Written by: Ian

 

 

 

As one of the few Mega CD games deemed worth buying at the time, is this XBLA update worth your points?

 

 

The story in "Sonic CD" is not really any different to any other game in the series- stop Eggman/ Robotnik, save some animals, collect Chaos Emeralds, etc, etc.

 

The one interesting mechanic is that time travel was introduced, allowing you to play in past, present and future versions of the stage.

 

The most interesting thing is that if you clear the bad past, you can then see a different future to the default, where the level is covered in flowers rather than grime and evil robots- and doing this throughout also gets you a better ending to the game.

 

 

Sonic CD didn’t bring anything new to proceedings; in fact, if anything, it took elements away. Tails wasn’t in the original version, and there was no sign of Knuckles either. Amy was introduced to players in this game, but has no purpose or effect on gameplay.

 

 

The Mode-7 style gameplay in the main levels is just a gimmick, although the bonus stages do benefit from it, with the Mario Kart/ F-Zero style of gameplay breaking things up somewhat. Time travel is a little more interesting though, as scattered through the stages are various different signs- run past one fast enough and you get whisked away to the corresponding period, and you could travel multiple times per level.

 

This certainly adds some replayability, which is good, because the developers didn’t use the CD space to create a longer game- one of the achievements is even for completing the whole game in under 25 minutes, although most players will need 1-2 hours on a first run-through.

 

 

However, with the replayability, secret stages, and low price point, Sonic CD still represents pretty good value, if for no other reason than it being a novelty (and the port quality being higher than the other Sonic games of the era).