Sonic the Hedgehog: Complete Series Retrospective | Billiam

0:02 hey what's up Billiam here the following video is a three-hour retrospective recorded over the course of a year-and-a-half covering the entire main series sonic series up until this point enjoy [ __ ] that's high well it's Sonic's twenty-fifth anniversary year and to celebrate we're gonna look at every main series Sonic game starting with Sonic the Hedgehog and ending with whatever game comes out this year we're gonna witness the evolution the evolution and critique it as objectively as possible I meant to say we're gonna praise it mindlessly [Music]

0:52 after Sega launched a company-wide contest to create a mascot that could compete with Mario Sonic the Hedgehog was born an attempt to create a more edgy character to compete with Mario's blue-collar status Sonic was designed in a much more extreme way with shoes based on Michael Jackson a personality based off Bill Clinton and a bad guy based off of a Teddy Roosevelt caricature certainly the combination for success the ideas for Sonic's gameplay came about through the repetition of playing World one one of Super Mario Bros the original Mario Bros game had no saving ability so in order to keep playing after a game over players had to play World 1 1 over and over again Yuji naka the creator of Sonic stated in a Nintendo Power interview that having to repeat this level became so tedious that he would try to get through it as fast as possible which bird the idea of

1:38 Sonic's gameplay style Sonic the Hedgehog came out in 1991 for the Sega Genesis and was an immediate hit it helped bring an end to Nintendo's essentially monopoly over the game market and nearly instantly became iconic through marketing their character as cool and taking advantage of literally the one technical superiority the Genesis had over the Super Nintendo Sonic became a huge success they say he's incredibly fast well what's the hurry mister yeah and about his attitude [Music] Sonic edge Sega Genesis fast too however through the years we've seen how Sonic has become somewhat of a joke in the gaming community with insanely serious plot lines and overly defensive fanbase and too many

2:23 unnecessary characters reboots and spin-off titles with Sonic's extra buddy being sort of an out-of-date concept in his lack of consistent quality titles tarnishing the name it's hard to remember the series roots Sega has tried to recapture that feeling many times but has yet to have a long enough period of time with only quality games to reclaim this feeling but in this video we're going to ignore all the [ __ ] that Sonic has put out we're going to ignore all that and look at the game that started a series that began to roll downhill faster than well Sonic rolling down a hill now I'm not the biggest fan of the first Sonic the Hedgehog game don't get me wrong I understand its importance and what it introduced and that it's a quality game but I have no nostalgic connection to it I had Sonic 3 in Sega's smash pack 2 for the PC so I grew up with Sonic 3 and 2 however I didn't

3:10 really get to play Sonic the Hedgehog until I got Sonic Mega Collection in fact the first time I ever beat the first Sonic the Hedgehog game was on the iPhone with the Christian white head port but I've started to notice after playing for a while is that the game has a very unique way of challenging the player the first level Green Hill Zone affords you the ability to play with sonic speed there's a lot of open space to run and a lot of opportunity to explore his abilities such as the spin attack if you gain enough momentum and press down Sonic will roll into a ball and allow you to pummel through enemies building up speed feels good and the sound effects of rings and enemies blowing up is satisfying however the game has an interesting way of using this against you there will be times where there's a spring that will send you flying in the other direction unless you know it's there there's no avoiding it immediately as you get into the second level things change Green Hill

3:56 the first level was all about running fast and learning to avoid obstacles where marble zone is about wading in patience running backfires so the challenge comes from wanting to go fast the urge to reclaim the feeling of going fast from the previous stage works against you the first game actually challenges your patience by making you want to go fast as opposed to testing your knowledge of the level in reaction time by actually going fast now here's the interesting thing about Sonic even when you're supposed to speed through a level you're supposed to have prior knowledge of how the levels laid out beforehand there's a lot of trial and error involved the biggest moment that sticks out to me is in spring yard zone in spring yard zone there's a lot of moments where you can fall down a pit roll down and back up a ramp you get used to this as all three acts to the level have multiple instances where you can do this however and the third act

4:42 there's a moment where you think you can do this as it's actually the very last pit you can fall down but then you find out it's a bottomless pit the only way you could have seen this coming is if you have prior knowledge of its existence and there's a lot of moments like this throughout the whole game and especially in labyrinth zone I jump on an enemy and my forward momentum lands me on a pit of spikes that I had no prior knowledge of being there I stand on a platform going up I get put into spikes and again this would be fine in many circumstances of the game but labyrinth zone is underwater and doesn't afford you as much reaction time as normal well here it is the defense of the negative opinions towards the Sonic series now in order to do this I'm gonna compare the Sonic series to the Mario series not because of its similarities but due to its fundamental differences the Mario series is all about giving you challenge by laying out the map ahead of

5:27 you and giving you all the tools you need in order to conquer the challenge comes with the precision of controls predictable patterns and being able to remember what to do under stress Mario levels can be longer because it's about being able to learn how to use the tools given to you in order to win sonic on the other hand doesn't present the same challenge Sonic is about memorization many of Sonic's levels have unfair enemy placement and unseen challenges your first run of a sonic level shouldn't be fast it should be calculated as much as possible however each level is about memorization if you know where an enemy will show up you can take action before it has the opportunity to backfire Sonic levels are short because of this memorization principle Sonic is a series about trial and error and Mario's a series about developing your skills many who have started with Mario and then discovered Sonic sees right through

6:13 Sonic's gimmicks in a Mario game you feel good for accomplishing a challenge and Sonic you feel good about going through a loop-de-loop because you know you had to maintain top speed to get there the criticism of the series mainly comes from this it's easy to see how someone may feel the Sonic series is gimmicky it has a nice presentation combined with false reward and you can see that it's hard to unsee it as somebody who grew up with the Sonic series however I enjoy this I know what I'm getting and I enjoy it but I have an understanding of the level lamps and I'm used to the style of gameplay but we also have to admit that someone might not see this as we do all right let's stop criticizing this game I do love it and I'm a huge Sonic fan even though I criticize it all the time to be a fan of something it's not to blindly love it but it's to understand its flaws so you can see how the series can improve going forward I criticize Sonic not because I

