Initially, the games themselves remained for the most part a wide variety of platformers. What is interesting about playing them one after the other is how the series changes and improves over time. The opening adventure introduces Sonic’s satisfying momentum-based movement, but does not take full advantage of it, with many zones forcing you to play slowly. The Sonic CD is a really interesting variation that incorporates time travel. Destroy Eggman’s robot construction in the past to create a better future. The stages are therefore much more open, allowing you to search for time gates and create enough speed to reach different time periods. Sonic 2 returns to the traditional stages and bosses, improving the first title with a higher level design that leans much more to the character’s abilities. Finally, Sonic 3 & Knuckles builds once again with intricate stages, more varied meetings with bosses, the shield upgrade trio and more. Too bad you can not play Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles separately, but at least they are here. All games have weaknesses – pitfalls you can not see coming are annoying and some Special Routes can be painful – but it is a pleasure to overcome them. And you are given many ways to do it. Anniversary Mode presents every widescreen game with unlimited lives and rejection from Sonic Mania. Classic Mode, meanwhile, introduces the game in its original 4: 3 format, finite lives and no drop hyphens. You can also select Sonic, Tails or Knuckles in each game, although the latter is not an option on the CD. While you can enjoy each game on its own, a Story mode combines all four titles into one great adventure. You will not lose anything if you do not play it, but it is interesting to live all the games as if it were a continuous epic. Whether you play it this way or enjoy it in fragments, a very careful addition sees every title closed by brand new introductions and cartoon outros. These are great, short interfaces that provide a little extra framework to Sonic’s games. Likewise, Sonic Origins itself has great opening and closing animations in the same style, making the package look consistent. An important addition to Origins is coins. Earned playing Anniversary Mode (and more to come soon), this is a permanent currency that has several uses. First and foremost, you can spend a coin to try out a Special Scene again, which is incredibly convenient if you want to unlock Super Sonic but are struggling with these inconvenient challenges. The other main use of coins is to unlock certain items in the Museum. The Museum is where you will find music, artwork and movies, and there is plenty to enjoy. Some of them will be unlocked automatically as you play the games, while others require some coins. Examples of these “premium” tracks include some Sonic Generations music tracks, original character reference sheets, and animatics that show ongoing versions of all new scenes. There is enough volume to go deeper here that fans will enjoy, although you will need hundreds of coins if you want everything. Fortunately, there are many ways to earn coins, one of which is Mission Mode. These are short challenges based on each Sonic title and vary in type and difficulty. One can be to defeat a certain number of a certain enemy before you reach the target, while the other will see you crossing a level with zero rings. Completion time affects your ranking and higher levels give you more coins. It’s a simple addition, but there is a nice variety here and the missions are defined in specially designed stages – you can not autopilot them. Otherwise, Boss Rush is a self-explanatory feature for every game. You have three lives to defeat all the bosses in the series, most of them without rings. Completing Boss Rush earns even more coins, as does Mirror Mode, which flips every game horizontally – surprisingly difficult, even if you know Sonic 16-bit games like the back of your hand. Finally, there are even brand new Blue Spheres stages to enjoy with new engineers, which is a big bonus. Everything at Sonic Origins is beautifully presented, with 3D islands representing every game or function. It’s a neat package that is organized quite well, and all the games run perfectly and look and sound like you would expect. There is an anti-aliasing option that you can enable, but this made the image look blurry more than anything else, so we will stick to the pure pixels. The only thing that really disappoints the collection is the rather stingy DLC. None of the extra bonuses matter, but it’s almost bad to put a paywall on things like extra music tracks from related games like Sonic Spinball, extra mailbox contours in Classic Mode, and extra animated island characters in the main menu. The most ardent fans can also mourn the lack of specific melodies from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, which were replaced by music created in the 90’s but never finalized (until now). The new tracks aren’t bad – some are actually pretty good – but they may take a while to get used to if you miss Carnival Night, Ice Cap and Launch Base.
conclusion
Sonic Origins presents four of the best hedgehog games in style and it is a pleasure to revisit these iconic platformers. The presentation flourishes like the moving scenes, as well as a number of additional features such as Boss Rush and Missions, giving fans and newcomers a lot to see and do, and the Museum is full of interesting works of art you may not have seen before. . Some stingy DLC practices are frustrating and of course, the games themselves have some 30 year old weaknesses, but this is primarily a great memory spin down.
