Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

Hey, remember that time I said I was done reviewing Sonic games? I lied.

Learning from the king.

See, you can't keep me from Sonic games. Me, Sonic, Nintendo DS-- that's three great tastes that taste great together, if we were all edible things and if that didn't sound even the slightest bit odd. Look, the point is that I play far too many Sonic games. And I watched a lot of Arnold movies. Maybe not that second part. Today's game is Sonic Chronicles. (Sorry about the lack of pictures of in game stuff though. Hopefully long dry paragraphs are more your thing. No?)

Look, here's the thing, nerds, Sonic has a storied and altogether faulty past with games that aren't just "press right, dodge enemies". He's not like Mario, who is pretty much just... copy pasting himself through games and he's not like Megaman, who has no problems because he is God.

This guy gets it.

But here's the problem. Sonic is way more story driven than his counterparts. Think about it (honestly). If you were to pick one of these three characters who has constantly changing plotlines and relatively complex ideas, who would it be? (We are only counting the series of Megaman where Megaman is Megaman, and not some kid dressed as Megaman, or Zero, or the crazy ZX Advent game. Just Classic Megaman.)

If you picked Mario, you're lying. Seriously. Luigi's a completely different matter, but Mario is pretty much just the story of a guy in overalls who really just wants to go home but crazy girls in multicolored dresses keep showing up and demanding he save them for no good reason. And then, you know, he does exactly that.

WHERE THE FUCK WAS MY CAKE WHEN I SAVED YOU IN MARIO 2?!

Megaman is the story of Dr Wahwee and his Master Robots who, surprisingly, get beaten by a guy in a blue suit with a pellet gun. So... not masters. Also there's a couple other people in the game.

And then none of them beat Megaman, and Dr. Wily fell into bankruptcy.

I'm not saying Sonic games are smart, because if Sonic 2006 is any indication, Sonic is probably the stupidest of the three. But Sonic also has the distinct difference in that at the very least, the games aren't same-y story wise. I mean, SEGA just saves the same-y part for the gameplay. Even then they try to switch it up. They tried turning him into a werewolf and even characters from stories. I don't know what Sonic 2006 was even trying to be. Sonic can't survive in the 3D world without a gimmick of sorts, and with Mario blanding his way through the ages, Sonic often resorts to the kind of gimmicks that send him from semi-healthy to critical condition.

"But... uh, you," You say, stymied, "What does this have to do with Sonic Chronicles?"

Well, reader, the difference between Sonic Chronicles and the majority of the Sonic library is that Sonic Chronicles is an RPG. And it's possibly the crappiest Sonic game I have ever played. And I touched the unholy wasteland that is Sonic 2006.

I...can't get clean...

I... don't actually know where to start with this, because I should like it. Initially, I did. Hell, I loved it. I don't even hate it now, I just think it's kind of crappy. But, it's weird because it's got all these great aspects to it and I still don't like it.

It's an interesting take on Sonic and went into some story that no one cares about... I ate that up. It's an RPG, of all things. Awesome. And BioWare, as in Mass Effect BioWare, as in Knights of the Old Republic BioWare, that BioWare-- they developed this game. BioWare, you guys. Three great tastes that should taste great together... and I think I ended up with a mouthful of mud.

This guy gets it.

Sonic Chronicles isn't diabolically bad. I mean, history books definitely won't be like, "This one time, SEGA made this game worse than Sonic 2006 in the Sonic franchise, and it's the ruler by which we measure crappy Sonic games since then." But it's not good. It's not the kind of game you tell your friends to play because you want them to enjoy themselves, but you can't tent your fingers and chuckle in your swivel chair with that long-haired white cat you just bought after they start playing either.

I guess if we're going to tackle this bad boy, I might as well start with the story. Most Sonic stories are probably crap to... okay, everyone, but I liked this one. Without revealing too much, Sonic is vacationing after beating the Egg Carrier. I think it's the first one, but only because I don't want to think about the alternative.

This was the only Egg Carrier. This was the only Egg Carrier. This was the only Egg Carrier.

Also, in a weirdly dark twist for a Sonic game, they think Eggman's dead. The dude survived a fall from space, guys. Nothing short of a miracle can kill this guy.

