sonic cd - 9/10
an acquired taste, but once you acquire it, you want to stop at nothing to hoard it
currently playing: masafumi ogata - tidal tempest past (sonic cd jp)
please note: this is a game i have reviewed multiple times! the prior versions of this review will be included below. enjoy!
god DAMN. three replays in the span of a few hours because... holy fuck. this game clicked soooo hard with me this time. the vertical design is really singing to my undying love of the momentum flinging action that brings me so much joy; there is something so wonderful in this game in particular in doing a super peel-out, rolling down a slope and then catapulting yourself up and over. and the exploration is so awarding, whether you're going for the robot generators and metal sonic holograms, or just going around for some rings to get the time stones - and, on that, cd's special stages are growing in my estimations soooo much. i'll handily say right now that they're above the sonic 2 halfpipe and they're slowly edging out the sonic 1 special stages. they're such a fun little thing and they look so pretty! the backgrounds are astounding! that's just true of the whole game; this shit looks fucking insane. it's such an intensely pretty game, and it's so varied, too; the past, present and futures of each stage are all such treats for the eyes and speak the story of the game through such wonderful illustration; the past being primal, the present starting to rear the ugly head of eggman's contraptions, until the bad future befalls the world and it's infested, burnt, mechanised, a true dystopian hellscape, or the good future, seeing a brightly-colored utopia full of life and vibrancy. the visuals are perfectly complimented by the amazing, truly fucking otherwordly score. not a single skip in this lot; i have the whole-ass soundtrack ready to go at all times. the JP soundtrack that is; there's some good in the US soundtrack, but... god, fucking nothing beats that original soundtrack. it's so good, infused with funk and life in the prosperous times with a gradual shift towards synths and tech sounds as the eggman empire lays siege. it's wonderful.
i have really learned to love this game. it fires on all cylinders all the time for me. the only real complaints i have are iffy hit detection with crushers sometimes being a real pain in the dick, and some levels do get a bit winding, even if i do enjoy it usually. otherwise... god, what an amazing game.
if you don't like sonic cd, you should try... AGAIN!
WOW. thats crazy what Actually Learning The Game can do!
similarly to the experience that i had with sonic 1, i replayed this game through origins ultrafix. whereas that game, i was in such shock and engaged whimsy with the game itself to where i first mastered the game, playing it thrice and doing all the missions before posting my review, i have to share thoughts after only a first re-playthrough this time because HOLY SHIT.
i never thought id see myself liking this game to any great degree, rather having this sort of begrudging appreciation of it, everything it contributed towards the aestheticism that made sonic so cool, and that being that. well, im happy to say that thanks in no small part to my enjoyment of sonic 1, i have very much enjoyed this go around of cd, this time!
i think that the issue with cd that i had prior was that it was an evolution of the "rest" of sonic 1, the parts that hold contention for being slower paced on average playthroughs. a lot of emphasis is placed on the exploration in this game, to such a degree that its even a mechanic towards getting the best ending in the game this time around - a feat that i did not accomplish in this playthrough, mind; i will be revisiting this game to get all the time stones at some time, and preferably id like to get the generators and metal sonic holograms too! and i am raring to go, happy to say that!
ive finally gained an appreciation for the vertical, sprawling levels that make little planet feel like such a gargantuan playground for fun and experimentation with momentum, flinging yourself to and fro, exploring these vast landscapes. damn beautiful landscapes, too! i actively found myself going "wow" at multiple backgrounds in this game this time, it looks sooooo good. super wonderful! being rewarded in spades with rings and monitors and the like is already great, but getting to see more of the beautiful spritework is a reward in of itself.
and need i even speak on the godly soundtrack this game has? i found myself attached, in this playthrough, to bad future collision chaos, past quartz quadrant, and i hadnt really listened to cosmic eternity prior, but holy shit that song goes harddd! do yourself a favor and listen to the soundtrack at the very least.
wow! im really excited about this game, man! that shit ruled! its so fun, the dichotomy between the ability to explore and to go fast! and hell, im looking forward to a future where i can come back to this game and merge the two - i wanna replay the shit out of this and get faster and faster and be able to get the time stones and have fun with that shit! and what ive already done was wonderful.
the docked point from sonic 1 is just by virtue of it sometimes being a little too sprawling? particularly wacky workbench with the bouncing floors could be a bit of a headache, and theres one section of i believe metallic madness act 2 or something where youre tiny and theres this little maze of conveyer belts you have to navigate - but then again i am stupid. outside of those little grievances though, still a stellar time all around. wonderful.
a game that is unfortunately plagued by the diversion in level design philosophy from just about every other game in the series. the concepts on display here are incredible; sonic losing, being slower than robotnik and having to desperately fight through time in an attempt to stop a plan already in motion where, if he fucks up, robotnik has already won, and continues to oppress and fuck things up far into the future? that is so extremely cool, only complimented further by the soundtracks enhancing such a concept; the bad future soundtracks feature messaging to tell the prospective citizens of the time that there is no help, there is no savior, there is no sonic and things are going robotnik's way, whilst the good future music reflects the opposite - and that's just to give one example of the dichotomy of songs in this game. the soundtrack is so fucking good that stardust speedway is recognizable to people who aren't even sonic fans, perhaps on par with green hill's theme when you hear it.
but the level design is nothing short of migraine-inducing.
i can understand that the design philosophy would theoretically shift from a horizontal focus to a vertical focus as some way to differentiate itself from sonic 1. i cannot understand how they made it through testing and decided to stay on that.
levels are frequently in one of two camps; either over in less than a minute, or i am still blindly wandering around after about 7 minutes just wishing the stage was fucking over already. and the remainder are fun enough, i suppose, but nothing really incredible like the offerings of the prime sonic 2 cuts, nor sonic 1 and especially not sonic 3. it almost feels rushed. genuinely at odds with what i consider as well-designed with these games to an almost comical degree.
due to its concepts, i wish i could love this game. artistically and musically, i do. but due to its execution, i cannot say that i care for it all that much. i will continue to say that the intro showcases the best personality sonic has had up to this point in the games, and that the soundtrack (either version but let's be real jp is better) is absolutely slamming, but the game?... eh, it's not really bad, not really good. just kind of disappointing.
