That is true, while I've dabbled in the SMS Version of the game, I mainly play the Game Gear Version. Why? Well I might be a little sadistic, but mainly because of the boss music in the Game Gear Version, the boss music is SOO GOOD on the Game Gear! Granted the Boss theme on the SMS is okay, but the GG Boss theme is JUST SO GOOD, it feels like your fighting an epic battle for your life, which is mostly the case because it's the Game Gear Version.
Yeah as much as I love Scrambled Egg Zone music, the start is a bit of a fuck up. Very odd to intentionally make the melody off beat.
I enjoy it a lot, but coming from the likes of the Castlevania series, the difficulty in this game felt a bit blown out of proportion. It's challenging yeah, but this game doesn't touch Castlevania 3 in terms of difficulty. It's a fun little romp that can be a little challenging. Not as good as the 16 bit Sonic 2, but it's a perfectly fine game as far as I'm concerned.
This comparison is messed up. Castlevania is the good kind of difficulty - if you die, it's because you mistimed a jump, or couldn't react quick enough. You can die in a variety of ways in Sonic 2 GG that are not your fault - blind pits or jumps onto extremely specific areas that you can't see coming up. Castlevania isn't full of cheap deaths, Sonic 2 GG is.
I dunno, I thought the entirety of SEZ's music was really good, even the intro. The off beat drums really don't sound that out of place. I will say that while I like the MS version for it's larger screensize and level layouts designed around this larger screen, the GG version was better in various ways. I liked the music arrangement much better on that one (music during the title, more appropriate sounding intro cutsene music, 808-state inspired boss music, actually using the two different ending themes instead of just one of them). That, and the palettes, but that's not really the MS version's fault, moreso that of the hardware. It kinda pisses me off that the GG has a better palette than the MD. :P
Sonic 2 frustrated the hell out of me, but this is probably because I had the game gear version. Of the main Sonic 8 bit titles, Sonic 2 was certainly the most displaced, and by that I mean its style and relationship is more vague and strange. Sonic 1 did a better job of that. However, Sonic Chaos and Triple Trouble were definitely the best. They completed the palette of aesthetic that was the spirit of the original Sonic games. The graphics, levels, music and gameplay were all wonderful and just as memorable as the main 16 bit games. They could have just as well been 16 bit titles right alongside the rest.
I thought it was decent. Maybe not a good Sonic game, but quite okay in it's own right. It played more like a standard platformer that happened to have a Sonic-like spin attack than an actual Sonic game.
I decided to play the Master System version again last night because of this thread, and I have to say its much, much better than the Game Gear version on account of the screen size. The first boss wasn't nearly the monster that it was in the Game Gear version (I played them back to back for comparison). I got to the second act of Gimmick Mountain before calling it a night. One of the things that caught my attention was just how bare some zones were. Underground Zone, beyond the mine carts, didn't have a lot going for it. Yeah, there are some lava pits, but after the first playthrough or two a smart player knows to stay on the upper path, where you run into a token badnik or two. I honestly think, besides the difficult boss, Green Hills would have made a better first zone choice and I second the notion that Underground Zone makes a bad first impression on the game. Even so, Green Hills is another zone that needs more gimmicks (although it is kinda a fun zone to run through, despite some of the bareness). I think Sky High 2, Aqua Lake 1 and 2, and Gimmick Mountain 1 and 2 do a good making the zones interesting on the limited hardware the system has.
I'll have to agree, thinking it over now. It has a bunch of great, fantastic ideas... scattered around as if this could ever work. Sonic Chaos suffers even more from this. Indeed, it starts slow. Sky High has good ideas (the hang glider and the rain, for instance), but has a bizarre level design. Underground Zone doesn't even exist to me. Each act has, like, 30~50 rings! I also dislike the method for getting the Chaos Emeralds. Poor excuse for a replay factor, even if the bad ending is bad indeed.
I really like Sonic Chaos, yeah, it's easier, but it's only as easy as the Mega Drive games, and it looks better and has a lot more going for it.
My favorite aspect of Sonic 2 8 Bit is the soundtrack - particularly the first 3 levels. Even after 15 years since I first played it, I wondered why these 3 tracks in particular were burned into my brain. Then it hit me. It's because my 7 year old self could only get past the first 3 levels, and became frustrated with the Spring-into-instant-death in Green Hills zone. I do agree that it feels like there wasn't enough care put into the game, and there seems to be a lot of lazy pit falls where the game could have added additional content.
These two sequences define Sonic 2 for me, especially if (when( you died on the fairly easy GHZ boss and had to risk the springs over again. It was an act of sadism. And the game picks up enough in places (the seal boss was a wonderful change of pace, if anything) to make you wonder why they didn't make these bits a bit more forgiving.
