a bit too easy.
Weirdly, Act 3 doesn’t even have a boss! I know Scrap Brain Zone Act 3 didn’t have a boss in the 16-bit version of the game, but that seems like a weird thing to carry over here given that the context is completely different? Shrug.
In this one go through another maze, collecting rings along the way. (At first I was like, “Am I actually gonna have rings for a boss fight???”) Then you emerge outside and see Eggman waiting for you and he runs away and, in an inexplicable contrivance that will be repeated several other times in the series (but you probably remember it most prominently from Death Egg Zone in Sonic 2), he outruns Sonic??? And makes it onto a platform that carries him up into the sky. And then you follow him by taking the same platform to end the Zone.
SKY BASE ZONE
Now this is podracing! (Look... I'm not sorry.) Sky Base Zone is by far the best zone in this game, thanks to a strong concept buoyed (for once!) by strong execution!
For one thing, it’s the third original zone in the game. To recap, the other two were Bridge Zone (a nice little extension of Green Hill Zone, but nothing much to write home about) and Jungle Zone (a decent concept executed horribly). In this one, after you chase Robotnik all the way to Scrap Brain Zone, his base of operations in both this and the 16-bit version of the game, he escapes to an airship! We’ll see this type of escalation in a lot of other future games, but this is the first incidence of it!
Act 1 sees you go through what I assume is some kind of air base to get to the airship. The main challenges you face are platforms that you have to take over bottomless pits (well, ok, in this case it’s less pits and more just kinda the sky?) and (gulp) lightning generators. I guess Robuttnik thought he was fighting me instead of Sonic despite my not having appeared in the series yet.
It’s also worth noting that Act 1 is gorgeous, which is something I haven’t been able to say much about this game thus far!! It’s simple, of course. But there’s a deep blue sky behind you and everything else is kinda shaded blue as a result, even the rings you collect. And it really sets a particular kind of mood.
Act 2 sees you on the airship proper, and yeah parts of it are for sure blatant ripoffs of Mario 3 but guess who doesn’t care. And while there are parts that you could describe that way the Act as a whole still feels very much like a Sonic level. Also, it’s actually pretty difficult, but in ways that make sense and aren’t just objectively bad game design/hardware limitations!! Heck yeah. They really saved the best zone for last, guys!
Lastly, you have the final boss. He’s not the most punishingly difficult boss of the game by any stretch of the imagination, but he does get pretty difficult to beat after lulling you into a false sense of security with the first few hits and then suddenly drastically changing his pattern! Also, it’s a suitably dramatic final boss! Robotnik is standing inside of protective glass working controls while you get attacked by electricity and projectiles. It makes a heck of a lot more sense than the 16-bit version’s boss, actually! Even though I think I do slightly prefer the 16-bit boss all the same.
But, yeah! This is easily the best zone in the game, and it ranks right up there with a lot of the zones in the 16-bit version! Like, not the same tier as Green Hill or Scrap Brain, but still pretty hecking good!! So, somewhat improbably given that most of the entries about this game had me being a lot whinier than I would prefer, the game ended up finishing up on a high note! And I gotta say, it’s a bit of a relief!
ENDING
The ending of this one is similar to the 16-bit version, but a bit different and pretty satisfying in its own way! After you destroy his protective glass tube, Robotnik flees (once again outrunning you for some reason because why the heck not) and jumps into a teleporter, laughing. You jump in after him, and then we cut to Green Hill Zone! Robotnik is fleeing in the Egg-O-Matic when suddenly you fall from the sky and smash the Egg-O-Matic!
As Robotnik flees in his exploding vehicle, you run to the middle of Green Hill and release the Chaos Emeralds, healing the South Island! And it’s actually a little more clear than it is in the 16-bit version, because the game zooms out to a map of the whole island with visible pollution, which disappears after a bright flash! You did it! The credits roll. The only theme from the rest of the game that recurs in the credits is Green Hill’s theme, so that’s kind of a bummer, but oh well!
So. Clearly I didn’t like this as much as the 16-bit version, and I definitely didn’t get as many kinfeels from it except for secondhand ones that I also got (but better) in the 16-bit version, but I’m still glad I played it! Even a mediocre Sonic game is way past cool, and honestly I’m often going to get more out of them than an objectively better game from a series I care about less.
Anyway! Let’s just make this a tradition, shall we? Time for some arbitrary and highly subjective rankings that you might not care about! Woo!
Zones
Sky Base Zone (B-Tier)
Bridge Zone (C-Tier)
Green Hill Zone (C-Tier)
Scrap Brain Zone (C-Tier)
Labyrinth Zone (D-Tier)
Jungle Zone (D-Tier)
Bosses
Sky Base Zone (B-Tier)
Bridge Zone (B-Tier)
Green Hill Zone (C-Tier)
Labyrinth Zone (C-Tier)
Jungle Zone (C-Tier)
Soundtrack
Green Hill Zone (A-Tier)
Sky Base Zone (B-Tier)
Scrap Brain Zone (B-Tier)
Ending (B-Tier)
(unused) Marble Zone (B-Tier)
Labyrinth Zone (B-Tier)
Boss Theme (C-Tier)
Bridge Zone (C-Tier)
Bonus Zone (C-Tier)
Jungle Zone (C-Tier)