Rank Your Top 5 2D Sonic Games

[andymol21]

Only 2d? Damn was just playin Sonic Adventure and realising how much I love it. Ok here's my list

1 Sonic Chaos
2 Sonic CD
3 Sonic 1 (Master System/Game Gear)
4 Sonic N (N-Gage)
5 Sonic Rush

All of mine are pretty nostalgic really, Chaos, 1 and N are all games that I bought with my own money and played to death. Sonic CD is just awesome, only tried it recently with an emulator but now I look on ebay every day for a cheap Multi Mega and Sonic CD to come up. Sonic Rush is just good fun. I was never into the Mega Drive, had a SNES, so I missed out on that era. Sonic 1 on Master System was my first game I ever played, ever. So yeah that has some pretty strong roots but it was Chaos that I played until my hands hurt.

[randyrandall]

All my childhood I longed to play sonic CD. It seemed to be the pinnacle of Sonic's career. I recently managed to obtain and play it, and what a disappointment. The levels just seem incredibly disjointed, you can barely build up speed without smacking into something, and the style is incredibly inconsistent. It's sorely average, what am I missing?

[racketboy]

All my childhood I longed to play sonic CD. It seemed to be the pinnacle of Sonic's career. I recently managed to obtain and play it, and what a disappointment. The levels just seem incredibly disjointed, you can barely build up speed without smacking into something, and the style is incredibly inconsistent. It's sorely average, what am I missing?

It was definitely different. Did you experiment much with the time-travel element? I thought that really added a lot of depth to the game. But in terms of overall polish, it was really in the middle of Sonic 1 and 2.

[Gamerforlife]

1)Sonic 3 & Knuckles-This game just had some epic moments. The final boss battle and the outer space level with Super Sonic was just awesome. Knuckles brought a wonderful new dimension to the gameplay and the lock-on technology was absolutely brilliant. Nothing can top this one.
2)Sonic CD. I haven't played this, but all the info I've gathered about the game confirms it would get my number 2 spot. I NEED to play this game some day soon
3)Sonic 1-It's classic, no matter how much better the above games on my list are, they can't capture the magic that the first one had. It was so new, so fresh when it came out. Sequels always lose that initial sense of wonder
4)Sonic 2-Didn't really bring much new to the table, but it was solid. The addition of super sonic was very, very cool. Tails was a useless addition though.
5)Sonic Spinball-I never did beat Sonic Spinball, it could get frustrating as hell, but I enjoyed playing it.

Those are the only 2-d Sonics I've played. I don't do much portable gaming

[Ivo]

I'd like to comment, but I haven't really played all of them. I played Sonic and Sonic 2 when I was young, on an actual MegaDrive, and a good bunch of Sonic 3 while my dad talked with a games shop owner about business and stuff. So those 3 do have some nostalgia to me.

I've always wanted to play Sonic CD, but whenever I try to pick it up the time travel stuff scares me way (maybe because I've played too many Sonic Advance and I got "spoiled" with the straightforwardness of it all). Also I have never played the "Knuckles" part of the Sonic 1, 2 or 3.

I played the 3 Advance games, which I found to be good (not great, but not totally crap either), haven't played Rush, and have dabbled slightly with the NGPC game.

I have emulated all the 8-bit titles as well (there is at least one quite cruddy game there, I can assure you ).

It's hard for me to order them, but I think the first 2 and probably the third one has to be in my personal top 5. I'd keep the first one there, as although it doesn't hold as well as the others, it also seems to have a slightly different style (as others said, the lack of the spin dash makes a difference).

Ivo.

[racketboy]

I don't think anyone mentioned Knuckles Chaotix (which should qualify)
I don't know think it would crack my top 5, but was wondering anyone had a extra-soft spot for it...

[randyrandall]

It is so hard to rank them, they basically ARE my gaming childhood.

I first played Sonic 1 on the SMS- my first game ever I think. I have a soft spot for the 8-bit games. I find Sonic 1 too clunky personally. Sonic 2 was the first game I had for my Mega Drive. Still, I can play any 2d Sonic game flawlessly. I know all the routes. I think they're all great in their own respects..