7:00 don't like the series but because I want to see it improve the game visually is stunning I'm a big advocate that color palettes and design is far more important than polygons layout one thing I think Sonic has always had over the Mario series is visuals Sonic is just so poppy and vibrant so is Mario but for whatever reason Sonic is only stuck out to me boy there's one thing that I think the first Sonic game has that the rest don't however the lack of a Spin Dash and speed boots the Spin Dash was an ability given to Sonic which allows him to reach his top speed immediately anywhere at any time speed boosts our objects laid out within a stage that also allow sonic to reach his top speed immediately although they feel great in other sonic games the original presents a sense of reward that can't be captured because you earn fast and speed and quick there is no way to instantly gain speed I said earlier that the Sonic series provides a lot of false reward

7:46 but the first Sonic game is the game that comes closest to making this reward genuine [Music] after the success of Sonic the Hedgehog Sega was looking for a way to capitalize on the character Sonic 1 became the bundled in game for the Sega Genesis and Sega of America and Sega of Japan worked hand-in-hand to create the sequel a new sidekick was added miles per hour however over time miles became Don his tales sonic 2 was one of the first Sonic games to have a worldwide release date since this was relatively unknown to happen at the time Sega reps had a hard time coordinating with stores and shipping companies to assure the game was released on time on November 21st 1992 a databse on Tuesday the skin Mickey day is part of the reason why so many games albums and DVDs are released

8:31 on Tuesdays now Sonic 2 launched to critical acclaim new features include the Spin Dash a spin - the complete styling the move which allows Sonic charge up to his full speed at any time anywhere two-player a second player can control tails during play ordering a new two-player versus mode with awesome new graphics the new split-screen lets to play boosters an interstage object which will launch Sonic into full speed a new special stage which will allow Sonic to collect one of seven Chaos Emerald han levels in a fresh new halfpipe and last but not least the super sonic transformation a new transformation for Sonic unlocked if a player collects all 7 Chaos Emeralds Super Sonic first appeared in the 1992 game Sonic 2 with a similar transformation for Goku first appeared in April 1st 1991 a full two months before the first Sonic the

9:16 Hedgehog game was released Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is considered by many to be the best game the series has to offer but is it all really downhill after the second entry or has a nostalgia blindside of the fanbase I mean even the most beautiful valleys are downhill from something immediately after putting in the game the jump and quality is overwhelming usually I wait to talk about visual style of a game until the end but the visual upgrade is amazing hello Sonic 1 had an appealing color palette the saturation in Sonic 2 is boosted up to 11 I guess you can say the reason behind this new vibrancy is that the upgraded green hill zone to Emerald hill zone so essentially vibrant green hill zone one of the concepts played around with in Sonic 1 was level branching essentially you could play the same level without taking the same path

10:02 however Sonic 2 improves upon this immensely not only there are alternate paths to be taken right from the start the game also makes it easier to go back and forth between different paths so several playthroughs of the same level might be all different sonic one really wanted to make the players feel as if they were going fast with parallax scrolling in several stage props it accomplishes this very well however Sega really wanted to up the sense of speed for the century right from the beginning there's new stage sets including corkscrews and a bunch of those loops from the first game heading right on into the second level chemical plant so the levels that really benefit from the branching pathways are the water levels instead of being forced like the first game the water levels in Sonic 2 were kind of unnecessary and I don't mean that they don't add anything to the game I mean that if the player knows which pathways to choose and is skillful enough they can actually avoid the water entirely unlike marble zone the second

10:48 level on Sonic 1 which significantly slows down the gameplay to allow for platforming chemical plant keeps the momentum going while providing some a notorious platforming moments it's impossible to mention chemical plant zone without mentioning speed boosts the Sonic the Hedgehog fanbase has always been divisive and it really started with the speed boosts introduced in Sonic to my opinion I don't really have an opinion Sonic's spindash ability does the exact same thing these boosts do and that can be used at any time they're just aesthetically pleasing moving on to aquatic ruin zone it's a water level and just like chemical plant zone if you're skilled enough you can actually avoid going underwater now I am NOT one to get nauseous over watching movies or playing games but the parallax scrolling in this level is just too much see sonic is one of the first games to implement a depth

11:35 technique called parallax parallax is when objects at different distances appear to be moving at different speeds it's actually how astronomers measure the distance between stars so Sonic utilizes this in order to create a sense of depth between the background and the foreground in Sonic 2 the game began to get really ambitious with how many different depth planes objects will be placed in aquatic ruin zone at some points has foreground objects Sonic's plane a field and multiple layers of background objects all at once and when Sonic moves and all the other objects move in accordance with his movements it really gets disorienting especially after you're playing for a while next we get to fan favorite level casino night zone it's fun it's creative and it feels good especially when you get a jackpot would collect a bunch of rings the casino style zones became a staple of the series after this so it's always cool to go back and see the series at its roots hilltop Zone definitely one of

12:20 the more platformer heavy levels in the whole game after hilltop zone comes Alexandria zone then negan zone then point of view shot wall potentially your favorite character is murdered zone there's the weighted jumps you have to time and make platforms that will fall if you stay on them too long and lava that rises at certain points with falling platforms sprinkled throughout mystic k-zone is frustrating yet a fair level there's a series of breakable platforms and pulleys so you have the pull lever first lowering the platform jump on a breakable platform and back on to the lowered one all before it crumbles all to avoid falling into a pit of spikes spikes are everywhere but that's okay because this level is also littered with the invincibility power-ups and those power-ups are really needed in this stage not only are the spikes scattered in every which way but a lot of the enemies here are difficult

13:06 to kill you have a snake-like enemy which ambushes you and can only be killed by jumping directly on top of his head and fireflies which can only be killed when they aren't fire flying but don't worry the fireflies last a tragically short amount of time your Fox companion usually make sure that they don't have any time to develop mystic cave zone also provides a ton of alternative route options and the iPhone port of the game a whole new level can be accessed through mystic cave zone however in the original version there's just a pit that is impossible to jump out of and I mean impossible not just really difficult this is one of those notorious parts of the game and it's a pretty big blemish sliding on into oil ocean zone we see that sonic slides around there are some green caps that blow off of a flame and you're never quite sure when it's going to happen and it happens quick so you'll try to jump on top of it before it blows but it will happen mid jump so you end up hitting the fire every time also this level is

