Theo’s Waste Basket: Sonic R (Saturn, PC, Playstation 2, Gamecube)

Theo’s Waste Basket will be an ongoing addition to my normal posts. My friend Thelonious finds old games that are commonly considered to be bad and gives them another look.

Introduction

If there’s one thing I know about video game franchises, it’s that outside of the core series, everyone likes to race. Mario and the gang have 8 games, Rare’s Diddy Kong Racing ganged up all its cute anthropomorphic pals and put together a unique racing game that had some semblance of a plot if you played it right, and in the last few years, Sega released their “all-star” kart racer. I guess driving is a lot of fun when you don’t have to save the world. But we’re not driving.

Why the hell would sonic need a car?

 

History

Sonic CD was the second game developed by Travelers Tales. It’s a familiar name. If you’ve played anything with “Lego” before the name of a movie series, they developed it. But back in the far-off land of 1996, Sonic Team began talking with the company about making a second Sonic game, the first being 3D Blast, which was a monument to the mega-drive’s processing capabilities. Like Sonic 3D Blast was for the Mega-drive and Genesis. Sonic R was meant to show the processing power and ability the Sega Saturn was capable of. On Halloween, Sonic R was released in North America.

A lot of VERY good games were released in 1997, so let’s look at just the big titles released around the same time. These games were: PaRappa the Rapper (PS1), Curse of Monkey Island (PC) and Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1) with Diddy Kong Racing not far behind, released November 24th. The PC version I played was released the following year.

Nostalgia

I barely even remember when I played Sonic R the first time. It certainly wasn’t on its original console. I was obsessed with Sonic, though. I don’t even remember where it came from but my youth was spent playing Sonic, Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 on the Genesis because damn did I love going fast and the color blue. I don’t have much memory of when I first played it though. I just borrowed a CD from a friend, and played it on our first computer, back in…shit, the early 2000’s?

At least it came with MYST.

 

The first time I played it, I was so excited. Sonic! Racing! I could play it! Unlike Myst with its prerendered, 3d pictures, I could run around a bunch of colorful, detailed courses. After a few races, I spent a lot of time in time attack exploring the maps.There was Flicky Island, which I remember from the comics, a Casino Night Zone/City streets area, A robotic stronghold, ancient ruins and a shining gemstone track in space you unlocked by coming in first on the four other tracks. Five maps isn’t all that impressive, even for 1997. I was a bit disappointed then, but I loved Sonic and I would take what I could get, dammit.

 

Gameplay

Like most early sonic games, the control scheme was simple, just brought into 3d. the up arrow went forward, left and right turned, but back let you crouch and instead of jumping when you pressed the spacebar you’d charge up a spindash and speed ahead. Mercifully, the left and right arrow keys were bound to drift, and not turn, making cornering possible.Turning normally I found out, playing with a friend on the Gamecube’s Mega Collection, is bogus and awful.  I found drifting mapped to the shoulder buttons on the controler and smoked him every race. Even on the gamecube though, the movement felt floaty. turns, even when i was drifting were very wide and sapped your speed immensely. Collision with walls and other characters was fine, but you would bounce and ricochet off of other racers like they were balloons making the beginning of races very chaotic and left me in last until i caught up.

There were also weather controls where different weather caused different track conditions. Rain made tracks slick, snow froze water that you could then walk on. It was a thing. There was a pretty big cast list, each racer had an unlockable alternate if you collected the 5 coins hidden on a stage and beat them in a head to head race. If you collected all the emeralds hidden across the first four stages, you could even be Super Sonic! All the characters have their own traits too; Tails flies, Knuckles glides, Sonic is faster, Amy drives? (sure why not) and Robotnik has the Egg-1 which fires a missile. I guess there was also back-story somewhere, but no one told me about it and it’s not ever brought up in the game. Pick a map, race, I guess Robotnik is there. Ho-hum.

Tails doll is a meme now, I presume everyone else faded into alcoholism.

 

The Salvage

You are wrong. I know what you’re going to say and you are wrong. The music is well produced and in ANY non-video game setting, a CD perhaps, it would have had its fans. I still listen to the credit music sometimes. Music aside…

 

The Scrap

It has not aged well. At all. The characters are low low polygon, with very minimal detail, the maps have even less polygons. The ruins, fortress and city stages are pretty graphically detailed, but every map but the last feels very short. Control issues are there, even on drifting, I found myself hitting walls on tight turns. Collecting emeralds and coins can be a nightmare. You had to get all 5 coins AND come in first to even have a chance of unlocking the new racer. The same goes for emeralds. Come in first, or get nothing. You can collect rings for a speed booster that for a price will accelerate you for a bit but it’s nearly useless. You’re better off using the rings to open up a ring gate that provides a better shortcut or opens up an emerald to collect on your next pass. Some gates are literally just a gate without anything else. It just sits to the side so you can open it later and have an emerald just out in the open. It’s weird and feels unfinished. There are a lot of characters, sure, but the unlockables are only better versions of their non-robot selves and Amy’s car is slow, sounds like someone giving you a constant raspberry and the boost you get in place of being able to jump didn’t last long enough to make her a viable racer in any circumstance (I still won with her). Speaking of slow, after you unlock Super Sonic, there’s no chance of you winning as anyone else. None of the maps are very well designed and the final map is just rainbow road. They didn’t even try to hide it. Is there more? Probably…

 

The Decision

I downloaded a .rar trying to get some nostalgia and it happened to have the entire soundtrack. If you want some 90’s R&B, find a download of that. I can’t get the .iso file to play so I’m gonna delete it.