1. Sonic 3 & Knuckles (The music, the character, the style, the story, the huge expanse of the levels, the multiple routes.. everything just clicked and the replay value for me as a child was amazing. I loved the way the levels 'connected'. and the way the music was different for act 2. That reminds me, has anyone here heard of Project Chaos? Remixes of S3K music?

2. Sonic 2 - My first Mega Drive game. Cool levels, cool music, although it missed out on the top spot simply beause it's not quite as long. I just have such a hard time choosing between the two.

3.Sonic 1 8-bit
I think the 8bit outing for sonic was much more memorable than the first on the MD. I had the Japanese version on Game Gear, and Sonic's expression just looked so much more cool than in the European versions. The game was so long and the variety was fantastic for such a primitive console, with bold, interesting graphics.

4.Sonic 2 8-bit
Very hard for me when I was young, each stage was a milestone for me to reach. It was damn hard too.

5.Sonic Chaos/ Sonic 3D
Hard to decide. Chaos seemed to be the most mature 8-bit Sonic, with funky music, cool bosses and oozes of style. 3D on the other hand I was immensely hyped for and it was the most expensive MD game I was ever bought. I played it to death.

[Doctor Fugue]

I don't think anyone mentioned Knuckles Chaotix (which should qualify)
I don't know think it would crack my top 5, but was wondering anyone had a extra-soft spot for it...

Besides me, you mean. I love that game.

[lordofduct]

I don't think anyone mentioned Knuckles Chaotix (which should qualify)
I don't know think it would crack my top 5, but was wondering anyone had a extra-soft spot for it...

Yeah someone brought it up

And I first didn't think it was considered part of the list. But with it there, it has a chance of cracking into my list... but, errr, hrmmph. It was a fun game, and I enjoyed it, but it compares nothing to the rest of them. Shit the Game Gear Sonics would probably break in before this one did.

Oh and I decided I'd describe the game play reasons why Sonic 2 is low on my list.

When Sonic 2 came out, I remember playing it quite a bit. Super Sonic was awesome, and the huge game was great, never did I expect there to be so many levels in one game (Sonic 3 feels short in comparison, then again Sonic 3 was intended to be locked to S&K, hence why I voted it as together). But even so, the game felt rushed and incomplete... even to my young mind.

Super Sonic was a cool idea, but the levels were never designed with Super Sonic in mind. The engine was hardly designed with Super Sonic in mind. I mean if you were to run in a straight path as Super Sonic the engine couldn't keep up and he would fly off screen to the right... then 4 seconds were spent with the camera rushing all over the level trying to get back over Super Sonic. Usually resulting in the camera rushing all the way to the bottom of the levels screen and killing you just because. The collision also didn't function very well for Super Sonic allowing you to run through certain walls and clip throw small cracks in the ground for no apparent reason.

The spin dash was a cool addition as well. But it never fealt like it was useful accept in some boss battles. Most of the time it was just used to rush up some hill that couldn't be walked up with out gaining speed. Sonic 3 actually created uses for the Spin Dash and made it seem like an integral part to the game, but the Spin Dash in Sonic 2 felt like the Speed Dash in Sonic CD (which OH MY GOD, both the spin dash and speed dash in Sonic CD sucked). It looked like neat cool flair that my sister who never could beat the game could sit and do over and over and over just to do it... cause it looked cool. But shit, I can remember time and time again screaming out to my sisters "STOP IT, stop it please, if I see you rush at that same spiked mob with the spin dash I'm gonna go ballistic".

The games graphics were a hop from 1 to 3. Not a lot of complaint here, and it was a nice progression between Sonic 1 and 3. But where this gets down to is the graphics in level design. The game was long, the game had LOTS of cool places to visit, just like Sonic 1 had cool places to visit. BUT, if I have to run through yet one more grassy hill level, I'm gonna go crazy! Emerald Hill Zone, Aquatic Ruins, Hill Top Zone, and Mystic Caverns felt like each other in some way. Mystic Caverns being really the only truly unique one of these 4.

