Game Apologist - Sonic the Hedgehog 2

hello there I'm Nick and this is the game apologist where we look for the good in bad games and Sonic 2 isn't a bad game thanks for watching be sure to LIKE and subscribe share this with all your friends and family even though they probably don't give a rat's [ __ ] patoot about video games or any of your hobbies you little weirdo why am I even doing this episode it's Sonic 2 doesn't need me to come to a stuff end this was released only a year after the original game Sonic 2 propelled the Hedgehog to peak popularity that brief moment in time when Sega was outselling the untouchable unstoppable Nintendo now this moment in game history may have come and gone as quickly as the Hedgehog himself but it's an important moment all the same it was here that Sonic would forever cement himself in gaming history regardless of how bad things would get down the line Sonic became more than a video game he became a full-on entertainment icon the legendary Archie comic run began around this time as well as the cult classic Saturday morning series and that other one the first game was the turning point for Sega but with Sonic 2 the world truly fell in love with the Hedgehog no I don't care if people are starting to second-guess its quality I've already rambled on about this crap for a half-hour in the first Sonic video we really don't need another video stroking the spiky ego of this game it's good Who am I kidding I love talking about this crap and I sure as hell have plenty to talk about when it comes to this radical pincushion besides I said we'd be looking at every single Sonic game and this is next on the list now normally I like to tackle all the negatives in the game before getting to all the positives but I'll be honest with you guys there's really not a lot of bad here game isn't perfect not saying that at all but these are more nitpick than anything else so we're just going to sprinkle them in as we go along if you're jumping in fresh how you doing welcome thanks for coming by but if you have some time to spare check out the first Sonic video because I'll be referencing that every now and then like right now for instance why is this game so much more beloved than its predecessor what's different in Sonic 2 when compared to Sonic 1 well right off the bat the Spin Dash probably the most important addition this game has to offer the gameplay of the series which is pretty impressive considering all the other stuff we're going to get into later the Spin Dash alone makes this game superior to the original having trouble getting momentum just make your own awesome now you could argue that this takes something away from the challenge of building momentum and the reward that comes with it and all above whatever the spin - is incredibly satisfying this game wants to keep you moving quick and you can tell that not just with the spin - but also with the level design where the first game still had a lot of trappings of traditional platformers the sequel sheds all of the fat just comparing the first zone of this game to the first zone of the previous title you can see it's very much the same well aesthetically anyway which is complained you'll hear more and more often these days among Sonic fans that beam we dig too many trips to Green Hill or Green Hill like levels in the Sonic games well they do that for a couple of reasons first its establishing an iconic theme Sonic's known for his checkered dirt and spiky vegetation comparing emerald hill to green hill you could mistake the two yet how many times do you have to run through generic Mushroom Kingdom all - Mario what's this Castlevania is set in another castle Samus is still running around in caves Kirby's still on Dream Land what is this crap the Green Hill aesthetic is a tradition for these games it's colorful it's inviting it's a good way to kick your game off just deal with it you're going to be fine and in the case of the sequel keeping the similar design helps the differences between emerald hill and green hills stand out that much more compared to the first game you may notice just how much faster sonic feels into or at least how much quicker you're rolling through these levels that's partially due to the fact that there are not only two acts to run through instead of three and there's a lot less to explore at least vertically and while we're still an emerald hill let's tackle another common complaint does it fall in line with that common conception that sonic games have great four zones and little else afterwards peach please think of Sonic 1 as a playground first games start you off in this fantastic jungle gym but as you proceed all you're left with are crappy old swing teeter-totters and maybe a tractor tire and yeah they can be fun on their own but who cares when you have that ball or jungle gym but where Sonic 1 is a playground all of Sonic 2 is an amusement park each zone its own unique colorful rollercoaster in fact I'd go so far as to say that emerald hill is actually one of the weaker stages when compared to the rest of the game they've clearly learned from their mistakes from Sonic 1 and it extended the fun past the first level instead of the slow plodding pace of the original game second stage marble zone we instead get Sonic two's chemical plant where they amp up the speed even further there are a couple of spots where you can run right into an enemy punch into a pink watery death and newcomers will have a stressful time with that infamous rising water section but you are playing a video game and it will require you to face some challenges none of this is terribly designed the third stage aquatic ruin seems to be the answer to the watery mess of labyrinth zone from the first game