13:53 filled with too many cinematic moments sonic sliding around and going through Donkey Kong cannons etc now we get to metropolis zone the last proper tone this is probably by far the hardest levels in the whole series the enemies in the level consist of a mantis which will throw its arms at you they're nearly impossible to avoid a crab with a hammer claw which is also nearly impossible to avoid and little star guys which explode and send pins in a million directions which are incredibly impossible to avoid the levels also filled with difficult platforming and some of the most obnoxious pattern-recognition in any game ever sky chase zone the beginning of the end of the sketchy Zone C Sonic and Tails flying up to dr. Robotnik's winged fortress this is one of the most uneasy levels I've ever played because even though tails will always be right under Sonic I'm constantly on edge thinking that tails

14:38 will miss me and I'll fall to my death this takes my focus off of concentrating on avoiding enemies and causes me to die the level leads directly into winged fortress zone a relatively straightforward level except for some perspective platforming that is a little confusing and finally we see Death Egg Zone one of the most artificially hard levels in the history of forever and death egg zone you have to figure out how to beat two incredibly hard bosses with no rings each of these bosses has specific patterns that they attack in and at times it's hard to tell when and where it is appropriate to attack them throughout the game most of the bosses are incredibly easy and at times you can beat them before you even have an understanding on their attack patterns and other times you can quickly pick up on the patterns and just wait for an appropriate time to attack but here not only are the patterns highly unpredictable especially with the first

15:24 boss but you have zero rings throughout the level and therefore no opportunity for trial and error or to learn their patterns the Sonic series has one of the most diverse level selections in any series ever and Sonic 2 really laid down the groundwork for that you have the Green Hill Zone clone the city zone Robotnik's base the sky level etc Sonic 2 has been the standard for the series ever since it came out in its deserving of that title even The Annoying special stage has been copied over a million times however once again like its predecessor Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is not a perfect game many of the flaws from the first one still persists into the second one including the problems with memorization especially with the death egg zone in which you don't have opportunities to memorize it because you don't get any rings within the beginning of a very difficult stage Sonic 2 is

16:11 what every Sonic game is based off of after this not even just the level variety either Sonic is given a new ability a new character is added and the feeling of grandiose is built up Sonic 2 is to the Sonic series as Mario 3 is to the Mario series Sonic 1 laid the basic groundwork characters gameplay and setting while Sonic 2 took that and expanded upon it however the series really piqued after the second entry I think it's safe to say yes Sonic 2 isn't only possibly the best Sonic game but all cemented Sonic as a video game icon Sonic became master after Sonic 2 in 1993 two different TV shows were based on the character and we're airing at the same exact time Sonic became the first video game character to have a flow in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and they even caught the attention of the world's biggest celebrity one of the most interesting things that come out of his intense popularity was a poll that

16:57 Sega conducted the poll asked children to identify cartoon characters and more kids were able to identify Sonic / Mickey Mouse it's hard to think about it now but Sonic was a huge icon at one point and if it wasn't for this game that wouldn't have ever been even though Sonic the Hedgehog 2 laid the groundwork for the series and set such a high precedent for what was to follow the next entry might be just as good and debatably even better [Music] the Sega Genesis was released in 1989 its biggest competition was the Nintendo Entertainment System which was at least four years prior the Sega Genesis had far superior technical aspects to the NES

17:44 however in 1991 when intend to released the follow-up to the NES the Super Nintendo the Genesis had the technical disadvantage despite releasing games like Sonic the Hedgehog to compat Super Nintendo sales Sega was lagging behind and still had a technical disadvantage at this point in time ROM based cartridges had been the standard storage for games and had been around since the mid 70s to put a perspective how much data these cartridges could hold the audio file for the Sega chant at the beginning of Sonic the Hedgehog took up over 1/8 of the total space on the cartridge where the total space of a Genesis ROM cartridge can hold around 4 megabytes the total capacity of a CD was around 700 megabytes to regain a competitive edge in the market sega developed the Sega CD an accessory for the Sega Genesis that could play exclusive games which were capable of

18:31 displaying full motion video and CD quality audio hey you still don't have a Sega CD what are you waiting for Nintendo to make one - you have seen the games right wrong answer man show however the Sega CD ultimately did not help boost the sales of the Genesis significantly the accessory only sold 2.2 million units and at the end of the console wars the Super Nintendo had outsold the Genesis by over 15 million units even though the Japanese branch of Sega helped with the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 it was largely an American project see at the time Sega of Japan was focusing on creating an enhanced support of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega CD over time and with a lot of experimentation with the hardware

19:16 Sega of Japan ultimately created a different game in the fall of 1993 Sonic CD was released for the Sega CD new features include full motion video cutscenes animated by the same team behind Dragonball Z a time-traveling mechanic inspired by Back to the Future Sonic after hitting a signpost can run at full speed to travel backwards and forwards in time to upload the game's ending Sonic's super peel-out move another way for Sonic to reach his top speed eight new special stages which allow the player to collect one of seven time stones and the introduction of fan favorite characters Amy Rose in metal sign Amy's introduction was actually a little messy and the American version of the game the manual refers to her as princess Sally implying that she's the same character from the Sonic the Hedgehog Saturday morning cartoon and Sonic the fighter she was called Rosie the rascal it wasn't until Sonic R that she was finally called Amy Metal Sonic

20:03 is the first adversary ever created for Sonic and early on in the game Metal Sonic captures Amy who in this iteration is a very young child even though he was barely in the game Metal Sonic gained a huge fanbase after this and returned in future games I mentioned how Sonic 2 was a vibrant game but oh my god Sonic CD the prior mentioned time-traveling mechanic allows Sonic to travel backwards and forwards in time to destroy a generator or a projection of Metal Sonic in order to achieve a good or a bad ending so in order to draw a distinctly distinct correlation between good futures and bad futures these intense vibrant colors are used even the music in the game matches the unique color palette perfectly [Music] [Applause] the original US version of the game had

