ugvm

the site of uk.games.video.misc

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

Posted on Written by

They made a VERY IMPORTANT change to Sonic 2 on this Sonic Origins compilation. In the original, after getting all the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic has the ability to turn into Super Sonic once he collects 50 rings. Sorry, that might be a spoiler. Super Sonic moves even faster, jumps higher, and is invincible (except for being crushed or falling off the bottom of the screen), but as his rings count down as you use him, you have to constantly collect rings or he’ll run out and you’ll turn back into Normal Boring Sonic with no rings, and invariably die.

Which is fine, except that as Super Sonic, platforming is far trickier as the physics change and he’s much more slippery and quick. So really, you want to be saving your rings until you get to a hard bit or a boss, then triggering The Change. You couldn’t do that, though, as the game decided that the way to trigger The Change was to jump. Yes, just jump. Which, in a platformer, is tricky to avoid doing. UNTIL NOW! Yes, in Sonic 2 in Sonic Origins, you can turn into Super Sonic at will! You still jump, now you also have to press another button in the air. A game changer. No more franticly trying to race to the end of the level before your rings run out, or having to make jumps over pits of doom even more difficult because Sonic acts more like a mouse pointer than a physics-adhering creature. Amazing.

Oh, and the game? Completed it mate. With all the emeralds. That Tails is a git though, especially on the Special Stages.

Sonic CD (Switch): COMPLETED!

Posted on Written by

And onto the next! Sonic CD was always the black sheep of the 16-bit Sonic games, what with changing the gameplay and returning to a graphics style more like Sonic 1 even though it came out after Sonic 2 (in the UK at least). Levels don’t feel as well organised as the other games, with scenery overlapping and areas messy with seemingly random item positioning – partly due to being able to travel into the past and future and so some item placements make sense in one time period but not in others, and partly due to The Power Of The Mega CD allowing much more in the way of graphic storage.

Sonic CD certainly has some… interesting colour schemes.

That’s not to say it’s bad, it just was a step sideways. Sonic Origins gets round this a bit by putting it chronologically between Sonics 1 and 2, which makes sense. Unfortunately, it introduces something that close to ruins it for me – the US version soundtrack.

For the most part, the music on the US release of Sonic CD was different to the UK (and Japanese) release. The most well known example being the terrible “Sonic Boom” theme tune in the opening video, which is infinitely superior “You Can Do Anything” (generally known as “Toot Toot Sonic Warrior”) in the UK, but I hadn’t realised that almost all of the music is different. And worse. Much, much worse. The end of game boss music – one of the best on the soundtrack – is especially missed.

Luckily, the gameplay has been left alone. It just feels weird having the wrong music!

This one isn’t too hard. Later special stages are near impossible.

As with the original Sonic the Hedgehog on Sonic Origins, you get coins instead of lives, and can “spend” these on retrying failed Special Stages. And thank $deity you can, because the Sonic CD special stages (where you run around a Mario Kart-like track chasing UFOs) are hard. Yes, I made use of those coins and I don’t even feel guilty. Time stones get! Good ending (which apparently isn’t the canonical ending?!) get! Sonic 2 next!

Sonic the Hedgehog (Switch): COMPLETED!

Posted on Written by

Well, would you look at that. I bought yet another copy of Sonic the Hedgehog. I now have it three times on my Switch, in various guises. This time, it’s because I bought Sonic Origins, that remastered collection of Mega Drive (and Mega CD) Sonic games where they are reworked to fit into widescreen properly and a few things have been tweaked.

The original, unmodified, versions are on here too, but I’ve played them before so I went for the Anniversary Mode. For the first Sonic at least, that just added the widescreen aspect already mentioned, does away with lives (you have unlimited, with what would be lives now added to a coin pot to unlock things in a gallery), lets you do a drop-dash (although I only realised that by accident late in the game) and you can spend coins/lives to retry special stages should you fail them.

The only one that really makes a difference, is the special stage retries, although the special stages are pretty easy in the first game so it’s a bit unnecessary. The widescreen is nice, but it has the knock-on effect of changing some of the bosses a bit. For example, the one at the end of Spring Yard Zone relies on the left and right of the screen acting as walls. With the left and right now, er, more left and right, extra fake walls had to be implemented. Regardez:

The odd things bottom left and right? They’re the fake walls. Which have collapsed now I’ve beaten Eggman.

It seems a handful of bugs have been fixed (there’s a few places where it used to be possible to get squashed, even though you’re not in a get-squashed place), but I did bump into this new one:

Minor stuff aside, it’s still 16-bit Sonic, so it’s still great. And yes, I got all the chaos emeralds.

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (Switch)

Posted on Written by

And that’s that done again.

This time, I played through picking Claude, the guy on the yellow team, as he sits somewhere between the “eradicate all the Church and their allies for no reason” of Edelgard and “defend the Church at all costs” of Dimitri. He wants shut of the Church (they are too influential, or something), but doesn’t really want to be at war and certainly doesn’t want to destroy the blue army.

Of course, it just means more button mashing but with a different (mostly) set of allies.

And I’m done. Over 100 hours. Excellent.

Kirby’s Dream Land (Switch): COMPLETED!

Posted on Written by

I always forget that in this, the very first Kirby game, Kirby’s well known basic power of inhaling in baddies and copying their abilities doesn’t exist. Well, he can suck them in, but he can’t gain powers from doing so.

It’s also very easy. As in, I didn’t die. You can avoid a load of things by just flying over them or sucking them up, and there’s health pickups everywhere, so it’s only really the bosses that provide any sort of challenge. Except they don’t.

Not that any of that matters though, because despite the age, lack of difficulty, and limited nature of Kirby himself, it’s still a lot of fun to play through.