Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has always been one of my favorite games of all time.
It holds a huge place in my childhood, and these memories of playing Sonic 2, way back
when, are memories I will always cherish.
Now, it’s been just over 4 years since I reviewed Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
At the time, I tried to look at the game objectively, reviewing it compared to all other games I’d
played up to that point in time, and seeing how it stacked up in the year 2011.
It’s a game, and a review, I’ve always wanted to revisit, but at the same time, it
is what it is, and I want to look forward and not back.
But I think I found a loop hole.
A way to revisit Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with a wiser eye, and not a simple redo, of an
old video.
With that, I present Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
The second coolest thing you can do with a Sonic & Knuckles cartridge, is plug in a Sonic
the Hedgehog 2 cartridge, and experience Sonic’s second adventure, using Knuckles the Echidna.
Knuckles’ slower acceleration, reduced jump height, along with his gliding and wall climbing
have been retained, in this alternate adventure.
While I’ve played around with Knuckles in Sonic 2 a few times, I never stopped to think
how this changes the game.
In fact, I rarely spend any time thinking about the gameplay flaws in Sonic the Hedgehog
2, as I’m too busy having an absolute blast to really notice.
At first I thought the wall climbing and gliding would break the game, making it far too easy.
However, it doesn’t seem the level design is overly broken with these new abilities.
There are a few extra lives hidden here and there, but for the most part, everything feels
the same.
Or I’m just not clever enough to find all the things this mechanic has broken.
The biggest difference for me is how Knuckles smooths out some of the rougher parts of the
game.
These annoying boxes in Chemical Plant Zone gave me fits as a kid.
Even as an adult, sometimes I’ll mistime a jump and basically drown as this section
doesn’t allow much room for error.
However, with Knuckles, you simply climb up the wall.
Nine year old me would have loved this.
Another section is Metropolis Zone.
Again, these 3 acts gave me a really hard time as a kid.
Even as I’ve more or less memorized these parts after dozens of play-throughs, it’s
tough to deny these zones feature some issues.
My biggest frustration has always been these praying mantis style enemies awaiting you
after spinning up these bolts.
It’s awkward to jump off, and too easy to get hit by a projectile, and have to start
over.
Rather than backtracking to get the nut and bolt to reset, you can just climb up the wall.
It’s brilliant.
However, the single best improvement is with the checkpoints.
Normally, visiting a special stage will reset your ring counter to zero after returning
to the act.
With Knuckles, you actually get to, keep, your rings.
This is a huge, fundamental change that instantly makes the entire game much more accessible
to new gamers that haven’t memorized every nook and cranny of Sonic 2.
See, when I was a kid.
Games were expensive, and you didn’t get new ones very often.
Therefore, you were stuck playing the same game for weeks, or even months, before getting
a new one.
Because of this, gamers of my generation experienced games in a much different way than gamers
of today.
We played what we had.
If you played Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 1992, you probably played the hell out of it.
You didn’t have much of a choice, because it was going to be a while before you got
another game.
When you got game over, you started over from the beginning, getting a little farther each
time, mastering the beginning levels, and made progress.
This play style is more or less extinct at this point in time.
By keeping your rings upon returning to the stage, it is far easier to rack up lives.
You don’t lose those 50 rings, so you don’t start over on your quest for 100.
Additionally, because you already have the prerequisite amount of rings to access a special
stage in the first place, you get more chances to actually play the special stages, increasing
your odds of getting Chaos Emeralds, along with scoring more points at the end of each
act, netting you more continues.
These additional lives and continues makes Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s cheap shots at the
player more tolerable to take.
While I generally feel Sonic 2’s level design is top notch, even I can admit there are some
enemy placement issues, causing a loss of rings, or death, that aren’t a result of
a player’s lack of skill.
Playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with Knuckles irons out some of the problems with the game,
making it a far more enjoyable experience for new gamers that haven’t been playing
through the game for 20 plus years.
Everything else I said about Sonic the Hedgehog 2 back in 2011, still holds true.
The level design is mostly fantastic.
It’s always obvious how to progress, but also rewards exploring alternate branching
paths with item boxes and other goodies.
In fact, the only level I found confusing is near the end of the game, Wing Fortress.
Having not played this in 4 years, I forgot what an atrocity this level is.
There is some wonky wind effects that blow our hero around, often to his doom, if you
aren’t aware of what you are supposed to do.
It’s also not always obvious what is a platform, and what is the background.
It’s honestly, not designed that well.
Of course, the graphics and sound are still timeless.
The game engine moves at a blistering pace, and it’s satisfying to zoom through the
giant levels at warp speed.
When you take a few moments and slow down, you’ll witness some truly great 16-bit art,
with detailed sprites, and multilayered backgrounds, that all look wonderful to this very day.
And then there is the soundtrack.
This remains an absolute masterpiece, with brilliant tracks that have withstood the test
of time.
It’s fast, it’s upbeat, and nearly every track has that, get stuck in your head quality,
that few games today could hope to achieve.
Chemical Plant Zone remains my favorite piece of 16-bit music of all time, and others like
Metropolis Zone are not far behind.
Playing through this entire game all over again with Knuckles, I’m instantly reminded
why this is one of my favorite games.
It also reminds me why I objectively, feel this is also one of the greatest games ever.
The speed, graphics, sound, controls, and level design are still excellent.
Some of the memorization required for completion is reduced by locking the game onto a Sonic
& Knuckles cartridge.
The game isn’t perfect, but outside of Tetris or Minecraft, few games are.
However, the fun factor is right up there with the best of them.
Five out five.