OVERVIEW

The blue hedgehog known as Sonic returns to action to take on the evil Ivo Robotnik aka Eggman yet again. This time around he has brought a little buddy named Miles Prower aka Tails who is a young little two-tailed fox (hence his nickname) that Sonic took under his wing. You can play as them together or you can fly solo as either character as you go through 12 zones of platform action mayhem to stop Robotnik in his tracks once more.

STORY

After Sonic defeated his nemesis Robotnik in the final zone of Sonic 1, the latter made a getaway and decided to make some more sinister plans by capturing more of Sonic's animal buddies and turning them into robots. One of Sonic's friends Miles "Tails" Prower, a two-tailed fox about half his age, accompanies him to foil whatever Robotnik is cooking up this time around. There are twice as many zones as the first Sonic and twice as many gimmicks to navigate through. It's a tough ride but nothing can stop the fastest thing alive.

GRAPHICS - S

The game makes good use of scenery and level design such as the grass in Emerald Hill Zone which is more defined than it was in the first Sonic games as well as the structures underneath them. The water flows very well in the background and the foreground and there's a lot of corkscrew action. Chemical Plant Zone has a futuristic vibe that will take you all over the place and there is a purple liquid which spells out danger as there are no bubbles to obtain there. Aquatic Ruin Zone has a nice feel of Atlantis as you will see a lot of ancient ruins and some areas submerged in water with some lush foilage and compared to Sonic 1, the water is crystal clear. Casino Night Zone is what I would consider the best level design and background of the whole game itself with the feel being in a gigantic pinball machine and lots of lights everywhere. Hill Top Zone is an OK zone with Moss growing everywhere and underground caves with lava that looks unrealistic. Mystic Cave Zone looks eerily spooky and it is easy to get lost in the level if you are not careful. Oil Ocean Zone looks just like what you expect from an industrial zone. Robotnik's carelessness filled the water with oil thus the name and you only sink slowly through the oil since it is so thick. Metropolis Zone I'm a little on the fence since it can confuse even the greatest players. Sky Base and Wing Fortess take place in the sky. The skies in these stages have such nice clouds flowing through them. The Death Egg takes place in outer space inside the spaceship. The layout looks fine to me for a short level.

Bonus: There were going to be more levels and a time travel aspect that would later be used for Sonic CD but time restraints got in the way. 2 of the levels that did get a design were Wood Zone and Hidden Palace Zone. Wood Zone has nice use of trees and wooden logs throughout the stage. Hidden Palace Zone would have been a good zone to play as it places you inside a sparkling cave with shiny backgrounds.

The sprites also got a bit of an uplift from last game with the shield being more visual instead of shadowy. The spikes looking a little more condensed but the lava now looks more like a fire pit than actual lava. Sonic and Robotnik look a bit smoother.

MUSIC - S+

All the stage music fits their respective zones to a T. Casino Night Zone has that good ol' jazz vibe. Hill Top Zone uses a countryfied vibe with the use of a harmonica as the primary instrument. Aquatic Ruin Zone sounds like what you would expect in water ruins area. Mystic Cave Zone has spooky ambience like you going through a haunted house. Oil Ocean Zone has a middle eastern vibe like you would hear a snake charmer playing the song. Metropolis Zone is the best song with a good ol' hip-hop vibe. If you ever had the Toe Jam and Earl game for Genesis/Megadrive and remember the rap it had in the manual. You can actually sing the rap to Metropolis Zone's theme just sure to stop during the breakdown. The 2 player versions of certain zones are better renditions of the original songs.

Bonus: The songs in the 2 player mode were going to be used in the cut zones (Emerald for Wood, Casino Night was originally for Oil Ocean I think, and Mystic Cave was for Hidden Palace).

REPLAYABILITY - S

I am going to skip the gameplay section this go around and just say that there is a lot of replayabiliity to this game so I'll combine a little of the gameplay section elements here. In addition to beating the zones, you also try to collect all the Chaos Emeralds which you do so by going down a half pipe and collect a required number of rings. If you get all seven as Sonic then you will become Super Sonic by collecting 50 rings then jumping into the air. Later games will have you "double jump" to activate the power so you do not have to turn into Super Sonic prematurely. There are two other ways to play the game. You can play as Sonic or Tails solo. The only benefactor here is that getting the emeralds are easier as Tails will not cause you to lose rings. There is also a two player race format to check out.

OVERALL - S+

As usually, when you see me use S's in a grade system or AA and AAA for that matter, A+ is not to good enough a grade to rate that aspect and Sonic is none to shabby to receive such high praise from me. Have fun with this games and some of the better hacks that come along.