Reviews TSS REVIEW: Sonic Mega Collection

[Dreadknux]

When Sonic Team finally announced the world's biggest rumour of the time, that they were to make a compilation similar to Sonic Jam on the GameCube, the world went into all manner of nostalgic and sappy comas. On a disk 1.5 Gig size, there's room for all the Mega Drive games, Sonic CD, Knuckles Chaotix, a Saturn game perhaps here and there and still find room to plop in a nice little Sonic extra here and there.

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What the world recieved within Sonic Mega Collection, was only to be described as deeply disappointing amongst the hardcore Sonic the Hedgehog fans. SMC was essentially, as the name suggests, a compilation of all the Sega Mega Drive Sonic titles, and a few other games loosely related. Of course, Naka-san had this game with newcoming Sonic fans in mind, with SMC no doubt a ploy to crack the long-term Nintendo fans that sided with their SNES' back in the early 90's rather than their Mega Drives or 'Geneses'. Underhanded, SEGA, very underhanded ;D

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So what is on the disk? For fourty of your British Sterling, you get seven of Sonic's 16-Bit outings: Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic & Knuckles, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Sonic Spinball and Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island. All of the games are running on an emulator, and although it does the job next-to-perfectly, the emulator roots definitely shows. It's not in the gameplay where it's annoyance become apparent: each of these Sonic titles are representative of Sonic's best, and playing Sonic 2, reborn on your GameCube is worthy of a tear to your eye, even if you're a hardcore fan and have every region version of the Mega Drive original... What? You don't? I'll shut up then.

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Outside the games, there's not an awful lot to wet your panties about. The other options come in the form of a simple options screen, outlining control methods (by default, the B, A and X button are laid out as A, B and C on your Mega Drive pad respectively) and other sound options. There's a Manual mode, where you can view manuals for each game. Not bad, except for the fact that, like everything else about Sonic Mega Collection, it's decidedly American. If there was room to only put one region of manuals in (which is unlikely), SEGA could have made it region-specific, so European manuals appear in the European version, etc. Sadly, this is not the case. The manuals scanned in SMC are all the boring, ugly US NTSC Sonic manuals... not even any fabulous Japanese manual scans that Sonic Jam adorned us with.

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The disappointment doesn't lie there. Sonic Jam's crowning glory was Sonic World, a fabulous 3D environment which included movies, an extensive history and hundreds of artwork images. Of course, we weren't exactly expecting Japan VRI (the developers of Sonic Mega Collection, Sonic Team merely supervised) to push the boat out and make a 3D world, but we expected many extras to make up for that. What does SMC slap us in the face with? Several Archie Comic scans (again, a hint towards the Americanism of the game). SMC contains cover scans of every Archie, and a complete readable copy of 'Firsts'. Really, there could have been a better choice than Firsts - which is a compilation of the first few uninspiring Archie stories, such as the annoyingly pointless "Weeping Willow Trees" issue, which will forever bring back nightmares to me. o_o; It's a shame Fleetway was not an option, having recently gone under and all, it would have been a better example of the Sonic comics, or at the very least a copy of any other Archie but 'Firsts'.

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The "Illustrations" are, quite frankly, a very very poor collection of Sonic images. If Sonic Jam could fit four Sonic games, a 3D world, several game extras, and hundreds of images, movies and besides on a CD less than half a GameCube disk's size, it can't be comprehended why an extra five games (see later) would make a difference on size, especially as each 16-Bit game are paltry in size. The "Movies" is just a slap in the face to the Sonic fan too, with Sonic CD's intro and outro (using, naturally, the American soundtrack), in which Spencer Nilsen's compositions in no way match the action seen on the movies; a Sonic Advance 2 movie (the same one seen at the Tokyo Game Show, albeit with english text); a Sonic Adventure 2 Battle movie (which isn't SO bad); and a 'History of Sonic' movie which is a pathetic attempt to outline "Sonic's History" in a short 2 minute movie. Rather than the detailed "Hall of Fame" we got in Sonic Jam, this is simply a collage of short clips from games Sonic's had a starring role in, and also makes a fatal error in placing Sonic Adventure 2 Chao Garden clips when describing Sonic Adventure 1. =/

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However bad these flaws may be, only take these into account if you're a die-hard Sonic fan, and had therefore already been acquainted with the luxuries of Sonic Jam. If you're new to Sonic and are thinking about buying this, you won't think that the extras are all that bad, seriously. But it is true that this game reeks of newbie Sonic fans as the major focus. But, it's not all bad.

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For there are unlockable games to obtain in Sonic Mega Collection. At the start, you get a basic line of games - to get the Sonic & Knuckles link up games, Sonic 3D etc, you must play each game a certain number of times. This is where the flaws of using an emulator becomes apparent. Because there's no way of actually interacting with the game (i.e. unlock a game if you, say, complete Sonic 1), the game has to make do by making a "Game Log" every time you start each game. Each time you start the same game, it adds one to your Log for that game. To obtain many of the games, you'll have to play a certain game 20 times over! Of course, you can just keep entering the game, exiting the game and saving the Log tally, it becomes very very tedious just to attempt to get the extra games, and makes you want to look toward your always attainable Mega Drive games.

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There are two bonus games, loosely related to Sonic or Sonic Team. The first is Flicky, and is an arcade game where you play as a bird leading chicks (Pied Piper stylee) to the Safe Exit, whilst avoiding the cats, lizards and gawd knows what else is out on the lookout to have some Birdy Brunch. The second game is something to get you very excited - Ristar. Although not a Sonic game, it definitely has the looks and shine of something coming from someone at Sonic Team at least, and the inclusion of this in SMC is testament to it's relationship with the development group. In Ristar, you play a shooting star with elastic arms (STRETCH ARMSTRONG!!) bopping enemies to save the universe from King Greedy. The immediate charm for Ristar is it's excellent level design, the moves Ristar has at his disposal and the inventive bosses that easily makes Ristar one of the best platformers ever made. Ristar is worth it. Other Sonic titles are absurdly missing - Sonic CD and Knuckles Chaotix have been pushed aside because they apparently aren't Mega Drive games. Well... where else are you supposed to place them? They appeared on ADD-ONs for the Mega Drive. I doubt Sonic Team will bother to make a "Sonic Mega CD and 32X Collection" just for those two, so let's hope they get shoved into Sonic Heroes somehow, such is the trait these days for Sonic Team to bundle classic games with their new titles (see Sonic Adventure DX).

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Final verdict? Because of the focus Japan VRI seems to have taken Sonic Mega Collection, there will evidently be two camps in the Sonic fanbase: those that have been fans since the beginning, and those that are new to Sonic and have been pre-dominantly Nintendo. SMC is aimed at the latter audience I'm afraid, and not towards those fans who've been looking for a Sonic Jam 2. Because TSS looks at games from a hardcore Sonic fan's point of view when reviewing, this game loses severely due to it's lack of extras, stubborn use of an emulator and general all-round American-ness of it. The last part is in no part a bad thing, but it does seem like the whole game was pointed towards nothing other than the US, which seems a little bit selfish to tell the brutal truth. The game ultimately wins in the field in which matters most however, the games. Despite losing two or three games that the Japanese version recieved [including Comix Zone! ;_;], the western version of Sonic Mega Collection is great if you want to simply relive those classic Sonic moments, and nothing else. For newcomers to Sonic, you'll love it for it's past that you have yet to discover. For those hardcore fans of Sonic, you'll like it for it's nostalgia, Ristar, and not a lot else. But still worth a look in, if you like your nostaliga. Or lost your Mega Drive. Whatever.

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[Dreadknux]

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