HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY SHADOW AND ROUGE! :specialed: *ahem* I remember the very first time I saw Sonic. I was a little kid at the local (and by local I mean in the neighboring city) Hollywood Video looking for a new Genesis game. I saw the box and thought, "Well, he isn't green but it's ok. I'll try it anyway." I got the game, turned on my Genesis, and was greeted by the darling chant of "Say-Guh!" and the little guy popping up on the title screen for the first time. Needless to say, I was hooked. The rest is history. ...I feel so old now.
I only did a quick marathon of titles on their native hardwares: Sonic 1: Green Hill Zone Sonic 2: Chemical Plant Zone Sonic 3K: Sky Sanctuary Zone SA1: Speed Highway SA2 The Trial: City Escape (May as well play the level before it went to shit) Heroes: Seaside Hill 2006: Crisis City (God this game is still vomit and shit combined, why do I still own it?) Unleashed: Rooftop Run Act 1 Colors: Planet Wisp All done in an hour.
Well, Crisis City was absolutely shitastic to play. Glitchiest level I've ever played in a Sonic game, a series where there's tons of glitchy levels to choose from. And it has to worst mach speed section too. It's too bad because I think it's a pretty unique trope mixture that we haven't seen in a Sonic game before (Mixture of Lava and City). I'll be heavily interested in playing a 10,000x better version of that level.
I honestly don't remember when I first played a Sonic game, but I do remember playing Sonic Adventure 2: Battle a lot after I got my Gamecube. I played through both stories plenty of times. I wish I could play the game again, but I don't know what happened to my copy of the game. Anyways, this is something small I made for Sonic's 20th Anniversary.
I threw together a "complete" and "definitive" Sonic CD OST, containing both the American and JP/EU soundtracks. I made it because most places where I found it didn't loop the music, or didn't have the past tracks included. It's basically a combination of Retro's CD OSV, "Sonic the Hedgehog Boom", and the miscellaneous tracks such as Game Over and Speed Up. Contains both version's openings and endings in full too and the past tracks.. That's pretty much all I did to 'celebrate'.
I've completed TEN Sonic games today (well, nine games and a demo, but still!)! I played through each of these as Sonic, and Sonic only. For the modern titles, I skipped the story mode entirely and just played each of Sonic's levels directly. Here's a mini-review of each! Sonic 1 (Megamix Original) - Gens 32:30 - One death in Scrap Brain Zone Act 2 This game is the alpha and omega! Its sequels are tons better, though. Sonic 2 - Gens 31:13 - Zero deaths My first video game EVER. Though I still hate Metropolis. Sonic CD - Gens 33:10 - One death in Metallic Madness Act 1 I never really cared for the level design, but MAN the soundtrack is great! Sonic 3 (Complete) - Gens 60:44 - Zero deaths Best. Game. Ever. Nothing else touches it. It was just as good as it was when I played it last week, and it'll be just as good when I play it again next week. Sonic 4 - PlayStation 3 54:33 - Died twice to final boss Quickly looking like last year's model next to Generations. A good game, undeserving of the Sonic 4 moniker. Sonic Adventure - Dreamcast 26:51 - Zero deaths Aging about as well as you'd expect. It's still fun, but MAN it's starting to feel rocky. Sonic Adventure 2 - Dreamcast 17:57, Zero deaths Much more polished, holds up better than its predecessor. I'd go so far as to say I like Sonic's gameplay here significantly more. Sonic Unleashed - Xbox 360 31:22 - Three deaths Town stages were awful. Werehog was boring, but not terrible. Day stages are AMAZING. Favorite 3D gameplay, believe it or not. Sonic Generations Demo - PlayStation 30:51 - Zero deaths If Oblivion is the antithesis of everything I want in a game, then this would appear to be the yin to its crap. TOTAL LIFELESS HEDGEHOGS: Seven TOTAL TIME WELL-SPENT: 289:11, nearly five hours!