Tails calls Sonic, because Tails is adorable and the plot needs to move on, and says things like, "Chaos emeralds taken" and "Knuckles missing" and presumably, to incite Sonic to move, "chili dog shortage, need assistance," and Sonic decides it couldn't hurt to show up and bash in heads. Tails says the chili dog thieves are called the Marauders. Also they pretty much just kidnapped Knuckles, took the Chaos Emeralds, and there are no chili dogs.

Sonic meets up with his possy (Tails and Amy) and goes to save Knuckles. But he needs help from some other familiar faces, like Rouge and Shadow, and e-123 Omega, and... BIG THE MOTHERFUCKING CAT?!

For shame, BioWare.

I thought we were phasing this guy out. Why is this a thing? Why is this a thing?!

Anyway, as soon as they find Knuckles, shit really hits the fan. It's a really well told story that I'm not going to ruin with aborted humor.

If I like the story, then what do I dislike? Is it the controls?

Well, to be fair, the controls are pretty straightforward and easy to use. I don't really have a problem with them. You use the same sensibilities you would for most RPGs. Any button progresses the dialogue (if you're in the middle of a dialogue, obviously), make a choice with A, back out of menus with B, move with the D-pad-- do I have to get out my arrow key diagram? Because I can do that.

The button ---> moves you to the right.

Okay, so it's not the controls and it's not the story. So what is it? Is it some element of the gameplay? Hmm... Now that I'm thinking about it...

Let's talk about the Chao. You know them. Cute little guys, introduced in Sonic Adventure? If SEGA actually wanted to make a buttload of money, they'd just keep adding "develop your own chao" mini games to regular campaigns. I'm just saying that Sonic Adventure 2 was a blast because the story and the Chao were just all too good to be true. Surprisingly, though, they took a breather from the Chao. That's fine. It's cute, it's a great idea, but you don't want to wear out your welcome. I get it. But you know, you can't go from fully customization Chao to this watered down version of "caring" for Chao eggs.

Sonic, from time to time, will find a chao egg and pick it up. After a little while, a Chao hatches. Bam. That's what we get for Chao this time. On top of that, you can get multiples of the same Chao, which of course means you're not even naming them. And they're just an equippable item, on top of that, ones that can't level up unless you have a friend playing the game with you. Sonic Chronicles isn't a 3DS title, so you didn't have the SpotPass feature when it came out. You have to either bully someone into playing with you or hopefully have a group of friends playing the game at the same time.

Just so that you can trade away three extra copies of this guy.

I mean, there are a lot of Chao, and they're all really cute, but... it's such a let down that this is what they are now. Just things that Sonic and his party equip. I barely used them, on top of that, because if you don't have a friend to play with, they tend to be not very helpful at all. See, in that picture above, there's a line that says "Level: 1". If you don't have a friend to play with, just get used to that, because the Chao don't level up otherwise. That is crap.

"But... what's your name again? Look, they can't just dump the customizatiable chao thing into this game. That's a really big feature." You say. Right you are, reader. But that's not really an excuse for this, is it? Up until this game, Chao haven't played such a huge role. You need to get the Chao in Sonic Advance, for example, but it's only so that you can get 100% completion, if you want to. Technically, you don't have to use the Chao in Sonic Adventure/Sonic Adventure 2 either, only if you want 100% completion. In this game it's kind of hard not to use them after a while, because it's an RPG and you take what boosts you can get... you could say that you don't have to use them-- I didn't-- but I feel like this game kind of pushes the Chao onto you instead of letting you choose to use the Chao. And even with their current system, there's a way to make improvements. I mean, why can't you have four slots for "Original Chao", where you can breed some of the chao you've found and make four babies with the looks and the name and the skills that you want? Why not have the leveling up feature take place in the Chao Kindergarten, which costs rings depending on level? Why not have the trade feature be one of many features with the chao-- why not also have a "play" option that allows you to level up chao faster than you can in the Kindergarten? I'm asking why they made the Chao, one of the most interesting and fun aspects of new Sonic, so... boring. It's so boring, I barely wrote any jokes into the last two paragraphs. 

This guy gets it.

And while we're on the topic of boring, try repetitive. The battle system is annoying and really, really repetitive, but requires that you watch the screen. It's kind of like playing a rhythm game... but exactly the opposite of that. I mean, the special moves are an absolute mess in my opinion.

