Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection

If you were a die hard gamer back in the late 80's to mid 90's. Then you more than likely experienced home gaming, and some of your favorite games of all time is from that era; and truth be told, the Sega Genesis which was released in the states in 1989 played a huge role in that. The system went head to head with the Nintendo Entertainment System, and later with the Super Nintendo in a battle for home video game entertainment supremacy. The system began with a huge spark, but it would eventually begin to lose ground and fade away to the SNES.

In 2006, Sega released the Sega Genesis Collection for the PS2, with the intentions on old school gamers being able to relive those old days. While in the process, also showing the newer gamers what made them into a heavy hitter back then. The release featured 28 games total counting unlockables. In 2009, Sega combined with Back Bone Entertainment to release the Sonic Ultimate Genesis Collection for the PS3. The set was more than a simple re-release, since it featured a total of 49 games, with several games that weren't featured on the original release. Make no mistake about it, despite the several duds found here there are more than enough games to keep the hardcore gamer busy for several weeks.

Games Included:

Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Alien Storm, Altered Beast, Beyond Oasis, Bonanza Bros., Columns, Comix Zone, Decap Attack, Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine, Dynamite Headdy, Ecco the Dolphin, Ecco: Tides of Time, ESWAT: City Under Siege, Fatal Labyrinth, Flicky, Gain Ground

Golden Axe, Golden Axe II, Golden Axe III, Kid Chameleon, Phantasy Star II, Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom, Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millenium, Ristar, Shining Force, Shining Force II: Ancient Sealing, Shining in the Darkness

Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog II, Sonic the Hedgehog III, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic Spinball, Streets of Rage, Streets of Rage II, Streets of Rage III, Super Thunder Blade, Vector Man, Vector Man II

Unlockable Games:

Alien Syndrome (Arcade), Altered Beast (Arcade), Congo Bongo (Arcade), Fantasy Zone (Arcade), Golden Axe Warrior (Sega Master System), Phantasy Star (Sega Master System), Shinobi (Arcade), Space Harrier (Arcade), Zaxxon (Arcade)

Game Play:

As one may be able to see, the collection features a "who's who" of Sega titles ranging from many plat-formers, RPG's, third person perspective shooters, puzzle games, and side scrolling beat'em ups. The coolest thing about this is that a lot of these games are two player co-op, which means this is a great title for group gatherings.

I'm sure most people will notice the Sonic games before anything else, especially since Sega chose to name the collection after him. The collection contains all of the Sonic games from the Genesis, and one will notice the slight growth in the sequels. Up to this day, these games still hold up as very solid side scrolling plat-formers. Although Sonic is a pretty basic run and jump game, the difficulty and length of time in beating them is worth noting. The first four games of the series are very time consuming but can be fun to play, due to the stage designs and challenges. Unfortunately, Sonic & Knuckles, which introduced the newest Sonic villain Knuckles as a playable character, does not contain the lock-on feature with Sonic 3, which was the main selling point back then. This allowed the player to use the character of Knuckles to play Sonic 3, in which he plays differently by being able to climb walls and fly. In all honesty, I never experienced playing it back then, because I did lose interest in Sonic pretty early and preferred the darker games; but even after playing Sonic & Knuckles now, it just feels a bit redundant and I found myself losing interest in the games all over again.

Sonic Spinball takes the character to another dimension by injecting him into a pinball game. The game plays like any other pinball machine, with the purpose of keeping the ball, in this case Sonic, from falling all the way to the bottom to his death. The stages are pretty interesting, well designed, and difficult, but these stages can be beaten by simply memorizing them and having quick reactions. Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is a huge standout for me, and fans of Tetris will get a huge kick out of this one. The purpose is to match up the falling beans with their like colors to perform breaks, and send rock solid beans onto your opponents screen. Whichever screen fills up to the top first is the loser which is very similar to Tetris. Even though I prefer darker games, this gets the absolute most play because it can be so addicting when trying to chain together multiple hard hitting breaks. The only downside I can think of is that the AI seems to be cheap sometimes, and it can feel like forever waiting for that one piece to wreak havoc.

Columns is another Tetris-like puzzle game that is far more challenging, but not as fun. The object is the same here, the player must match up the like color gems with each other to perform breaks, and the breaks can occur in straight lines or diagonally. The game can be very difficult to adjust to for a serious Tetris fan, and it may require too much practice for some.

Serious Sonic fans will no doubt drool over this blue hedgehog, but he does not overshadow the other quality releases here. Shinobi 3 is a very good addition, and it expands on the game play on Revenge of Shinobi. The game once again features Joe Mushashi and he's armed with shurikens and ninja magic to kill his enemies. In addition, he can also run and slash opponents, perform dive kick attacks, cling to ceilings, and spring from walls. There are some cool stage designs such as riding on horses and jet ski's, as well as one stage that features falling rocks, and the player must try to remain at the top, and not disappear off the bottom of the screen. E-SWAT is another plat-former that follows a cop whom is battling against a terrorist group that are made up of cyborgs and mad scientist. The player begins with only a pistol, but after the second stage the cop receives an upgrade into a cyborg suit that is capable of limited flight and multiple weapons, which are picked up throughout the stages. The game has its hard moments, and it can be frustrating starting at the beginning of a stage after being killed, and at times, it seems as if the enemies can blast you at will. Also adding to this disadvantage, the enemies hits can continue to land, as there are no "invincibility" moments after a hit connects. Although it can be challenging and fun, it can also be quite frustrating.

Ristar is definitely a platformer that shouldn't be over looked at all. The main character is a walking star, with his arms being the primary weapon. He grabs his enemies and slams into them for the kill. His arms are also used to navigate through the stages. The stage designs are pretty good, and this game can compete with Sonic. I was greatly impressed by this one. Kid Chameleon is a decent one. The player must venture through the perilous stages, and the player has the ability to morph into different characters such as a samurai, rhino, and even a tank. The only real issue with this game is the length consisting of over 100 stages. The save feature works out very well here, and I don't remember being able to save on the original Genesis.

There are several other plat-formers like Vector Man 1 & 2, and the adventure game Ecco the Dolphin, but some of them are truly horrible such as the overly annoying Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle. The cops and robbers game Bonanza Bros, where you actually play as the latter trying to rob banks, and the saccharine blue bird Flicky, in which, your objective is to save a bunch of chicks from a roaming cat out to get you. Strangely enough, I don't remember any of those three games ever being popular, and how they made it to this set for the second time over games like Mystic Defender, Ghostbusters, Revenge of Shinobi, and even Dick Tracy is mind boggling.

The collection features a good mix of RPG's; Phantasy Star 2-4, Shining Force series, and Beyond Oasis. These three titles alone can soak up about 100 hours of game play. The games feature very engrossing stories, interesting characters, and a nice battle system. These titles seriously deserve their own seperate reviews. Beyond Oasis is quite different though, as it plays more like Zelda with the ability to slash at enemies and use a variety of weapons, instead of relying on a command system. This is great for those non RPG fans who can't stand the command set up, and I really like this one too. I wonder how come I didn't hear about it back then. These games alone make this a purchase.

This collection also features several two player co-op brawlers. The Streets of Rage trilogy, which features one of the best brawlers ever makes their long-awaited appearance here. Streets of Rage provides three characters to choose from. In either solo or in two player mode, the player travels through stages beating up street punks in an attempt to clean up the city. There are several moves at their disposal, as well as various weapons like bats, knives, bottles, and even pepper which stuns the enemies. The enemy AI is somewhat unbalanced and it can be very annoying. It seems like they can always land in that one good punch, and that tick damage will add up, and they also seem to go through a speed burst to avoid you out of nowhere. This is actually the weakest of the three games by a large margin.

Streets of Rage 2 is no doubt the best in the series with more balanced game play, two new playable characters, and more diversity in the character fighting styles. Streets of Rage 3 is not better than the second and I'll leave it at that. The Golden Axe trilogy makes it to the cut. The first two games are very solid while the third is just atrocious though. Golden Axe is a weapon based brawler, with three characters wielding a specific weapon; a broad sword, a short sword, and an axe. The characters can also perform magic attacks, and the amount of damage is determined by how many potion bottles are picked up. Golden Axe 2 is more of the same thing, but there is one notable difference, like being able to charge up the level of magic attack, as not to use up all of it at one time. Alien Storm is basically Golden Axe with aliens, but there are stages that features a first person shoot'em up, along with run and gun stages that switches up the game play some; and speaking of shooters, the third person helicopter shooter Super Thunder Blade makes another appearance.

