Sonic Mega Collection Plus

"Dubious, Tedious, Unncecessary"

Offering an assortment of over 15 Sonic games and other Sega classics, this compilation and the extras that come with it, at only $30 Canadian for a new copy, is a must-buy for virtually any PS2 owner, or so it should be in theory. Hell, compared to Nintendo's charging $40 U.S. for mere touch-ups of old Mario games, it actually looks to be quite a bargain! Sadly, a number of mind-boggling errors and omissions on the part of Sega reduce this compilation to being little more a terribly bumpy nostalgia trip for old-school Sonic diehards like myself.

There is little sense focusing on the games' graphics and sound, especially given the dearth of reviews available for every game on this compilation: In these regards, almost all of the games range from above-average to state-of-the-art for the time and the console on which they were released.

Similarly, the gameplay is generally a matter of taste. Few will disagree that the main Genesis series and some of its 8-bit cousins are must-plays, that Ristar is a work of art in all regards, or that Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, North America and Europe's first, albeit rebranded, look at Japanese puzzle classic Puyo-Puyo (the SNES version was rebranded a year later as Kirby's Avalanche), is likely the most addictive and definitive console puzzle game outside of the Tetris and the Puzzle Bobble families. On the other hand, games like Sonic Spinball (which I've never gotten into) and Sonic 3D Blast (which I adore) have garnered mixed reviews from gamers. Other games on this compilation include Sonic Drift (a Game Gear cart racer I've yet to play, although I've heard that its sequel, absent from this compilation, is far more enjoyable, for what it's worth), Sonic Labyrinth (some odd Game Gear game I haven't played where Sonic can't jump or spin-dash), Flicky (some Genesis game I know nothing about), Comix Zone (a decent action-brawler I never got into back in the day), Blue Sphere (a collection of insanely hard but equally entertaining Sonic 3 & Knuckles special stage levels accessible by locking-on Sonic 1 to a Sonic & Knuckles cartridge) and Ooze (you tell me).

While the included games are often a blast, this compilation suffers from a couple of key flaws that make its value quite dubious. The most obvious problem with this collection relates to the unlockable games. First off, by far the best Sonic game in this compilation, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, must be unlocked before it can be playable. Now this requirement, while taking value away from the package in my opinion, would be somewhat reasonable if the goal were something along the lines of “Complete both Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles with at least character”. Instead, unlocking it requires that you play (defined as playing a game until completion, game over, or going to the main menu and existing) both Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles 20 times each. Yes, that's opening and then immediately exiting both games via the menu 20 times. Tedious and pointless indeed! Similarly ridiculous goals are required to unlock other immediately unavailable games included in the compilation, such as Kunckles in Sonic 2 and Blue Sphere. Of all the games that can be unlocked using only this standard method, Ristar, perhaps the best platformer on the Sega Genesis, requires that other games in the compilation be started and exited a total of 270 times between them! You're better off either going the emulation route or finding this exceedingly rare gem at some shady pawn shop. To top it all off, Comix Zone and Ooze can only be unlocked if a Sonic Heroes save is present on your memory card (Actually, Comix Zone is unlockable by playing every game on this compilation other than Ooze, including Ristar, 50 times. But who wants to start and exit games nearly 1,000 times just to play Comix Zone?). Similarly, for no reason whatsoever, the game hints that should be immediately available to gamers who wish to access them require that a single game stay running for three consecutive hours, longer than a fair number of these games take to complete.

Also somewhat questionable is the games Sega chose to include (or not) in this compilation. While excluding Sonic CD's exclusion is somewhat excusable, given that the PS2's processing power pales compared to that of a PC's, which may make it difficult to emulate, Sega seemed to be dodgy, arbitrary, and downright illogical in selecting which Game Gear games to include in this compilation. The dull platformer Sonic Blast, in which the levels are ridiculously easy and have boring and unimaginative design, while the bosses are extremely cheesy and either child's play or nearly impossible, and a completely unnecessary Game Gear version of Bean Machine, identical to its Genesis counterpart save the inferior sound and graphics are included in this compilation. In contrast, Sonic 2 and Sonic Triple Trouble, considered to be the best of the Game Gear series, are nowhere to be found. Similarly, what purpose was served in excluding decent cart racer Sonic Drift 2, bizarre but excellent platformer-RPG Tails' Adventure, and challenging yet very playable aerial shoot-em-up Tails' Sky Patrol? I can understand Sega's not wanting GameCube owners to feel short-changed by their less-than-complete package, but two-years is a long delay for Sonic fans who prefer the PS2's versatility and strong Japense RPGs or the XBox's superlative FPS and American RPG selection over the GameCube's exquisitely fun multi-player action, and including the weakest of Sonic's Game Gear adventures at the expense of his strongest outings is little more than a pittance.

So should you buy Sonic Mega Collection Plus? Given what's missing, the ridiculous tedious hoops that must be jumped through (When was the last time you had to sleep through Reload 30 times to hear Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning or block your ears through 20 playings each of Virtual XI and X-Factor to hear Number of the Beast? My point exactly.) to get access to the compilation's strongest games (S3&K and Ristar), that this compilation offers an experience no more authentic than emulating the games on a PC (if that, as at least the PC has accessories available that allow you to use a genuine Genesis controller to play the games and emulators give you access to any game on this compilation without going through Sega's BS unlocking), and that the only bonus features offered in this package in addition to the aforementioned hints includes digitized copies of the original game manuals (which you'd get with the original games anyways), a few illustrations, and some movies from a game that you have to own, borrow, or rent regardless if you want to play every game in the compilation, I see nothing here that makes this game a worthy purchase for people other than Sonic diehards, who also have no reason to purchase this compilation aside from its low price. Ultimately, this half-assed collection serves primarily to remind gamers that Sega is still by the same bunch of simpletons that refused to release Scenarios 2 and 3 of Shining Force 3 outside of Japan merely because Bernie Stolar hates RPGs.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 01/18/05