Or is it “Sonic the Hedgehog & Knuckles 3”? Either way, Sonic Origins stitches the two games together as $deity intended to make one massive game. And yes, I completed it with all the Chaos Emeralds (and the Super Emeralds). Having finally completed the entire game I feel like something will be missing throughout my day, but to remind me of such a fun process I considered getting my own "Sonic", you'd be surprised if I told you how much does a hedgehog cost.
It’s great, because of course it is. However, there’s something wrong – very wrong – in this version. You see, it’s pretty well known that Michael Jackson was somehow involved in the creation of some of the music tracks in Sonic 3. It has never been fully proven as to what extent, but some of the music does sound very much like some of his work – take the “crash” from both his track “Jam” and Sonic 3’s Carnival Night Zone, for example. Probably related to this, they’ve replaced some of the music with new chiptune music in this release and it’s also the most likely reason why Sonic 3 hasn’t appeared on any Mega Drive or Sonic game compilations in the last decade or so.
This new music is rubbish.
Part of it is surely just because it isn’t what my head remembers. It feels wrong playing through levels with the wrong soundtrack. But also, this new music is rubbish. Ice Cap’s new track doesn’t even sound like an ice level music track. The new Carnival Night Zone music is out of tune. Launch Base sounds like it’s in the wrong game. They all make my ears cry.
Thankfully, the game itself is as good as it ever was to play.
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.
It was time to play this again. I mean, sure, it’s almost always time to play this, but it was especially time to play this just now.
Choosing Madcap this time, for no real reason, I made it through to the final level where I was once more unopposed. So an instant win, again. Ah well. The real fun was the fun we had along the way, or something.
After a write-up in Retro Gamer magazine, I was reminded how much fun this was all those years ago, so since I already had my RetroFlag GPi out for Mega-lo-Mania purposes, it seemed rude not to have a quick go.
Which turned out to be a couple of days of play and ended up with me completing it. As you do.
Somewhere, I have a hand-written, self-worked-out list of every single fruit combination for all the magic spells you can do, but I don’t know where that is so resorted to The Internet for some interesting ones. Most important were the ones that either gave you extra lives, or gave you stars with which to buy extra lives. Because extra lives are Important.
The aim of the game is to collect wabbits. But you have a timer and this seems to get shorter, and unless you’re lucky and collect a million “time extend” pickups dropped occasionally by captured wabbits, invariably you’re going to run out, and die. Especially in later levels where the number of required wabbits increase, and they start dropping the odd time penalty pickup too. Hence the need for extra lives. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to rack up loads of them with the right fruit and stars. Phew, eh?
Yes, it’s another of Jupiter’s excellent but nearly identical Picross games! Only this one is slightly different as each puzzle is a pixel graphic straight from a Sega Mega Drive or Master System game! But you guessed that from the title.
Not that it really matters because I literally don’t care what the pictures actually are, but it was a bit disappointing that so many of them were just faces of characters from games. Nowhere near as many items, logos, weapons, scenery parts, etc. as I’d hoped for. Also, the music is so, so irritating. The Alex Kidd music, on a loop, for over half an hour? No thanks. And why Passing Breeze from Out Run when Magical Sound Shower exists? Madness.
Can you tell that it’s Knuckles yet?
Thankfully, you can put “soothing arcade sounds” on instead. So I did that.
