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Taku128

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Sonic the Hedgehog games worth playing

For a long period of time, Sonic the Hedgehog games were complete shit. After the rocky but enjoyable start with Sonic Adventure the blue blur's 3D outings each got progressively worse, until eventually most people swore off the franchise for good. The terribleness of the franchise peeked with the abomination Sonic the Hedgehog (usually referred to by fans as Sonic 2006 to differentiate it from the Genesis title of the same name) Since then the quality of the main titles has been steadily increasing, starting with the quarter-good Sonic Unleashed, to the entirely decent Sonic Colors, to the finally good Sonic Generations.

A lot of people have different opinions on which Sonic games are worth playing, so out of boredom I decided I'd make a list of mine.

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EDIT: For whatever reason you can't have line breaks in the descriptions next to things in a list, so enjoy walls of text.

List items

  • This one really needs no introduction. Although it's outdone by its Genesis sequels, the original Sonic the Hedgehog is still a great game.

  • Improving on every aspect of the original (except for those GODDAMN BONUS STAGES QUIT RUNNING INTO THE BOMBS TAILS FOR FUCKS SAKE), Sonic 2 is considered by many to be the pinnacle of the franchise. These people are wrong, but it's still a great game.

  • Okay, so this one's not really a Sonic game, but it's still a great game. A reskin of a Japanese-only puzzle game franchise known as Puyo Pop, Sega of America re-branded the game as Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, and themed it on the American Saturday morning cartoon Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.

    At one point Sega was actually considering re-branding the Puyo Pop franchise as a whole to match this American/European only release, but decided against it, and the Puyo Pop franchise has remained Japan-only ever since.

  • If you can look past the ridiculousness of the premise, Sonic Spinball is actually a really solid pinball game with some bitchin' music. For whatever reason, an officially licensed roller-coaster in Germany is named after this game.

  • The best Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Sega Genesis. (Well, it was technically for the Sega CD, but whatever, it's the same system) Sonic CD is a bizarre colorful platformer that's much more exploration focused than its other Genesis brethren. If you just run to the end of the stage as fast as possible like any other Sonic game you probably won't see what's so great about it, but if you take the time to figure out the ins and outs of the time travel mechanic and the good/bad futures, you might see what it is that everyone likes so much about Sonic CD.

    (P.S. Get the Xbox Live/PSN/Steam version so you can play it with the Japanese soundtrack. The US soundtrack has a few great tracks, but for the most part it's just ambient noise with no real tune, and you lose the way the same song alters based on which time period you're in, especially since the past tracks remain unaltered from the Japanese version. The Japanese soundtrack, on the other hand, is fucking crazy.)

  • If you discount Sonic CD, this is the greatest Sonic game on the Sega Genesis. Great level design, a great new graphical style, and some great tunes make this one of the greatest Sonic games of all time.

  • The second half of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic & Knuckles is a bit of a step down in level design, with far more unintuitive spots than Sonic 3 had, but it's still a great game. The game's lock-on technology lets players combine it with Sonic 3 to create Sonic 3 & Knuckles, a combination of both games. Sonic 3 & Knuckles was the way it was meant to be played, so try to track down a version that supports it. You do unfortunately lose a few of Sonic 3's music tracks doing this though, and their replacements aren't nearly as good.

  • Sonic the Fighters is a goofy little fighting game based on Fighting Vipers. Originally only an arcade release, it was included with the GameCube/PlayStation 2 compilation Sonic Gems Collection. It's a decent game, and I'd recommend messing around with it a bit if you can.

    (Like every other game on this list, the soundtrack is great)

  • Let me say this up front: Sonic R is not a good game. It's stupid, it's practically uncontrollable, and you can unlock everything in about an hour. However, there's something about the graphics, the clunky gameplay, and the amazing music that gives this otherwise terrible game a lot of charm, and I genuinely think it's worth checking out, even if it's only for a few laughs.

  • The start of the fall. Although Sonic Adventure hasn't aged well at all, it was a great game for its time, and I actually think it's still decently fun to play. Not all of it is great (Adventure fields, Big the Cat levels, some of the boss fights), but overall it's still a decent game.

  • The last good 2D Sonic game. A lot of people will tell you that although the 3D Sonic games went to shit, the 2D ones have always remained great. These people are wrong. Sonic Advance 1 was the last 2D Sonic game that remembered that there's more to Sonic than running fast/holding right. It's not the greatest Sonic the Hedgehog game, but it's leagues above every handheld title that followed it.

  • The first signs of redemption. The daytime/hedgehog levels in Sonic Unleashed are, for lack of a better description, a blast to play. The sheer sense of speed is unlike any other platformer today, much like the original Sonic when compared to platformers of the time. The level design isn't always up to snuff, but there's still plenty of great stages to be found.

    Unfortunately, to pad the games length Sonic Team decided to add the Werehog, changing Sonic into a woolly abomination, and the gameplay into a God of War knock-off. While it isn't awful, it isn't terribly engaging either, making it a chore to play through. Thankfully once you've finished the game you can just select any stage to play from the menu, meaning you never have to play the nighttime/Werehog stages ever again.

  • Okay, so this one probably shouldn't be on the list, but if you've been looking for a Mario Kart clone for a system that understands how the internet works, this one's pretty good.

  • After critics and fans alike complained about the blatant padding in Unleashed, Sonic Team responded by releasing a game that was entirely platforming. That game was Sonic Colors. Although the level design never reaches the quality of Unleashed's daytime stages, it's over-all a much more consistently enjoyable experience than Unleashed.

    The wisps were dumb though.

  • Sonic Generations was the first time I've felt like a 3D Sonic game was truly great. Split into two types of gameplay, one based on the 2D side-scrolling of the Genesis titles and one based on the 3D platforming of Unleashed and Colors, both types of gameplay are fantastic, with the 2D stages almost reaching the quality of the Genesis titles, and the 3D stages being better than anything that came before it. Sonic Generations is a really solid title, and great for the kind of people who love replaying stages to try to and beat their friends' times on leaderboards.

  • It's like the last Sonic Kart game but better-er
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