20:50 an odd soundtrack it was sort of an orchestral slow techno style it certainly helped at the odd setting but it distance itself too much from Sonic however the Japanese soundtrack which is a present in the moderate iteration of the game is stunning [Applause] it's upbeat yet somehow different than the other soundtracks of the series and it completely benefits from the CD quality sound however one thing that the Japanese version is missing is the sonic boom song at the beginning [Music] actually maybe not even though sonic CD

21:37 sets itself apart from other sonic games immediately with its vibrant color palette it's true unique qualities come from experimenting with the gameplay itself one of the places I think it pays off the most is during boss battles usually Robotnik boss battles are methodical and simple but here each boss battle is completely unique and as a creative challenge one takes place underwater where bondic uses air bubbles which sonic needs to breathe as a shield one of my favorites has sonic running on a treadmill in order to create friction to heat up and destroy the bottom of dr. Robotnik's safe place even in the faceoff with Metal Sonic is unique instead of being a direct fight with him sonic has to race them to the end of Stardust Speedway while avoiding metal Sonic's and dr. Robotnik's attacks it's cool to see that even the most built-up boss battle in the game is experimental especially when compared to the other two robots sonic fights in the classic

22:23 series other sonic games will often allow you to build up speed and then experience almost cinematic like moments where you can pretty much sit back and watch the sonic go however Sonic CD relies much less on sonic speed which is weird because it's the only classic game which has mechanics that require you to go fast in order to time travel sonic has to travel at his top speed probably why he was given the super P la mu but a lot of the stages don't provide enough space to easily move to his top speed which is fine I'm of the mindset that the only true factor speed plays in a Sonic game is a reward for your knowledge of a level but here it's a necessary mechanic on the subject of the time travel mechanic is it neat yes it certainly adds a sense of depth to the game but the problem is that I don't care about it and to be honest this is a problem that translates for me to a lot of Sonic games why should I collect all

23:09 the Chaos Emeralds in Sonic 1 so I get a different end card even in Sonic 2 I especially hate the special stages in that game and to be honest I think the novelty of playing if Super Sonic wears off quite quickly so many Sonic games want me to be invested in getting that slightly different ending but I just don't think it's worth it sonic seeding requires that you time travel and Traverse the level to find and destroy a generator as well as to complete the special stage to earn time stones to get a good ending to the game the special stages are annoying as hell like most early Sonic special stages they're in a pseudo 3d environment which creates an indistinct depth of field that causes confusion I get that you need to do this in order to complete the game correctly but I experienced the same levels for the most part if I don't like specific avoidable mechanics of the game and my reward is minimal why would I bother despite the time travel mechanics not

23:54 adding anything to my personal experience with the game I can appreciate the effort and quality of the game strives for sonic games often experiment with new gameplay mechanics and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but when the effort is seen an enjoyable experience can be found even with games like Sonic Unleashed and Sonic lost world entries that I have a very lukewarm feeling towards I still have moments of enjoyment because I understand that Sega allowed the development team to put in their full effort and therefore I'm gonna put in my full effort to attempt to enjoy it but it's when you see games like Sonic oh 6 where Sega didn't allow the development team to put in their full effort that I don't want to put my full effort into enjoying it if you're not gonna give me 100% I'm not gonna give 100% into your product Sonic CD is definitely an odd entry into the series however it's clearly one of the most visually striking and uniquely designed Sonic

24:41 games ever in fact I mentioned how Sonic 2 has become the standard for all Sonic games since its release with levels being derived from the games level selection I'd really like to see a modern Sonic game with color palettes and level ideas derived from Sonic CD because I think it will lend itself to quite a unique experience [Music] after sonic two's massive success in the failure of the Sega CD Sega of Japan began work on Sonic 3 with one goal to make a game that was bigger and better than the American produced sonic 2 sonic 3 saw the return of the original Sonic team who planned to create a huge game with one massive storyline Sonic 2 had the focus of two-player gameplay but sonic 3 would focus on 3d gameplay

25:27 mechanics in order to expand upon the franchise further a new character was added knuckles knuckles was the second rival to Sonic originally designed as a mole with a Nike logo on his chest his character eventually turned into an echidna his ability to dig in the crescent moon on his chest are reminiscent of this Sonic 3 was set to be a massive game with a very long development cycle however Sega of America was actually able to secure a toy promotional line at McDonald's in order to promote the game there at McDonald's in the dollar ninety nine Sonic 3 hamburger Happy Meal Sonic launches with a push of a button tails flies who knows how high and robotic barely dodges disaster there's even this Sweepstakes thing because of the cost of memory storage on cartridges and the promotion it was decided that Sonic 3

26:12 would be released in two separate parts on February 2nd 1994 three months before the Japanese version Sonic 3 was released in North America new features include the ability to save your game progress a boss battle for every act of the game being able to control tails flying ability along with a second player being able to lift sonic sonic now has an instant shield while jumping elemental shields allow the players to breathe underwater magnetically collect rings and protect the player from fire while playing as Sonic the elemental shields give him different abilities he can bounce dash forward while jumping and perform a double jump in a new special stage to recollect the Chaos Emeralds and hey it doesn't suck this time finally a soundtrack composed by Leon Kapowski for years fans speculated that Michael Jackson actually had his hand in the production for music sonic 2 hedgehog 3 Michael Jackson was on record

26:59 as being a big Sega and Sonic the Hedgehog fan and even had his own game on the Sega Genesis and whenever he would take guest appearances on TV shows he would often not be credited with his real name now as for why fans speculated why he didn't take credit in the game it either had to do with Sega not being comfortable about his sexual abuse allegations at the time and not wanting to credit him or Michael Jackson not being confident with the music that was able to come out of the Sega Genesis sound chip now after years and years of speculating fans comparing rhythms in Sonic the Hedgehog threes music to Michael Jackson songs it was finally confirmed in January of this year that Michael Jackson indeed had his hand in the production of music for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 the story of Sonic 3 begins right after the ending of Sonic 2 Sonic and Tails investigate an island after

