"And a great saga comes to a close"

This game marks the end of Sonic the Hedgehog's classic style adventures on the Game Gear. I don't count Sonic Blast among this saga because it really doesn't live up to the quality of the rest of these games. As we witnessed in Sonic Chaos, the blue hedgehog found himself somewhat marginalized there. In this game, he is completely marginalized. Tails rules the scene, and Sonic is just along for the ride.

Tails has an important ability that Sonic is lacking. That lovable two-tailed fox can fly. Using his fluffy tails much like helicopter rotors, he can fly around for a limited time. If he remains aloft for too long, he'll get tired out and fall. Now, would you rather try to jump across that pool full of piranhas, or would you rather just safely fly across? Tails is the top dog here, and the designers finally acknowledge it. The orange fox is allowed to collect the Chaos Emeralds. When we consider that Tails can do everything that Sonic can do, plus he can fly... There's really no reason to be playing as Sonic anymore.

Sonic Triple Trouble marks Dr. Robotnik's final attempt to rule the animal domain. He's as persevering as ever, launching yet another bid for power. Two other characters also make debut appearances here. Knuckles the red echidna and Nack the weasel. Knuckles is the self-proclaimed guardian of the Floating Island where this game takes place. Dr. Robotnik has fiendishly tricked him into believing that Sonic and Tails are trying to steal the Chaos Emeralds. Nack the weasel is a treasure hunter who is hoping to profit from the Chaos Emeralds. Three bad guys. Triple Trouble.

We can play as Sonic or Tails. All of their signature moves are present here. The jumping attack, spin-dash, everything is present and accounted for. In addition, we can spin into a ball while in mid-air (when falling or after springing upward). The rings and TV monitor power-ups are plentiful. Hidden 1-Ups are here. This game follows the standard winning formula. Side-scrolling action that takes your hero of choice through six zones, each with three levels (or "acts"). A boss lies in wait in the third level of each zone. Just like in Sonic Chaos, we get rings for the boss encounters, although sometimes we have to go looking for them and find them.

The loops and corkscrew speedways from Sonic Chaos are present and accounted for. In addition, there are a few gadgets that our heroes can interact with. There are springs atop the palm trees for springboarding fun. The mine carts make a reappearance in this game. Here, it's more like a wacky amusement park ride. The jungle has baskets that pop you high into the air, and spheres that you can bounce off like a pinball. Sonic can go snowboarding. In the underwater levels, Tails can ride in the Sea Fox, his personal submarine. This is loads of fun, as he can use the drill on the front of the sub to smash aquatic enemies or fire torpedoes at them. If he takes a hit from one of the prevalent falling mines, though, the fun's over. Tails loses his sub.

In Robotnik's fortress, we have yet another intricate network of transport tubes, along with a notable improvement. When you reach an intersection, your character spins in place until you select a direction to go. In previous Sonic games, I was spinning through the tubes at such high speeds, I'd have to go through an area multiple times before figuring out which direction to go at an intersection.

Hazards are very plentiful here. There are exploding floors (which are quite annoying). Spinning turbines can immobilize you (combine this with nearby mosquito-bots, and it becomes very annoying). You can sink into swamp water. There are also snow drifts you can sink into (sometimes to fall into an abyss below). The gratuitous underwater zone has prevalent falling mines that can bring any hero's aquatic adventures to a premature end. Robotnik's fortress has traps galore. Thankfully, the spikes and abysses aren't all that numerous here. There are also some new enemy robots, like the aforementioned mosquito-bots. I'm not fond of the pervasive hazards here. There's much more to watch out for than in Sonic's previous Game Gear adventures.

Much like Sonic 2 and Sonic Chaos, there doesn't appear to be much by way of a logical progression to this game. We start out in the Great Turquoise zone (which is basically the Green Hill Zone revisited). Then we're in an amusement park. We move on to a jungle. From there we move on to a snow-covered winter zone. We finish up at the underwater zone and Robotnik's fortress. The progression from jungle to winter is a head-scratcher.

Something that's different here from the other Sonic adventures on the Game Gear is the controls. It takes Sonic and Tails a while to get up to speed while running (or walking, as it would be). They're more sluggish here. In fact, the whole game feels slower than the other ones.

The bosses here aren't much of an improvement over those seen in Sonic Chaos. Robotnik is trying out the same tactic he used in Sonic 2, creating robotic animals. There's a flying turtle, a python, and a giant penguin, none of which are as good as the techno-animals in Sonic 2. Other bosses are head-scratchers (a big cannon?). Knuckles shows up in a submarine of his own. The end-game scenario is four bosses in sequence, one at a time. Metal Sonic makes a reappearance here, and he's gotten quite an upgrade. Robotnik has two contraptions that he uses to try and do our hero in. The first one is just plain dumb. The second one stands among the best bosses I've seen in a Sonic game. The final scenario is the antithesis of what we saw in Sonic 2. Instead of Robotnik being sequestered in an arena with our hero spinning through a tube that circles around the arena, our hero is trapped in the arena with Robotnik circling around in a large tube. It's quite difficult, as the arena is a big death trap. Just like in Sonic Chaos, some of the bosses employ annoying cheap shots (such as when the python explodes and rains down fire in a last ditch effort to do our hero in).

To get the Chaos Emeralds, our hero has to collect 50 rings and find a special TV monitor with an emerald on it. This takes us to the special stage. Afterward, we reappear at the exact point where we left off in the level we were playing. While this is an improvement over Sonic Chaos, it interrupts the flow of the action during the normal levels. I liked it better when the Chaos Emeralds were simply hidden among the various zones in Sonic's first two Game Gear adventures. There are two types of special stages here. One where we fly a biplane and collect rings, and side-scrolling special stages where we have to reach the end before time runs out. Each of these special stages culminates with the appearance of Nack the weasel. He's a bumbling character who has all sorts of crazy boss contraptions that he uses in an attempt to keep our hero from getting his hands on the Chaos Emerald. It looks like he's having difficulty even controlling some of the vehicles, moving about erratically as he struggles with his controls. He's a cute character.

However, these special stages aren't any better than those seen in Sonic Chaos. While the biplane levels are very easy, the side-scroller levels are difficult to a point of absurdity. We only have one chance to make it through and defeat Nack. The final special stage is ridiculous. Make one wrong move while navigating through a lengthy gauntlet there and you could fall into an abyss. Very frustrating. There's a distinction here between falling while spinning and falling while not spinning. When you're spinning, you can break through a breakable floor and fall into the vast abyss below.

Visually, this game is perhaps the most impressive of the Sonic games on the Game Gear. The levels are all colorful, sporting some great-looking backgrounds (especially in the Great Turquoise Zone). This is about as good as the Game Gear gets with graphical quality. Sound effects are all similar to those in Sonic Chaos. Quality stuff. The music here is a mixed bag. Some of it is okay, but most of the themes here are annoying and don't fit the scene or pace very well. They've got that Sonic quality to them, but they're nowhere near as good as the musical themes in other Sonic games on the Game Gear.

As I noted earlier, this is Sonic's swan song on the Game Gear. We actually see Dr. Robotnik defeated at the end. He doesn't get away this time. Is this a good final chapter of the saga? For the most part I'd say it is. However, the prevalent hazards and extreme difficulty of the special stages bring the fun factor down. While there are some improvements here and some fun zones to play through, this is my least favorite of Sonic's classic Game Gear outings.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/24/05, Updated 08/18/11

Game Release: Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble (US, 1994)