Game reviewed: Sonic CD
Original platform: Sega CD
Year released: 1993
Developed by: Sega
Published by: Sega
Platform reviewed on: PC (Kega Fusion emulator), GameCube (Sonic Gems Collection)
Review by: OpethFan
Sonic CD is billed by many Sonic fans as the greatest Sonic game ever made. It excels over Sonic 2 and 3K, they say, to be the best of the bunch. Worth buying a Sega CD for, even. However, before I start to review the title, some background.
History
The game was developed by Sega while Yuji Naka and various other members of the Sonic Team that developed the original Sonic the Hedgehog were at STI in the US making Sonic 2. Naoto Ōshima, creator of the Sonic and Dr. Eggman characters, took the role of director. Yuji Naka did not program the game, nor did Masato Nakamura compose the music. Those roles were taken up by Matsuhide Mizoguchi and, in the US version, Spencer Nilsen, respectively.
First Impressions
That’s enough history, onto the game. The first level, Palmtree Panic, is unsurprisingly similar to Green Hill from the debut Sonic game, but with Triforce-esque triangles replacing the squares in Green Hill’s flooring, and cliffs filling up the space where vast oceans used to occupy. After running a short while, the first new trick shows up, the vertical ramp. If I were still five years old, my mind would have been blown right there. It’s really the first thing that lets you know that Sonic CD has some tricks up its sleeve. Sonic lands and hits a spring, flying upwards with a cool new animation that shows him rotating while facing you. Awesome. Again, Sonic lands and flies past a checkpoint, then another one, which doesn’t make the ‘bwang’ noise of the previous one, but instead whispers ‘past’. This is where things start to go wrong.
I run forward onto some swirling things, which are fun, but then the screen blanks out and Sonic is sucked into the next dimension. This is the past that the signpost activated. It, to me, seems like the designers and artists couldn’t agree on what the levels should look like, so they combined all them together with some weird time travel gimmick, which only seems to confuse me. This feeling of confusion is to continue, it seems, as the challenge in Sonic CD isn’t the enemies, for there are few of them to worry about, but just getting through the twisted mazes they call levels.
Level Design
The mazes are fun and wacky, they seem to be fast and energetic at first, but soon grow wearing and annoying. Springs and cut out pathways are placed far too liberally to be the fun add-ons of the previous game, so become a focal point of this one. The same is true of the wackiness factor. Here and there its fun, especially in Sonic, but too much of it just becomes wearing and tiring. The colors are vibrant and fun, at least in the present levels, but very few of them actually represent anything. There’s no Casino, no Hill Tops, no Labyrinths. I’m sure the levels here are meant to represent these things, but they just end up looking like the same thing, just with a different color scheme. There’s no character, no charm.
Graphics and Animations
Sonic’s sprites are based off the ones from the original game, but there are some new ones. The spinning vertical jump I mentioned earlier is a nice addition, as are the ‘scared’ and ‘hang’ animations. The real rotten egg, though, is the ‘figure of eight’ found when Sonic is flying at high speed. It is, in my opinion, the most useless animation ever. There’s already an animation for Sonic traveling fast, why do we need another one? It’s also annoying that it’s a figure of eight. Sonic’s legs never go in that shape. They’re always in a blurred circle, and it should stay that way. Personal ranting aside, the animation is fair. Not quite as nice as those in Sonic 2 or 3K, but acceptable.
Sound Effects
For a system billed for its sound capabilities, it fails to impress. Almost every sound effect is identical to the original game, apart from the voices informing you that you’re about to be transferred to another time period and the jump noise, which is so bad it’s almost enough to stop me playing the game altogether. Instead of the satisfying low noise you would hear in any other game in the series, this one’s a high pitched shriek that makes one want to van Gogh themself.
Music
Finally, a positive. The music is fun and interesting, in this US release at least. However, it isn’t as memorable as a theme by Nakamura or other Japanese composers such as Nobuo Uematsu of Final Fantasy fame. I have to say that the music gets a thumbs up here.
Gameplay\Overall
Sonic CD is a fun game, if you leave all your preconceptions at the door as soon as you put the CD in. It’s a great game, but not quite a great Sonic game. The gameplay is too maze-like and different to be a traditional game in the series, but it definitely does stand out on it’s own as an example of where the series could have gone under a different lead. Its history is easy to see, with an early version of the spindash implemented, and the usage of Sonic 1 sprites. Play this game, but don’t expect it to be the Sonic you remember from the cartridge days. That’s the mistake I made when reviewing this game: I expected it to be something it’s not, and that’s not a blow to it, it’s a mistake I made. Go in with an open mind, and all will be well.
Overall Rating: 7.5\10
Recommended: Yes
Sonic CD Review
Great review there! I was debating about sellilng my copy, but now you've got me thinking about playing through it...
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Ironman John
My Collection
Wave1Collectibles
Ironman John
My Collection
Wave1Collectibles