 

Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Genesis)

Introduction

The greedy Dr. Robotnik– what is it with scientists being jerks in games?– is constructing his Death Egg space station. What’s he doing with it? I dunno, taking over the world I guess– he’s just the bad guy okay. The Death Egg’s got death in the name, how good could it be? Go beat him up, because he enslaves animals to power his robot minions. Play as Sonic the Hedgehog, or team up with Tails the Flying Fox, to defeat Robotnik.

Why didn’t anyone mention that the Death Egg is just the Death Star with a creepy mustache on it?

Development

 Sonic 1 had been developed by Sonic Team in Japan but Sega had Sonic 2 developed by the Sonic Technical Institute in the US. Key members of the original team, such as the Lead Programmer and the Game Planner, were moved onto this new team.  I’d say that it worked out well for them. This game had a small pile of innovative elements– but still no plot. With a little preparation Sonic could take off at max speed with his spin dash. Bonus levels revealed powerful secrets. And now the game supported cooperative and head to head multiplayer with the addition of Tails. I don’t think this innovation would have been possible without the addition of these fresh faces and their new ideas.

It was released on November 24th, 1992. It was up against Star Control 2 (PC), Flashback (Sega Genesis and later ported to the SNES), Mortal Combat (Sega Genesis and SNES), and Dune II (PC).

With everything that made it into the game, it’s got a surprisingly large amount of cut content. This is a restored version of a cut area know as the Hidden Palace Zone, which would later appear in Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

Nostalgia

This was one of the few games that my cousin owned for the Sega Genesis. I was a Nintendo kid so this was my opportunity to see “how the other side lived”. This was one of the few games that we were actually able to play cooperatively. It was usually about competition but I’m not a competitive player, I wanted to achieve. He would always play Sonic– it was his system after all– and I would play Tails. Tails can’t die. He can get knocked out, he can fall in pits, but he always comes back twirling his little tails and ready to get back into the fight. My cousin would dodge bosses waiting for me to come back and take the hits because there was no risk if I got knocked out. I was an invaluable sidekick for the first time.

Tail, ever the brave squire, gets repeatedly beaten up but always comes back for more.

Gameplay

Time for another 2D platformer– THE 2D platformer depending on who you ask. Sonic can jump on enemies and accelerate to alarming speeds, his starting speed can be frustratingly slow though. Most enemies are defeated with a simple jump on their head but others have spikes on their noggins, these enemies are usually defeated with a spin dash. The spin dash is a move that allows Sonic to store speed and take off. It’s somehow more satisfying than accelerating by running even though it takes the same amount of time.

Throughout the levels there are rings floating in the air that Sonic can collect, collecting 50 unlocks bonus levels at checkpoints and collecting 100 will give Sonic an extra life. If he gets hit, don’t worry, this will just make Sonic lose all of his power rings which he can collect again. As long as Sonic has one ring then he’ll be able to keep going, just catch that ring before it disappears.

There’s a limit to the amount of rings that actually burst out of Sonic, so if he has a lot the excess is lost.

The Gush

This game is all about going fast and when Sonic goes fast he goes fucking fast. There’s something viscerally satisfying about going running so fast that the momentum is enough to perpetuate Sonic’s movement through a loop. The game’s all about speed, defeating enemies is the challenge and the reward is the straightaway.

Completing a bonus level awards Sonic with a Chaos Emerald and he gets all of them then if he’s got 50 rings he can become Super Sonic. Pun aside, Super Sonic is immune to all damage except falling in pits. Spikes can’t stop you, enemies can’t stop you, damage is irrelevant. Speed is supreme! Becoming Super Sonic is just difficult enough to feel really rewarding.

The bonus levels offer an interesting alteration to the gameplay as well, bringing something new.

The environments are super pretty– my personal favorite is Aquatic Ruin Zone. When I first played it and would die all the time I was always really excited to see what the next level would look like. The music is also really good. My cousin and I would get to certain levels just to listen to those sweet Genesis tunes.

You’ve seen all the screenshots. There are so many small decorations, and then there are the backgrounds.

The Kvetch

The ring requirement of Super Sonic is an understandable limit but the final bosses area has only 5 or so rings in it so it’s impossible to face the boss as Super Sonic. There’s just something about it that’s intensely dissatisfying, I spent the time to get over powered and have been denied it when it would be most useful.

Sonic can’t swim and there are sections, especially in the Aquatic Ruin zone where Sonic will be plunged into lakes and such. It’s so stressful and frustrating having to move so slowly with the looming threat of drowning hanging overhead. If you’ve played this game then you know that the drown countdown theme is the scariest thing in the world.

I’ve complained about passwords in the past but Sonic doesn’t even have the option. If you want to play through Casino Night Zone before bed then you’ve got to play to it.

The story is really difficult to gather from the events of the game. I only knew that the bad guy’s name as Robotnik was because my cousin told me and I don’t know where he figured it out.

The Verdict

Sonic the Hedgehog is a great platformer, it’s got fun gameplay, good mechanics, something for the completionists, great music, and solid visuals for the time that hold up today. I might have a lot of complaints but I had to dig pretty deep to find them. It’s a game about going fast and it delivers.

Next Week: Lemmings