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The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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What was obviously an April Fool, not least because of the release date, it turned out that The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog was, in fact, a real actual game that genuinely exists. And was free on Steam. Who wouldn’t want to play a game where Sonic the Hedgehog is murdered?

Minor spoiler (because obviously, c’mon): Sonic wasn’t murdered.

In this mostly visual novel game, it’s Amy’s birthday and, as you do for such events, a murder-mystery-onna-train party has been organised. All her friends are assigned roles, and then OH NOES, Sonic is murdered. It’s up to you, as Generic Furry Train Guard Person Thing, and Tails, as Designated Detective, to follow the clues, interrogate the suspects, and find the “killer”. Only there’s a PLOT TWIST because Sonic may have actually been murdered after all FO’ REALS.

Minor spoiler (because obviously, c’mon): Sonic wasn’t murdered.

Each time you want to question a Chum of Sonic (not a euphemism), you have to play a mini-game where you’d do what Sonic would do in this situation – collect rings. These are simple isometric versions of a sort of Sonic free-runner, where you have to get a number of rings and avoid holes and other traps. Ironically for a Sonic game, these Sonic bits are the worst bit of the game, as they’re so tedious and (in the later ones at least) rely on memorising the hazards.

In all, it’s a stupid premise, mostly well executed, quite funny, and it demands to be played.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (Switch): COMPLETED!

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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.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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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!

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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!

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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.