you stop the trudge through water if you take the lower path but if you play well enough you'll never even see the stuff plus it's just much prettier by now if the game wasn't clearing its intention to improve every single aspect from the original game along comes the fourth level casino night zone a massive step up from spring yard zone at this point in the first game that being the fourth zone the difficulty spikes in the speed takes a literal dive as you water board the spike box but by the time you reach that same point in the sequel they've already gotten their water hazards out of the way for the rest of the game now it's time to play around there's a lot more to see explore and do mixing in pinball elements with Las Vegas slots your crippling gambling addiction yeah there is one single enemy type and it shows up only a handful of times the most dangerous portion of this zone is potentially being crushed by a platform if you're not paying attention or more likely just running out of time unlike just about every other level on this game there's a lot to explore here I would constantly get distracted by the pinball tables or slot machines this level is to me the standout of the entire game and it's no wonder this thing would be a constant through the rest of the series now we're not going to compare every single zone to the first game selection that's not the point of the series I just wanted to point out the sequels attempts to fix the problems of the first games level designs without completely abandoning concepts established by the first outing the next handful of stages in Sonic 2 are great and have plenty of unique features like mystic cave fantastic music or oil oceans oil sauna 2 also keeps a much more consistent difficulty through the entire adventure again each zone has its own hazards and designs to work around but nothing to demand honestly once you get the hang of chemical plant an aquatic ruin the game just kind of plateaus and challenge but it keeps it fun and breezy through the latter half of the game well most of the way through it's not until you get to Metropolis zone does this game begin to lose its mind it's like every frustrating idea from the second half of Sonic 1 have been hiding and waiting for you here in this stage don't let that music fool you it's higher energy and it's fun yeah but you're going to be here a while and it gets very annoying because for whatever reason the zone has three acts instead of two and they're huge and it's bullies pain-in-the-ass badniks you're either going to run into the stupid crab with a stupid arm reach or the stupid star you which may or may not activate and throw shrapnel your way or this piece of garbage stupid mantis and is stupid boomerang blade bolts no keep watching but you sit right there I had to go through this you just know I had to do this you're sitting right there look how long this takes this is complete insanity I'm not really sure what the level designers were thinking when they were creating the stage maybe it's made to trick you into thinking this is the last level of the game possibly but honestly miming Brecht isn't really even the challenge it's this game's complete disrespect for my time which is such a jarring shift when compared to the prior zone and it's here where one of the seemingly smaller changes made in solitude actually ends up being a much bigger issue than you might have realized and by bigger I mean that quite literally the sonic sprite is way bigger than it was in the first game I thought he's actually grown another foot or anything like that he's still the same height as he was in the original game the camera if you can call that it's just closer to Sonic which means everything else is closer to sign which means they're limiting your field of vision which means you're more likely to be hit by an off stream minute that's a nasty problem for a game designed as if you through the stages as fast as possible and it's especially bad for a level that demands you to jump blindly up onto a platform even if you know that crappy little robot is up there what are you supposed to do about it maybe you'll get lucky and it's turned away or it misses you but it's clearly put here just to piss you off Plus this area almost requires you to reset it's stupid gimmicks how far back you have to go before that stupid screw comes back down does this ruin the rest of the experience no and honestly the trial and error gameplay is well-regulated thanks to the shields and iconic ring health system and while the enemy placement is annoying rarely will it lead you to your death rings are plentiful and you should be well aware of how that works by this point in the game and the pitfall deaths aren't too frequent this level will actually loop itself a lot of the time instead of just flat-out killing something I've always loved about these games is how they always give you something the entire adventure and that remains true once you leave metropolis but unfortunately the last couple levels have some frustrations in them as well sky chase does what no sonic games should do and forces you to go at the levels pace not your own it's unique certainly and these little turtle bots are just by the best thing that series has ever created but it's awkward and if you die well you don't have any checkpoints up here sorry pal but hey it's not exactly hard and it's over pretty quickly thankfully this is only one act long as is the next stage wing fortress this level I've got some mixed feelings about you're still doing stuff you haven't seen in any other part of the game but it does pull some nonsense that really isn't of the skill like flinging you towards empty pits great super neat thanks this might be the