27:44 collecting all 7 Chaos Emeralds then knuckles happens he steals the Chaos Emeralds he chuckles and sonic just watches in the game begins I'm gonna be honest out of all the classic Sonic games Sonic 3 is the worst visually since 3d was supposed to be the theme for Sonic 3 Sega tried to cram in as much detail into all the set pieces and character models as possible now as nice that this endeavor was it took the flat and sleek design from Sonic 2 and made everything look more bubbly cutesy Angel Island zone being the first level sets the stage for the rest of the game instead of being about building up speed Sonic 3 attempts to heighten the sense of adventure their swinging vine secret passages in a special stage on top of that the game's cinematic moments aren't there to make you feel like you're going fast but they're there to add to the adventure in the story you falsely

28:29 encounter the first boss halfway through Act 1 and it sets fire to the stage the rest of the act is the island burning after you beat the boss instead of the screen going black and starting act 2 the screen transitions to the right and it continues right on ahead act 2 continues with the stage on fire but it also plays around at the tropical island theme there's a large waterfall in the middle of the act so there's tons of little ponds everywhere slowing you down if you fall into them afterwards you run past a jet that's letting out bombs tails you okay little buddy alright just say something if you need me after that you see Robotnik in the background before finally reaching the first proper boss and Sonic 3 the first act boss will always be a large unmanned robot and the second is always Robotnik himself you

29:15 beat him and Knuckles flip the switch which stick Sonic and Tails into the depths of hydro city zone win playing as Sonic a majority of Hydra city zones water portions are mandatory there is no learning how to get past them you just do it act one is filled with conveyor belts moving platforms and enemies that blast balls at you the color palette is yellowish brown green and blue act 2 starts off with the stage collapsing to the right as sonic attempts to escape before getting crushed the level is full of slides and moving cubes as opposed to straight water portions the color palette transitions to purple and blue knuckles screws at the Oh yet again and he pasted dr. robotnik leading you into marble garden zone marble garden zone picks up the speed a little bit with downhill momentum but also contributes to the feeling of an adventure with Indiana Jones esque booby traps and puzzles even the amount of spikes here

30:01 is ramped up one cool thing about a series continuing for a while is it can start playing with the tropes of the series to surprise the player the boss in marble garden zone has sonic entails flying through the air as sonic jumps from Tails grasps the level darkens and transitions in the carnival night zone which is one of the most frustrating levels in the whole series halfway through you boy knuckles turns up the lights and floods the stage adding more water portions to the game there's also this barrel thing that anyone who has ever played this game has had trouble with my opinion ice cap zone starts off with Sonic snowboarding down a hill and crashing into the bottom of the stage and getting covered with snow as regular sonic this level is a nice cold breeze but as supersonic a lot of the platforming elements become difficult there's a moment when you have

30:47 to jump off of a never-ending slide at a particular moment and as you do there's a spring waiting to push you back onto the slide a supersonic you have less precision so any light push in one direction will send you flying the second act takes place outside more but also has more water portions and a bottomless paint the highlight of this level is undoubtedly the music [Music] [Applause] [Music] launch base zone is the final level of sonic 3 and that difficulty has just toned way down because as a trick you can do to get infinite lives in the beginning of the stage anyways you beat Robotnik and the game ends on a very low note Sonic 3 when compared on its own is nowhere near as being as good as sonic 2 the game slows itself down for cinematic

31:33 moments in the visual style is too cartoony for its own good it excels and making the game feel like an adventure but ultimately fails to capture a similar feeling to Sonic 2 however it did improve on a lot the game feels really connected with all the levels leading into one another tails is now a different character than Sonic in a special stages aren't only way better in Sonic 3 when compared to Sonic CD or Sonic 2 but they're also much more accessible with multiple portals in each stage you don't have to search the whole stage to find them because you're likely to run into them by the time you reach launch base zone Sonic the Hedgehog 3 when compared on its own is nowhere near as good as Sonic the Hedgehog 2 it slows down the game for an adventure type feeling and is way too cartoony for its own good however it does excel at making this big feeling of adventure but

32:18 ultimately loses the appeal that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 had Sonic 3 was developed in congruence with Sonic and Knuckles so in order to find out which Classic Sonic game is the best we must look at the complete combined version Sonic 3 & Knuckles [Music] represents one champion of good one pawn of evil it's Sonic and Sonic 3 was split up into two parts to meet deadlines and technical capabilities Sonic and Knuckles was released as a second part of Sonic 3 instead of just being a separate cartridge entirely Sonic and Knuckles utilized what Sega branded as

33:04 lock-on technology think of it as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 in part 2 being aired back-to-back on ABC Family as a part of Harry Potter weekend it feels like one whole movie but alas ABC family not every weekend can be a Harry Potter weekend new features include being able to play as knuckles with alternative story scenes in level designs in Sonic 3 and as an alternate character in Sonic 2 he can glide and break through stuff because he's tough by connecting sonic 1 players can play an arcade style version of the special stage seven new emeralds called the super emeralds by collecting all 14 emeralds across Sonic 3 & Knuckles players can turn into hypersonic alternative music and slight level design alteration for Sonic 3 portions of the game and six new zones with one bonus stage mushroom hill zone

33:51 introduces the first Sonic and Knuckles portion of the game you see knuckles sneaking out of a room and enter the hidden Palace zone here the Chaos Emeralds turn into super emeralds and you lose your super sonic ability and tell you recollect them mushroom hill zone is definitely not a first level even though it's the first level in Sonic and Knuckles it feels more at home inside of Sonic 3 & Knuckles as the 7th stage all the enemies have some sort of challenge to them the dragonfly can only be killed by hitting its head anywhere else will hurt you the mole will push you back the chicken will blow you back and the screw has to be hit twice the level transitions by the forest dying it goes from green to brown to white and then you see the boss the main boss of the stage is really cool because instead of being in the stationary arena you have to run after Robotnik while dodging lines of spiky bombs the parallax

