Sonic Side Stories – Classic Era

We got the big ones everyone!

The Game Gear Classic’s Blast & Labyrinth are up next for the retrospective and……they aren’t that horrid.

Okay, they are bad games…..well, only Blast really is. But they are worse things with Sonic’s name on it. *Cough* Chronicles and Sonic 06 *Cough*

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Lets go into the Labyrinth!

Sonic Labyrinth tells the grand tale of a lost story where our Blue Blur…..was slow?! Yes, Sonic lost his great super speed thanks to a lovely pair of Slow Down Shoes thanks to Robotnik and he has to collect Chaos Emeralds to restore his speed and stop Robotnik by beating his great labyrinth. Now one must ask, why not take the shoes off? Well, he cannot, as they weigh him down and prevent him from running. But he can still use his super spindash. Using this, he spins into the Labyrinth!

Firstly, like the move on Sega’s part for explaining why Sonic is slow. Makes more sense then…….this:

It also gives us a decent enough reason to spin our way into this adventure.

Sonic has a slow walking speed he can rev-up into a spin dash and controls like a pinball. He bounces all over the place and can make some great trick shots to fly though the stages faster.

You can charge it up to four levels, with the highest sending you flying. I like this set up, as Sonic controls well walking or rolling around. While I liked how3D Blast played, having a more controllable option for my movement via Sonic moving slow (walking) and fast (rolling) helps a lot to make things fun.

You’re goal is to collect three keys before entering a goal doorway and you do this for every level in the game. You can also collect power ups to make you invincible, increase your walking speed or even pulling a key toward you!

The game has some boss fights but they are simple. You roll down a half-pipe and collect rings before heading to the boss. Once you beat them, you get a chaos emerald!

The game is sadly short (12 levels, 4 boss fights) but is it a fun ride :)? Note how I am being quite kind to the game? Its due to it being okay.

Its not horrid, bad or great. Its just ‘good’, with it being a fun little puzzle adventure for Sonic.

The soundtrack is solid too:
Level 1 Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfvz…QRppfr&index=4
Level 2 Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXFS…QRppfr&index=6
Level 3 Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TipH…QRppfr&index=8
Before the Boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTwI…Rppfr&index=12
Boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfAQ…Rppfr&index=14
Final Boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI0A…Rppfr&index=15

Its not amazing, but its perfectly enjoyable.

I had a nice time playing this and was surprised with how enjoyable the game ended up being to me. Far, FAR from it being next to Sonic 06, Shadow or Chronicles for me. I recommend you give it a shot on your 3DS if you have the time! Worse ways to kill a half hour.

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Blast from the Past

Boy……where do I START with this one?

Um, Sonic Blast released not long after the launch of 3D Blast. So, Sega thought “Lets make a Sonic 3D Blast like game for the Game Gear! It’s more then powerful enough to ru-”

“Oh my……lets just toss this out to the masses.”
“But sir! This looks horr-”
“PUT IT OUT NOW!”

*Cough* And thus, Sonic Blast, the treasured gem of a game, was graced amongst us mere mortals. Let its amazing pre-rendered visuals, short length and amazing level design shine us through the battle against the lone Boy of Games.

……I’m sorry! That was too much fun to write.

Okay, Sonic Blast is a 2D action platformer like past Sonic games before but it went all Donkey Kong Country on us! Pre-Rendered sprites and more realistic visual style replace the iconic classic era style and its……really ugly :(. Unlike the DKC games which aged quite well or even 3D Blast which looks fine today (heck, they did a great job with the Saturn version of it!).

So, with the fuggy visuals, is there a good game here?

Guess not, huh?

The game has two playable characters, Sonic (who can double jump) and our boy Knuckles (who can climb up walls….and chuckles from the fact he is in this mess). The level design tries to be interesting but the art style the game uses restricts what it can do.

Remember my Sonic 1/2 GG and Sonic & Tails threads, with me talking about the level design in a great light? That isn’t carried over here, likely due to the horrid art direction using too much memory from the Game Gear.

This comes to a head with THIS zone.

Blue Marine Zone…..one of the worst underwater Sonic stages in history. Air currents pushing you all over the place, Sonic/Knuckles controlling like tanks and the horrid physics not working well.

The games physics are quite bad to begin with, due to everyone moving like rocks but its even worse here. I got stuck for a good five minutes in a loop from the currents…..in Act 1. And you know what? The zones tend to last only 30 seconds or so. So that fact that I got so stuck is a problem.

The rest of the game is just ‘meh’ honestly but the visual style and horrid controls really cement it as a bad Sonic. The classic era isn’t perfect and this game is a clear example of this.

Lets move on to the soundtrack, one area where this game does some things right.

Green Hill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxV5…yK0X4C&index=4
Yellow Desert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZmu…yK0X4C&index=5
Silver Castle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Dc…qUI9p5Y0yK0X4C
Red Volcano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDDS…qUI9p5Y0yK0X4C
Blue Marine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97JB…qUI9p5Y0yK0X4C

You got that right, only five zones and they have such creative zone names. I do enjoy this version of Green Hill Zone at the very least. Nice beat and melody.

Is this a bad game? Yes. Is it a horrid waste of your time? YES! Should you play it? It depends :l. This is the worst Classic Era game, so if you want to see the worse of this era of Sonic (The Golden Age for the series in many respects), then why not. Its on the 3DS E-Shop (for…..some reason).

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Both of these have issues but I can easily recommend Labyrinth over Blast in a heart beat. The stronger game and one that has a bad rap.