I get it, we're playing an RPG... but I don't see why they just didn't go the Persona 3 route and have Sonic tell everyone what he wants them to do generally and then just pick an attack and then go. The "hit detection" on that red circle there is absolutely arbitrary, because sometimes if I drag across quickly, the thing's like, "HOLY CRAP, YOU DID IT!" and other times it's like, "...Man, you suck." It's the same if I go slowly or at the pace of the circle. I've seen other people do it with ease and it makes me wonder if I just suck... but then I remember I did this exact thing in Elite Beat Agents, which I beat on the highest difficulty. So it might just be this game, then.

Err... yeah, I... guess this guy gets it?

On top of that, there's a system where you have to tap on bubbles on the screen or repeatedly tap inside a circle. Why not just have some classic Sonic gameplay in there somewhere? I don't get it-- did BioWare look at the older Sonic games and go, "Yeah... fuck all of that" and then decide to do this? Or were they like, "You run enough on the map screens and to escape battles or chase enemies, no more of Sonic doing Sonic related things at least until the end of this battle, maybe longer"? Are you telling me "Press A to jump, press A two times to hit an enemy" was too hard to do?

OK, so it WAS too hard then?

There's a battle counter on the top screen that's okay... I don't have much to say about it outside of I'm sure you could've done better, BioWare. I have that much faith in you.

Then there's the results screen and the difficulty. No, please, allow me to give you my opinion in .gif form.

Hey, people who are developing Sonic games, Sonic != Devil May Cry. I don't know why you randomly decided we needed to be told we sucked in letter form, but I'll tell you one thing-- if you're going to do it, at the very least make it some kind of fair. I can S rank most things in Sonic games, mostly from repeated plays. I have played this game twice, total, and I can count the number of times I've gotten an S rank on my hands. Which I bet would make you think the game is hard, but it's actually so easy that I just spammed the same move all the time when I realized it literally kills everything, until I couldn't use it anymore (POW uses PP and once that runs out you need to use an item if you're in the field). So, yeah, if you go from  one-hit KOs to taking four or five turns to kill things... you do tend to start getting lower grades. And as the game progressed I found myself getting bored because, while the story is great, you still have to play the game to further it and that is kind of annoying to do. It took me a year to beat this game the first time. Not in hours, I mean. I bought it, played it for like a week, and then switched it out for Rhapsody. I went back to it and beat it in another week. I don't even know how many hours it took. 

But I like this game, I just... don't like this game. Say what you will about Sonic 2006-- and trust me, I take potshots at Sonic 2006 like it's going out of style, but you at least were engaged in it. this game isn't engaging. It was just boring. Like this review. I tied it all together, right Arnold?

Jeez, alright, alright.

Knuckles Chaotix

I promise I’m done looking at Sonic games. Well... no, I can’t promise that. I’m just really into Sonic, pre-Wii era Sonic anyway, and there’s a ton of games featuring Sonic characters that don’t really get that much air time. I mean, let’s face it, when people think about Sonic, they think about the Sonic Quartet-- all Genesis games that were all... well, really great, but still! How many people think of Tails Adventure when they think of Sonic games? Or Sonic Triple Trouble? Or, hell, Knuckles Chaotix?

You shut up.

Despite the fact that damn near no one I’ve met even knew this game existed, Sonic Heroes managed to stick three of the four characters that no one’s ever heard of into its game, making Sonic Heroes responsible for the re-emergence of four characters featured in unpopular games. Yay! But also Big.

Oh god I want to punch you.

Knuckles Chaotix, or just Chaotix, was released on the 32X in 1995. Don’t worry, if you’re like any other sane human being, you probably never played it. That’s because the 32X is a BEAST of a peripheral, requiring its own power source and no more than two connections to the Genesis. It was just difficult. But if you’re like me and you did have the 32X, don’t worry. You’re not insane. But I imagine you were pissed off with the 32X’s power adaptor.

Anyway, Knuckles Chaotix is a strange game as far as Sonic is concerned. Firstly, Knuckles Chaotix is really long, in comparison to most Sonic games. I guess it’s shorter than Sonic 3 and Knuckles, but it was longer than Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles if you looked at the games separately.  So it has a save feature, which is similar to the one in Sonic 3. Yeah, some of you are like, “So what? I beat Sonic 3 in two minutes and I was giving birth and building rockets and playing chess at the same time!” Knuckles Chaotix is much longer, and it’s probably because the gameplay style isn’t the same as any of the other Sonic games until at least around the Gameboy Advance era.