34:36 scrolling between the spikes and the pillars really makes for a nice 3d effect this style of boss battle would be used heavily later on in the sonic franchise flying batteries own you know their fire switches enemies switches cylindrical cheese graters metal crushing electrical things and jungle gym bars sand Apple is owned at first has a pretty generic desert level feel with quicksand but act to the level starts out dark and you have to hit a light switch to prevent these ghosts from getting bigger they can't harm you while they're small but as they get larger they can do damage so it's a constant race through the level to get to the switch it consistently makes me stressed whenever I play it lava reef stone plays a lot like other underground levels with pulleys and moving platforms

35:22 all to avoid lava throughout the stage the lava will cool down and heat back up to give lots of hot and cool colors after lava reef zone comes hidden Palace owned you fight knuckles and Robotnik steals the Master Emerald knuckles take sonic up the sky sanctuary zone sky sanctuary zone has sonic running up towards the death egg all while teleporting and bouncing on clouds the highlight of this level is the fight with yet another Metal Sonic finally we get to death egg zone and it's not the same death egg zone from Sonic 2 but a brand new one that lets sonic see the rest of the battle station which is armed with transitioning gravity that is incredibly frustrating the final boss of this level is incredibly awesome it's Robotnik in a giant machine and you have to destroy the little fingers if you have all the emeralds you can play as hyper sonic or super sonic in the final battle against Robotnik and it's

36:08 surprisingly difficult since you're super or hyper sonic you can't take any damage but you lose one ring every second so it's a race to be Trabant and it can collect the Rings the game ends you collect the Master Emerald and everyone becomes friends the end Sonic 3 Knuckles set out to be a game that was bigger and better than Sonic 2 and many feel as if it achieved that however even though Sonic 3 & Knuckles added support for multiple characters and had a much larger story and overall greater feel than Sonic 2 the core gameplay and visual style of Sonic 2 is much better Sonic 3 & Knuckles slows itself down for a sense of adventure and although that's great it's not a game you can just pick up and play like you can with Sonic 2 as part of the reason why I think Sonic 3 & Knuckles is left out of a lot of compilations or why there hasn't been a mobile port of it

36:54 Sonic 3 & Knuckles kind of loses the casual audience by sacrifice a tightly leveled a level experience for a wide adventure and story experience as for the gameplay in Sonic 2 you can skip water portions of a level if you know how to in Sonic 3 & Knuckles four of the first five stages have mandatory insignificant water portions Sonic 2 tried to up the speed from Sonic 1 and succeeded immensely but Sonic 3 only up to the speed through set pieces sonic snowboarding sonic running through a cylinder a pasta jet it's not real and it's out of your control there's a whole lot more classic platforming in Sonic 3 even even though it's solidly built the game feels slow and the bubbly visual style might even make it feel clunky at times but building up a sense of speed was not what sonic 3 was trying to do Sonic 3 wanted to take a series of standalone levels and create a journey

37:40 based off of them and other Sonic games different acts feel like an excuse to reuse visual assets but sonic 3 levels transitioned visually while you're playing there's never a black screen between acts and even though there's a black screen between levels there's always a cutscene that helps bridge the gap on how sonic can go from one level to the next Sonic games that try to have a good story always over complicate things and I think that's the writers overcompensating for the fact that I don't have confidence in the characters the sonic characters are fun and worked in the right setting the plot of Sonic 3 is incredibly simple Robotnik comes to Angel Island to steal the Master Emerald a large source of power Knuckles lives on Angel Island for the sole purpose of protecting the Master Emerald Robotnik tells knuckles that Sonic is going to steal that emerald stone knuckles tries to prevent him from doing so later on Robotnik steals it knuckles finds out

38:25 Robotnik tricked him and everyone teams up to beat Robotnik there's nothing too complex about it yet if this game had dialogue it would be one of the best sonic plots out there because of its simplicity yet his ability to have a source of drama knuckles finding out that he was tricked triggers the climax of the game's story he's upset because he's wrong this isn't dark drama but it adds a sense of plot development and character development recent Sonic games have completely scrapped the importance of having a plot at all and before that Sonic games were over complicating their plot there's never been a good mix of fun tone with dramatic story elements Sonic 3 & Knuckles also had multiple character support the game allows you to pick between four character variations each version of the game is slightly different Tails knuckles in Sonic can all access different parts of the stage that the other can't knuckles gameplay

39:10 is even suit a story Robotnik is almost never the boss because knuckles doesn't know he's bad some bosses are altered to make it harder for knuckles to but you only have to play as Sonic to complete the full story thus not forcing players to play slightly altered versions of the same game in order to get the complete version like so many other Sonic games do Sonic 3 sets itself to a high standard and not only that but it does everything it wants to do and exceeds expectation but a lot of what Sonic 3 tries to do makes the game lose some of the qualities that made Sonic 2 so good Sonic 3 & Knuckles is a game with a much larger scale than Sonic 2 however the charm speed in graphical design of Sonic 2 makes it a much easier game to want to pick up and play because of that I think sonic 2 was the better game but that being said Sonic 3 & Knuckles is

39:57 actually my favorite all the classic sonic games have their own unique qualities and feelings this is one sonic peaked and that's not a bad thing there's a reason why Sonic's still around and it's not because of a long line of great and successful games it's because these original 5 games created such a strong foundation for the series that it was able to last for 25 years [Music] sonic was Sega's poster boy for the Sega Genesis however after a long feud between the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo Nintendo came out on top outselling the Genesis by over 17 million units and 1994 Sonic and Knuckles became the last Sonic game

40:43 released for the Genesis and actually the last Sonic game to be released until 1999 Sega's next console the Saturn you are approaching said was not as big as of a commercial success as the Sega Genesis part of the reason Sega fell so behind was because a new player was in the market Sony with the PlayStation the PlayStation was a monster selling over 100 million units in comparison the Saturn only sold nine million units even though there was a new Sonic game being developed for the Saturn it never came to light and Sega instead developed a half-assed racing game and enhanced port for Sonic 3d blast and a compilation called Sonic jam the interesting thing about Sonic Jam is that it featured a 3d overworld for the menu and this was

