Sonic the Hedgehog 2 | Coop's Reviews

hey guys after the smash hit success of the original sonic the hedgehog sega wasted no time at all to start working on a sequel in fact they started working on two sequels right around the same time sonic team would begin working on a follow up to sonic 1 for the upcoming sega cd add-on which was released in japan in december 1991 and would get released elsewhere in 1992 this game obviously ended up becoming sonic cd which wouldn't come out for a good two years but sega wanted to bank on the success of the first sonic game pretty quickly so while sonic team was in japan working on sonic cd an american team would work on another sonic sequel to be released in november 1992. this time on a regular genesis cartridge this team was called sega technical institute which actually formed in 1991 in fact shortly after sti formed one of the co-creators of sonic yuji naka actually quit sega of japan following both salary and creative disputes after the development and release of sonic 1. after quitting yujinaka and many other sega employees relocated from japan to the california headquarters of sti to help with finishing their sonic sequel in time for release in 1992. one thing worth noting is that one of the sega employees that went work for sti ended up being hirokazu yasuhara the lead designer of the original sonic the hedgehog so by all means with both yuji naka and yasahura attached to the project sti naturally felt that they would be tasked by sega to make the true sequel to sonic 1 which is exactly what happened this game would of course end up being called sonic the hedgehog 2. i don't think i have that much to say about sonic 2's development apart from the fact that the japanese side of sdi took making the game very seriously and constantly demanded perfection while the american side of the team was super hyped up and wanted to make a fun rad sonic sequel it must have been a pretty interesting environment to work in at the time despite the constant language barrier issues between both sides i think i'll just delve right into talking about sonic 2 though i will try to bring up earlier versions of the game and cut concepts later on so let's get this started sonic the hedgehog 2 is about dr eggman returning and changing animals into robots again so sonic must put a stop to the doctor's evil plans for a second time eggman's also building a new deadly weapon the death egg a pretty cheeky star wars reference so sonic's gotta put a stop to that whole thing too honestly the death egg is pretty underplayed in sonic 2 it never truly gets its moment to shine until sonic 3 and knuckles for now though it looks like the death star and it's cool this time around sonic is joined by a sidekick a two-tailed fox name miles prower or more famously known as tails sonic 2 was the first time we got to see sonic with a sidekick and believe it or not sonic 2 on the genesis was technically not tails's first appearance tails made his debut appearance in the 8-bit version of sonic 2 which was released in october of 1992 a whole month before the 16-bit version we all know and love interestingly enough the idea of tales came up after yuji naka requested there be a two player mode in sonic 2 since the first game obviously didn't have one so kind of like what happened with the creation of sonic this led to the sonic 2 team creating a whole bunch of ideas for who sonic sidekick would be in the end yasushi yamaguchi's two-tailed fox design would end up being chosen and thus tails would end up becoming a main character for the rest of the series because he is just awesome tails is one of my favorite sonic characters ever i love him seriously if you're one of those people who hate tails for no reason at all you anyways the gameplay of sonic 2 is pretty spot on with the first game however there are two big changes first sonic has a brand new move that'll stick with him for the rest of the 2d games at least the spin dash oh my lord the spin dash to use the spin dash just hold down and mash the out of the jump button letting go of down makes sonic shoot forward the more you mash the jump button the more speed sonic will build up it feels great this is such an important addition to sonic's moveset i love you so much sonic 1 but sonic 2 just come on the spin dash rocks fun fact the instruction manual for sonic 2 refers to the spin dash as the super dash attack close enough i guess oh yeah and right on the next page we see that the beta version of the sonic 2 title screen also makes an appearance in this instruction manual more info on that beta later by the way so minus the addition of the spin dash sonic 2's gameplay style is almost the exact same as sonic 1 mainly because this game was actually built on top of sonic 1's engine makes sense however sonic 2 has one huge improvement over sonic 1. you see sonic 1 was originally meant to be a much faster paced game but beta testers at the time found the game to be too hard to keep track of so sonic team was forced to put in a speed cap greatly limiting sonic's running speed in that game sonic 2 on the other hand holy sonic 2 is a fast video game the speed cap is completely gone so now sonic is fully capable of reaching intensely high speeds a lot of this is pretty goddamn impressive for the genesis to pull off i'm not too sure how many games back in the early 