Sonic games have a long history – from his first appearance to the release of this game Sonic had been running for 20 years and to celebrate those 20 years rather than just a game in honour of his anniversary, the Sonic team made a game that ran through those 20 years.

An interesting note is when you start the game, rather than an opening cutscene you are right into the very first level of the original Sonic games, Green Hill Zone act one! Playing as Sonic in his classic design. At the end of it though, something odd happens. Move to a cutscene where Sonic’s friends surprise him with a birthday party for the modern Sonic.  Then a big monster shows up sucking everyone up and Sonic finds himself in a white void. From here you enter the second zone of Green Hill, only rather than being a recreation of the second act from the first game, it’s a modern style Sonic level adaptation of Green Hill.

This is the gimmick of the game. Each Zone is from one of the mainline Sonic games and contains a classic style and modern style zone. Controlling classic Sonic for Act 1 and modern Sonic for Act 2. Classic Sonic is the left to right style you see in Sonic 1 2 and 3 while modern plays like they do in the 3D games starting from  Adventure onward and has access to the homing attack and boost feature for intense speed. This means for the classic games of Sonic 1, 2 and 3 you get modern takes on their representer levels and after that you get classic recreations of the 3D Sonic games. Wanted to see how a 2D side-scroller take of City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2 plays? This is that game.

The downside to this is the game to get to the final boss is not long at all. With 9 different zones split into 2 Acts each, so that’s 18 levels. There are additions to it, namely each level has several challenge gates for both Sonics to complete and 6 bosses before the final boss. You need to do these to get the Chaos Emeralds. The Zones can be grouped into sets of 3. Sonic 1, 2 and 3. Adventure 1, 2 and Heroes, then finally 06, Unleashed and Colours. Once you beat the Zones the Challenge Gates unlock, and you need to beat one to get a key so you can fight the boss, also a second boss fight against one of Sonic’s rivals is present that also gives you a Chaos Emerald when beaten.

That’s still just 18 levels, 9 Challenge Gates and 6 bosses to race through to get to the final boss and thus end of the game. And nothing else. The only thing unlocked upon completing the game is the ability to become Super Sonic. This is through the  customizable skills. Both Sonics are able to equip skills they can acquire in game, some are purchasable in the shop, others have to be unlocked, either from completing certain Challenge Gates, or from finding the 5 Red Star Rings in an Act. You are limited in how much you can equip though. And once I had the Lightning Shield from Sonic 3 for Classic, I was set… for Classic… I never found anything of much use for modern Sonic, which is potentially a good thing as you don’t need to unlock anything.

Another element to help expand the game is, well, those collectibles. Each Act has 5 Red Star Rings and getting them unlocks music and art to be viewed in the Collection Room. Also once you complete a Challenge Gate you can ring its bell and chase after a music note to get another piece of art and music. There’s also S ranking every stage and boss, but this is just for prestige, you can brag about being able to get all 5 Red Rings in one go and S rank. But you will probably do those separately.

Short yes. BUT the levels themselves are some of the best in the Sonic franchise. They play great almost all the time. Almost – this is a Sonic game and times the modern levels hit a bit of jank, but not often, not enough to call it too bad or an issue you would see it in videos of janky Sonic moments. Each level was picked by a poll for people’s favourite level in that game with the exception of Green Hill from the first game. This leads to the problem, in that there are quite a few City Levels. It would have been nice to not have the Sonic Adventure and Adventure 2 levels being City ones. Sonic Adventure 2 was obviously going to be a City escape, but there were plenty of options in Adventure to go with. Some levels, notably later like Planet Wisp recreate some of the game mechanics to give a bit more of an authentic feel (don’t worry they don’t give you the Werehog, for Unleashed).

What we have is somewhat disappointingly short. Story is basically non-existent, but mechanically some of the best Sonic experiences you can find. So after you have beaten that final boss (who isn’t as good as the other bosses) while trying to find anything you didn’t get done initially, you start to wish that more levels were made, rather than just one per game. Imagine seeing Scrap Brain Zone in 3D or a Classic style version of White Acropolis (was never a fan of Crisis City, or any that had super speed moments) .

The game was rereleased in 2024 packaged with an additional game starring best character in the franchise Shadow. I will review that game separately. This update did give one addition in the form of Collectible Chao in the Acts, 3 in each. Once again though, these do not give any reward other than being cute and appear on the Stage Selection Hub area and in the final cutscene as you return to the Party.

These do all have achievements connected to them. BUT I was playing on the Switch 2 and it doesn’t have those so, these were just being completed because they were there. It did give me stuff to do and so I spent over 12 hours on this game. I did enjoy it. Got S ranks on every level and Challenge and nearly all the Red Star Rings.  If my main complaint about a game is it’s too short, that’s still a measure of quality and recommendation to others. Besides, as I mentioned earlier, the re-release came packed with a whole other game.

Rating: 🎮🎮🎮🎮