Welcome to another edition of Retro Corner Reviews and it’s been quite a while since we went over a Genesis title. We take a look at the sequel to Sonic for the Genesis that would refine the gameplay mechanics and graphics of the previous game. I remembered back in 1992 when Sega had a successful year with their in-house games such as Streets of Rage 2 and the release of their CD add on. However, Sonic 2 is what sold many gamers on actually buying a Genesis that year. The marketing the company used during the Christmas season was pure genius for many reasons. They had a big release for the holiday season when Nintendo had no major titles to counter them. Sega put together an ad showing Santa playing the game for a few minutes in a living room. Then the ad leads to two boys rushing into the living room to see the system with the game inserted as the big guy disappears. We can also factor in two bundles of a core model priced at $99.99 and the other for $129.99 that includes Sonic 1 being available. It’s no surprise why the company's profits moved 50% up. Sonic 2 was the company's biggest game that year as it easily beat out Nintendo's Super NES despite having a solid lineup. The second entry also marked the introduction of Miles "Tails" Prower who acted as the sidekick character. Sonic 2 would end up being among the bestselling Genesis games with reaching over 6 million copies. Gameplay The gameplay saw several areas of refinement as any problems the first entry suffered from finally got fixed. As usual the level design relies on speed and some tricky platforming to progress through the acts. Of course, this is what made Sonic a fun series on the Genesis from the use of the speed. The level design no longer has cheap obstacles placed around the areas of each zone which plagued its predecessor. Every level is synced with the speed of Sonic and no matter how many enemies, hills and drops there are, you were always able to retain the momentum. Many mechanics return like the power ups that can aid the player through the various obstacles. The Power Sneakers, shields and invincibility still have the same functions as before. Although they may be the same, Sega did fix the problem I had with the Power Sneakers. When obtaining these power ups, I found it seamlessly working with the levels and made this easier to maneuver through the obstacles. Another new feature called the spin dash is probably the best new move at the time since this allowed Sonic or Tails to speed up on their own. That made it so much easier to gain speed then simply using a hill or a spring to boost the Hedgehog. As we know this is where Sonic’s famous spindash originated from and it’s a much welcomed feature. In the first image shows a tall incline and the spindash allows us to get up there quickly. Even then this mechanic can not only help speed through an area but when timed right can also damage enemies. That leads to the second image which shows a battle with Eggman in Casino Night. That is what separates the first title’s bosses from its sequel as the battles here are more balanced. The pic above shows Robotnik having electric contraptions around his vehicle to prevent Sonic from damaging him while dropping spike balls. It's these change ups and curve balls the series needed to make it a massive go to title for the console. The bonus stages were another thing that saw an improvement instead of going through a pinball area. The objective would have you collect rings while avoiding bombs. In these special areas, the players are on a set plain and could only move from left to right along the slopes. That balanced out the challenge as you no longer needed to stay on the walls while making it easier to obtain the Chaos Emeralds. As for my favorites, they are Emerald Hills, Chemical Plant, Casino Night and Mystic Cave. These stages always seem to have the best challenges because of how seamless it was to progress. It didn't matter if I blasted through the stages or took different routes, these levels were the best. The boss battles were nearly the same difficulty as the player would avoid projectiles and then attack in a timely fashion. There wasn't one boss fight I didn't hate, and the challenge always had a balance. That means there are no cheap designs this time like it was in Labyrinth Zone Act 3. Speaking of the Third Act of a zone, this is where the Sonic Team would drop it. I had no problems with the third acts in the first title as these extra levels made your playthroughs longer. Although this allowed the developers to create more themed zones with unique challenges from the other. I just love the curve balls the developers threw at us here and Mystic Cave had those challenges. In the first image certain paths would have the player grab a vine or wooden pulley to open a trap door to progress. These types of challenges help give a change to the stages instead of us just speeding our way through. Now, the two player gameplay in the second picture wasn’t my favorite thing as it was tacked on. Its shames of the first Super Mario Bros all over again with its marathon running. With the exception of one or two powerups, there is no reason to try this mode especially when all you do is run a marathon. It is hard for me to find any faults in the series pre-third party Sega as the second entry provided what a sequel does. There is one issue to bring up with the Sonic Team as they added a two player mode to the mix. It's not designed in the same manner as the Mario series since its gameplay is in the form of races. The players can choose between Sonic and Tails, but it