great grandpappy of all the cheap it all des that you'll be finding later 3d Sonic games a staple I'm not very fond of but we'll get to that new time I remember having a lot of problems in the stage just because I didn't know what to do next can I pass under that fire safely we're gonna hell do I go now what's that what is but this is technically the last zone you're gonna have to play through so it's going to give you some grief if nothing else this does feel completely different from every other stage in the game and I remember that certainly felt epic when I was a kid music is a little cheesy but it does a good job telling you that you're near the end of your journey and then we come to the final zone the death egg zone and the last two fights of the game and no rings alright so if you don't know what you're doing these fights are going to stress the everliving hell out of you I remember my first time here as a kid that creepy music track that corridor that spits you immediately into a boss fight this is silver song now I love dark mirror villains those are basically just evil copies of a hero character I know it's an overused trope in fiction but I don't care I've always loved it so I have an asana crobat left me with some mixed emotions one of them being holy crap this is a sonic robot and that's awesome and the other being holy crap I'm going to die and you probably will but even if you get past this guy you sought to deal with Robotnik and it's crazy imposing Meg this final fight gave me all kinds of Hell as a kid I could never get that timing down to hit them without getting insta-kill by those stupid spikey mitts and before long I'd be hitting the game over screen and let me tell you just how much fun it is to be thrown back to the very big the game after you work your way up to this point it's not fun now if you're finding yourself stressed and getting rekt just pause the game and take a break you can't be impatient here if this is your first encounter it's the last boss it's tough as hell once we get the pattern down for these two little bastards things actually get a little easier just take your time get confident in your movement and you'll beat these two in no time now fans are split about this final encounter some feel it's a fair challenge others feel the difficulty spike is just a bit much especially considering the rest of the game is nowhere near this heart it made sense I have no rings in Sonic 1 but here feels pretty inconsistent with the rest of the game but it does give you quite the sense of accomplishment once you conquer Robotnik for the final time and with that you beat the game and depending on how many Chaos Emeralds you got you'll either be mocked again or get a better screen spoilers this screen I'm embarrassed to say if something I did not see until I was an adult because I never had the patience to collect all of the emeralds in this game if you remember in the first game if you collect 50 rings that can make your way to the end without getting hit you can have access to a bonus tape beat all six of these stages and you get these shiny little suckers and the good ending they bring back the bonus stages in Sonic 2 but like the rest of the game they've revamped everything when compared to the first you now have seven emeralds to collect instead of six and instead of collecting the 50 rings and accessing the special stage at the end of the act you now get multiple shots at the gems at the checkpoint if you have enough rings a little halo sparkles will appear above you and you can hop into it you'll be greeted with the iconic halfpipe runway bonus stage completely different from the dream like pinball stuff from Sonic 1 so hmm there are some serious pros and cons to all of it and I'll try to break it down as best as possible see the star post no sir two purposes and in turn this becomes a double-edged sword what do I mean well a problem comes from the placement of the star post on the map every now and then they'll set them up like a normal checkpoint like midway through a level or right before a boss fight which is fine for a checkpoint and sometimes they put them on these speed ways so you can zip right through them which is fine for a checkpoint but because there are times it ain't just zip see right through them that means you have no chance of getting into a special stage and because these are also interested for the special stage these star posts will show up in weird spots you have to go completely out of your way to get to there are levels I went through without ever seeing a single star post which isn't great if you dine out to start at the beginning of level again but there are other checkpoints that are set up just a few seconds actually the start of a level or set on a platform right above the other now if your emerald hunting that's perfectly fine but that's checkpoints that makes zero sense on the flip side if you encounter a star post further into the level before touching any previous star post any of the previous ones you miss will automatically have been activated and that's great as a checkpoint because that means the game will put you in the furthest point in the level if you ever die but as a special stage entrance you just missed out on all those chances to get a Chaos Emerald making it completely pointless to backtrack not that you can most of the time anyway these levels are so focused on speed ways you'll often find it impossible to go back and even if you get into a special stage good luck grabbing all seven emeralds first couple bonus stages are easy enough but after that you're gonna have to rely a lot on memorization to get through these frustrating stages I know this game technically gives you way more chances