Which classic Sonic games are you best at?

Well, that's understandable in Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, since it's kind of difficult to enter a Special Stage (you have to be skillful enough to hold onto 50 rings for starters; then you enter the special stage and it's either hard to control, as in Sonic 1, or just hard, as in Sonic 2).

In Sonic 2, I recommend playing as Sonic or Tails Alone. Having both characters at once makes the required ring count go up, and Tails has this annoying tendency to either get himself twatted by mines, losing his share of the rings, or occasionally wind up in front of you, which essentially means you're screwed...

*shrug* You don't really have to suck to have never finished one. The later stages and bosses can be a pain.

Was it the kaizo trap in the boss fight that did it?

That's a pity, because Zone 2, Flying Battery, is a blast to play.

The chemicals? Where you have to get up the moving blocks? That *was* a pain for me back in the day. It's hard to remember, because nowadays I can race the water to the top and actually win.

Vehicle? I'm not following... what vehicle? What's the level look like?

 

I suck at all of 'em. I don't actually know why. I love Sonic 2, but I still only barely managed to beat it.
Only ever got to Death Egg on S3K, never any further

 

I'm a beast at Sonic CD and Sonic 1.

I'm really good at all the sonic games, in fact. A few summers ago I set out on the task of seeing if I could beat the games with one hand behind my back (literally) and then, once I accomplished that, I set out to see if I could beat the games with one hand behind my back without taking any damage, and then once I did that, I learned how to play as both Sonic and Tails at the same time, with one controller in each hand.

Yeah I had a lot of free time back then :v:

 

Well, contrary to popular belief, they're not easy games. We just think they are because we forgot about the time when we sucked at them, too.

 

In fact I've always been pretty good at Sonic games. I think it might be because I grew up with the series, and I always had the latest game right as it came out. I got Sonic 1 the christmas it was released, and from that point on, I got them pretty much on launch day, save for Sonic CD which I got in Christmas 93.

I do remember a time when Sonic 1 gave me trouble. I remember it vividly in fact. This was right after I got the game, like the same week. I can remember the first time I got to Robotnik in greenhill zone, and promptly died. I remember it was my sister, not me, who first got to the special stage. I remember Spring Yard Zone used to be a road block for AAAAGES until I got past that fucking boss. By the time I could beat SYZ, I had the skill to complete the rest of the game no problem.

I remember Labyrinth Zone blowing me the hell away. It's so hard to explain now, but back in 1991, that water effect was mind blowing. Keep in mind, I had never seen an SNES at that point, so seeing a transparency effect was incredible. I'd say that is probably the single most impressive graphical trick I've ever seen in my life, to the point where I couldn't believe my eyes. LOL man that brings back memories.

I beat Sonic CD with all the time stones the day I got it, on christmas in 93. It was a tad disappointing because I had beaten Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 prior, and those gave me a bit of problems, in that they took more than one day to complete. From that point on, the 2D Sonic games never took me more than a day to master. Of course, it took me years to completely explore Sonic CD, but thats besides the point.

Oh, I guess Knuckles Chaotix DID take me a long time to get the proper ending. Those special stages are among my favorite for their difficulty - they took me so long to get down. Speaking of special stages, the red-and-white special stage in Sonic 3 used to trip me up when I first got it, because of this one section where you have to zip in between bumpers. I'd fuck up and bounce back to a red sphere.

I can't wait to play Sonic 4 because it's the first time I'm gonna be playing a 2D console sonic without knowing the exact level layout for the first time in like 16 years. To commemorate this, I'm recording it and broadcasting it live over the net. I know a bunch of people who are interested in seeing if my skill is innate or if it's just memorization - a question I myself am curious about.

 

I am best at Sonic 2, my first Sonic game. I can breeze through it with relative ease, although I do occasionally slip up in Metropolis and the Mecha Sonic fight. It's unfortunate knowing how to "cheat" through the bosses, though - I normally just keep jumping on them as soon as they emerge, which can detract from the overall fun.

