"A collections of gems, with more powerful memories than any chaos emerald" Memories, Old games, and images we can never forget...these are the things we always remember about this second collection game released by Sega, this collection however doesn't focus on this hedgehog's past but more so some of the classic hedgehog games that are considered gemstones by the companies and some games named ruin and waste to other owners or players of this game. Whether you're playing this game for it's music standards, art designs, even just plain gaming on whatever system you have it for, you're in for a delicate treat, but is this really a good game for the Gamecube or does it just bring back painful memories for other fans of the beloved series? We've only got one way to find out and that's to jump into the zone and research our past and find out for ourselves if this trip will be worth it or not!
*Runs into PAST signpost* ~ Memorable Hill Zone 1 |P|~
~*NOTICE*~ Since this game is based on several different games on handhelds and consoles the ratings and descriptions here will be a little bit different than usual, sorry for any misunderstandings or issues you may have.
A touch of nostalgic style, mixed with all sorts of variety!
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If you're a fan of some older sonic game gear games (1992-1995) as well as more so recent games (1996-1997) then the graphics of games in this collection will surely be a nice addition into your sonic series, which I'll describe what I mean below in terms out how the games differentiate in terms of looks...so basically it goes somewhat like this.
Sonic Championship (The Fighters) (JP) - This being the first Sonic Arcade game released in North America (at least to the best of my knowledge) but at least it's the first and really the only fighting game made in an arcade cabinet, and for 1996 games were still having a blocky like texture for both Arcade and Home consoles so I can't gripe on this game to much for having the characters and levels being having a strange 3D block type body, for example Mario 64 had this same issue.
Sonic 2 GG |Game Gear| - This of course being one of the first Game Gear Games to be released on the company's first handheld, having an 8 bit style look with color to boot, so of course if you're going to compare this to the Genesis then of course you'll be disappointed also this game was made in 1992 so give the game some credit as at the time Sonic's look wasn't set into stone yet and as such the game looks decent but not eye candy worthy.
Vectorman 1 & 2 |Sega Genesis| - A dualogy series released later in the Genesis lifespan and not a very famous series on this system as well even though it was a very good game to be added to this system's list of titles, basically if I could explain how this games graphics look it would be to compare it with...laugh at me if you want...Samus Aran's Suit (not the games actual graphics) but the Power Suit Shape from Metroid Prime and basically mold that into an 16 bit game similar to Donkey Kong Country and make the character be completely a robot unlike Samus.
As you can see there is no real ONE way to describe the graphics in this Gamecube game since it spans across many gaming platforms, but the main question is: Does this live up to gamecube games released? No, not really however; because of the unique nature of this collection I myself would find it very harsh to judge a disc based on looks of some decade or close to decade old games which leads me to give this section an 8 out of 10 for graphics.
Taking your ears back to childhood, and all the memories they had
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There's no doubt in my quills that once you hear the opening music to each one of the games music and finally the credits theme of Gems Collection that you'll be tearing up over all the floods of nostalgic fun you may've had as a child and even if you hadn't played these games before the music will at least make you remember the time you've spent with this game on your beloved system. Thus I shall describe what I mean and provide evidence about the things I've mentioned previously already, so if you're ready let's begin!
~Intro and Endings~
*puts in disc* ok time to sit back and WAHHHHH *get's blown back by immediate strong upbeat tone* woah now that's how you introduce a game..uugh my back. Alright on a serious note the intro does give you a great starting tone like "Hello Gamer! I hope that you'll enjoy your time here as I'm going to speed you through a bunch of the adventures you'll be seeing here in memorable hill zone! It just makes you want to play the game but at the same time leave the music playing because of how great it makes you feel inside so you're all tensed up and ready to have fun! |several hours later|
Well I guess I'll end off the game here and before I do it wouldn't hurt to look at the credits and.....oh my...what is this
music?! I'm just looking at the credits and I'm scorched with such a relaxing and calming theme while seeing cut out images and animations of the game I just went through :o how did they know this was the perfect theme to end the game off with? It's a really great theme and on a different note I'll talk about much later in here you'll actually be rewarded for listening to it a certain amount of times. So that's all nice and dandy but what about the REAL reason most of us loyal gamers/readers came here to play for? The actual games sound and music right, you can bet your Spongebob pineapple's that it's where we're headed to next!
~The systems VS the sound~
Glad you viewers were able to make that gap with me in order to make it to this next section, here I'll talk about 3 games
each of different system's and how there sounds compete with the others however; continue to keep in mind throughout this review that it's a collection of older games so I can't rate anything a 4 sheerly out of the fact that it doesn't live up to other games on the Gamecube although; I can give you the descriptions I promised:
Sonic CD: The only hidden gem on the Sega CD being re-released for this collection and the music is still as strong as before, however *this is just speculation* I believe in the North American release of the game the soundtrack can only stay as it's respective countries soundtrack so if you have a PAL version you might get the Japanese/European list of songs. The music in here is some of the best in the Genesis time period with favorite songs like Palmtree Panic & Tidal Tempest, one having a more lively and almost exotic theme while the other is more so a kicked back jazzy type theme almost what you could here in a casino.
