“EDGES WORTH SANDING OFF”
It was during my latest playthrough of Sonic 2 that I realized two things:
1. I don’t like Sonic 2 as much as I thought I did.
2. The sound design is a problem.
I’ve been ricocheting between Sonic games. Between Superstars, Mania, my first playthrough of Sonic Advance, and now back to the classic Genesis titles, each comes with a new, unique style of game design. This doesn’t automatically translate to “good,” just unique.
In a Sonic game, where your base Simian desires compel you to hold right until you hit a wall or an obstacle, designers must account for player compulsion. Players are not going to stop and assess a situation like a statistician in a Sonic game. It’s not happening. Players will operate on instinct.
I’m not saying the game is bad because I’m bad at it. Granted, I’m nowhere close to the best Sonic 2 player – but Sonic 2 was one of the first games I ever played. I’ve revisited this game more times than I can count.
Sonic 2 isn’t bad, but it’s certainly careless. It fails to consider player inclination at almost every turn. Projectiles appear offscreen like flickering pinprick pimples. Graze it once and Sonic explodes into a fountain of golden, spinning rings. The frame rate slows to a glacial crawl.
This isn’t a problem exclusive to Sonic 2 but this is the first time I’ve become exceedingly aware of it:
None of these enemies make any sound man!! If I can’t see them and I can’t hear them when they’re like 2 pixels out of frame and one of their projectiles hit me?? That’s not my fault. That’s the game working as intended. And it’s not good.
Obviously Metropolis Zone takes this problem to dismally painful lows. The starfish usually don’t explode until you can see them, but more than once they’ve exploded way before I’m anywhere near them. Also the mantis enemies – goes without saying.
I’ve also mentioned it before, but the special stages in this one? The worst. Worse than Sonic 1. Zero signposting. Just guess where the rings/bombs will show up. If Tails gets hit you lose rings too, so you’re meant to anticipate and adapt to Tails’ delayed inputs?? No way. Also, you lose all your rings (and your shield?!) when you go into special stages in this one. So that’s great.
Bosses are not especially noteworthy, except for one in Mystic Cave Zone which doesn’t give you any rings if you die and come back, which is mean and dumb and annoying (I don’t remember if there are other bosses that do this).
I played through on my Pocket the other day, and I got all the way to the Death Egg. I can put away Silver Sonic in 30 seconds easy. But I kept running into this problem with the Death Egg Robot where I would just clip through his body when attacking him sometimes?? And of course because it’s Death Egg Zone it doesn’t give you any rings, so I just die instantly. I don’t remember it being like this. I tried different things with my jumps, like maybe holding the jump button down was making me clip through him. So I tried hitting him without holding the jump button. That didn’t work. So then I tried holding down the jump button. That didn’t work. Then I realized it was because the robot was in the middle of animation, which causes the game to freak out for some reason.
I feel like a lot of Sonic games are like this, where some players can adapt to the borderline-Byzantine styles of play without breaking a sweat – others fail to grasp even the basics. Ross Scott did a great video on Sonic Heroes where he calls this phenomenon “gamer dementia”. It’s especially funny because I’ve played this game before, I’ve beat this final boss before, how could I not remember this vaguely specific rule that kills me if I don’t obey it otherwise?
Actually, I’ll be honest, I’ve never figured out how to beat the Metropolis Zone boss without getting hit. I know I’m supposed to wait for him to do his attack patterns and open up to be attacked, but I can never hit him without getting hit myself. I’m watching videos on it now, and I see what people are doing, but that’s just never worked for me? I just keep taking damage and hitting him until the fight is over.
That’s the thing. Sonic fans can tell you how you’re supposed to damage this boss, or play these special stages, or play this game – but it’s impossible to do the game justice unless the controller is in your hands. The utter unspeakability of the pixel perfect precision required for such advanced techniques as “don’t attack the boss in the middle of an animation otherwise you instantly die”.
I don’t think it’s hard. It’s just not well thought out. It feels bad sometimes. And it's impossible to articulate that same sentiment to people who have spent decades mastering the intricate minutiae of the game in question.
I would honestly recommend the Sonic Origins edition of this game for the widescreen (to see further ahead of you, that is (and also the tokens system lets you retry special stages)). There’s also a good handful of Sonic 2 fanmade ports that I’d like to try at some point. Maybe later this year!
All in all, yeah. Kinda sad to come back to a game and realize it’s a little rougher than I remember. All good though! Excited to try Sonic 3 again soon.