The original Sonic is easy too, but the slower-paced stages (such as Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone) can sometimes present me with problems. The general "flow" of Sonic 2 makes it easier for me than Sonic 1.

Now, present me with the Master System versions of these games and it's a totally different story! + - UNDERGROUND ZONE BOSS ARGH  

 

Oh hey, I forgot about this - this is from a thread on penny-arcade I started a long time ago and never finished that was intended to show people how to play the Sonic games properly (I.e. not like a speed run, but just a normal playthrough while using the physics).

They're a normal run through Sonic 1 and Sonic CD in case anybody is interested in seeing it. I don't claim to be the best (I take damage a few times) nor the fastest (I ignore a bunch of shortcuts) but I still think they're pretty good playthroughs:

Green Hill Zone
Marble Zone
Spring Yard Zone
Labyrinth Zone
Star Light Zone
Scrap Brain Zone

Palmtree Panic Zone
Collision Chaos Zone
Tidal Tempest Zone:
-Act 1
-Special Stage 5
-Act 2
-Special Stage 6
-Act 3
Quartz Quadrant Zone:
-Act 1
-Act 2
-Act 3
Wacky Workbench Zone:
-Act 1
-Act 2
-Special Stage 7

I stopped doing these because it was taking an obscene amount of time to render the videos due to the method I used (outputted my PC to a VCR, recorded a full game playthrough to a VHS tape, then took the VCR, put it to my PC using a Happauge card, capturing it raw, compressing it with virtual dub, then uploading it to google video). Like a full zone was taking 6 hours to upload, hence why I began separating them by act. I could probably do this faster now just using fraps.

 

Really? Where can I buy the tickets, 'cause I'd like to see what your skills look like myself.

EDIT: Am I imagining it, or is that Green Hill vid I just watched using the Sonic CD jumping sound effect?

 

I'll post a link on both here and penny-arcade when the game comes out. I'll be doing it the day of release.

The sound quality degraded in the transfer from VHS to PC

 

Cool beans.

Oh, I see.

I use KEGA Fusion when I record Genesis games, so it's hard to remember that there're other methods with technical difficulties. =P

 

JaxTH: That was a little harsh man.

@Cooljerk awesome vids dude

Yeah I can remember when I wasn't great at the sonic games either I remember Thinking I'd finished the game after clearing emerald hill (I was 7 at the time) and getting upto chemical plant and thinking O_O

Sonic 2 was my first game.

 

That would have been a smarter method. I made the process entirely too difficult. Like I said, I could even just use fraps now.

The first time I saw sonic 2, I was in a Fiesta (a grocery store in Texas) where they sold video games and they had Sonic 2 up and running at a kiosk. I was a Sonic 1 vet at the time, naturally, so I played and flew through Emerald Hill Zone. When I came to Chemical Plant Zone, I remember being very confused and thinking I was somehow at the end of the game because it reminded me of Scrap Brain Zone.

The level which gave me headaches in Sonic 2 when I was a kid was Mystic Cave Zone. Damn rotating boxes. Funnily enough, the infamous rotating stair case in CPZ was absolutely no problem for me.

 

I'm not even sure how long KEGA's had that fantastic AVI-logging codec for, actually...

 

Well that thread is 3 years old so, yeah, it might not have even been available at the time.

 

I figured it must be old. How long has it been since anyone's used VHS for anything? =P

 

Ah I remember the rotating staircase being a bitch to get done. These days I can skip the thing entirely yeah I also hated the boxes. think my most hated things were the seahorses in OOZ and the mantis guys in MZ

 

I agree with that about the seahorses but he has nothing on that darn mantis. word

 

The difference between the seahorses and the Ninjutsu Mantis is that the mantis actually has to be on-screen before it fires; the challenge of dodging the mantis comes from the larger projectile that actually tries to home-in on you.

The seahorse off-screens you.