Sonic 1 went from green hills, to lava caverns, to strange spring yard, to weird under ground water ways, to creepy in the sky city scape, to awesome factory. No level felt the same, and it was always a new experience. But Sonic 2 felt like more of the same, more of the same every level that passed until finally the last 3 or 4 levels (I say 3 or 4 because Sky Chase barely feels like a level and I just consider it part of wing fortress, which I consider part of Death Egg). I was expecting more.

There's 10 levels, when breaking wing fortress, sky chase, and death egg up, and in 10 levels I was expecting more change. Sonic 3/S&K had some repeat themes, but come on, that game was LONG! I forgave it.



There was cool things in Sonic 2, don't get me wrong. Tails was awesome, the special stage was really fucking cool, Super Sonic despite his bugginess was the coolest thing to unlock... it gave more purpose to collecting emeralds. Sonic 3 probably would of been to much of a leap from Sonic 1 for it to feel fluid. And yes, game play wise, Sonic 2 blows Sonic CD out of the fucking water.

Sonic 1 and Sonic CD beat out Sonic 2 in my book for a few reasons despite their technical flaws in comparison.

Sonic 1 is just Sonic 1. We wouldn't have Sonic 2 with out it. It was the birth place of all that speed and fun. And the extra difficulty brought on by the limited mechanics, well was awesome. Sonic 1 is hard, it's really hard, for a basic platformer. Try to beat that game with no cheats or continues and still collecting all the emeralds. It's a tough game! Sonic 2 is only HARD at its final boss. As a kid every time I got to the Death Egg zone I may have died 3 times... once in wing fortress at the boss, once in Metropolis zone because Act 3 is SO FUCKING LONG! and once in Mystic Caves because for the life of me I would always forget about that stupid deep pit with the moving bridge over it with spikes at the bottom... I'd fall down there as Super Sonic because some stupid glitchy witch with collision, and I'd spend 82 seconds waiting for Super Sonic to wear out so that I could FINALLY DIE because nooooo, it's to deep to jump out of, but we HAD to put spikes down here instead of and endless pit because we wanted to really show off our glitchiness that is Super Sonic!

Anyways, I'd get to death egg maybe dieing 3 times. Then I'd waste 5 to 10 lives just trying to hit that stupid bastard robuttnik in the freakin' crotch 12 times! UGH! He wasn't hard, you'd just get hurt because the stupid prick would had this hit area that was so low it was hard to jump into with out jumping into his spike hands, but his spike hands were so high that you couldn't jump over them. Tie in my impatience for dodgin his goofy ass and hitting him when he bowed over... but come on, at 9 years old you hardly have the patience for a pop tart to cook!


The comes in Sonic CD... this game wins in my book for none game play reasons. Yes it is 100% nostalgia and prestige. NO ONE owned Sonic CD in my town... not a soul. I think this kid Keith and I were the only ones who owned Sega CDs for christ sake (and he didn't get his for a long time after me). Sonic CD was that article every gamer boy in town (and I lived between two towns East Windsor and Somers) walked around and showed their buddies just dreaming of playing this AWESOME game.

The special stages were sooooooo cool. The opening video was a little kid in the early nineties dream come true. I'd rather see the credits of Sonic CD then see boobies in a Sears catalog! Mech-Sonic... OH MY GOD... mecha sonic was PIMP! Metal-Sonic in Sonic 2 looked like a failed science project... but mech-sonic! Sleak, sexy, jet pack on his fucking back! Then the sound track...can I just say YEY!? Time travel, pink sonic chick thing, bizarre levels, a race to your doom against Mech-Sonic in the creepiest post apocalyptic level to data (all boys love post apocalyptic). And Robotnik was so freakin' pimp. He looked evil in this game... truly freakin' evil. Sonic 1 he looked like a ball with a mustache, Sonic 2 he looked like a cartoon character. Sonic 3 he looked all right, but still... Sonic CD, and tie in that CD quality laugh of his at the game over screen... oh my GOD!



So, I'm done.

[nick944]

My favorite has to be Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure. I'm suprised it hasn't come up yet! Maybe because so few people here own a NGPC The best part is the addition of the puzzle pieces hidden in the levels adding to the fun. I haven't played many other 2D sonic games though, mostly because I just got a Genesis saturday I have Sonic & Knuckles Collection for the computer which I loved playing when I was a kid.