In Sonic 2, SEGA added Tails as a secondary character for two players and since then, Tails has been a re-occuring and relatively welcomed character, despite the fact that for some reason he’s always just building stuff when he can fly and swim. Well, Tails’ inclusion in Sonic 2 pointed out a major flaw in AI at the time. Mostly, AI is stupid. If you don’t want the AI character to beat the game, then you have to dumb it down. But when you do that, the AI starts doing things that you don’t want it to do, like stepping on breakable bridges before you can reach them, or repeatedly killing itself instead of helping you. It is possible to create AI that isn’t completely retarded, but I guess no one thought Tails was that bad in Sonic 2. Boy, were they wrong.

Oh, but I love you anyway! You're so cute!

So Knuckles Chaotix set about it at least trying to make a second player AI that wasn’t dumb. They did this by introducing Ring Power. Ring Power allows for a lot of cool gameplay elements. Ring Power lets you call your partner to you, allows you to have your partner stand still and lets you use them as a sling, and even makes it possible for you to reach high places. But it makes the AI second player pretty much do nothing but follow you around, which, while it sounds awesome, is actually kind of annoying. You could at least count on hilarious Tails deaths with Sonic 2, right?

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

So again, not so much with Knuckles Chaotix. You get to choose from Knuckles, Mighty, Espio, Vector, and Charmy, but if those names confuse you, that’s because these characters are actually from the Sonic Comic series. Yes, there are hundreds more Sonic Furry Pals (TM) that have yet to be seen in the games. For all of you wondering, here’s a picture of what you’re missing:

Also Robotnik is dead and Eggman is a computer version of him from an alternate universe (not pictured)

“Gee whiz,” you say, presumably because you’re from like, the 1950s, “I’m learning a lot about Sonic today, but not too much about Knuckles Chaotix. How about you do your job there, bucko?”

Right, well. About Knuckles Chaotix... Despite it being connected to the Death Egg Saga, it is NOT a part of the Death Egg Saga. (The Death Egg Saga are those games having to do with the creation and use of the Death Egg by Dr. Robotnik.) This game takes place after Sonic and Knuckles, which takes place after Sonic 3, which takes place after Sonic 2. To recap: Dr. Robotnik builds a Death Star-- the Death Egg-- and then is like, “Man, I should totally take over the world,” in Sonic 2. But as it turns out-- if you beat the game-- Sonic doesn’t let that happen.

As it turns out, it wasn't unstoppable.

But, on his way to assured death by falling in Sonic 3, Robotnik’s Death Egg happened to hit Angel Island, a floating island that normally floated over the oceans, covered by clouds to prevent others from noticing its existence. There’s a lot of stuff having to do with legends in the Sonic universe here, but suffice it to say that Knuckles is not stupid, but he IS sheltered. He believed that the Death Egg might have been an egg in a legend, so he (for the most part) pretty much just leaves it be. He’s busy checking the Chaos Emerald Alters when he runs across Robotnik, who REALLY wants to use the Chaos Emeralds to get the Death Egg back into space. To do this, he tricks Knuckles into attacking Sonic, saying something along the lines of “There’s this blue hedgehog and he’s mean and stuff. Also I guess he wants the giant emerald on your floating island and all the other emeralds too, but I totally don’t and in no way am I evil. PS, I came here for the science. PPS, I really like what you’re doing with your quills.” So Knuckles falls for it and tries to stop Sonic from saving the world, but he fails (unless you never beat the game, in which case, he’s waiting for you).  

Sonic and Knuckles deals with the ramifications of the Death Egg hitting the ground, or more specifically, the ramifications of not destroying the Death Egg before. It’s pretty hard to get rid of without someone like Luke Skywalker around.

So anyway, in Sonic and Knuckles, Sonic learns about the Master Emerald, which is what made Angel Island float before Robotnik came along. Also, the Chaos Emeralds, using the power of the Master Emerald, become Super Emeralds. The Super Emeralds are kind of screwed up, so Sonic decides that he will save the day (yet again) and stop Dr. Robotnik’s evil plans, sort of with Knuckles’ help, although there’s no indication that they actually spoke with each other about this, unless you read the comics, which all are loosely based on the games for this particular saga. The Death Egg Saga is completed in Sonic 4, which SEGA is currently butchering as we speak. Anyway, Knuckles Chaotix’ tie in is that after the events of Sonic 3 and Knuckles, a mysterious island shows up and kind of sort of has something to do with Sonic 3.