doesn't matter who is picked as they control the same. I never really played this with anyone because I would usually stick to the main game. It just felt like the feature was there because your kid brother or sister wants to have fun too. Then you the gamer would get stuck playing this mode with your little sibling, so they don't cry to their parents for not sharing. That's the only feature I didn't like because there was no meaning to the gameplay especially when it was tacked on. The sole positive thing that was surprisingly interesting came from the powerups found in this mode. It was more than what the single player had and there were things here not used in the main game. These powerups were random so you weren’t sure if it were rings, a shield or even an item that trades places with the other. Unfortunately, we would have to wait until the third game to get true special abilities as seen from the elemental shields. Rating: 9.3/10 Graphics/Presentation Sega did more than give refinements to the gameplay as the Sonic Team took it a step farther in the visual department. Gone are the choppy backgrounds and foregrounds because now these appear smoother. The parallaxing in the environments (meaning a background that overlaps another) saw an improvement from the original. However, seeing something like a field of grass or a cavern moving along another background stood out. Everything feels livelier in these levels now especially in the pollution themed stages like Chemical Plant and Metropolis Zones. Casino Night didn’t have a romantic starlight theme from the last game however, its environment was still lively. That is expected since a place of this caliber is about living the life of a high roller and having a good time gambling. The shining lights whether present anywhere as seen in background scenery made venturing through here special. Despite the system can only support two parallax backgrounds, there are still plenty of visuals within the environment. Areas like Hilltop Zone had this the best thanks to the clouds moving about in the scenery. The bonus stages were more than flashing neon colors with changing backgrounds. The Sonic Team did an impressive job rendering these areas in near 3D. That outperformed anything Super Mario World did despite using the superior Mode 7 for the overworld map. It’s amazing what the Sonic Team could do without using an equivalent of a Super FX Chip or the Virtual Processor. The visuals sometimes looked amazing as seen from Casino Night and was the liveliest stage out of them all. With its bright neon props, a star filled sky and the lights from the cityscape in the background created an immersive environment. Now, the most impressive visuals are found in the bonus stages as the Sonic Team didn’t have to use a special chip. Often, many Super NES owners always touted the Mode 7 graphics as something that is only done on their console. However, the Genesis proves once again that it is capable of creating pseudo-3D effects as much as the Super NES. Eggman’s badniks got a redesign as the tweaked art style helped with their appearances. Even though the badniks retained their metallic concepts from the last entry, they seem more vibrant. I don’t have a particular favorite since Wily’s is more preferred to me thanks to Capcom giving them their cutesy look. We are also introduced to the first version of Metal Sonic on the last stage. His introduction was lackluster as he really doesn’t have the best design compared to the later models. Unfortunately, the developers missed a perfect opportunity to not use the second model from Sonic CD. The reason is due to the fact this one was too bulky and looked clunky as if they were scrambling for any concepts. With the second model from Sonic CD, he appeared menacing especially with those cold eyes of a machine. The first one hardly compares to version three from Sonic 3 and Knuckles since it retained that same menacing look. Now, the most improvement came from Robotnik’s vehicles as none of them used the same concept. Right at the beginning Eggman attacks Sonic with some drill car then in another he uses pillars to trap his enemy that shoots spears. Now, the best one is obvious during the final battle on the Death Egg as he built a giant robotic version of himself. Even the song that plays illustrates the importance of taking down Eggman from conquering Mobius. As mentioned, I was never a fan of the first robotic Sonic as the concept looks lazily designed. No doubt the idea of the Hedgehog having an equal evil robotic version of himself is there, but the execution was not implemented well. Fortunately, the development team went back to the drawing board for Sonic CD. Remember that final battle with Robotnik in the first game? Well Eggman came up with a much better attack plan for the Hedgehog and created a massive robot. They certainly save the most dangerous one for last as this robot coupled with the engaging final boss music is the stuff of legends. Another thing that saw a big improvement came from the animation as the developers give much needed tweaks. As seen from the spindash with Sonic and Tails they now have a sphere form with rapid movement. Also, the smooth animation provides fluid motion such as from the waterfalls and the clouds in Hill Top Zone. The level that made the best of this was Casino Night with its fantastic neon colors that gleamed. I always found this a little better than most in the series as the atmosphere came across lively like you were in Las Vegas. That was obviously the inspiration the Sonic Team probably got the idea from. The music