#Sonic gems collection series
#Sonic gems collection ps2

Sonic Gems Collection is, ultimately, more notable for what it doesn't include than what it does. Play the game 150 times or more to unlock a picture of Sonic's right shoe or something. Also, amusingly, using an Action Replay or similar cheat device you could freeze the timer and loop the entire game. It's a cute, fun way to jump straight into the endings of these games.

Also unlockable are some very welcome and unusual 'timed demos' of games not included in the collection you'll be dumped at the final boss in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 3D, etc. Sadly, a lot of them are simply 'play x game for x hours', which with the Game Gear titles basically amounts to your leaving the system switched while they're running. Many, many images and videos are locked behind bizarre, challenging tasks achieved across the entire collection. Thankfully, the package is absolutely laced with extras - the included gallery mode is as extensive as it is painstaking to unlock.

The western release omitted them in order to avoid a 'T' rating, which is. Frustratingly, the Japanese release of this collection included the entire Bare Knuckletrilogy (better known as Streets of Rage) as bonus unlockables, as well as classic coin-op Bonanza Bros. It's got a following - and it's worth seeing how its astonishing graphics push Sega's 16-bit to its very limit - but it doesn't hold up very well as an actual let's-sit-down-and-actually-play-this game. Both games are spoiled for me by loose controls that leave you flailing wildly and taking damage from the erratically-moving enemies that seem to swarm all over every inch of every platform. You can do anything! Well, mostly run around and jump a bit.īeside the Sonic titles, this collection also packs in Mega Drive action-platformer Vectorman and its 1996 sequel. Either way, it's a misunderstood masterpiece. To my ear, the Japanese music is much better and more fitting, but your mileage may vary. The version of the game presented in Sonic Gems Collection has the revised (read: totally different) US soundtrack, which is a bummer even though it's not a bad soundtrack by any reasonable metric. A much more cerebral take on the traditional left-to-right action, CD asks you to - shock, horror - slow down and think about your racing line, study the environment, search for prime spots to get your speed up in order to trigger the game's most significant gameplay addition - time travel. As I've espoused before, Sonic CD is a marvellous, intricate, thoughtful game. The best game in the package, then, is Sonic CD. Ed) Look! It's Purple Whozit versus Yellow Guy! That said, the toilet can be a fairly enjoyable place to hang out, right? (Please revise this line. Music is wonderful (as per usual for the Sonic series), but generally the game experience is toilet. It's got an appealingly ugly low-poly look, with plenty of character to the fighters. There's probably some strategy there, but I was able to win every fight by holding Right and mashing the Kick button, so goodness knows it isn't necessary.

#Sonic gems collection series

You pick one of eight Sonic series characters, and knock seven bells out of one another. Knuckles accidentally runs into a AAA shooter ha ha ha because they're dreary-lookingĪrcade conversion Sonic The Fighters is a total mess. The course designs are impressive and it's enjoyable to blast through, but not one you'll constantly see fit to revisit. Multiplayer offers next-to-zero value as you barely interact with your opponent and the character balancing is totally out of whack the secret characters are simply better than the defaults in every way. The Sega Saturn’s 3D racing game Sonic R is fun, for the hour and a half tops it'll take you to unlock everything and clear the game. Nice to have, but hardly 'main event' material - and they didn't even include the Game Gear version of the original Sonic the Hedgehog! When you buy Sonic Gems Collection, you're buying for its daintily proffered trio of obscurities - Sonic CD, Sonic R and Sonic The Fighters. Six of these initial games are Game Gear titles - Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic Triple Trouble, etc. You get nine games at first, with two more unlockable.

#Sonic gems collection ps2

Released on Gamecube (and PS2 in Europe) in 2005, Sonic Gems Collection packs a range of games that could charitably be called esoteric.