Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Reviewed by Dyson Turner
After the successful Sonic The Hedgehog there was no doubt
in anyone's mind that a sequel was coming, and that it would
be just as great or even surpass the original. It did
surpass the original in my opinion, and improved on all the
faults from the original. Now you have two characters to
chose from, which are equally good. Sonic the Hedgehog &
Miles "Tails" Prower, a two tailed fox who could fly. The
stages have been updated, and the graphics seem a bit more
refined, too. I'm not saying the original didn't have good
graphics but in my opinion they look a bit better in this
game. The special stage has been updated, and is leaps and
bounds over the original. It was also a lot more fun and
quite a challenge. My first impression of this game was Wow!
This is way better than the original, the stages were
better, the idea was better, and a new moves a new character
some great music. This surely lived up to the name of Sonic
the Hedgehog. This sold just as well, as he original did,
and many were proclaiming that this was the best game out
their period. For the time it came out in my opinion it was
the best game you could get. No one could deny the success
or all the popularity that this game achieved, it later went
on to be a cable cartoon show after this game or its sequel
was released.
Story 10/10
Well, after the events of the original Sonic the Hedgehog,
and Sonic freeing all his animal friends, every one presumed
that Robotnik was gone for good. That the rest of the world
would live happily ever after, They were wrong. Robotnik
managed to recover from the fall, and was at his own schemes
again. This time he decided to re captures a lot of the
furry animals, plus makes a doomsday machine where he would
try to take over the world with. He had all the keys to do
this with, the only thing he was lagging, was the Chaos
Emeralds. It seemed the Cgaos Emeralds were the key to
Robotnik's success in takign over the world. Without the
Chaos Emerald's Robotnik could not have gone through with
his plans. He knows Sonic is capable of getting them, so he
will try and take them away from him at any chance he can
get. Sonic was out numbered and it looked to be his biggest
challenge yet. One of his friends, Tails decided that he
would join Sonic on his quest to save the world. Tails was a
two-tailed fox, a freak of nature that was orphaned as a
baby. For 3 years birds raised him, as one of there owns,
around the time he turned 4 or 5 he found Sonic. As Sonic
was showing all his friends his moves, and his incredible
speed, Tails decided to mimic him. He did a new move, which
is available in the game. Sonic tried it, and he felt that
tails proved himself enough to be taking along for the trip.
There job together was to rid their world once and for all
of Robotnik and his evil treachery. Well, that story is
pretty cheesy when you think about it, but this game was
geared towards youngsters, and they probably liked the story
to some extent. Well, I was young too, and I liked it as
well. Even though it did follow the same theme as the rest
of the Sonic games.
Graphics 10/10
These graphics were truly outstanding and some of the best
that I ever seen on the Genesis at that time. I was still
recovering from the graphics of the original when I laid
eyes on this one. Although Sonic did appear to be a bit
smaller in this version, but he was still fast, maybe even
faster than before. Tails was pretty fast too, but not as
fast as Sonic, even though these characters reached high
speeds nothing could stop their quickness, and the game did
not slow down what so ever. The backgrounds were gorgeous
and had a lot of detail even more detail than the previous
Sonic game. Some of the ones that truly stood out was he
cave zone, and even the water zone which reminded me of how
ancient Atlantis must look. Even though the first were good,
these truly surpassed what they did. The enemies were highly
detailed as well, and showed much detail and had nothing
left to be desired. The many different suits of Robotnik
were sensational as well, and the facial expressions he
made, and Sonic and Tails made it feel like you were playing
a cartoon. Then there was even last second details which you
had to look close to notice them, some examples were the
grass swaying in the breeze on the first Zone, the airplane
when Sonic is on making his hair move and lots of other
details. These may not have been much but they have been
known to enhance over all enjoyment.
Sound 10/10
The music was just slightly better than the original. Well
at the time that this was made this was one of the only
Genesis games, that had good music, well this the original
and Streets of Rage. The music here was very good, and there
was always that one stage that had outstanding music, that
you would always remember and that would stay on your mind.