90s were capable of going this fast i guess this is just the power of blast processing another thing that greatly benefits sonic 2 is its pacing where sonic 1 had about 2 or 3 levels where high speeds were easy to achieve pretty much every level in sonic 2 is filled with level structures that can make sonic run extremely fast while sonic's increased acceleration might be concerning at first sonic's controls are actually still really good sti really refined the controls in physics and it just feels so much better to play than the first game isn't that what every video game sequel should try to achieve wouldn't you say yujinaka's original mindset with sonic games was that the more you play the levels and continue to master them the more speed you could pick up thus the faster you can beat the levels almost every level in sonic 2 does this idea tremendously well there's not a single zone in this game that ever really drags they all have a great sense of speed platforming etc etc it just feels amazing to play through again and again i've had to play through this whole game 10 times just for this review alone i love sonic 2 you guys it is fantastic now before any long-time viewers of my channel say but cooper in your original sonic 2 review from like five years ago you complained about sonic 2's repetitive mindset with how it did level layouts and you even said you preferred sonic 1 over sonic 2. and all i have to say about that is don't listen to this dumb he didn't have any clue what he was talking about and was completely talking out of his own ass back then also why do people take my reviews so seriously i mostly make these for entertainment and fun this guy's a idiot graphically oh my god sonic 2 looks phenomenal for a genesis title the first game still looks good but sonic 2 is far more detailed and colorful every single level looks lifted and have amazing atmospheres to them even if they're levels i'm not too fond of what also helps this game's environments is of course the soundtrack the soundtrack for sonic 2 was composed by the same man who composed sonic 1 masado nakamura sonic 2's soundtrack is probably nakamura's best work for the sonic series at least i have way too many favorite songs from sonic 2 alone i honestly kind of struggle to really pick a number one favorite it's just an all-around well-composed soundtrack and nakamura did an outstanding job one thing worth noting about the music for sonic 1 and 2 is that the drowning music wasn't actually composed by nakamura it was composed by yuki fumi makino who was a part of sega's internal sound team which also explains why they've been able to use the drowning music in future installments since nakamura didn't originally compose it someone in the comments of my sonic 1 review pointed that out so i figured i'd mention it here segwaying into that since masado nakamura actually still retains the rights for his music in sonic 1 and 2 he officially released the soundtracks for both games in october 2011 a three disc album that included the mega drive versions the original demo tracks and another bonus disc containing songs from masato's band dreams come true i've already splurged in my previous review about how much i love the sonic 1 demos but focusing on the sonic 2 demo tracks this time around while i do still like them a part of me kinda prefers the final genesis mixes the demo tracks obviously sound better in terms of sound quality but there's something about the genesis versions that just gives me better vibes the sega genesis sound chip wasn't amazing but surprisingly most of the sonic games on that console utilized the system's sound capabilities pretty impressively the only sonic game i'd say still had that distinctive genesis twang sound to it was probably sonic spinball what's also interesting about sonic 2's demos is that they play at a much slower rate than the genesis versions comparing both mixes can lead to some pretty intriguing differences between the two here's a few examples [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] okay i'd say whoever made the final decision to speed up the tracks i think they made the right choice in the end another version of sonic 2's soundtrack that i recommend looking at is the beta soundtrack mainly because not only do they sound different compared to the final game but the beta also kind of sounds like it retains the slower paces of the original demos along with a few other things seriously [Music] listen [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] ain't that just fascinating so yeah sonic 2 soundtrack kicks ass has a lot of good stuff in it and be sure to track down masato's official soundtrack album sadly sonic 2 would end up being the last game to feature music by masato nakamura since he left the series during sonic 3's development due to financial disagreements with sega oh that sega and their financial disagreements quite a shame that sega got rid of such a talented musician so early in sonic's career but don't you guys worry we're still gonna get some amazing sonic soundtracks in the coming future just you wait one final thing i want to mention about masato nakamura's involvement with sonic 2 is a cute little story that yuji naka told when nakamura wrapped up working on the game's soundtrack upon finishing the music masato sent yujinaka a facts that said i've got a present