Behold, we are awesome (and yes, the gray one is missing here)!

A part of the story I skipped in Sonic 3 is that Sonic finds a ring inscribed with mysterious writing, which is what alerts him to the presence of Angel Island, in a really roundabout fashion. Chaotix features those rings as “Chaos Rings,” rings imbued with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. Most of the cast in Chaotix outside of Knuckles go to the new island because... but Knuckles goes because he’s interested in the island that showed up.  Fortunately for Knuckles, but unfortunately for literally everyone else involved, only the new characters are caught by Dr. Robotnik and placed in the Combi Confiner, which freezes them in time. Knuckles first runs into Espio and after saving him, the two of them sally forth towards adventure-- and also they’re going to go defeat Robotnik.

You select a character to use via the Combi Catcher.

There’s a lot you can say about Knuckles, but one of them probably isn’t “he’s immortal.” But in this game, he sort of is. Knuckles Chaotix doesn’t feature lives, and as such, Knuckles and his partner never really die, perse. If you fail super, super hard, then you get sent back to the game lobby, where you save, exit, and switch partners.

Also, you select the stage there.

Other Sonic games are separated into Zones and Acts, but Knuckles Chaotix is separated into Attractions, of which there are five. The reason-- I think-- they’re separated into Attractions is because the Westernized version of the game screwed up the story big time, forgetting that Knuckles guards Angel Island and not Carnival Island. The Western version goes on to make Carnival Island a high-tech amusement park powered by the Chaos Emeralds, which means that the island definitely doesn’t work because Knuckles shouldn’t have the emeralds at this point. Anyway, my point is that a amusement park has attractions, thus the naming convention of “Attractions”. But despite the name, the Attractions are pretty much just Zones, and they’re really weird ones at that. Like I said, there are five Attractions and each Attraction is split into five stages. The time of day changes from stage to stage (depending on the amount of time you spend in the level) but I’ve never had three instances of any particular time of day. There are four different times of day-- Morning, Day, Evening, and Night-- and it only really affects the boss of the stage, if there is one, and the placement of the enemies in the stage, as well as the number of enemies in the stage (somewhat, this probably also has to do with placement). The boss always occurs at the last stage, though.

Marina Madness in the Morning!

The Special Stage occurs at the end of each level, and, for the most part, these special stages are like the sphere special stages in Sonic 3 and Knuckles. They’re fun because they’re in 3D! Of course, this means you can fall off of things and eventually die. So in that sense, not fun. But I like them! The object is to get a Chaos Ring.

On top of special stages, there are bonus stages, which occur when you have 20 rings. It’s pretty cool, but I almost never reach it-- I always have way too many rings by the end of the level-- but it reminds me of a part of Sonic CD that connects this game and Sonic CD in yet another way ( most of the dev team that worked on Sonic CD worked on this, too).

The ring mechanic, which is what makes this game the oddity that it is, is the main focus of just about anyone who talks about the game, mostly because it’s SUPER weird, as far as Sonic games go. You can use the ring, like I said, like a slingshot. Also, it’s used to push down buttons-- one character must stand still while the other pushes the button-- retrieve rings, toss your partner or yourself to new platforms, and so on. But, probably the weirdest thing is the Ring Recall, as I like to call it. The Ring Recall allows you to call your partner when he/it is far away (there are no girls in this game). It is possible to lose your partner, at which time, this move becomes necessary. When you lose your partner and you have no rings, that’s grounds for being sent back to the main room. But, you can call your partner without having rings. When you do this, the ring counter starts showing negative numbers. You can have up to 99 negative rings before the game penalizes you.

Man, these are a lot of words that still don’t really tell you much about the game... well, to be honest, Knuckles Chaotix is just a game you have to play to get. I mean, I can tell you all sorts of things about Knuckles Chaotix, but you won’t really understand it until you play the game-- seriously. Ah, well, I guess we can talk about Metal Sonic. He’s pretty cool and this is the game that followed the release of Sonic and Knuckles and we haven’t seen Metal Sonic in ages so... yeah, let’s talk about him. But from here on out, serious spoilers, you guys.