isn't the best I've listened to, but that doesn't stop it from still sounding great. My personal favorites were Emerald Hill, Chemical Plant, Casino Night and Mystic Cave due to each track having variety. Whether it was the calm and colorful tracks up to the grinding and hard hitting themes, each stage knew what tones to use. That's especially true when those grinding themed songs sounded awesome, something the Genesis' crappy sound chip always got right. It's no wonder why Sonic 3 is considered one of the best looking Genesis games. Nevertheless, their in-house developers learned from Sonic 2 to push the graphics further on the console. Rating: 9.5/10 Features/Content The content came off nearly identical to the original between the single and multiplayer modes. The usual single-player mode has you go through two acts of one zone before facing Eggman at the end. I can never understand why Sega went from three stages to two after the first Sonic game. Yeah, there are nearly double the zones; however, this causes the game to have fewer levels. I guess because of each one's challenge being different is what gives them variety. At least those varied challenges make up for the fewer stages considering they are also longer. The bonus stages are featured once again but instead of waiting till the end of an act, now you can simply enter these at the checkpoints. The best part about collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds from these levels is the game rewards the player this time. It allows a new feature to turn into Super Sonic, and this combines the Power Sneakers and the invincibility together. That was always my favorite feature to obtain when I was younger since the challenges were a lot easier to get through. Now, I recently just learned a trick and it turns out there is a way to get all the Chaos Emeralds in the first zone. The one thing Genesis can do is upon resetting the console this actually stores the data from your last play through from the console’s RAM. After completing the first bonus and obtaining the Chaos Emerald, hit reset and play the first stage again. Go into the bonuses and repeat the process until you get all of them. That famous level select returns despite the way of accessing it was much different this time. At the time before the internet was a thing the only way, we would find these cheats is by reading magazines. Of course, today it isn’t an issue as the internet provides easy access to these cheats. Unlike the Mario series, Sonic has a Super form and the idea of being invincible most of the time without using Game Genie was something else. Not many games had that feature to my knowledge however, there is a catch as you need to collect all the Chaos Emeralds and have 50 rings. The only game that comes to mind was the port of Ghouls N Ghosts but that was a cheat code and not a gameplay mechanic. The two-player game as mentioned earlier was played by racing each other through the same track. I still don't like what the gameplay stood for as no kids ever touched this mode. However, when I did, this usually lasted for a couple of rounds until me and a friend or sibling grew bored of it. The Sonic Team should've designed the two player modes in the same manner as in the Mario Series. It would have worked perfectly with player one as Sonic and the other as Tails. Another great feature to unlock is Debug mode as nothing beats messing around during a play through. It allows you to start without collecting the Chaos Emeralds, so I could turn into Super Sonic easily or jump to any stage. Another thing I loved playing around with was placing all types of sprites from the enemies, foreground props to the powerup items. You could make the levels more interesting than they already were which would also creates funny instances. My sole disappointment from these modes is the Sonic Team made it harder to unlock them. You have to play music tracks in a specific order in the Sound Test to unlock these features. I say this because in the Original, the sequence of button presses on the title screen quickly was much easier. Rating: 8.7/10 Final Rating Sonic 2 takes the series further as the game fixed the first title's problems with several refinements. The levels were more balanced as the speed was synced to Sonic along with the challenges. The graphics saw another improvement with the sprites, colors and animation. That helped the visuals come off lively now that the art style for the environments and its enemies saw an improvement. The music sounded clearer because each track bought the levels to life. The charming tunes and the grinding hard sounds made the music nearly perfect to each level. My only disappointments come from the two player gameplay as Sega could've put more effort into it. Playing marathon racing is not something I want to do when engaging in multiplayer modes. I already got over that in the first Super Mario Bros but the fact the same concept was used here only annoyed me. They could have used the gameplay format for a two player mode from the Mario series allowing them to take turns. Sonic 2 still blows anything the original tried to do and would only lead the company into making a superior sequel. Gameplay: 9.3/10 Graphics/Presentation: 9.5/10 Features/Content: 8.7/10 Final Rating: 9.3/10 Impressive
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Retro Gamer has over 25 years of gaming experience and played many classics since the Golden Age. She has been an avid fan since the day the NES graced her life and changed it forever.
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