Negative Gamer Retro Review: Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Originally released in 1992 for the Sega Mega Drive, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (or just Sonic 2) is the extremely successful follow-up to Sonic the Hedgehog. It is arguably one of the best games of the entire Sonic series and is often held as one of the Mega Drive’s pinnacle titles.

In general, Sonic 2 continues with the gameplay of the original game. You play as Sonic who is trying to stop Dr Robotnik from stealing the Chaos Emeralds and taking over the world. On the way, you free creatures trapped by Robotnik inside his robots and ultimately come face to face with the villain at the end of the game.

The game itself is split into eleven zones, each of which is usually separated by two or three acts. Each act is made up of some fairly simple platforming that’s complimented by sections focussing on Sonic’s famous speed. At the end of each zone you generally face a boss that must be defeated in order to progress to the next area.

Sonic 2 does add new elements to the core gameplay of the original game. These include the spin dash, allowing the player to charge a speed attack, the addition of Tails the fox and an overhaul of the Special Stages. Sonic’s speed has also been increased significantly.

Enemies? Spikes? Lava? There go my rings then.

Throughout the game you will collect gold rings. For every 100 you collect you gain an extra life and if you pass a checkpoint with 50 or more, you can enter one of the Special Stages.

Unfortunately, it is all too easy to lose your rings from the slightest touch. This can be from enemies, spikes or even lava. And when you do get hit you don’t just lose a percentage of your rings, you lose all of them.

This can become especially frustrating when you have collected a lot of rings. Regardless of how many rings you are holding when you get hit, only around 30 will appear on screen for you to try and recollect. Considering the hardware limitations this is somewhat understandable, as 100+ rings suddenly appearing on-screen would probably crash the game.

This could easily have been solved though by allowing only a portion of your rings to be dropped each time Sonic is hit. The frustration I have felt in the Metropolis and Sky Chase Zones would be significantly less if I didn’t always lose 100% of my rings. Especially as towards the end of the game it feels as if the frequency of enemies and spikes increase whilst the opportunity to collect rings decreases.

Not only that but around the game’s halfway point the level design takes a turn for the worse. It becomes possible to be hit by an enemy, lose your rings and as a result of Sonic’s recoil fall into a pit of spikes or lava, and die. In the case of Wing Fortress Zone though, you can just fall into nothingness. In any case, death becomes much more frequent.

Metal Sonic and Robotnik, in a giant mech?
Surely you jest.

Like most games, as Sonic 2 progresses the difficulty of the levels increases. In itself, this is fine. But, by the end of the game the difficulty extends to an extreme level. In specific Death Egg Zone.

The level itself basically acts as an extended boss battle with Sonic facing Metal Sonic, immediately followed by Robotnik himself. However, there are no rings. This means that you must survive the entirety of the level without even being hit once.

I find this a tad harsh. The game suddenly becomes much more hostile than at any point previously. The gameplay too acts in a way to make it nearly impossible to survive. Remember as well that the game is from 1992, so there is no save system. Reaching the final boss means sitting down and playing continuously from the start of the game, hoping that you save up enough lives and continues to make it that far. This again incites frustration, as the sudden requirement for precision is vastly different from the rest of the game.

To some extent this is reflects the game design of the period. At the time, most games were designed to have infinite replayability. Unlike the games of today where it is commonplace to play and enjoy a game once, videogames of the late 80s and early 90s focussed on precision. This forces the player to play repetitively and memorise timings and level design in order to progress.

The penultimate level (Wing Fortress Zone) exemplifies this with some of the most challenging platforming in the game. But, unlike the final level, it doesn’t go out of its way to punish the player. Whilst I agree that the final boss should be challenging it isn’t necessary to introduce a one-hit kill scenario simply to make it harder to complete the game.

Damn tubes.

One element of the game that has been completely overhauled from Sonic 1 is the Special Stages. These are activated by passing a checkpoint with 50 or more rings. The stages themselves act as a way to collect the game’s seven Chaos Emeralds allowing the player to transform into Super Sonic. Whilst the game’s plot is based on stopping Dr. Robotnik from obtaining the Chaos Emeralds, the game itself treats it as more of a side quest.

In the original game, the Chaos Emeralds were located in a sort of maze-like level. In Sonic 2 though, you run down a 3D tube collecting a set number of rings before reaching each checkpoint. This becomes extremely annoying for a number of reasons. Firstly, the controls are terrible compared to the regular gameplay. Sonic has no precision in his movements and will regularly miss vital rings.

Secondly, Tails worsens the situation, mirroring Sonic’s sloppy movements and frequently getting hit by bombs. The bombs themselves are also irritating. Although you do only lose a portion of your rings in the Special Stages, it is almost impossible to collect enough rings to meet the goal if you get hit even once. Given the lax controls and Tails’ incompetence this happens more frequently than not.

Also with Special Stages, when you return to the main game, you have no rings. This means that the further on in the game you are, the more likely it is that you can finish a Special Stage and then be killed by a nearby enemy. Sadly, all of this means that I rarely bother attempting to collect the Chaos Emeralds to try and prevent myself from rage quitting!

A few other points worth mentioning:

• The inclusion of Tails is pretty much useless when playing alone. He does little more than follow Sonic around and will usually be flying in from off screen having been killed or not been able to keep up with Sonic’s speed.
• The sprites are pretty.
• You should expect to run into occasional graphics glitches and frame rate slow down. When there are a lot of enemies or you lose a lot of rings there is a noticeable loss in speed.
• Metropolis Zone has some of the worst level design of the series. There are enemies that explode from inside walls, enemies with homing attacks and an excessive amount of spikes and lava. It’s also the only level in the game to have three acts.
• You can play two-player co-op with the second player helping out as Tails but this has little real purpose other than novelty value.
• Multiplayer Mode is terrible. There is little need for Sonic 2 to have a race mode especially when Tails is significantly slower. The entirety of the multiplayer feels tacked on at the last minute.

Sonic 2 is without doubt an amazing Mega Drive game. It perfectly combines platforming and speed to create a very enjoyable experience. However, it does have some irritating features that can become frustrating. Issues with the loss of rings and difficulty of the final level are likely to cause problems for the player. The Special Stages also do little to help the game. Looking at the series as a whole, for me Sonic 2 is only beaten by 1994′s Sonic and Knuckles which changes how Special Stages work, removes Tails and adds new shields and special attacks.

You should play this game if’¦
… you want to play a proper Sonic game.

Score:
A classic Mega Drive title, but expect to become frustrated at points.

(What does this score mean?)

Release info/availability:
Original release: Sega Mega Drive, 1992, also ported to Sega Game Gear
Currently available on: XBLA, Wii Virtual Console, XBOX 360* and PS3*

*(through Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection)