Sonic CD

Amon

Staff member
2007-05-07 to 2007-05-13; Sega CD / Mega CD

Sonic comes to life and goes up against such foes as Metal Sonic, the evil hedgehog created by Dr. Robotnik. Sonic must collect all the Time Stones from The Little Planet before Dr. Robotnik can bend time and take over the world. Through more than 50 levels, Sonic can travel through time and explore the past, the present, and the future. QSound technology provides for amazing sound along with great graphics and an opening "mini-cartoon."
 

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The grahpics, music, and big characters are great. But for some reason, the stages feel a little short/small in scale to me. It adds a bit of replay value though to try to make the good future in every level.
 
Personally I dont consider them a little short because of the different times which change the levels considerably. I do enjoy the game and it has a sonic the hedgehog 1 feel to the graphics but improved. I love the running sprite. I wish it was used more in sonic games. I have not finished the game with a good ending yet, only bad ending but I am working on finishing it with the good ending. The bonus stage is a bit strange, running after UFO's in mode 7? but it is one of the few things I missed in the newer sonic games... bonus/mini stages to collect the chaos emeralds
 
My single favorite Sonic game of all time.

Great soundtrack (both US and Jap... though personally I like the bleaker US version over the poppy Jap one, I mean come on, that 80s rappish style intro music made me want to vomit).

Great sprite graphics: the figure eight running animation, the cool jump animations, the mass detail of a lot of things in the game... ESPECIALLY mecha-sonic. the single greatest version of mecha sonic to date.

Robotnik and his ship actually look evil, not cartoony.

This game was the actual reason I bought a Sega CD. Lunar, Earthworm Jim SE, Eternal Champions, Snatcher, and many others were just bonus material.

Seriousily, in middle school I carried this game with me to listen to on my walkman. I still have it ripped today and on my iPod for listening enjoyment in my car and at the office.
 
i bought sonic cd when it came out for the sega cd and wasn't really impressed with it... many people have said they liked the japanese soundtrack, because it was apparently different than the american one - I don't know... but the game itself, to me, seemed generic, and the sound effects (not music/soundtrack) were unimpressing..

I know I'm probably the blacksheep on this issue, but I enjoyed sonic 1 and 2 much better.
 
I didn't play it but liked the style of the game, I'd like to play it one day. The design of the game is really good, a bit different from the other Sonic, it's more "futurist".
 
I grew up on this game; we bought the PC version when I was 6 or 7 years old and I would beg my dad over and over to let me play it on his (gasp!) Pentium laptop.

I personally regard it as the greatest Sonic game of all time, right along with Sonic 3 & Knuckles (I love 1 and 2 as well, but not as much). The game isn't so much short as it is very fast. You can get through it in 10-30 minutes depending on how good you are.

I've also got the soundtrack on my iPod; one of my top 5 favorite game soundtracks of all time. And the graphics are mind-blowing from an artistic standpoint. Screenshots don't even begin to do this game justice...you have to see it in action to appreciate it.
 
vnvx said:
I grew up on this game; we bought the PC version when I was 6 or 7 years old and I would beg my dad over and over to let me play it on his (gasp!) Pentium laptop.

I personally regard it as the greatest Sonic game of all time, right along with Sonic 3 & Knuckles (I love 1 and 2 as well, but not as much). The game isn't so much short as it is very fast. You can get through it in 10-30 minutes depending on how good you are.

I've also got the soundtrack on my iPod; one of my top 5 favorite game soundtracks of all time. And the graphics are mind-blowing from an artistic standpoint. Screenshots don't even begin to do this game justice...you have to see it in action to appreciate it.

By coincidence, I've only ever played this on the segacd a couple of times, however I played the hell out of it on our old pentium 90 laptop lol. It used to lag, and I never had a gamepad or joystick for the laptop, so I like to brag that I beat sonic cd on a lagging computer with a tiny screen and no controller lol.
 
probably one of my least favourite sonic games.

it's very "Sonic 1 on steroids" imo.

i do like it, but it could have been so much better i think.

in comparison to sonic 3 or even sonic 2

i don't see alot in sonic cd.

far enough to say that sonic cd was released before sonic 3 but i can't help but dream of what it would have been like if it was developed & released AFTER.
 
Never played this at the time, purely because the Mega CD was so expensive and I knew the 32X was coming (and then Saturn was coming anyway...). Have it now; and it's a good game. Definitely a professional Sonic game, but it doesn't have the polish of Sonic 2 or 3.

Somehow, the game feels complicated and doesn't seem to make much sense, yet Sonic 2 and 3 seem to flow and have a comprehensive story to them. Though this could just be because I was obsessed with Sonic back in '93.
 
Sonic CD,where to start ? ... ok i played all of the sonic games as they were released,i was an early adopter of the megacd and prior to that i enjoyed both sonic 1 and sonic 2 HOWEVER sonic 2 for me was one step forward and two steps back,don't get me wrong,i think sonic 2 was amazing but it didn't do it for me the same as sonic 1 and for that i didn't play the game as much as i played sonic 1,also by this time sonic was feeling a little bit on the cheap side,too easy and lacking in details and content,this is just what i felt about the game and you have to remember that back then most of us had not only sega machines but also nintendo and sonic 2 was not hitting the same kind of vibe as say super mario bros 3 and especially and more importantly,it wasn't hitting the high note of the likes of super mario world,a game that you can sink your teeth into with battery backup and lots of levels,secrets twists n turns,and to me for a sonic game,sonic 2 should have been "more".

Now,we move on to the release of the megacd/segacd - i like most who could actually afford one back then were falling in love with it's cd audio and to some extent it's great fmv,games like road avenger and cobra command astounded me and actually still do !
we really need to think back on the mindset of the player back then,Sonic CD was NOT just sonic with cd quality music and a cute intro,it was SONIC and he was one bad ass character,ultra cool,ultra fast and apparently capable of time travel !

Back then,that intro was amazing,it really truly was amazing and it still is to me today,also the music (pal/jap) man .. that music was lightyears ahead of anything else i could play as a video game,it's futuristic techno qualities,i loved near all of it and yes i also loved the intro outro music ALOT ! but what made this game stand out for me was that instead of a normal game with no save functions,we got to play a sonic game where every single level mattered,we had to use the time traveling abilities to go back and forth in time and what amazed me was that you could actually change the the future levels if you played the game correctly,this feature meant that i played through sonic cd a number of times before i actually figured out the correct way to get through the acts and complete it properly and unlock the "good ending" THIS right there was the main reason i loved Sonic CD,every other aspect like the amazing intro outro and special ending,the amazing dreamy inspiring hip with the times "very 90's" music and the solid look of the game not to mention the cool bonus stages were all just a big massive bonus.

The game did fail in a few aspects and they were evident very early on,the framerate of the pal game was shoddy at best,badly unoptimised and also suffered on top of that with framerate dropping in places however it was forgiven due to the nature of how we were supposed to play this game,for this time it wasn't just hold right on the d pad and press the jump button,sonic team were able to get us exploring while also keeping the pace fast,but also that the framerate issue was not always a problem,most levels were fine.Another issue was the fact that up till then,no one got the chance to see sega do proper mode 7 graphics,with sonic cd's bonus level,it was very good looking but it generally lacked interest and was not very difficult or big,a bit of a disappointment in a way but it was also still highly enjoyable.

I enjoyed Sonic CD a great deal,it's my fondest memory of the megacd along with road avenger cobra command and solfeace,After this,i found it a very difficult task for sega sonic team to better sonic cd,i loved sonic 3,i felt that sonic 3 was near on par with Sonic CD and in some ways surpasses it,then i got sonic & Knuckles and got to enjoy sonic 3 all over again in true style !!!!! i loved it,i still love that combination and think that sonic 3 actually in hindsight has a better even more bad ass style than sonic cd,i like how sonic is a bit beefy in sonic 3 and looks like he's ready to kick ass,there are soo many things going right for sonic 3 but i think that it was honestly too short to really be better than sonic cd back then,however with knuckles included i would say that the complete experience can be had and it's prolly the best 2d sonic there is,it's still close to sonic cd and that alone says alot for sonic cd,it certainly did it's job well !

One last thing about the music differences,i never knew about these till much later on with emulators and roms/isos and i personally HATE with a passion the usa music and the muted intro,it's drab uninspired hacked together sounding,all sounding too much the same and really just does not do it for me,i am soo thankful that the pal version was the same as the japan one,now with that in mind i will say that there are a few usa tracks that i actually do love,they have a dark techno vibe to them,an almost future feel and sound but they honestly sound half arsed,like they got the sound they wanted or should i say copied and just looooop the shit out of it,the original japan musaic is astounding and varied and very very clever !


Sonic CD was a great game,it can still be enjoyed today on segacd and megacd,i prefer the usa iso with the pal/jap music and accept that the vocals are muted in the intro outro for the usa iso,the pal 50hz just kills the experience for me today so i prefer the usa iso,it's a great game and it's made much better on android and steam with the new updated version sega released,a wonderful game with depth and replay value,much like sonic 3 and knuckles combined !
 
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