When Sonic Origins was announced during the Hedgehog’s 30th Anniversary in 2021, responses were mixed. Did we really need another Sonic Collection? And “Origins”, that name been used by almost every major videogame series to date!
But the appearance of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, long absent from any re-releases, compilations and even the Mega Drive Mini, made this collection one to watch or at least be curious about.
Despite some spurious antics that prompted many angry responses (including my own damning of digital practices), as news slowly trickled through leading up to the games release, the more tantalising the prospect became.
And now it’s out… today in fact at the time of writing. So how does it measure up?
Let’s get the obvious out of the way. The four games included are the original Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2, Sonic CD and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. The two separate releases that make up Sonic 3 & Knuckles are not available to play on their own, but that isn’t the only concession as we will see later.
All the games are classics, which is a given when discussing overall gameplay and design. They play almost as well as the original 16-bit versions.
I said almost. Having played through both Sonic Jam on the Saturn and the original Mega Drive and CD versions in the last year, they are fresh in my memory, not to mention there is 31 years of muscle memory ingrained in someone that has played at least one of the games at least once a year. For me there are times where these games feel different. It’s rare, I’d say 90% of the time they’re as good as the originals, but very occasionally there feels like an extra few milliseconds of input lag or other strange behaviour.
This goes double for the Special Stages. The Mega Drive could not perform sprite scaling or rotation, so the Special Stages utilised certain tricks to give that illusion. What Origins does is update all of those stages with proper 3D and rotating features, updating at 60fps. This gives a brilliantly fluid sense of motion, but the stages feel different as a result.
That muscle memory from 30 years of playing in the jerkily rotating Sonic 1 Special Stage for example was useless as I failed three out of the first four stages.
Luckily I was playing in Anniversary Mode and those failures didn’t affect me as much as they may have.
Anniversary Mode is one of the two primary ways to play these classic games. It uses the Retro Engine from the 2011 Sonic CD port and the mobile ports of Sonic 1 and 2. The games all look great in widescreen and the small changes to fit the new format feel natural.
Anniversary mode does away with the standard Lives and Continues mechanic from the originals, instead giving you infinite lives to progress through the four games. It may seem like “easy mode” but when the four games have hardly presented the firmest challenge in the first place, I feel like it’s a moot point.
Instead of Lives, you have Coins, which you don’t lose upon death. Instead these are used to cash in for collectables and such. And one great feature is that they let you instantly retry a Special Stage when you fail, which is the crutch I used when I failed the initial ones in Sonic the Hedgehog 1.
The other mode is Classic Mode, which restores the rules of the original games and a 4:3 bordered image and… that’s it? The spin dash in Sonic 1, the Retro Engine Special States and all the other accoutrements are all present, so this is far from a “pure” classic experience. It all feels pointless really, why not present it in widescreen or accurately replicate the original experiences from the 16-bit games?
Since you don’t earn coins or anything specific from the classic modes, there really feels like no need for them. From what I can see there aren’t even any achievements or trophies tied to them, so their existence isn’t justified in their current forms, they feel like a weird anomaly, or a minimal effort checkbox exercise.
I suppose if you don’t own any of the classic Sonic games, it can be useful to experience how the rules originally worked. But as to replicating the original experience, it falls short.
And that applies double for Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Originally two separate releases but ultimately two parts of one game, combining the two is almost the completion of the original vision. However, both games saw changes when they were combined, especially Sonic the Hedgehog 3, omitting a boss, changing level layouts and music. Compared to fan mods like Sonic 3 AIR or Sonic 3 Complete, this feels like a missed opportunity content wise, since at present there is no way to access that content here.
Unfortunately some content can never be restored, and that applies to the music. With the original soundtrack for Sonic 3 having had contributions from Michael Jackson, several tracks have been impacted by the legal wranglings following the King of Pops’ death.
In its place are tracks from the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 beta, that have been rearranged by Jun Senoue, and they are something of a mixed bag. The Beta’s music is hit or miss, Launch Base is okay for example, while Carnival Night sounds horrendous. I personally adore the Ice Cap music from the beta, but not as the sound the to the iconic Sonic 3 zone. The original releases Ice Cap music is cold and menacing and fits the ambience of the zone perfectly, and while the Beta version is beautiful in its own right, it feels like something that would be much more at home in Ristar.
Things get more curious when Jun’s rearrangement of the Beta tracks often sound worse than the beta. It’s disappointing for certain, but for newcomers to the series without knowledge of the original tracks, it’s acceptable I suppose.
Beyond the two main modes there are challenges which feature remixed zones and a Mirror Mode that lets you play the games in the opposite direction. Boss Rush rounds it all off, with leader boards for that and all other modes available if you’re competitively minded, those brought up on GameMaster challenges on Sonic 2.
There's also a bunch of extra options, many hidden, that allows you to modify the game in various ways. These are very welcome, and having Sonic 3 shields in Sonic 2 or turning off the speed limiter in Sonic 1 for example is tremendous fun!
Origins is far more than just the core games though. Playing Anniversary Mode and earning coins helps unlock music, videos and art work of which there is an absolute abundance of. Its all absolutely wonderful stuff, a true Sonic gallery and Museum. It’s here where the impetus to play and replay the games and the many challenges comes into focus. I already want to unlock them all!
Overall, it’s a great package. The animated cutscenes are a beautiful bit of additional narrative framing for the games, especially in lieu of the manuals that we would use to tell us that Dr Robotnik has been kidnapping Sonic’s animal friends.
That said, it isn’t the definitive collection of Sonic games. These aren’t the definitive versions, in fact being far removed from that. The best collection in my mind is still Sonic Jam on the Sega Saturn, where the games were built from the ground up like Origins, but unlike Origins all games are feature complete, including the Sonic & Knuckles lock-on technology. Though Origins does have Sonic CD which is something Jam doesn't, its frustrating that it's also missing Spinball, despite the Veg-O-Fortress being present on the menu.
If you’re looking for the ultimate version of these games, sadly this isn’t it, and it won’t be until we see legal issues resolved and substantial updates made, or modders ransform the PC version.
But what this is, is a wondeful celebration of these the original Sonic series, a chance for old players to play them a new way, find new challenges and unlock tonnes of Sonic themed treasures. It’s a way for younger gamers to become acquainted with the original games in a modern package. If you approach Sonic Origins with those eyes, it’s an essential addition to the Sonic franchise.
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