The opening theme is just about the same as it was on the
original, not too much of a difference here, maybe some
beats were added and here and there. The sound effects got a
little better, still drowned out by the music but not much
though, you still can hear them clearly and vibrantly. The
boss music where you face Robotnik at the end of each stage
has improved by quite a bit, and is sounds more evil than it
did during the original Sonic the Hedgehog. Some sages could
have used some improvement, but for the most part everything
did sound good, and was sounding close to like the best
music on Genesis. The sound effects went right along with
it, and made the game sound even better. The sound
department in general went quite well with the graphics in
this game, and made the game overall more enjoyable.
Game Play 10/10
This game is for one or two players. You now have more
options and more ways to play than before. This time instead
of just the regular game you could chose different methods,
like if you had two players you could do the race. The race
was the ability to play different part of the game with a
friend, and se who could get through the fastest and gain
the most points. Believe me this was tons of fun if you had
a friend along and added more to the game once you beat it.
Then you could either play as Tails, with Tails or your
buddy could control Tails. It was also undeniable fun if you
had a buddy along helping you in the adventure, unlike the
sequel there was no way to make tails manually fly, which
was a bummer. You also had a new move called the Sonic Spin
Dash. This is where you charge your self up and you can
burst like bolt lightening in a ball and go through a few
badniks on the way. This was a very good move and one that I
used through out the entire series since they all allowed
you to do this here move. The special stage is different
this time around and in most people's opinion even better
than before. You are in what appears to be a tunnel you have
to grab as many rings as the top of the screen tells you
during the stage. When you do you have to pass 3 check
points in each stage, when you do it you will be awarded
with a Chaos Emerald. Unlike the original Sonic the Hedgehog
when you get a Chaos Emerald it actually does something,
collect them all and you are in for a good time. I won't
tell you what happens when you get all the Chaos Emeralds
I'll let you find out trust me you will like it. Anyway with
this improved Special Stage this adds a lot more fun and
variety to the game, which makes it an overall more
enjoyable game. The difficulty on this was intermediate,
although at some spots this game was way too tough for the
younger players, which it was obviously geared towards.
That's a fatal flaw that plagued the entire Genesis series,
why make a game that was this tough, I mean if you want
younger players to enjoy it then they can't. Also I feel, as
though they should of put more in to the acts and zones in
this one, they just seemed lagging, and incomplete. Where as
the original had 3 acts for every zone, this has 2 except
for the last zone. So at some spots they make it seem like
its for the expert player and while at others they make it
seem different and like it is not. There was also no save or
pass word features, another feature missing which in the end
hampered this game even more.
Overall 10/10
Well, there were some internal problems that never seemed to
have gotten fixed from the original version? I mean there
still isn't any save or password feature, this game has even
more Zones in it, which makes the game a lot tougher.
Especially since this game is a lot harder than it was on
the previous version. It is hard even trying to make it
through this one, it would have been a lot easier for the
less experienced player to make it through. Then there's the
fact that Tails couldn't fly which hurt the game a lot too.
Well, he could fly but the second player could not control
it like they could in the sequel. This also in my opinion
lowers the fun of the game considerably, and would have been
much more enjoyable if you were allowed to do this. The
replay value is quite a bit higher in this version
considering the fact that you may actually want to get all
the Chaos Emeralds, which was better than the original where
there was no reason to get them. Also the Fun Factor in my
opinion was pretty high as well this game was undeniable fun
with a friend along you could play this again and again just
because. You don't see that much nowadays, and this isn't a
game once you beat you won't pick up again. This is one of
those times fewer classics that are worth a tremendous
amount of play through. There were some other problems with
this game that many didn't noticed during initial play
through. You won't really notice much of these little nit
picky things until you play through many of times. Many felt
that this was the best ever, or at least a close tie with
the 3rd one. If you have the Sonic & Knuckles game, you can
put this in it and relive the adventure. You can play as
Knuckles and have all his moves available, even though with
Sonic & Knuckles on top much didn't change but it did make
the game more interesting. This is a timeless classic, which
many will get and need to get. If you don't already have
this title I highly suggest you purchase it because this was
one of the games, that many considered one of the classics
on Genesis. The good on this game definitely out weighs the
small and not really all that bad. If you want a real five
star classic for your old Genesis I would really advise this
title for you or a young one. You can see why the one for
Dream cast was that good.
OR
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