41:28 actually a prototype for what was to come instead of focusing on the Saturn Sega wanted to develop a new more powerful console but Sega was outgunned out man outnumbered and out planned they had to take an all-out stand they were gonna need their right-hand man infamously on September 9 1999 Sega released ooh the Dreamcast and alongside it Sonic Adventure that it's released the Dreamcast was the strongest system technically on the market and Sega really wanted to use Sonic Adventure not only to showcase the Dreamcast capabilities but also to reclaim Sonic's throne at its release Sonic Adventure received critical acclaim however over the years the general consensus has been that it hasn't aged well before I continue I just want to comment on something that really bothers me a lot of the time I get comments on my youtube

42:14 videos saying I jumped on a bandwagon because I criticized Sonic I have to disagree with this I have sated many times that I'm a big fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog series and on top of that I don't think there is a bandwagon many people have been criticizing Sonic games the past few years not because it suddenly become cool but because games like Sonic Adventure in Sonic Adventure 2 have recede re-releases putting these games back into the public eye very briefly and I hate to break it to you but these youtubers who are criticizing sonic didn't have YouTube channels when these games originally came out so they're now given the opportunity to voice their opinion I love Sonic Adventure I have a lot of great memories playing it I'm nostalgic towards it but it's really flawed and it's my duty to treat it fairly so with that being said new features include redesigns for

43:01 classic characters to new characters a new antagonist six different interconnecting storylines a full story with in-game cutscenes and voice acted dialogue a new feature called the Chow garden and an interactive overworld which features passages to different levels and a majority of the cutscenes within the game instead of discussing Sonic Adventure level 2 level I'm going to look at each character's story as a whole starting off with Sonic we get the most comprehensive view of the story this is the main event sonic arrives in Station Square to find in an aquatic monster named chaos attacking the police Sonic defeats him Eggman announces his plan to use chaos to take over the world and sonic thinks nothing of it and hangs out by the pool where he spots tails planes crashing he rescues tails and the two meet up with Robotnik now called by his proper name Eggman Eggman announces

43:49 that he will use the Chaos Emeralds to power up chaos and tails and sonic go on a mission to find the emeralds while keeping them away from Eggman that they failed they encounter Knuckles who has been tricked by Eggman again and they go after the egg carrier egg man's Flying Fortress Tonica tails try to fly up to the egg carrier but gets shot down separating tails and sonic sonic meets up with Amy she gets kidnapped and he meets up with tails again who has rebuilt the tornado this time being powered by a Chaos Emerald on the egg carrier Sonic and Tails must reach the other side of the ship to find Eggman there they faced off against II 1 o to gamma 1 of the Eggman's robots amy intervenes before sonic can kill him tails and Amy flee the ship and Eggman then powers chaos up with six of the seven emeralds Sonic helps big the cap by defeating Chaos 6 who has bigs pet

44:34 frog froggy and then sonic chases Eggman off the ship and tracks him down to the mystic ruins where he comes across a mural of chaos as full-powered self he has a vision of the past in which chaos has seemingly destroyed the Society of Knuckles ancestors sonic dun faces off against egman one more time ending his story Sonic's story is definitely the most straightforward there's no character arc just action-adventure he meets up with other characters but we're not given context yet as to why they're there the story basically boils down to Sonic versus Eggman and there's nothing particularly wrong with that as for his gameplay it's a solid transition from 2d to 3d instead of majorly changing the structure of the game like mario 64 did for the mario series Sonic Adventure tries to have a 1:1 translation from 2d to 3d Sonic has all of his old moves and

45:20 adds a few to make the game feel more like a Sonic game the homing attack is used to give Sonic the feeling of bouncing off of enemies in a 2d space and it works really well there's platforming running in cinematic moments to all intertwine just they did in the Genesis titles the 3d space even helps with the problem of not seeing your enemy before they attack but this one problem was replaced with another one the camera I know it's been beaten to death but this camera is inexcusable at certain points which sucks because Sonic does control really well there are some points where it feels awkward like when Sonic is running upside down or up against the wall which just doesn't feel clean but overall he controls just as he did in the classic titles just with a new plane of perspective which is being viewed by a five-year-old with an iPad camera even though loveless selection provides new locations while

46:05 simultaneously calling back two older ones but you're also given new level themes with to provide variety but even the older ones add flair because when you were playing casino night zone didn't you want to see Sonic taking a shower I mean no that's disgusting I mean just think about how wet his socks are now gross the game also recreates moments from the classic games snowboarding down a hill boarding Eggman's base from the tornado etc Sonic's Story captures the essence of the series while providing an overview of the story but in order to fill in the details you have to play the rest next we get to tales his story picks up right where Sonic finds him tails is testing out a new prototype first plane to be powered by Chaos Emerald his story follows Sonic's up to the point until after they get separated then he's determined to fend for himself and he finishes his prototype he picks

46:52 up sonic follows him and brings Amy back to station Square there Eggman after being defeated by sonic vows to blow up Station Square his missile is a dud and he races tails to the missile tails beats him to it and then decide that he will take on Eggman without the help of Sonic he succeeds proving that he is independent of his friend tails story gives him a nice arc he gets rescued by Sonic in the beginning only to prove that he could fend for himself even tails gameplay contributes to his story all of his levels except for the final one against Eggman require him to beat Sonic in a race all of Tails levels are present in Sonic's story but are easier and shorter in order to make the player not feel like they're repeating the same level over and over again even though his gameplay is slightly different due to the fact that he can fly the camera is the same but having shorter levels prevents the camera from screwing up as much as it does in Sonic's story knuckles story starts at the earliest