to get the emerald than the first game but honestly the first game is nowhere near as luck-based as bees are and sonic use bonus stages are oh and good luck keeping a hold of anything in these levels with that little shitheel running your blue pin cushion but more on him in a minute to have five special stages in this game are by far the most frustrating of the classic series but I feel that they were done this way for very specific reasons it's a little sloppy and has room for improvement sure but I think I can see where the developers were going for you first well the design was just cool I know that doesn't excuse the frustration and just because the game is old doesn't mean it can't be fruity but I feel it's important to understand how these games were designed back then and appreciate when developers are trying crazy new tricks in their games completely changing the perspective and give them a sense of running through a 3d environment was really cool especially since the genesis couldn't do stuff like that silly rotating nonsense of the super Nintendos mode 7 classic Sonic games always push the Genesis in ways that no other games could me stages are just another example of that and the bonus stages do a decent job of ramping up the difficulty and since these bonus stages are so focused on quick reactions and memorization it will never skip ahead to another special stage if you fail the one you're on so if you jump into a star post and fail the next star post you jump into will be the exact same stage you only progress to the next bonus stage if you get the emerald in the one that's incredibly helpful if you're trying to memorize these things one at a time and these stages are also hard for a very good reason unlike the first game which didn't give you much of anything once you got all the emeralds this game gives you supersonic which yeah I know blatant ripoff but whatever supersonic looks super neato oh and he also completely breaks the game yeah this dude wrecks everything he's invulnerable and even faster than before the only things that will kill him is drowning in water being crushed or falling into a bottomless pit and yes it does drain ring you could potentially run out but whatever this was the ultimate prize of the game and back then it was one hell of a treat if you're new to this game and you could just grab all seven emeralds with relative ease then this is your entire game you have no challenge left until the final battle and you're not going to be ready for it when you've been breathing through everything else with no problem whatsoever if you've mastered this game and you know the layout of these stages like the back of your hand you could have supersonic as early as the second zone that's insane this was clearly made the challenge to determine players and reward them with a god mode to go nuts and levels they're probably very familiar with at this point so no those special stages aren't perfect but I feel them more than justified besides you could do what I did as a kid and just not care the game plays perfectly fine on its own without ever bothering with emeralds if you've never played the game before I recommend just running through without even bothering to special stages games still a lot of fun and you can get through it without being needlessly frustrated once you're ready for more of a challenge give it a shot but once you do be sure to go into the options menu and select Sonic only because the default choice of the two characters is just going to make things needlessly harder so yeah we might as well talk about this little bastard miles Prower miles per hour that yes I see the pun fine but this naming convention makes no sense to me Sonic the Hedgehog Knuckles the Echidna Shadow the Hedgehog bruise the boob at Roos the bat miles the Brower no no that makes no sense that makes no sense at all miles tails Prower tails that that's just his nickname no no I'm serious look it up that's just his nickname why red just his nickname why didn't even bother with the red and white and why mountain why did they why Sonic isn't a nickname he's just fast it's not just an appendage thing either knuckles is just knuckles no stupid puns here's my exaggerated feature it's my name my species is my Oh done why not just tails the Fox he makes no sense to me never did when I was little eater I mean he does but it's just too much okay look I had grown accustomed to Sonic team thinking what I would call an animal and then turning it into something completely unrecognizable I was really young when I first came across on it as a young boy in Iowa I had not up until that point ever even heard of a hedgehog I knew what a hedge was I sure as hell knew hogs were so you can understand my confusion when I first discovered the name of this radically wonderful cartoon character what is this crazy blue guy with the wacky shark fins on his head Sonic what a cool name Sonic the Hedgehog look how proud that title is it's leaping out at you Sonic the Hedgehog what the hell is a hedgehog oh this the baby porcupine that's a hedgehog okay well the name of a real animal Oh makes no sense let alone this smirking son of a [ __ ] how do you look at that and then get this it's crazy it's outlandish and I loved it but then you get to the second game and this brand-new character and it's a fox I mean that's very clearly a fox that that's one basic ass Fox right there this is what every other cartoon Fox ever created looks like this is such a weird contrast to the crazy design of Sonic remember I spent like 10 minutes velocity was talking about how rad his design was I've got nothing here there's nothing interesting about the design of sails even as two separate eyes but disgusting why is