Sonic R: Although a very belated game and very low opinion choice, this games soundtrack (all be it having no real sonic iconic type feel to it) is still pretty ok to listen to here and there to which I'll admit I've listen to a few times when just playing this game. The best themes in this game have to be in my quills ideals are: Diamond in the Sky ~ Which plays on the unlockable track Radiant Emerald and has the normal (I would assume) female singer as in all the tracks and this one is actually really great to listen to if you're thinking about someone that you enjoy being around. Finally I'll end it off with the most well known one Super Sonic Racing theme which plays on the same level as above but only if you go into it as Super Sonic, this is an very unique song used both in this stage, title theme, and even was put into Smash Bros Brawl. Either way though it's a very invigorating theme and it actually feels like you're being injected with energy and power when you hear it.
Sonic 2 (GG): Alright so the graphics of the game all be it ok for the current time it was made in, does the musical theme share the same fate? For the most part in 1992 this was actually very decent in the sound department especially for a portable system that they just barely released. The favorite themes in here are Green Hill Zone & Underground Zone as the Underground Zone Theme, which includes a more relaxed but fast paced theme at the same time thus having us remember about the fast paced action of our hedgehog. Then you compared the Green Hill Zone theme (Different from Sonic 1) which has a more upbeat and but more so slower type theme than above (noticeably this is also a theme later used as the intro for Sonic CD in Japan).
Either way looking at the music in the different games on completely different systems gives us a perspective on how to rate the sound of this game which to be fair for a collection game I'd say it's worthy of a 9 out of 10
An interesting twist of games, for a second collection series
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As you've all seen above Gems Collection doesn't rely itself solely on one system but across many platforms and game types, but mostly it's alot of Game Gear titles (6 out of 11) so if you're a fan of that then this collection will definitely be a pick up to play and be highly addictive to yourself, however; if you do not enjoy that game handheld don't give up hope just yet as you still have 5 other games to play and almost every one of them is on a different system. Also there are other features like the museum which we can always take a look at and listen to unlocked music when playing the game in a specific way, I'll go into more detail about that in the |Depth| section so for now allow me to give you some insight on which games may be most addictive in alot of people's cases.
Sonic The Fighters (Championship) ~ To give you a generic run down of this game, being an arcade fighting game similar to the styles of Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter where the basis of the game is to defeat your opponent by making his health bar
completely deplete, which can be achieved by using normal or special attacks by your certain character you choose. There is a normal multiplayer mode where you can play with another friend of yours and each character in the game has a certain talent to them so there is no one crummy player that your friend/family member could force you to choose, another good thing is that if you hold down the L button you can
select the same player. There's also a story option which has 9 levels in it and you can earn something pretty nice if you get to Level 9 and 2nd round without losing once, though it is very difficult and only last for 2 more fights it's still pretty interesting to see the first time.
Sonic CD ~ This is in my opinion the most addictive game on this game disc because it's the one that alot of gamers know when they hear the title because of the failed Sega CD adaptation to the Mega Drive, even if they haven't played the game yet. Everything in this game is addictive for me because there is so much you can do in it and it's a completely innovative and sweet story just makes you smile when you play it, mostly for the fact that there is Time Travel in Sonic CD where you can go into the past and present of each stage and see how much the environment has change and/or see if you can get a Good future compared to a Bad Future where everything is run down. There are also more secrets to find in here so if you have the time and money not to mention enjoy classic sonic then please try it.
Vectorman 1 & 2 ~ This game is also a good game to play if you just feel like having a fresh new experience from your most common played game on here. Strangely enough this game isn't really a common game I hear about which is sad as it's a great game, wherein you play as a pilot named Vectorman, and you go around each level shooting baddies anywhere in sight while trying to reach the exit which is a good normal paced action game, similar to games you'd find on the NES or older Genesis games. With both the original and sequel located on this collection you're sure to be in for a good story and lots of robotic fun!
All in all the addictiveness for this series mainly depends on what game types you prefer to play on most, and with a wide array of ones to pick from it's sure to satisfy your gaming thirst. So looking at everything a decent 8 out of 10 seems acceptable here.
A wide display of stories to read, ones that reach your inner child!
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The story...is probably a section on here that's going to be the hardest to rate as some of these have very interesting stories and others are most so lackluster and or just feel slapped onto the game just so that way it has some input on what's going on. So sadly though this review may suffer harsh criticism for reusing almost the same games each time I'm just going to continue choose the ones I think are best fitted to be talked about for this section good or bad. *Being a collection series there is no one basic story so the rating shall be summed up by calculated the 3 scores together*
Sonic CD: This game takes place on a planet *unnamed but let's presume South Island/Mobius* and everything seemed fine and peaceful even when a new distant world came into view known as Little planet which is an area surrounded by tree's and meadows with loving animals all around, and strangely enough it only appears at a specific time at the end of a month. However the restful land would soon fall under turmoil as Dr Ivo Robotnik was back to disastrous deeds and tried to take over the planet in order to gain the special Time Stones located there, to have this be accomplished he's chained the world to South Island's/Mobius's landscape, our heroic freedom fighter in blue had come running past just in time to see the dastardly deed! Up on his feet he dashed and jump upon the chains fate running up to save this worlds cruel fate.
