Sonic CD

So, the final part of my three part video game opinion piece. I've already outlined my favourite Mario game and my favourite Pokemon game, so it stands to reason that I should write about my favourite Sonic game too. And there is no better Sonic game than Sonic CD.

Back in 1993 the Megadrive got an upgrade, the Mega-CD. It was the first ever CD-based games console and Sega were rather pleased with it. Thing is, for gamers at least, it didn't really have anything special about it, other than a new storage medium. The only games that came out for it were early FMV-based games - most of which were awful - and slightly enhanced versions of older Megadrive titles. I personally only really remember two games on the Mega-CD being any good. Snatcher was one, and Sonic CD was the other. OK, so Sonic CD did fall into the category 'enhanced version of earlier Megadrive game', but it was the only game to do it right. And boy, did it do it right.

Take a simple concept like Sonic the Hedgehog's smooth speedy platformer. Now let's add a few things that require a lot of extra data space to accommodate - graphical enhancements are old hat, a CD-quality soundtrack, meh. OK, let's produce the CD soundtrack properly with an actual band, and lyrics and stuff. Commonplace nowadays, but at the time it was something special. Now let's add a few extra special stages, some FMV intros and endings - it's still just Sonic with bells on. Then someone came up with the idea... hang on, Sonic can run really fast. How about having him outrun time itself?

Getting to, and beating the last level in Sonic CD is actually quite simple - seven zones, three acts each with a boss at the end of each zone. But that'll only get you the 'bad' ending - to get the good ending you need to not only collect all seven time gems (similar to the old Chaos Emeralds), but in every act you need to somehow travel back to the past, undo all of Robotnik's wrongdoing, and then return to the present to ensure a good future. In order to do this you need to pass a 'past' or 'future' emblem and then maintain top speed for a few seconds, which is a lot harder than it sounds on the later levels which become more and more claustrophobic and maze-like as the game goes on. Each non-boss act has a past, a present, a bad future and a good future, and the boss acts have two versions each depending on whether you managed to successfully alter the zone's destiny in previous acts. In total, that's 70 levels! Remember that soundtrack I mentioned? Each time period for each zone has a different theme tune. There were also a hell of a lot of graphical enhancements and dozens of new sprites (including a mini-Sonic for when he gets shrunk in the second half of the final zone.) Basically, Sonic CD served as a masterclass for Mega-CD developers at the time on how to really stretch the new hardware's capabilities and make a wonderfully fun game at the same time. On a personal note, Sonic CD contains possibly the most difficult boss level in any Sonic game for years to come - the high speed obstacle race between Sonic and his robotic counterpart at the end of Stardust Speedway is infuriatingly difficult, and a welcome change from most other Sonic bosses which simply involve twatting one of Robotnik's vehicles enough times to make it explode.

Of course, like all good retro-games, the game is still available today. It's been re-released on the Playstation 2 and the Gamecube as part of various Sonic multi-game collections, but was re-made in 2011 and re-released on Android, iOS, Steam, Windows Phone and XBox 360. The updated version adds a few enhancements, such as being able to play as Tails, the choice of Japanese or US soundtracks, some cosmetic changes such as a higher quality FMV opening and Sonic 2's spin dash physics which hadn't actually been written at the time of the original game's development. So if you want the best possible experience of playing this game, rather than finding an emulator, grab yourself an Android device, preferably one with a USB port so you can plug in a proper control pad. You can always try and get hold of an original copy for Mega-CD, but good luck with that one, I'm certainly not selling mine.