Sonic 1 sold very well and SEGA had finally found its mascot to go up against Mario, and so the console wars had begun! Now many of you young people now may not realize but back then the idea of the same game on more than one console was a rarity. When you got a SNES or Genesis/Mega drive you were basically locked into its library of games. You saw a good game on the other one you were not going to be able to play that, unless you had both but few did back then, most made their choice and stuck to it. This meant the exclusives where massively important and it was time for Sonic to get a sequel.

Now when it came to a sequel there were two ideas, one presented by SEGA of Japan and one by SEGA of America. SEGA of Japan were more focused on selling peripherals to the device in this case the SEGA CD which connected to the Genesis/Mega drive and allowed it to play CD games, and Sonic got the only game anyone acknowledges was any good for that peripheral Sonic CD (SEGA of Japan’s push for peripherals is by some considered what ended up causing the ruin in later gens) While SEGA of America released the far more successful and influential game we are looking at today Sonic 2.

Sonic 2 plays very much the same as Sonic 1 with few additions. The only real new ability Sonic has is the super spin dash allowing him to build up momentum on the ground before releasing himself forward as a spiky ball of death. The major selling point of the game though was the introduction of Tails the two tailed fox best friend of Sonic. Players can choose through the options to play as Sonic with Tails following behind him, also letting a second player control him or Sonic or Tails individually. Playing as Tails is exactly the same as Sonic in this game although if Sonic with Tails loses Tails he will just fly in from off camera (though no you can’t fly as him just yet, that’s Sonic 3 and Knuckles, yes the game that introduced THAT meme). Sonic CD introduced Amy and Metal Sonic.

Unlike the first game almost all zones are now split into 2 acts rather than 3 with the boss appearing at the end of the last act of a zone. These zones are some of the most legendary like Chemical Plant Zone, Casino Night Zone and Oil Ocean Zone. The game culminates in a battle in space (this was before that got over used) against Robotnik (he’s called Eggman now, since that’s what he was always called in Japan) in his now legendary death egg robot, on a level with no rings (look up the old review to see why that’s important). Sgathaich: Sonic the Hedgehog

But there is a down side to this game and that is to do with the other major thing introduced in it, Super Sonic. After you get all the seven (they addressed that there was really seven in the instruction booklet describing how Robotnik missed it last time) chaos emeralds and collect 50 rings you can transform into Super Sonic who is extra fast and invincible (and totally not a rip off of Super Sayian from Dragonball). But here’s the catch.. The special stages you need to clear this time are the worst they will ever be in the main games. They are a pseudo 3d tube that you run through with Sonic now facing his back to you, and you need to get through 3 sections each with higher ring demands or you fail. What’s more because of curves it’s impossible to see what’s coming round the corner and where and some of those might be spikes that remove your rings. Also if you have Tails with you which is standard, it becomes even harder as he can collect and lose rings while not being as good as dodging as you, due to him just copying you with delayed action. To even get to the special stage you need to get to a check point with 50 rings at which point you then lose those be it a success or a fail…. also remember how the final stage has no rings? yeah you can’t even use Super Sonic on the final boss and the ending is made worse by it since it ruins Tails heroic catch of Sonic at the end…. there’s apparently a cheat to get Super Sonic but I never got it to work.

Sonic 2 is a very good game, many of what people now think of when they think of Sonic came from this game (NO NOT THAT STUFF YOU SICK (profanity)). It built from Sonic 1 and made an almost perfect game, however I feel the special stages somewhat sour the experience besides the sequel when played in full is better, I’ll get to that when I can find a copy or just get my Game Cube back up and running, for some reason all the SEGA collections don’t seem to include the best Sonic game, yet throw in Spinball WT(profanity).

Rating: