Sonic CD (Sega CD) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of Sega's 1993 platformer for the Sega CD, Sonic the Hedgehog CD.

This video shows the good ending.

Sonic celebrates his twenty-ninth birthday today, and I thought it would be fun to help him celebrate with a playthrough of a game that was released during the height of his popularity. We all know the story of the Sonic franchise... he's basically the Olsen twins of the video game world, so let's not embarrass him by rehashing his many missteps on his special day.

Sonic CD was a huge release back in 1993. Sonic 1 and 2 were selling Genesis systems by the million, the 2D platformer was one of the hottest genres in gaming, and Sega had recently released the eagerly anticipated, premium priced CD add-on for the 16-bit console. It seemed only natural that Sega would push try to the sales of the Sega CD system with their young mascot, and it was a huge success. Despite the game requiring over $400 worth of Sega hardware to play, it ended up selling about 1.5 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling game released on the platform.

And that success was no fluke. It wasn't blind, slavish devotion to the exploitation of an anthropomorphic hedgehog that propelled Sonic CD to such heights. It was the insight and talent of the development team that led the game to be such a success. Sonic 2 had somehow recaptured the magic of the original game while making some significant improvements, and Sonic CD somehow managed a similar feat.

(Enjoy it while it lasts, buddy, because history says you don't have many moments like this left to look forward to!)

Rather than taking the safe route and rehashing Sonic 2 (which was apparently their original intention, and probably still would've sold well), Sonic CD reworks a lot of the series' basics.

The biggest change is the introduction of time travel. Each of the seven zones is comprised of three acts, and these acts are further split by having versions that take place in the past, present, and future. The goal is to create a "good future" for the area, so Sonic can jump into the past to destroy the machines producing the monsters, thus cleaning up the baddies in later periods. Providing he can find a signpost and enough speed to trigger the warp, Sonic can freely travel between eras, giving every stage a ton of replayability thanks to the possibilities it provides.

Superficially, I know that sounds a lot like Back to the Future Part II & III on the NES, but fear not. Sega knew what they were doing here.

If you don't like the time-traveling mechanic, though, you can choose to ignore it. You'd miss out on a huge amount of content, but the 3D special stages provide an alterate route to the good ending. Collecting all seven time stones from these areas will automatically grant you a good future for every zone, allowing you to approach the game however you'd like, sans end-game penalty.

The level design has been revamped - though plenty of opportunities for speed remain, Sonic CD's stages are far more complex, carefully paced affairs. Each massive board has a crazy number of potential paths to be explored, and there are plenty of unique moments and setpieces spread throughout. It would take dozens of playthroughs to really see everything that there is to see. It's much easier than Sonic 1 and 2 were, but the sheer amount of content more than makes up for the difference.

Somehow even more impressive is the graphics and sound. This is a fair step up from what we saw on the Genesis, for sure. Every stage has a different aesthetic for each time period, and there are a ton of assets unique to each, making it a lot of fun to thoroughly explore it all just to see what's been changed in each time. The colors are much brighter this time around and the animation has been amped up, making everything feel much more vibrant and active than the older games. It's amazing what virtually unlimited storage could do for such old school game design when it's taken advantage of, isn't it?

The soundtrack is a real winner too, no matter which version you're playing. The US, European, and Japanese releases all have differences, and I really liked them all for their distinct 90s sound and overall funkiness. The intro and ending deserve their dues, too. As humble as the Sega CD's FMV capabilities were, those clips looked great, just as you might expect given that Sega hired Toei to do the animation. Sonic Boom! The game also marks the introduction of Amy Rose and Metal Sonic, if you happen to be a fan.

Sega really was on fire in the early 1990s. In their console prime, it seemed as if they could no wrong, and Sonic CD is an incredible reminder of those days.

Numbered as they were.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!