It was during my latest playthrough of Sonic 2 that I realized two things:
1. I don’t like Sonic 2 as much as I thought I did.
2. The sound design is a problem.
I’ve been ricocheting between Sonic games. Between Superstars, Mania, my first playthrough of Sonic Advance, and now back to the classic Genesis titles, each comes with a new, unique style of game design. This doesn’t automatically translate to “good,” just unique.
In a Sonic game, where your base Simian desires compel you to hold right until you hit a wall or an obstacle, designers must account for player compulsion. Players are not going to stop and assess a situation like a statistician in a Sonic game. It’s not happening. Players will operate on instinct.
I’m not saying the game is bad because I’m bad at it. Granted, I’m nowhere close to the best Sonic 2 player – but Sonic 2 was one of the first games I ever played. I’ve revisited this game more times than I can count.
Sonic 2 isn’t bad, but it’s certainly careless. It fails to consider player inclination at almost every turn. Projectiles appear offscreen like flickering pinprick pimples. Graze it once and Sonic explodes into a fountain of golden, spinning rings. The frame rate slows to a glacial crawl.
This isn’t a problem exclusive to Sonic 2 but this is the first time I’ve become exceedingly aware of it:
None of these enemies make any sound man!! If I can’t see them and I can’t hear them when they’re like 2 pixels out of frame and one of their projectiles hit me?? That’s not my fault. That’s the game working as intended. And it’s not good.
Obviously Metropolis Zone takes this problem to dismally painful lows. The starfish usually don’t explode until you can see them, but more than once they’ve exploded way before I’m anywhere near them. Also the mantis enemies – goes without saying.
I’ve also mentioned it before, but the special stages in this one? The worst. Worse than Sonic 1. Zero signposting. Just guess where the rings/bombs will show up. If Tails gets hit you lose rings too, so you’re meant to anticipate and adapt to Tails’ delayed inputs?? No way. Also, you lose all your rings (and your shield?!) when you go into special stages in this one. So that’s great.
Bosses are not especially noteworthy, except for one in Mystic Cave Zone which doesn’t give you any rings if you die and come back, which is mean and dumb and annoying (I don’t remember if there are other bosses that do this).
I played through on my Pocket the other day, and I got all the way to the Death Egg. I can put away Silver Sonic in 30 seconds easy. But I kept running into this problem with the Death Egg Robot where I would just clip through his body when attacking him sometimes?? And of course because it’s Death Egg Zone it doesn’t give you any rings, so I just die instantly. I don’t remember it being like this. I tried different things with my jumps, like maybe holding the jump button down was making me clip through him. So I tried hitting him without holding the jump button. That didn’t work. So then I tried holding down the jump button. That didn’t work. Then I realized it was because the robot was in the middle of animation, which causes the game to freak out for some reason.
I feel like a lot of Sonic games are like this, where some players can adapt to the borderline-Byzantine styles of play without breaking a sweat – others fail to grasp even the basics. Ross Scott did a great video on Sonic Heroes where he calls this phenomenon “gamer dementia”. It’s especially funny because I’ve played this game before, I’ve beat this final boss before, how could I not remember this vaguely specific rule that kills me if I don’t obey it otherwise?
Actually, I’ll be honest, I’ve never figured out how to beat the Metropolis Zone boss without getting hit. I know I’m supposed to wait for him to do his attack patterns and open up to be attacked, but I can never hit him without getting hit myself. I’m watching videos on it now, and I see what people are doing, but that’s just never worked for me? I just keep taking damage and hitting him until the fight is over.
That’s the thing. Sonic fans can tell you how you’re supposed to damage this boss, or play these special stages, or play this game – but it’s impossible to do the game justice unless the controller is in your hands. The utter unspeakability of the pixel perfect precision required for such advanced techniques as “don’t attack the boss in the middle of an animation otherwise you instantly die”.
I don’t think it’s hard. It’s just not well thought out. It feels bad sometimes. And it's impossible to articulate that same sentiment to people who have spent decades mastering the intricate minutiae of the game in question.
I would honestly recommend the Sonic Origins edition of this game for the widescreen (to see further ahead of you, that is (and also the tokens system lets you retry special stages)). There’s also a good handful of Sonic 2 fanmade ports that I’d like to try at some point. Maybe later this year!
All in all, yeah. Kinda sad to come back to a game and realize it’s a little rougher than I remember. All good though! Excited to try Sonic 3 again soon.