Systems > Genesis > S > Sonic the Hedgehog 2 > Staff Review
Sign up for a free user account and you can leave feedback for this review or even submit a game review of your own!
Review by Daniel Forbes
July 30, 2005
Then there's Sonic.
The sapphire hero's coup of the 16-bit mascot stage is of course the stuff of schoolboy legend. While fanciful youths staged him epic struggles with the reviled plumber (those earth-shattering battles now chronicled for future generations in only yellowing margin snuff-doodles), the older gamer would look past the sharp 'tude and dope threads sported by Sega's great blue hope and instead attribute his genre-shifting success to simple speed ratios. Sonic moves a lot faster than Mario.
The differences between the two, however, run deeper than that. Sonic's flashy revolution concerns an issue far more important than pace. It's the one critical to every platformer, the one that separates the triple-hopping superstars from the clumsy fools sailing off the bottom of the screen: control.
Where Nintendo places it squarely in the player's hands, granting him an avatar that's at the mercy of nothing but gravity, Sega flings Sonic into a world full of influential forces. Every Sonic level is full of slopes and inclines, boosters to send you sprinting and springs to launch you into the air. Many long stretches can navigate themselves; you can let the momentum alone roll Sonic down the steeper slopes or flip him through the spring chains. The trick is in joining the dots, in slipping him between the robots and over the spikes, into those spots where you can simply sit smugly back and let the physics spirit him ever onwards.
Soundbite:
Mario is about control.
Sonic is about letting go of it.
That's why Sonic can roll into a ball; it's a simple, clever way to surrender him to the lay of the land. That's why he can barely be killed if he has at least one of the ubiquitous golden rings; slip off the racing line into a row of spikes and you're not hit with the expected tedium of level memorisation, because you can simply retrieve a few of your scattered rings and start chaining up the superfly stunts again.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2, then: the Mega Drive middle child and the defining example of that type of gameplay. It features 20 varied stages' worth of the glorious free-wheeling exhilaration that the series first hinted at with the original's Green Hill Zone and later replaced with linear tedium in Sonic 3. Every step of this sparkling adventure seems designed to elicit impressed gasps and amused giggles; the new Spin-Dash move - quite aside from being a brilliant device for eliminating run-up times - is stupidly satisfying, even when you just hammer the button to rev Sonic on the spot and enjoy at the squeals of testosterone-pumping power his revolutions give off.
Likewise, debuting vulpine sidekick Tails seems like the plain orange friend to your devillish blue avatar, making you feel even more awesome than you could alone. He mostly just scurries along at your heels representing the Yoshi's Island school of videogame slapstick; occasionally though he'll come out of a wacky scrape to land a jammy strike on a Badnik that's bugging you, and you'll just want to lean into the screen and kiss the fluffy little bastard. He's the genuine king of CPU buddies, and, when you eventually face the game's outstanding series of final challenges, he's the lynchpin for some of that whimsical, dialogue-free drama that games of this generation did so well.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ends absolutely beautifully. There's a perfect, aesthetic catharsis here, to be felt when you watch the heroic pair wind through the figure-eight tubes in the Chemical Plant Zone, or when you go so fast that the checkerboard motifs start flying past in beautiful blurs. Sonic flips and rebounds, and when you see his adventure through to its inspiring conclusion, his stylish lines are forever traced into the backs of your eyes.
|
|
|
Most recent video game reviews written by Daniel Forbes
Half-Life (PC) [August 27, 2006]
Cave Story (PC) [January 20, 2006]
WarioWare, Inc: Mega Microgames (Game Boy Advance) [October 11, 2005]
Half-Life 2 (PC) [July 09, 2005]
Serious Sam: The First Encounter (PC) [June 06, 2005]
|
You can click the tabs on the above bar to choose whether you wish to read comments from visitors who have posted on Facebook, or from registered site users who have left feedback on the forums. Please leave a comment of your own if you have anything to say!
|
|
|
Follow Us |
Advertise exclusively for 1 month... only $1000!
Recent Forum Discussions
+ holdthephone's Final Fantasy XIII-2 review
+ [News] Schafer has pitched Psychonauts 2, Minecraft dev says 'let's make it happen'
+ Where's SkyWard Sword's review ? And please bring back the rating feature.
+ playstation vita, yo.
+ RotW January 29 - February 04 2012
+ Games to be added to the database...
+ The Final Fantasy XIII-2 thread
+ [News] Final Fantasy X HD will be a remaster, not a remake
+ [News] Naughty Dog explored making a new Jak and Daxter, made Last of Us instead
+ Magical Mystery Tournament!
+ disco's SoulCalibur V review
+ nickyv917's Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door review
Staff Game Reviews
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| SoulCalibur V |
| The Simpsons Arcade Game |
| Quarrel |
| Star Ocean: The Last Hope |
| Pushmo |
| Medal of Honor: Airborne |
Site Staff
 |  | ||
 |  | ||
 |  | ||
 |  | ||
 |
Featured Reviews [+]
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Rayman Origins |
| Othello |
| Scarface: The World is Yours |
| The Last Express |
| Golden Axe II |
| Assassin's Creed: Revelations |
Exclusive User Reviews [+]
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Mega Jump |
| White Knight Chronicles |
| Dragon Wars |
| F-Zero GX |
| Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door |
| Pokemon Snap |
Info |
Help |
Privacy Policy |
Contact |
Advertise
© 1998-2012 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site--from reviews, guides, cheats and editorials to message board posts--may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a registered trademark of its copyright holder. This site makes no claim to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, its characters, screenshots, artwork, music, or any intellectual property contained within. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors.