I assume that Dr. Robotnik (read: the producers) might have actually expected Sonic to be in this game and thus, did not make a new metal creature, like Metal Knuckles or something. But he only exists in Sonic R, which came out after this game. As such, the final boss is totally not Metal Knuckles or Mecha Knuckles (introduced in Sonic Advance and then discarded). It’s Metal Sonic, being badass, you know, because he can. Anyway, it would be SO BORING if it was just regular Metal Sonic, am I right? So SEGA pulled Emperor Metallix from the British Sonic the Comic series and renamed him. Well, he can’t be so bad, I mean Metal Sonic was menacing, but in the same way that an angry puppy is menacing. So Emperor Metalltix must be--

OH SWEET JESUS, HE'S HUGE.

Okay, okay. He’s huge, but he still looks like good ol’ Metal. He’s just red, with some shoulder pads. Plus, they’ll probably tone down the size for the game and--

OH GOD, WHAT ARE YOU

And he is every bit as huge as you think he is. In fact, in this picture, his body and legs are connected but that’s not how it is in the game. He’s actually bigger. Also, I guess this:

YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE HIS WHOLE BODY.

“Question,” you say, shaking your head at the screen. “How is this even possible. Like, as a boss, I mean.”

Oh, as a boss? He blows as a boss. What did you expect, he’s giant and unwieldy.

Metal Sonic Kai mostly just flies around looking super dumb, which is a huge letdown in more ways than one. I mean, teeny-weeny-super-cute Metal Sonic raced Sonic to his death (or Sonic’s death, if you never finished that boss battle) but this guy is like, “Eh, I could kill you guys, but I’m not in the mood. Maybe if you stick a cotton swab on the end of a broomstick and use it to pick my nose?” I’m not going to ruin the final battle for you, but I will tell you this: don’t pick Vector. Seriously, there’s one part where literally any other character does all of nothing and you still will win the game, but for Vector you actually have to push a button. Sad.

We can also talk a bit about the music and the graphics, but there’s really no reason to. You can probably tell from the screenshots that this game looks amazing. Also, SEGA normally writes phenomenal music for the Sonic series, culminating in the soundtrack for Sonic 3 that featured Michael Jackson. I don’t even know how they managed that, he was one of the biggest stars at around that time, wasn’t he? Now, Knuckles Chaotix pales in comparison to the original quartet, but the music is still good. It’s not as catchy as, say Chrome Gadget was, but it’s got it’s own charm to it and all of the music fits the feel of the game. That being said, this game feels like a grand adventure, which might be why it was so hard for me to explain it. It’s a huge, huge game filled with plenty of color, tons of stunning visuals, and a pretty fun game mechanic. All in all, Kunckles Chaotix is a funny little game that came and went, but it definitely deserves a look!

Sonic CD

Good old SEGA. Remember when they used to make consoles? Yeah, that was awesome. Except that most of their consoles were add-ons to the Genesis, making the poor Genesis look like some kind of weird demon UFO. Also, sometimes the add-ons didn’t work. And I guess they could’ve just released a new system altogether. Look, the point is that I really liked the Genesis, okay?

I LOVED YOU.

In case you somehow forgot this-- and trust me, I don’t blame you-- there was once a time when Mario and Sonic actually had a rivalry. Whose games were better? Sonic, the super cool blue hedgehog or Mario, who I don’t have anything awesome to say about because Sonic pretty much won this competition for me. Although nowadays, I guess you could say that Mario wins.

Except here. Are you kidding, Mario? Go eat some pasta.

Anyway, back when Sonic wasn’t falling in love with human females and his entourage of furry creature pals were in the single digits, SEGA released a super awesome game for a peripheral to the Genesis, SEGA CD. This game was of course Sonic CD, and let me tell you, it is a pretty badass game, if I do say so myself (which I do). Just so you know how awesome this game is, this game introduced the character Metal Sonic AND was written by Sonic’s creator, Naoto Ōshima. Yeah, I know what you’re (not) thinking: Didn’t Yuji Naka create Sonic? Well... yeah but also... no, not really. Ōshima, the lovable rapscallion that he is, created the character designs for both Sonic and Dr. Robotnik. If for some reason you don’t believe me, then try replaying Sonic the Hedgehog for Genesis. The Designer is BigIsland, which is a literal translation of his name, Ōshima. So... yeah, take that!

