Sonic CD

Sonic the Hedgehog CD’s (I’ll just call it Sonic CD from now on) reputation has changed quite a bit over the years. Beginning with its initial release in 1993 on Sega’s ill-fated CD peripheral for the Genesis, Sonic CD remained a rather elusive entry in the Sonic franchise, which was strange since Sonic CD was widely considered the greatest Sonic game ever made. Even after a PC release in 1996 and a spot on the Sonic Gems Collection for the Gamecube and Playstation 2 in 2005, Sonic CD was not a widely played game in Sega’s most famous franchise. It wasn’t until 2011 when Sonic CD would finally be played by a wider audience, due to it being re-released on the Xbox 360, and Playstation 3. And the responses from people seem to have been...mixed.

Yes, the re-release itself was phenomenal, and it is this version of the game that I used for this review, however after years of being told that it's the greatest Sonic game, it seems that some fans were disappointed by just how different it was compared to other Sonic games, especially of the 16-bit era. Sonic CD is very much the black sheep of the 16-bit Sonic family, and there are reasons for this that stem from the game’s somewhat unknown development history.

What we do know is that lead programmer of the first Sonic game, Yuji Naka, decided to move to the United States to help train new hires at the Sega Technical Institute, and to work on Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Sonic’s original creator, Naoto Ohshima, decided to stay in Japan, and was tasked by Sega to create a CD version of Sonic 2 for their upcoming Sega CD peripheral. However, as both projects progressed, Sonic 2 and Sonic CD began to become very different games, and it was decided that Sonic CD would be its own entry in the Sonic series.

Sonic CD’s big gimmick, and the gameplay feature that needed the increased power of the Sega CD to accomplish, is time travel. To make a long story short, Dr. Robotonik has gone back in time and placed robot transporters in all of the game’s levels so that he can control the future, utilizing the power of the Time Stones in order to do this. Sonic must travel through time and destroy these teleporters in order to make for a good future in all of the game’s levels. This means that each level has four distinct layouts: a past, a present, and two possible futures. While running through the levels you’ll pass by sign posts that allow Sonic to teleport through time, provided that he can maintain maximum speed for a few seconds. While Sonic is in the past, he must search through the levels and look for the robot transporter in each one, and destroy it, and then proceed to the goal post at the end.

As you can probably tell, there’s a bit more going on here than Sonic 2’s “Go right until the level ends” design philosophy. Sonic CD takes the exploration elements from the first game and makes that the focus of this game. You have to find a signpost to take you to the past, you have to find a space where you can run at top speed uninterrupted for a few seconds, you have to find the robot transporter, etc. This makes playing Sonic CD feel a lot more involved than previous Sonic games, and really, more so than future Sonic games as well. If this sort of thing sounds boring to you, you can skip the time travel stuff and just collect the seven time stones (which is the same as collecting the first game’s six chaos emeralds), which will also unlock the good ending. Failing to do either objective will give you the bad ending. So I like to think of Sonic CD as having three difficulty levels: Easy, wherein you just get to the end of the game; Medium, where you try to beat the game with all seven time stones; and Hard, where you try to destroy each level’s robot transporter.

No matter which objective you decide to complete however, it won’t be straightforward. Even if you just decide to get to the end of each level without doing any special objectives, the level design will keep you from being bored, as it gets progressively weirder and weirder. It starts out like a normal Sonic game, but with each passing zone, you notice that the design becomes more and more labyrinthian, and just crazier overall. There are springs that launch you in all directions littered throughout the levels, tunnels that cause you to rocket through walls to undisclosed locations, and loop-de-loops that end up sending you backwards. It gets to the point where each level feels like a giant puzzle where your goal is to go to the right, but the stage doesn’t want you to, so you have to figure out how to get through it. Some people would accuse Sonic CD’s level design of being too confusing, but I disagree; after playing through Sonic 2’s mind-numblingly simple stages, Sonic CD’s design insanity was a breath of fresh air, as it really made for a much more cerebral game than its predecessor, or really most other platformers.

Sonic 1’s concept of ‘Reward and Punishment’ is used to full effect here, as the higher routes of a level are generally faster and more straightforward, but can be really hard to stay on, while the lower routes are slower and more confusing. However, Sonic CD takes things a step further by punishing players who merely want to stay on the higher parts of levels. If speedrunning or just simply completing the game is your only objective, then sure, the high road is generally the right road, but if you want to unlock the good ending, it’s not going to cut it. Finding the robot teleporters is obviously not conducive to high road travel, as generally you’ll have to explore an entire level in order to find them. But collecting the time stones also requires more level exploration because in order to obtain access to the special stages where the time stones are kept, you have to finish a level with 50 rings. It seems to me that the higher routes of the stages in this game have a ring deficit, as I found it quite difficult to collect 50 rings by just staying on top. I would often find myself going down into the dangerous labyrinth in order to obtain the rings I needed. And then of course you have to successfully navigate the lower parts of these levels without getting hit so that you can reach the end with all of those rings. Is it challenging? Absolutely. Is it still fun? Hell yeah it is.

That’s not to say that this game cannot be excessively frustrating. I did have to use a guide for the first time in seven years in order to find one of the robot teleporters, and when I found out where it was, I thought to myself, “Yeah I never would have found that.” And a couple of the levels near the end were a bit too confusing for my liking. Once I figured out how to navigate them it was fine, but I found myself running in circles a little too much my first couple of times through. Still, if it’s between that and the dull simplicity of Sonic 2’s levels, I’ll take the minor confusion.

Speaking of Sonic 2, I did mention in my review of that game that some of Sonic 2’s levels could get a tad confusing as well, sometimes by suddenly expecting you to go left when you’ve been going right for the whole game, others where the designs felt so repetitive, I never really knew where I was in the level (Casino Night being the best example.) So why does Sonic CD’s levels get a pass? Because for one, the labyrinthian nature of the levels is established early on and consistently progresses throughout the game at a reasonable pace. And for two, there are plenty of identifiable parts of the levels in Sonic CD wherein I always knew where I was in relation to everything else. This is essential, since there can be a bit of backtracking in this game while exploring.

And this all contributes to an important fact about Sonic CD, a fact that some fans don’t care for: speed is merely a tool to help with platforming. In Sonic 2, platforming was simply a formality to make you feel like you earned how fast you were going. In Sonic CD, there aren’t really any sequences where you hold right and watch as the screen moves quickly. The only time this does happen is in Stardust Speedway, where you’ll move so fast that before you know it, you’ll actually be going backwards since the level design is intended to screw with you.

There’s an important moment early on in this game that showcases its philosophy: at the start of the game’s fourth level, naturally you’ll want to rev up your spin dash and bolt forward as fast as you can. However, there are spikes ahead that will kill you if you try this and can’t react fast enough. This is the developers letting you know that, while you can go fast, that’s not what this game is about. Completing your objectives is the goal, and speed can help you accomplish those goals, but it is not a goal in and of itself. Want to go up to higher parts of the level? Pick up speed and go off of a jump. Need to travel through time? Find an area where you can maintain uninterrupted high speeds. Need to go up a hill? Use speed. It is a tool. Many Sonic fans can’t seem to get over this and are frustrated that they cannot just rocket through levels at the speed of sound without lots of practice. But this is a smarter platformer, one that understands that overcoming obstacles and truly earning that speedrun leads to a more satisfying experience.

This is most clearly seen in the game’s tremendous boss fights. Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you these boss fights are particularly challenging, because they’re not. However, a little more goes into them than simply the “Find the pattern and hit Robotonik eight times” strategy that was found in the first two games. Similar to the level design, they feel more like puzzles that must be solved. Robotonik will often fall after one hit, but how can you get the hit on him? Sometimes you don’t even have to hit him, just play his little game until you win. A lot of them actually involve speed as a necessary design element. The best example of this is the race against metal Sonic, where you have to bolt through a track without getting hit too often by him, or by obstacles in the way. Another great example is one where you’re on a conveyor belt leading towards spikes on one side, and on the other side is Robotonik hiding inside of a contraption that the conveyor belt won’t let you get to. You must run on the conveyor belt at the just the right pace to not run into the spikes, but also to avoid the bombs Robotonik is dropping on you. See, the key is to avoid being hurt; the speed is just a tool to help you with that objective. Yes, the final boss fight is underwhelming, easy, and a bit anticlimactic, but I guess it’s better than Sonic 2’s boss which was WAYYYY too hard, especially compared to the game that preceded it, and especially considering that in that game, once you lost, you had to restart from the beginning.

Now normally, I don’t really mention graphics or audio in games unless they are particularly noteworthy, but Sonic CD is one such game. The art direction is simply astounding, even all of these years later. The whole thing looks like an early 90’s MTV acid trip: colors pop out of the screen like it’s in 3D, parallax scrolling in the background is used to magnificent effect, and even the animations are good; Sonic’s peel-out has a strangely satisfying look to it that I wish remained in later Sonic titles. The contrast between the different time periods is also wonderful, with the prehistoric and dirty color palettes of the past, to the dystopian browns of the bad future, it’s all used for perfect effect.

The soundtracks are also worth mentioning. Yes, that’s plural, as Sonic CD famously had two soundtracks upon its 1993 release, one for Japan and Europe, and one for North America. In the 2011 re-release, you can choose which soundtrack you want to play with, which is a terrific addition. There has been a lot of bickering about which soundtrack is better, but honestly, I would say they’re about equal. Both of them tend to fit the levels well, they both accompany the game’s funky visual style appropriately, and they both can get quite stuck in your head. If I was forced to choose, I would personally go with the Japanese soundtrack’s more upbeat and crazy vibe, but there’s something about the rock n roll and jazzy edge to the US version that I appreciate. Generally I alternate between soundtracks when I restart the game. Whichever one you choose, know that you are getting two of the best soundtracks in video game history, and it goes a long way towards giving Sonic CD personality.

And that’s really what I admire Sonic CD for: its character. The game’s wacky level designs, funky soundtracks, and trippy eye-candy come together to make Sonic CD one of Sonic the Hedgehog’s greatest and most unique adventures. Some people may not like that the game isn’t as focused on speed as other games, but I think they’d be missing the point. Speed is still integral to the Sonic CD experience, it just isn’t the focal point. It is a tool to assist you with platforming, which makes for a much more interesting and cerebral game than other Sonic games, which I feel went too far towards catering to speed freaks. While the game’s design philosophy is a bit different than other Sonic games, I would say this is for the best. I am going to be playing Sonic 3 next, for the first time in quite a few years, and I hope that game learned more lessons from Sonic CD than Sonic 2. If not, then I’m at least glad that I’ll always be able to play this gem of a Sonic game. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t have to be; I still enjoy the hell out of it.