dakrsonic plays Sonic CD, experiences blast from the past.
Oh ho, am I ever the witty one. I say this not only because Sonic CD is an older game, but also because of the new game mechanic that is present only in this odd Sonic game.
Sonic CD is a game I never had the chance to play because I never even knew of this so-called Sega CD attachment. I didn’t find out about it until I was in my early teens and had already turned my perfect condition Sega Genesis into a piece of “art.” I know, not the brightest idea I’ve had but I needed to get an A in the class. For what it’s worth, my Genesis robot was bad-***. Anyway, after learning of Sonic CD I admitted defeat and accepted that I’d never get the chance to play the game.
Years later and now the proud owner of a PSP, I decided to look up whether someone had made a Sega CD emulator. First hit on my search reveals PicoDrive, a Genesis/CD emulator. Great success! Not only have I found a Sega CD emulator, I’ve also discovered a decent Genesis emulator. I instantly find Sonic CD and throw everything onto my memory stick. Seconds later, I’m playing the game that eluded me for years. Something feels a little different though…
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic CD were developed by two entirely different teams. Yuji Naka began to dislike Sega of Japan and thus moved to America along with half of Sonic Team to develop Sonic 2 with STI (Sega Technical Institute, not Sexually Transmitted Infection). Naoto Ohshima, Sonic’s creator, stayed in Japan and began developing Sonic CD. Initially the two games were supposed to be the same, but Sonic CD started to become a completely different game.
As the title mentions loosely, Sonic CD introduced an odd time mechanic. On top of the standard checkpoint lamps, the player will find lamps that say “Past” and “Future.” Hit one of these lamps and maintain 88 mil—no, no I won’t do it. To time travel you need to hit one of these lamps and maintain a decent speed for a few seconds, after which you’ll be treated to Sonic spinning through some fancy colored sparkles.
Welcome to Sonic CD’s gimmick. Each level has a Present, Past, Bad Future and Good Future. The concept here is that a machine from the past is creating the robots that inhabit the levels of the game. If you don’t destroy this machine the future will become bad. So Sonic, being the nice hedgehog he is, travels to the past in every level to destroy said machine and make the future good. This is not a requirement though – if you don’t destroy the machine you can still beat the game, you just won’t get the good ending. The chaos emeralds are still present but instead are called “time stones.” If a player collects all the time stones before finishing the game, each level automatically gets a good future without having to destroy the machine.
So is the game any good? In short, yes. It is a very fun game that brings an interesting idea to the table. Is time travel a concept that fits into the Sonic universe? No, not in the least. Every level typically has an area that will allow the player to maintain the required speed to time warp. Other than those areas players might find it hard to gain enough speed and maintain said speed to time travel. Also, who wants to backtrack in a Sonic game to destroy some machine? I know I don’t. The Sonic I grew up with was about speed and finishing the level as fast as possible.
The feel of Sonic CD is very similar to Sonic 1. While it is possible to get some good speed, the level design often prevents you from blazing through. Since Sonic CD was developed with Sonic’s creator, the levels have less of a focus on raw speed like Sonic 2. With the Sega CD’s ability to feature CD quality audio, the music in the game is fantastic and sounds wonderful. Some diehard fans may claim that the American soundtrack is inferior to other versions but I found it to be rather enjoyable.
I highly recommend Sonic CD for any hardcore Sonic fan. If you’re not that huge on Sonic games this one probably isn’t going to hook you on the series. It pretty much is a different beast than Sonic 2 and forward, but one worth playing if you really enjoyed the first Sonic the Hedgehog game.