for you it's a surprise the team had no clue what surprise masada was referring to but they eventually found out later on that nakamura reworked the ending theme for sonic 2 into a dreams come true song sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet would later appear in sonic 2006 and nakamura included the song and its akon remixes on disc 3 of the official sonic 1 and 2 soundtrack album i found this old story really wholesome and well sweet so i felt like sharing getting back to the game let's get right to the level breakdown there's about 11 zones in sonic 2 with most zones now having 2 acts instead of 3 like the first game i greatly prefer the 2x structure it just makes the pacing for the game flow a lot faster which is what sonic 2 is really all about our first level is emerald hill zone a completely redefined and upgraded green hill zone i wouldn't say it's necessarily better than green hill i think both zones have their strengths and weaknesses that outweigh each other but emerald hill is still an amazing first level it is damn near the most perfect starting level for a sonic game ever it's fast colorful simple and super replayable it's great while a lot of the levels are way faster paced there is still a pretty decent amount of exploration where you can find some hidden ring boxes and whatnot which is pretty sweet level two is chemical plant zone which more recently has been suffering from green hill zone syndrome because sega keeps bringing it back holy but focusing on the original chemical plant this level's awesome the music kicks ass and i love the scenery here this level also introduces a pretty infamous idea the dash pads dempse's favorite excuse for level designs but focusing on just sonic 2 the dash pads aren't that offensive here mainly since they're a gimmick that's only tied to chemical plant zone they don't appear in any other level in the game which is good this zone also has purple water spread throughout it and sonic still can't swim so don't stain the water for too long or you'll drown though the one part of chemical plant that definitely caused a lot of game overs for a ton of kids was for sure this area in act 2. this part was so obnoxious as a kid you have to time your jumps just right otherwise you'll keep drowning and dying but if you're a total pro at the game you'll know how to skip this area by using a well-timed jump what you didn't know you could just skip this whole area loser the next level is aquatic ruin which is okay this is the first level where sonic 2's fast pace can be killed mainly because if you go down the bottom route you'll head under water yep aquatic ruin is the underwater level but you can skip all the underwater sections if you master the level designs good enough i always try to skip the water areas mainly because they're still super slow and boring so if i see that there are roots that are much faster then i always try to aim for them fun fact the original name for this level was actually neo green hill zone yeah a direct call back to green hill zone in the first game and most sonic fans may remember this name would end up being reused for the first level in sonic advance 1. the more you know next up is a fan favorite casino night zone i love this level it's got such a great color palette and i love using the slot machines minus the part where you can get all eggman and lose everything this level really embraces what the prototype version of springyard tried doing in the first game and i absolutely adore it it's the perfect successor to that level interestingly enough this level was originally going to have a pinker trading card motif that you can see in earlier versions of the game i prefer the final look of casino knight but i also kind of like the way the beta version looked it's a super fascinating aesthetic next is hilltop zone which is alright it reuses emerald hills graphics paints everything blue and puts a bunch of lava everywhere this is one of my least favorite levels in sonic 2 but i don't hate it either i do love the backgrounds i love the tall mountains in the clouds it really helps add to the idea that we're high up on a hilltop get it also i love doing this in act 2. [Music] god that's satisfying next is mystic cave zone this level is rad i love the scenery here and this level also has some of the best music in the game however this level is also home to one of the most brutal traps ever put into a sonic game the spike pit for some up reason in act 2 there's a spike pit you can fall down which slowly kills you you can't jump out of it so you just have to wait until it kills you why did they bother putting this here why not just make it a regular bottomless pit such a dick move also apparently mystic cave was originally going to be called dust hill zone it's what sonic retro told me but i'll actually talk more about this dust hill title later after mystic cave is my least favorite level oil ocean the last level in the game to feature two acts and i don't like this level too much i like the music but i just don't find the level that visually interesting it's a bit dull in fact this level is so boring that i almost forgot to put it in my notes when working on this review whoops also why the did they bring this level of all levels in sonic 2 back in sonic mania really why not miss the cave or casino knight who the loved oil