Sonic R: Sonic and Tails had finally decided to take a rest after some long and unknown perilous journey they had just returned from and decided to relax until they both spotted a sign talking about a Grand Prix race that was going to be taking event here on the island, although our fox did should some interest in it Sonic heavily dismissed the idea until he saw a clipping reading "Genius Doctor Robotnik enters race" and within a super sonic second our hero raced off at top speeds knowing something strange was amok about that Robuttnik entering a race for no reason, but what could that reason be?
Tails Adventure: Just like before the same casual relaxed and calmed Tails was
sleeping on his calm and restful island, until it was invaded by a group of enemies known as Kukku's to destroy anything that comes in their way of finding Tails's treasure that he may have hidden around the island. So our orange colored fox decides to gather his remaining items and head out to stop this evil masterminds dark fiendish plans.
So from what you can see the bottom 2 stories are more so lackluster while the first one mentioned actually sounds normal and a fun concept so for the rating I'd give to the stories it'd have to be only a 6 out of 10.
Not just a collection, but a museum fill disc of adventures!
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For everything this games gives you in terms of games and just extra features it most definitely is one of the biggest games
depth wise even for the gamecube, to where I'll go into more description about what can be found inside this rare emerald!
~ Playable Games ~
As I said in the addictiveness section there are 11 total games that can be played in the normal game
selection screen as 6 of them were for game gear but what about the other 5? Well we have Sonic the Fighters (Arcade), Sonic CD (Sega CD), Sonic R (Sega Saturn) and the Vectorman series (Genesis) so that spreads over 5 different playable systems which in my opinion definitely on it's on is worthy of a good depth rating, with all of those games I'm sure you'll be able to spend alot of time on this simple game disc.
~ Unlockable Extras ~
Also if you remember back I talked briefly about the Museum that can be accessed from the Main Menu, but what does that really do? Well the museum straight from the start is sort of like a checklist for your games some having descriptions on what do to and others are more so cryptic like "Find 8 Sega signs in images" which can't be done until you unlocked those pictures, not only that but once you're far enough into the museum you can unlock final boss demo's of the old Sega Genesis alongside other Game Gear games, their is a time limit imposed on the demo so don't waste your time inside (to unlock you need to play the game for a certain amount of days continually)
Then we have the unlockable music that can be achieved by either completing a game under certain requirements or finishing an entire page in the museum, and soon enough the next time you go into the museum you'll get a notification of the song you've unlocked.
Mostly what you'll be achieving throughout the game though is artwork that you can view and look at while enjoying the music you've also earned, so it's sort of like watching a slide show of original sonic artwork.
So that's mostly everything (besides the manuals) that you can really do/unlock in this game but looking back on it that's a huge amount of work and effort put into it meaning that this game is definitely large enough for the average gamer so I can't find any other reason than to give this game a 10 out of 10 for depth.
Same old fun, Same old controls, some lessening in difficulty
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Alright well many of us know that the classic sonic games are usually fairly difficult like a 7-8.0 out of 10 which did bring alot of challenge to the player and games since only 3 & Knuckles could you actually save your game and come back to it later, but for other genesis and game gear games you had to restart from the beginning. This remains about constant for the 3 main games STF, Sonic CD, & Sonic R however; with the game gear games and 2 Vectorman genesis games you can actually create saves while inside the game, sort of like save stating on an emulator.
Some examples I can give are let's say for instance you're about to fight a boss in Tails Skypatrol, you can easily save your game right before the fight and in case you die you can always reload that save whenever you need to therefore making the difficulty of the games drop by a huge amount. So this is probably the one and only real factor that makes the difficulty lower but since 8 out of the 11 games can use this idea it's pretty much taking a big piece of the hedgehog pie here.
If we look at difficult parts though then I can definitely say that Sonic R's controls scheme is pretty bad which can cause unfair difficulty for players of this game especially in the 1 player mode, therefore making it impossible to get everything you want in a certain area on the first try, Sonic the Fighters arcade mode is pretty difficult as well since for the most part some of the opponents attacks are planned and predictable but others are completely random and later enemies can take half your health with just one attack (and one enemy can take 3/4th's of it).
Taking everything into consideration the only game that's pretty fair in all sense is Sonic CD while the other 2 are difficult for reasons, and the remaining 8 game gear games are easy with the choice you could make about, this game only get a 5 out of 10 for difficulty.
*polishing Blue Chaos Emerald* oh you're still here....I forget to do the outro? My bad guess I was just reminiscing while looking back at the adventures found in this game and though some of them weren't my best I'll still always remember them from my past, and I'm glad you were also able to see it as well! Including older pictures some specially made or very original artwork before I myself was even the same spiky hedgehog you see before you. Either way I hope you enjoy your time here and always remember that the time you spend with these adventures are worth more....than any single gem...any single gems collection.
~ sonicthehedgehog57tm 2014 (Erick Davis) ~
Graphics
8 Sound
8 Addictive
8 Depth
10 Story
6 Difficulty
5
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