The tails of two!

 



The transformation of an icon.

Sonic 1 was a pretty big success all things considered, big enough to where a sequel was set to be put out immediately, one year after the release of one, as Sonic fever started to take over the world. People started to adore this blue guy, especially in the states, and the marketing was aggressive as all hell for the 2nd game. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows though, Sonic 2 infamously suffered an awful dev cycle, with so many aspects getting cut by the end. The game was crunched to hell and back, the devs in Japan and the states couldn’t interact well with each other, it was a mess to put it bluntly, and it’s honestly kind of a miracle that Sonic 2 came out as great as it actually did. Still though, the game is arguably Sonic’s most famous adventure, a game that most Sonic fans will cite as his best, and a game that I heavily enjoy a ton, one that I can go back to anytime and have an utter blast!

Dr Robotnik is back once again, this time utilizing his new base of operations, the Death Egg, in order to take over the world. Joined by his new pal Miles “Tails” Prower, Sonic sets off once again to put a stop to his schemes. The first thing I want to compliment here is the new sprites, Sonic looks amazing here. It’s not much, mostly Sonic being a little brighter, but it helps add a lot more flavor to the little dude already, and I think the new color scheme fits a lot for what Sonic sets out to do! The whole game in general looks great, every zone looks amazing here, each having its own varied theme like an industrial plant, a giant cave system, and a city from the depths of hell. It helps that each one is backed by an incredible soundtrack, seriously there is not a single miss here, it’s just constant bangers. Special shoutouts to that ending theme especially, it’s such an earworm, and it perfectly captures the end of the journey Sonic 2 has you go on.

Gameplay has gotten a substantial upgrade this time around, it feels so much more fattest then the weird balance Sonic 1 had. While Sonic 1 had this issue of stopping you too much, 2 strikes a better balance this time, focusing a lot more on speed compared to careful platforming. There’s not a lot of precision in this one, you’re just zooming fast, and the skill mainly comes from how well you can keep that speed up, clearing each level in faster and faster times. Helping you out with this is Sonic’s new ability, the spindash! Anytime you crouch, you can spam the jump button in order to charge up a speedboost, letting you immediately gain any speed you need whenever you want, making the game flow so much better this time around. Chaos emeralds are also back, though they are simultaneously better and worse this time around. The method of getting a special stage is better, basically having you get 50 rings and hitting a checkpoint, meaning there’s a lot more opportunities to get an emerald this time around, with less stress on getting to the end, but the special stages play a lot worse, having awful draw distance (at least on genesis) making you have to memorize the placement of rings in order to win. At the very least, the reward gained from the emeralds is better this time around, granting you Super Sonic, letting you go invincible once you gain 50 rings, shredding everything that stands in your way. Really there’s hard to find anything outright bad with Sonic 2, besides maybe a bit of the back half, it really is something of an incredible accomplishment!

It’s hard to really go into what makes Sonic 2 so great anymore without repeating stuff, basically everyone’s called it amazing, but it really does live up to the hype! It feels like the perfect sequel for a video game, and it helped to put the Blue Blur into the position he’s in now! While Sonic 3 may be my favorite, this is the one I can recommend you start with the most, it just goes nonstop, and you can’t really go wrong with this game no matter how you play it. It’s the game that made me such a huge fan of this guy in the first place, and I’ll be singing its praises till the end of time!