Completists will want to find them all, but to be that good takes ages. Each environment features a host of hidden areas and secret shortcuts. Racing furiously through the Green Hill Zone is still fantastic fun, as is pausing to rack up stupid amounts of points in the Casino. The variation in level design is also just as impressive as it was in 1992, all spikes and springs, cannons and levers, pinball flippers and floating platforms. The sheer speed of the game still has the power to thrill as you send Sonic zooming, spinning and bouncing in all directions. They are as expansive and exciting as ever. All the original levels are present and correct. Primarily because SEGA has been sensible enough to Leave Things Alone. The new Xbox Live Arcade version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 shines as a candidate for the job.

When they were good, obviously, not when they were Top Gun movie tie-ins or had the word 'Gex' in the title.

3D graphics! Free-roaming environments! Intense online multiplayer battles for up to 32 racists at a time!Īll very well but sometimes you want to be reminded of how good games used to be. What’s more, it’s currently the closest game we have to a fleshed out solo entry.Has it really been 15 years since Sonic the Hedgehog 2 first hit screens? Yes, buy a calendar. There was still Tails Adventure to play, and it was immediately better off the bat. Did Sega already have a premonition that it’d be a bomb? No matter. It could also be why Tails’ Skypatrol was released only in Japan and only on the Game Gear to boot. Seriously, it’s as if the majority of its Sonic games were conceived in a mad scientist’s lab where Sega could release them under the radar, which probably also helped minimize the damage and PR if they weren’t particularly well-received. RELATED: The Next Sonic Visual Novel Should Be More Like Ace AttorneyĪs I exhaled the frustrated smoke from my lungs, I had to remind myself that Tails was the victim here and another casualty of Game Gears’ poor Sonic output. I spent most of the game stuck in the opaque and stupidly frustrating Training Level, where I died countless times just from touching the same rotating fan over and over. Automatic side-scrolling levels force a constantly-hovering Tails to keep flying through a generally unpleasant environment, dodging obstacles and defeating bad guys with a boomerang. Trust me, if that were the case, you’d never want to see that little orange ball of fur again.

I’m truly grateful that Tails’ debut was on 1993’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and not on Tails’ Skypatrol in 1995.

Tails and sonic game for free