ocean enough to want to bring it back in mania and make it worse seriously this level sucks ass i'm moving on okay next up is the last traditional level metropolis zone this is the only zone in the game to have three acts instead of two i'll explain that later but i do really like metropolis it's one of my favorites then again i might just be biased since this level is green which is my favorite color apart from that this level is about as masterfully designed as the other best levels in the game i also really like these spinning gear set pieces they were so mesmerizing to me as a kid however there are batnix galore in this zone more specifically the troublesome trio asterons shell crackers and slicers what makes these guys super irritating are their placements shell crackers are usually at the edge of a jump or new areas you enter and you have to jump over them to avoid their massive spike claw the asterons are usually in walls completely out of reach and they activate whenever you get too close to them once activated they shoot off like five projectiles at once that you gotta try to avoid it's super annoying but the one batnik here that seriously gets on mine and many other people's nerves are the slicers these praying mantis looking pieces of are so annoying they have some of the most irritating placements and also have the most obnoxious projectile they just shoot their arms out and they always travel in some sort of arc to where they'll hit you seriously you have about 99 times out of 100 chances that you'll get hit slicers but no offense to the real life praying mantis though they're still cool as insects hashtag not all mantes moving on we're going to sky chase zone a single act zone it's also followed by wing fortress zone which is also a one-act zone i like usually pairing these two together they're basically the sky levels skychase is alright you're on the tornado and you just gotta dodge batnix and whatnot it's simple arcady fun though i would probably say this is the one level that drax the most since it's the only auto scroller in the game i like the concept and all but i wouldn't have minded if this type of level stayed in sonic 2. looking at you mania i always preferred wing fortress zone mainly since it's a regular level despite the constant anxiety of being high up in the air though every single time i go back to play this level i always use two quick shortcuts at the start first off hop up this platform and jump at the fans right here it'll help you skip a major bottomless pit segment continue going right walk into this fan then use your invincibility frames to walk right through it this effectively skips most of the level a major time saver thanks 2010 johnny game theory at the beginning of sky chase zone i noticed some weird looking sprite in the background could this possibly be angel island in the distance foreshadowing sonic 3 two years ahead of its release but hey that's just a theory a game theory okay i'll stop actually this might just be eggman's wing fortress in the background because this sprite completely vanishes after a short while still i felt like sharing this little theory of mine that popped up after playing sonic 2 over and over again after all these years it's a pretty good game next is the last zone the death egg the grand finale which is just one act long and isn't really a full level it's mainly for the last two boss fights first is this robot sonic of sorts i've heard most people refer to him as silver sonic but i think his official name is robo sonic not a bad name but i kind of prefer silver sonic can't call him mechasonic because well sonic and knuckles you know silver sonic can be pretty difficult for first time players but i can make him my pretty quickly of course defeating silver sonic leads to the true final boss with eggman this time around eggman has built a massive robot version of himself that walks back and forth shoots his hands out and has spikes for hands this isn't as threatening as i remember the death egg robo is a classic final boss for sonic so classic that they brought this stupid ass boss fight back in the future games twice three times and probably more oh yeah the boss fights in sonic 2 are okay about as easy as the boss fights in sonic 1 if not easier some of them can be beaten with just one well-timed jump like the chemical plant and hilltop bosses are these even actual boss fights or maybe i've just gotten too good at this game who knows the death egg robo final boss is probably the best boss and is very intimidating when you fight him for the first time especially as a kid but nowadays he's pretty simple the one thing that does make this boss nerve-wracking is that you have no rings just like with final zone in sonic 1. so just try to avoid getting hit and you should get through it pretty smoothly of course to get the good ending you gotta go after the chaos emeralds all six of the emeralds from the first game return but this time around we've got another emerald to the count rounding it off at 7 chaos emeralds to get to the special stages in sonic 2 you gotta collect 50 rings then pass by a checkpoint post this will cause stars to rotate around them simply jump into it and you'll be transported to the special stages the special stages for sonic 2 are these long half pipe areas where you gotta collect a specific amount of rings in