There are several unlockable games, most notable for me, the arcade versions of Altered Beast, Shinobi, and Space Harrier. The former is a two player supernatural brawler, where the player battles zombies and other creatures, plus possesses the ability to transform into beast, such as werewolves, dragons, and even a bear that turns the enemies into stone with a gust of breath. It's also far better than its Genesis counterpart due to a higher difficulty, only to name one thing. The games play exactly how I remember them, and it's amazing how much better the original Shinobi is, when compared to the horrible Shinobi Shadow Dancer for the PS2 collection. Space Harrier is done in the same style of Super Thunder Blade.

Controls:

A majority of the plat-formers perform great, with only Kid Chameleon and Flicky feeling kind of sluggish. The RPG's play fantastic and I can't think of any issues concerning them. I also feel the same with the shooters and brawlers, but Streets of Rage 2 feels the best with everything performing smoothly. In the case of Super Thunder Blade, the controls can be reversed. The game attempts to capture the feel of flying a real copter, by pressing down on the D-Pad to travel up, and pressing up to go down. I always did find this style annoying, and it's great still being able to switch them, since the enemies never stop firing at you, and you can easily be confused when under intense pressure, which occurs throughout the entire game.

Graphics/Sound/Music:

It's amazing but the 16 bit graphics for the Sonic games, Ristar, Phantasy Star 3 & 4, and Streets of Rage 2 have aged pretty well. They still look very good with some nice backgrounds, character designs, and fluid movments. It's easy to notice the progress in the games visuals with the sequels and later releases. Vector Man looks the best though, and it shouldn't be a surprise due to the effort put into it. The game uses pre-rendered 3D models and it was meant to compete with Donkey Kong Country, which I always thought was a losing battle. In any case, the animation flows nicely with very smooth movements and cool boss designs.

Comix Zone is done in a comic book style, but it feels very dated with some sluggish looking movements. Altered Beast for the Genesis looks dated as well, but the arcade version looks a lot better. The standout in the arcade version would happen to be the light gore. When destroying zombies with punches and kicks, they explode in some good limb from limb detail.

The music seems to fit well with all of the games. The Phantasy Star series is very good in that area, with the music having an epic-like feel to it in some areas. The Sonic games are also great with some memorable soundtracks, Golden Axe stands out as well with the medieval and fantasy soundtrack blending nicely with the style. Streets of Rage 1 & 2 have the best soundtracks to me, and they sound excellent for a fight, even though a lot of them would sound great in a disco or a rave. However, the music in Alex Kidd makes me want to vomit.

The sound effects would probably be the only area I think many of the games really aren't that good at, especially the much older ones. Super Thunder Blade has no range with its sound at all, and all of the explosions and gunfire sounds exactly the same. I think Streets of Rage 2 is the best in this area, with good punch effects, and when someone is hit with a lead pipe, it really sounds like someones head was cracked open.

Replay:

This just might be the strongest area of the collection. The die hard gamer will try to beat all of these games. There is plenty of entertainment value for those who love to play games alone. The RPG's will soak up a lot of time trying to finish them. The plat-formers are also challenging in their own way, and the two player co-op games are like the icing on the cake. Plus the unlockable games, as well as interviews have to be unlocked by performing certain things in the main games. Unlocking these things are easy, but it requires playing through some of the very lame ones though, and I just got angry when I had to play more than 5 seconds of Flicky. Excluding Sonic and Conker to some degree, I just hate games with animal characters.

Overall:

One problem I can think of is the lack of on-line play, but if you have plenty of friends or young kids in your house, then that's not really a problem. The fighting games are very easy to get into, and even non gamers will have fun with the simple controls. However, I do have one big problem with this set. At times, it can feel a bit redundant, since so many games kind of feel the same. In addition, I also don't see the point in adding so many Sonic games when he has a mega collection. I just can't imagine a Sonic fan not having it for any other system. There could have been plenty of other plat-formers added or even the one on one fighting game Eternal Champions could have been added.

I could go on and on about what could have been added, but it's kind of pointless, since this is probably the most solid collection out there. I also hope that Sega doesn't stop here, and some of their third party developers like Renovation or Technosoft receive their dues. Those two developers played a role in the Genesis success.

In closing, I definitely recommend this to gamers of all types. I find it impossible to believe that nothing on this would grab someone's attention.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Pros: Many two player co-op games, very easy to get into, extras

Cons: Can be repetitive, too many throw away games, way too much Sonic, no online play