Sonic the Hedgehog is like a 16-bit Skyrim: SEGA has reissued the Mega Drive classic on almost every platform you can think of, and shows no signs of stopping. The latest effort is Sonic Origins, a collection that brings Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic CDs to modern consoles under one flag. Even if we’ve all played these games thousands of times, it’s still worth revisiting old-school favorites – and the extra bells and whistles of this compilation present quadrilogy in a fresh and interesting way.
For starters, the games themselves remain a great choice for platformers. What’s interesting about playing them one after the other is how the series changes and improves over time. The first adventure presents the satisfactory movement of Sonic, based on inertia, but does not take full advantage of it, as many areas force you to play slowly. The Sonic CD is a really interesting diversion involving time travel; destroy Egman’s robot-making invention in the past to create a better future. Therefore, the stages are much more open, which allows you to search for time gates and gain enough speed to reach different time periods.
Sonic 2 returns to traditional stages and bosses, enhancing the first title with superb level design that leans much more on the character’s abilities. Finally, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is being rebuilt with complex stages, more diverse boss meetings, a trio of shield reinforcements and more. It’s a pity you can’t play Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles separately, but hey, at least they’re here. All games have weaknesses – traps that you can’t see coming are annoying everywhere, and some special stages can be painful – but it’s a pleasure to overcome.
And you are given many ways to do it. Anniversary Mode presents every game on a wide screen, with unlimited life and the ability to play a dash recorded by Sonic Mania. Meanwhile, Classic Mode presents the game in their original 4: 3 format, ultimate life and no drop. You can also choose Sonic, Tails or Knuckles in each game, although the latter is not an option on the CD.
Although you can enjoy each game individually, Story Mode combines all four titles into one long adventure. You won’t miss anything if you don’t play it, but it’s interesting to experience all the games as if they were a continuous saga. Whether you’re playing this way or enjoying a piece, a very neat addition sees every title reserved with brand new animated introductions and endings. These are wonderful, short interludes that provide just a little extra context for Sonic’s games. Similarly, Sonic Origins itself has great animations for opening and closing in the same style, which makes the package consistent.
One major addition to the Origins are the coins. Earned by playing Anniversary Mode (and more to come soon), it’s a permanent currency that has several applications. First of all, you can spend a coin to try a special stage again, which is incredibly convenient if you want to unlock Super Sonic, but you are struggling with these inconsistent challenges.
The other main use of coins is to unlock certain items in the museum. The museum is a place where you will find music, works of art and movies and there is something to enjoy. Some will unlock automatically as you play through games, while others require some coins. Examples of these “premium” tracks include some Sonic Generations music songs, original reference sheets for characters from the past, and animations showing current versions of all new cutscenes. Here you can delve into a lot of things that fans will enjoy browsing, although you will need hundreds of coins if you want everything.
Fortunately, there are many ways to get coins, one of which is mission mode. These are short challenges based on each Sonic title and vary in type and difficulty. One may be to defeat a certain number of a particular enemy before you reach the goal, while another will see you go through a level with zero rings. Your completion time affects your rank, and higher ranks give you more coins. This is a simple addition, but there is a good variety here and the missions are set in specially built stages – you can not automatically pilot through them.
Elsewhere, Boss Rush is a self-explanatory mode for each game; You have three lives to defeat all the bosses in a row, most of them without rings. Completing Boss Rush earns you more coins, as well as the game Mirror Mode, which turns each game horizontally – surprisingly difficult, even if you know the 16-bit Sonic games like the back of your hand. Finally, there are even brand new stages of Blue Spheres to enjoy with new mechanics, which is a great bonus.
Everything in Sonic Origins is well presented, with three-dimensional islands representing each game or mode. This is a clean package that is quite well organized and all the games work perfectly and look and sound as you would expect. There’s a smoothing option that you can turn on, but that makes the picture look blurry more than anything, so we’ll stick to clean pixels.
The only thing that really disappoints the collection is the rather stingy DLC. None of the extra bonuses make much sense, but it feels almost sneaky to put up a wall for things like extra music songs from related games like Sonic Spinball, extra mailbox borders when playing in classic mode, and extra animated island characters in the main menu. Most hardcore fans may also complain about the lack of specific tunes from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, replaced by music produced in the 90’s but never finalized (so far). The new songs aren’t bad – some are actually quite good – but it can take a while to get used to if you’re nostalgic for Carnival Night, Ice Cap and Launch Base.
Conclusion
Sonic Origins presents four of the best hedgehog games in style and it’s a pleasure to review these iconic platforms. The boom of presentations such as animated cut scenes, as well as many additional modes such as Boss Rush and Missions, give fans and newcomers a lot to see and do, and the museum is full of interesting works of art you may not have seen before. Some stingy DLC practices have been disappointing, and of course the games themselves have some 30-year weaknesses, but that’s generally a great spin down in the memory bar.
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