three laps doing so will get you the emerald if you don't collect enough rings you'll get kicked out the special stage this also means you have to recollect 50 rings again and you have to find another checkpoint post to jump into thankfully all the rings and ring monitors do respawn after you exit a special stage but i'm still not too big on this i'm also not too big on these half-pipe stages while it might have looked impressive for the genesis in 1992 i just don't like the way these stages look it could be really difficult to tell how close you are to the rings plus there's some slight input lag it could be a recipe for disaster at points also these special stages were a first of its kind for the series unfortunately since sonic 2 is one of the franchise's most popular games sega keeps bringing back the halfpipe every few years and it gets old really fast but focusing on the original halfpipe i have never been able to legitimately beat these special stages for years the only way i was ever able to get all the chaos emeralds was by using safe states and emulators that was seriously the only way i was able to beat all these stages however upon recording footage for this review for the first time in my life i finally managed to beat all seven special stages in sonic 2 without save states or cheating wow i honestly never thought i was ever going to accomplish this and while i still don't like these special stages too much it still felt kinda nice finally beating them on the original genesis also i managed to beat all seven special stages legitimately four whole times twice as sonic alone mainly because the first time i did it i accidentally softlocked myself in metropolis so i was forced to do it a second time once as tales alone and another time that i'll discuss later this is also probably a big tip to mention but if you're gonna take getting the chaos emerald seriously go to the options menu and shut off tails i still love the little guy but with tails following sonic in the special stages he can also take damage and lose rings that go to your account which can also cause you to blow a few chances at getting an emerald so i'd highly recommend doing the special stages solo oh yeah you can choose to play as tails alone in the options too which is nice he doesn't play any different he's got the same controls and moves as sonic nope he can't even fly even though we do see him flying the sonic when you play the default sonic and tails mode playing as tails is a neat option but i do wish they included his flying as an option for the player which didn't happen until sonic 3. tails also can't use the big reward for getting all the emeralds collecting all seven chaos emeralds as sonic doesn't just give you the good ending but sonic is also given the ability to turn into super sonic to transform into super sonic just collect 50 rings and simply jump this will make sonic instantly transform supersonic is completely invincible can run much faster and jump way higher this can make several levels become a total cakewalk except the pit and mystic kvac too nope not even super sonic can jump out of it damn also you're not completely invulnerable because super sonic can still drown so yeah be on the lookout for that one neat trick i like doing is sparkling super sonic basically before you collect 50 rings break open an invincibility monitor then go quickly collect 50 rings and jump and once you transform super sonic will be all sparkly yeah the sparkles from the invincibility power-up doesn't go away i always like doing that while on the topic of super sonic i was in a discord call with a few friends a while back and we were just talking about and sharing some old renders from sonic games then one of them posted this super sonic picture that i'd never seen before it's apparently official artwork i don't know where it came from but it bears a striking resemblance to the late greg martin's american sonic design i could recognize that smirk from anywhere i'm not too sure how often greg martin got to draw super sonic so it was pretty cool coming across this old artwork so i felt like sharing it here super sonic is an awesome reward for getting all the emeralds but there are some issues with it first off super sonic's increased ground speed can make simple platforming segments more difficult to do also while it's great that there's a way to instantly become supersonic there's no option to shut them off either though after you go super your ring count begins to decrease once it reaches zero sonic reverts back to his normal self i like that sonic can change back but i really would have liked if we had a separate button to immediately shut off super sonic hell just going super by simply jumping upon getting 50 rings just makes it difficult to avoid going super guys we have three buttons to work with on the controller why not dedicate one button to going super and shutting it off a ton of fan made rom hacks have shown this is possible the original method can be really tiring what's also tiring is super sonic's theme music i love the idea that super sonic has his own theme music but is there any reason why his music is like 10 seconds long and just repeats over and over again it's basically just the invincibility music except it has a mini intro and slightly different instrumentation the supersonic theme is really repetitive and