he even called tails what's what Oh what what the hell's happening how is he doing that oh that's okay he's got two tails and he can use them as a propeller well that's just dumb as hell okay okay fashion aside the introduction two miles the per hour was a big selling point for the second game he didn't really do anything just kind of followed you around and could be kind of helpful good damage enemies and collect rings but never take away from your ring count have you ever gotten hit unless of course during a special stage where he can take damage and can't take away from your total ring oh and they were requiring to get even more than if you were just playing Sonic by yourself because he's just so helpful so what the hell is the point of tails well as the oldest brother in my household that answer is easy this is little brother mode this is little sister mode this is significant other mode this is parent mode Mario had his Luigi ever since the very first Mario game you could play the green version of the same as plumber created you couldn't play them at the same time you had to take turns with every level or when one of you died or whatever I can't really remember the point is it involves somebody else into the mix sonic can pull any of this off at least not in any traditional sense if you took turns like Mario well let's load the pace down of a very speedy game they wanted Sonic to be faster than ever they couldn't make players wait as the other took their turn to finish an egg and if they had two players on the screen at the exact same time with the exact same camera priority well obviously you're 12 to game down even further the moment you forced the camera to battle between the two of you know the only way to make this work was even to a split screen race or just have some whatever character that never took attention away from the Sonic player or cost Sonic any rings or death so Sega went with both of those options have a younger sibling who wants to play too just hand them the second controller they can go hog-wild without ever taken away from your experience now this sucks running competent player but that's what the split screen mode is for so no tails isn't my favorite character but I certainly respect the little guy even if you didn't have anybody else to play with and you were just a fan of the Fox you could play him by himself I mean you could make him fly but whatever that fix that in later games which you're going to get to soon because this is basically all I have to say about Sonic 2 this was kind of a rambling mess that got off topic of the game itself but like I said there was a whole lot of bad to get into here this is still a favor of many Sonic fans out there and for good reason there's a wide variety of levels all throwing unique style layouts and challenges this game feels much more confident in its design which complements the Hedgehog attitude wonderful it celebrates his speed and instead of removing the experimental designs from the first game they refine them to better suit them speed of the Hedgehog and look I don't care if you like super mario world more than Sonic 2 or Megaman or any of that nonsense this game is still great but you probably knew that before you got into this video are there problems yes sonic you may be a more refined sonic experience but I don't think it's quite as refined when compared to the lights in mario world but that's how gamers have always seen it right sonic has never been as polished as Mario but he's never been as boring either that's part of the charm his games are chaotic and a little rough around the edges but even today there's still plenty of fun if you haven't played this game in a while where this is your first time picking it up I will always recommend experience in it with a controller but if you don't have one handy the mobile port is surprisingly fantastic I still prefer button but really the mobile versions are the best way to play these games if you only have a touchscreen to work with and make some massive improvements to the original and add it's a cool extra even the halfpipe stages are completely redone and a little more tolerable in weirdly enough Tomic translates a lot better to touchscreens than most other traditional platformers think the super simple controls and forgiving ring depth health system takes a special kind of developer to taking that was never intended to be playing on the phone and in many ways somehow improve the experience but we'll be talking more about those guys in the future for now this is all I got for Sonic 2 I hope you've enjoyed the show and hope to see you next time take care now when you buy the Sega Genesis that comes with Sonic 1 you'll get sonic 2 absolutely free Sunnie to handle stubborn stains embarrassing bald spots no problem it even slices and dices takes thousands of julienne fries but wait you can play it too this brief running through is a $54.99 value you get 2 Sonic's for the price of one Sonic 2 fits easily into any tackle box made from a space-age polymer plastic 4 years of family fun and pets love it to buy the Sega Genesis that comes with Sonic 1 and get Sonic 2 free hack now we heard on Twitter sold separately

Channel: Game Apologist

Views: 149,862

Rating: 4.9266582 out of 5

Keywords: sonic the hedgehog, sonic 2, miles tails prower, sega genesis, game apologist, nick maida, chemcial plant, emerald hill, rings, emeralds, super sonic, tails, knuckles, videogames, gaming culture, gaming, mega drive, hedgehog, fox, rouge the boobs, half pipe bonus stage

Id: fbKuvVEATPE

Length: 23min 1sec (1381 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 04 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

That was well made man, keep it up.