Yeah, okay. You didn’t come here to read about developers and all that jazz. You want to know about the game. So let’s talk story! What’s Sonic CD about?

Well, if you guessed that Sonic is trying to stop Robotnik from taking over the world, then congrats, you officially can figure out the premise to every Sonic game. The difference between this game and the other Sonic games at the time-- you know, besides being on SEGA CD-- is that the world in the game happens to be Little Planet and Sonic time travels.

No big whoop, am I right?

So what happens is pretty simple. Sonic’s just running around, presumably being awesome, when he happens upon Never Lake, which is where the miniature planet, Little Planet, shows up every year for exactly one month. I know this because I read the manual, the game doesn’t actually explain this. Anyway, Sonic sees that Little Planet is chained to the ground, figures it’s Robotnik’s doing, and decides he’s going to go kick some Robotnik butt before dinner time. So he runs up a chain and enters the planet and then continues to be epic for the remainder of the game. The game explains this in what is possibly the most awesome opening animatic to ever be an opening animatic.

WATCH THIS RIGHT NOW

You might’ve noticed that the music is too cool for words/cheesy. So we might as well talk about the music for this game right now.

Sega of America does this... thing with their version where they get Spencer Nielson and David Young to create soundtracks for the game. I’m not particularly sure why they do this-- it could be copyright issues or something. But the opening song and the overall theme, Sonic Boom, is the same in both the American and the Japan/Europe versions. The Japanese/European versions sampled from artists like Hall and Oates and Bob Marley, which is why I’m guessing that there were copyright issues with the songs. For each level there are three themes, and the only ones that were not changed were the past themes. But no matter what version you play, all the songs are amazing. Did you think they wouldn’t be? SEGA had a knack for making perfect music for the Sonic series. I’d put links to the music up, but that would take forever. Plus there’s 21 tracks, 14 of which have two versions, plus the tracks for other menus, boss battles, and so on... I mean it would take forever. But go ahead and look it up.

Alright, alright. Jeez, you're so hasty, you guys.

Standard Sonic rules as far as levels and zones apply here. Well, I guess if you played the original four on Genesis, you might be wondering what zones are and wonder where the acts went, but don’t worry, they’re the same thing. There are seven levels, each with three zones, where the last zone is a boss battle with the ever orb-shaped evil genius, Dr. Robotnik. Sonic spindashes with down + A, and he jumps with A, or any other button you pressed (unless you were playing the PC version of the game, in which case it’s whatever button you made into the jump button). It actually is toned down in this game, because you have to wait for the screen to slide to the left before you let go of down + A and you can’t rev up the Spindash in this game. No worries, though! If you press up + A, you get the Super Peel-Out instead, which is one of Sonic’s most recognizable feats despite the fact that the Super Peel-Out was never repeated in any other popular game (just Sonic Chaos, Triple Trouble, and Sonic Blast, all of which aren’t nearly as popular as the original quartet)... until Sonic appeared in Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and even THEN it’s just a taunt.

The Peel-Out is faster than the Spindash. Just sayin'.

I know what you’re thinking. There was time travel in this game, right? Oh yeah. There totally is.

So the level pictured above is called Collision Chaos, the second level in the game (the first level of every Sonic game is always a Green Hill-esque level; in this game it’s based on a tropical island and is called Palmtree Panic). See the lives at the bottom at the screen? That lets you know that you’re in the present. But it looks like every Sonic game, right? That’s because you haven’t run into one of the special signposts.

See it? That thing that says “Past”? That’s how you travel through time. Also, there’s one that says “Future”, because time travel works both ways. It would be pretty awesome if, just by touching the sign you travelled through time, but that would be too easy. You have to run really fast for a while (without getting hit) until Sonic presumably breaks time itself and goes flying through time to the past (or future).

'Scuse me, just breaking time and being awesome. BBL - Sonic

So let’s say you were headed to the past, because you’re awesome and I like the past. Then you’ll see a landscape completely altered from the present. If only I had a picture of it...

Well what do you know.

Okay, okay, but what if you went to the future? I bet I don’t have a picture of that!

This is why you shouldn't bet money on things.