gets old super fast despite that i do like the demo version of the theme a lot it is just as repetitive as the final game version but i do like how nakamura tried to make it sound different compared to the invincibility music it's an interesting detail hey did you know sonic the hedgehog 2 was originally gonna have 18 zones yeah yuji naka and company really wanted to go all out with this sequel but they unfortunately had to scrap about seven planned zones mainly so the game could release in time for 1992. we have a decent amount of concept art and info on some of the cut zones there were going to be two ocean themed zones of sorts a jungle zone rock zone winter zone tropical zone and another level called madness mountain there was also a level called dust hill or sand shower zone whatever the hell it was called it got cut pretty early but we do have a decent mock-up image of what it was originally gonna look like this zone would actually be reworked into being desert dazzle a level that almost appeared in the 2011 port of sonic cd by christian whitehead until sega asked for it to be scrapped well most of the assets and ideas for dust hill slash desert dazzle would finally see the light of day in mirage saloon in sonic mania which released in 2017 a whole 25 years after sonic 2. holy a bunch of fans were really pushing for this desert level to be finished but whatever at least we sort of finally got this desert level to be released there are three more cut zones i want to bring up this time i'm gonna turn to the beta version of sonic 2 for a bit specifically the simon y build which actually has some cut elements in it first is wood zone which actually has a decent amount of the level found in the build it's not finished clearly but this level actually reminds me of the jungle zone concept part i wonder if they were just the same zone but with two different names speaking of different names there is a dust hill in the level select but choosing it just takes you to an early version of mystic cave yeah i have no clue why it's called dust hill zone here i've heard some people say that dust hill was just an early title for mystic cave but i'm not too sure how true that is going back to the desert level i think the dust tail name fits that level better than sand shower zone just my opinion the simon y build also lists another scrapped level genocide city uh huh well it loads nothing at all i'm kind of thankful after reading the level name actually the final english title for this level was most likely going to be changed to cyber city apparently this was going to be a mechanical themed single act zone that they actually finished the level map for but they decided to cut the zone out at the last minute however since the level map was pretty much finished they decided to rework and convert the zone into act 3 of metropolis zone which explains why that's the only level in the final game with three acts that's pretty interesting and very resourceful on the team's end also some of the assets for cyber city would actually be used as inspiration for the third level in sonic spinball the machine huh okay the one scrapped level i'm sure you all want to hear about is this one hidden palace zone the idea of this scrapped level is super interesting according to yuji naka this was gonna be a one act zone that could only be accessed by collecting all seven chaos emeralds and beating the level would have unlocked super sonic that's pretty fascinating but sadly the level never got put in the final game even though a lot of the level was finished two of the earliest builds for sonic 2 still maintain a good amount of assets of hidden palace but neither build contained the full finished level though interestingly enough masado nakamura actually finished the level music for hidden palace which not only appears on his official sonic 1 and 2 album but it's also still in the final game via the sound test neat well 21 years after the release of sonic the hedgehog 2 the 2013 mobile remastered by christian whitehead and stealth would end up including hidden palace zone in its entirety yes for the first time ever hidden palace zone was made officially playable this is unbelievably awesome but you don't get to this level by normal means or even by the original intent yuji naka wanted to do instead you actually have to fall down that stupid pit and miss the cave act too and falling down it will weed you straight to hidden power zone okay that's simultaneously a really cute but dick move as an easter egg you really thought i'd just jump into this stupid-ass pit voluntarily who the hell do you think i am though funnily enough when i played this port for the first time i did accidentally fall in the pit and ended up discovering hidden power zone which caught me off guard but that was still a pleasant surprise seriously good job on this port boys i'll talk a little more about it later did you guys also know that sonic 2 was originally gonna have a time travel story yes pretty early on in development they were gonna make sonic 2 about time travel this concept was never made public until a 2017 presentation of sonic 2. this time travel idea would be reworked and used in sonic cd which came out a year after sonic 2. it's interesting how they were gonna do this time travel idea as early as sonic 2. it also kind of shows how closely connected 2 and