47:38 point he's guarding the Master Emerald on Angel Island as he does contemplating how he has to guard it forever chaos appears seemingly being in the cause of a now broken Master Emerald knuckles tries to beat him up but he escapes knuckles goes looking for other pieces of the emeralds gets a flashback of his ancestors and sees Eggman Walking with what appears to be a piece of the Master Emerald knuckles confronts Eggman who show some chaos and despite knuckles knowing that this is the creature he saw when the Master Emerald broke he allows Eggman to trick him by telling him Sonic is the one who broke the Emerald knuckles confronts Sonic to find out he was tricked again knuckles fights chaos and finds more pieces of the Master Emerald he has one more flashback and sneaks on to the egg carrier to find the final pieces after Sonic fights chaos six Knuckles finishes the job and goes

48:25 back to Angel Island with the final pieces and the rest of the Chaos Emeralds despite having flashbacks to his ancestors past knuckles admits that he may never know why he asked the guards The Master Emerald despite basically having an opportunity to find out Knuckles gameplay is all about finding the missing pieces of the Emerald it's basically a treasure hunt some levels require a little bit of problem-solving to find the emeralds but generally the radar of the bottom of the screen is all you need some of the requirements to find the emeralds are extremely easy but some aren't immediately obvious for example one emerald and casino appleís is located inside a great the Raider keeps beeping right below the great but the entrance is at a completely different spot and the radar won't be going off while in front of this spot so I ended up wasting my time looking for the Emerald in the

49:11 wrong place the love of lengths can vary from less than 2 minutes to over 15 because of just like tales story knuckles story is shortened to the point I just have one question about the contents of the story itself wouldn't it make more sense for knuckles to be the main character the whole story is centered around his dead culture but he never has a realization about it or does anything about it in fact at the end of the story he's still wondering why he has the job he has which this should have been answer within his story this game had a perfect opportunity to do so but decided to skip over it for whatever reason next we get to Amy's story and when we first see her she's thinking about Sonic after going shopping cuz that's what girls do right they think about boys while shopping she runs into a bird that's being hunted by one of the Eggman's robots zero and she vows to

49:58 protect it but first she asks Sonic to protective because she couldn't possibly do it on her own instead of the feeding zero her gameplay is centered around running away from him because why wouldn't a me be the only character not capable of defeating a robot zero kidnaps Amy and the bird and brings them aboard the egg carrier he wanted to gama confronts amy and demand she give him the bird Amy refuses showing gamma the emotion of love she later intervenes with Sonic and gammas fight and prevents Sonic from killing gamma Amy and Tails leave the egg carrier and Amy sees that the bird is missing it's family she goes to Eggman's base to look for the family but decides probably on the egg carrier instead there the bird finds its family and Amy beats the [ __ ] out of zero finally amy has the shortest story and I

50:43 think I've made it obvious that I have a few problems with it first they ate it up Amy from when we last saw her so her obsession with Sonic is no longer a little girl with a crush but it's someone who is close to Sonic's age so her crush goes from being cute to kind of harassment and since she's older now her being kidnapped is because she's a girl not because she's a kid her story is actually similar to tales it's about her becoming independent but at the same time she needs a weapon and is unable to defeat zero on her own without using her surroundings she's clearly painted as weaker than the other characters plus the focus of her story is on the bird not her becoming independent we're tails has the full focus of being independent even though we've seen him

51:29 act on his own in Sonic 3 next we get too big the cat's story and I really don't know what to say about this so I won't ladies and gentlemen mr. hey Doc's big story really encapsulates the feeling of being lost in the wilderness and finding true love we first see big in a cottage and with his friend froggy he's just hanging out in a manger but what happens to big next is that froggy finds a Chaos Emerald and eats it causing him to grow a tail and grow out of control big being the lover that he is chases after froggy who tries to escape this fat cat big goes on this big adventure to try to find froggy and it eventually turns out successful for him when he fights Kaos 6 on the egg carrier

52:17 in a short battle he gets froggy back and returns him to his home without the Chaos Emerald and after that we don't really know what happens to big could big be living out the days with his Frog lover could he be raising children of his own with his Frog lover after all this is a story about Frog and cat love that's the main driving force in bigs narrative love maybe unnatural love but big and Froggy's love is real and we see it through the story in gameplay biggs gameplay gets frustrating really quick it involves fishing for froggy and the camera becomes a real hindrance his controls are really frustrating in his gameplay is out of place with the rest

53:02 but once you figure out how to catch froggie the very first time the tactic doesn't really change and the rest of the levels become a breeze Gama's story is the final part and what a lot of people call the heart and soul of the game gamma is a robot created in a series by Eggman Eggman demands gamma and his older brother beta to battle to the death because apparently self-sufficient robot upkeep is too expensive now I guess dr. Eggman has so much time on his hands that all the effort he put into these robots is meaningless gamma then outperforms the rest of his brothers on a task that Eggman demanded all of his brothers are sent off and punished Amy shows gamma that you can care for other beings and his life is changed he decides that he must free his siblings by destroying

53:48 them which at first seems very generic and overused especially involving robots and tell you remember that Eggman's machines are powered by little baby animals gamma and beta destroy each other and is revealed that they are powered by the two birds that Amy's bird was looking for and so everyone gets reunited it yay huh that's actually really clever and don't get me wrong the sentient robot misinterpreting something resulting in murder has been done a million times but here and you want a to gamma story it seems to be going in a generic route until you realize that the idea of freedom is literal in this established Canon the robots and Sonic have always been powered by baby animals his gameplay oddly enough is the fastest

54:34 paced of all even more so than Sonic there's emphasis on speed but he's a robot that can shoot and the way his shooting is incorporated into the gameplay is pretty simple he has a time limit on the level but he gets extra time for shooting enemies which is a pretty clever way of combining the two types of play throughout all six stories characters have visions of the past and then the final Super Sonic story all these visions come together when Kaos steals the chaos emeralds from knuckles and tails Plains to become perfect chaos gross sonic finds out that title sealed herself in the Master Emerald to prevent chaos from eventually destroying the world eventually

55:23 [Music] sonic says that he won't seal chaos back in the Master Emerald but instead will open his heart Sonic defeats chaos on the most epic and easy boss battle of all time and then chaos along with Tikal and the Chows

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