“This is all cool and whatnot,” you say, nodding your head in approval. “but why do I care about getting to the past or the future? I mean, yeah, time travel is awesome, but why are we doing it?” Obviously, because it’s awesome. Also, if you don’t, then you might end up fighting Robotnik in a place that looks like this:

Man, that sky is polluted.

Instead of somewhere that looks like this:

WELL WHAT IS THIS NOW

Of course, it’s up to you if you want every level to be a polluted stinking hellhole, you anti-environmental, garbage dumping, evil, terrible, awful... you! But you’re playing as Sonic, and he loves the environment and also if you want to actually beat the game you’re gonna have to do this, so I guess it kind of sucks if you really like the dystopian apocalyptic future that you get just by running straight through the levels. Or I guess you could just get all the time stones.

Probably should have mentioned that before.

So if you’re in the mood for adventure-- or you hate the past with the vehemence that rivals the burning of a thousand red giants-- then I guess you could try to get all the time stones, which are the chaos emeralds if you took out the word “chaos” and replaced it with “time”. A la Sonic 1, collect 50 rings and then try not to get hit until you reach the end of the level, where a giant ring will be waiting for you. Once you enter, you’re in the Special Stage.

In the special stage, you fight off UFOs-- no, don’t ask why, I couldn’t tell you why-- until all of them are gone, and then you get a Time Stone. Also you’re timed. Good luck! It’s not really all that hard, but you can’t play the Time Attack version of this level until you beat all the other levels (in Time Attack Mode) under a certain time limit.

If you’re super cool and also in the mood for adventure, you can try getting all the good futures, and trust me, it is a dickens of an achievement to do so. So much so that I had to use the word “dickens”. Here’s the how-to on becoming an awesome Sonic CD player:

1) Go to the past.

2) Find Robotnik’s mechanizing machine, AKA the UFO looking thing.

3) Destroy it.

4) ???

5) PROFIT

In every level, the first two zones have these machines in them that create badniks (but not while you’re watching) from flower seeds. They look something like...

Except, you know, not 3D.

Destroying them gets rid of every badnik in the zone-- past, present and future-- so... you know, get on that. More importantly, if you destroy each of these in every level, you will always get the good future and you will get a good ending to the game. But of course this is like the hardest thing to do.

BUT IF YOU’RE SO COOL YOU DON’T EVEN CONSIDER THIS A CHALLENGE and you’re in the mood for adventure, then why not try to destroy all of the Metal Sonic holograms? They’re all in the past, they’re hidden throughout the first two zones of every level (except Metallic Madness, the last level) and if you happen to destroy them all, the game will give you a bonus.

But c'mon. You'd stop Metal Sonic from crushing a poor Flicky, wouldn't you?

I guess there’s only one other thing to talk about. Metal Sonic.

No, not that one.

Yeah, so... about Metal Sonic. He’s introduced, along with one Amy Rose, in this game as the character who shows up, kidnaps Amy, and then totally vammooses for three more levels, because he’s just that awesome. He’s the boss battle for the fifth level, Stardust Speedway, and despite the fact that this game is old and there are plenty of racing games that are faster than this race, this race just FEELS fast. Maybe it’s the fact that Robotnik is destroying the ground behind you. Maybe it’s the fact that Metal Sonic can blast his way through spikes. Maybe it’s just the feel of Stardust Speedway. Sonic Generations has a Stardust Speedway level that can’t hold a candle to this, the original is just... way, way better. Metal Sonic really is an awesome enemy, and your first (and last) battle with this version of Metal Sonic is pretty intense.

Metal Sonic would’ve disappeared into obscurity had it not been for Sonic Heroes. He appeared in a bunch of games that are pretty inconsequential as far as like... boss battles and what not are concerned, like Sonic R (he drove a car) or Sonic the Fighters (I believe he’s the last match you have to do, but he’s not really a boss battle). His major comeback in Sonic Heroes probably fueled his return in Sonic Rivals, but now I’m rambling. Suffice it to say that a lot of awesome things came out of Sonic CD and Metal Sonic nearly tops the list.

So there’s Sonic CD for you. Dunno why you’re still reading this when you could be out getting Sonic Gems Collection so you can play it. It’s awesome! And since I know you just couldn’t get enough of Metal Sonic in this review, I think I’ll have to mention one of his other forms for my next review... let’s make it... Knuckles Chaotix, where we go head to head with the famous Metal Sonic Kai!