cd were during both their developments so i guess segwaying back to the actual game the good ending of sonic 2 shows sonic escaping the death egg as it blows up he then goes super and flies down back to earth with tails joining him as they fly off and post before the credits this is cool and all but i kind of prefer the so-called bad ending mainly because it shows tales saving sonic as he's falling down back to earth i think this helps further illustrate the pair's bond and they pull it off really well here i really like it plus unlike the first game you don't see anything after the credit's telling you to try again or whatever so it really doesn't matter which ending you get though this only applies for the original genesis version the mobile remaster does add a bit at the end of the bad ending showing eggman juggling the chaos emeralds just like he does in sonic 1. i do understand why they added this it is kinda cool but it does kinda diminish the bad ending a little bit then again they also changed the good ending too but i'll talk about that in another video when it comes to sonic 2's bonus content well sonic 2 was the first game in the series to have multiplayer the very reason tails was created in the first place in single player the second player can control tails but since the screen is always focusing on sonic this multiplayer option is only really good when you're fighting a boss or something when it comes to the actual multiplayer mode it's pretty cool you get 4 zones to race in three of them are split screen and contain the full versions of emerald hill casino knight and mystic cave while the fourth level is just a random special stage it's not amazing but for the first multiplayer in the series it's solid the three full multiplayer zones also have new music tracks to accompany them game theory time these three additional songs sound really good just like the rest of this game's soundtrack but what if these tracks were just leftovers from some of the scrapped levels from earlier what if they just had these songs on standby after scrapping a few zones and while making the multiplayer mode sti was probably like it why not include them this very likely isn't true at all but that's just a theory okay i'm moving on this split screen multiplayer mode actually has online play on the playstation network and xbox live arcade ports and at the time of this review the servers are still up these ports aren't great and there is some input lack from online play but it functions decently i played a bit of it with my friend aj mainly because one of the achievements involves beating an online race 10 times which can take a little bit to do apart from that it was a pretty fun time however aj and i kept falling down that stupid-ass pit and missed the cave multiple times seriously that pits in terms of other content with sonic 2 well going forward for a bit in october 1994 sega released sonic and knuckles which had a special cartridge made with lock-on capabilities it was mainly meant for connecting with sonic the hedgehog 3 but if you put sonic 2 on the cart you'll gain access to knuckles and sonic 2 which allows you to play as knuckles the echidna and sonic the hedgehog too gliding wall crawling and all oh what's that you fell down the stupid pittan mystic cave well knuckles can climb walls so go yourself spike pit interestingly enough knuckles ring requirements in the special stages are decreased apparently also they gave him 10 arms in the special stages whoops ruined forever plus when you leave a special stage you keep your 50 rings yeah you don't have to keep collecting 50 rings over and over again you can just go find another checkpoint post to access another special stage and collecting all the chaos emeralds lets knuckles become super knuckles nice why exactly does knuckles get to keep all his rings after a special stage unlike sonic and tails i don't know it's probably because he's too godlike makes sense and that was sonic the hedgehog too all in all i love this game this is like the perfect sequel it's not a perfect game but it's a perfect sequel like shrek 2. this is the shrek 2 of the sonic series put that quote on the cover this game is filled with a ton of spectacular levels an excellent soundtrack it has a great sense of pacing and just overall it out does the first game in just about every aspect don't get me wrong i still love sonic 1 to death but sonic 2 is just so so much better it may not be my all-time favorite sonic game but it is definitely in my top 5. i've played this game to death since the first time i played it back in mid 2007 and i will very likely continue to replay it for the coming years i love sonic 2. of course just like the first game sonic 2 is one of the most ported games in the series it's often paired together with sonic 1 on most compilations but the best version of sonic 2 is obviously the 2013 remaster on mobile devices by christian whitehead and stealth the game runs at a perfect 60 frames a second it's in widescreen includes the scrapped hidden power zone level tails can fly now knuckles is playable again and the special stages were completely revamped look at this it's in proper 3d graphics now not chugging along like the genesis version look they even fixed the color of knuckles arms wow this is beautiful in fact this version of the game was the first time i ever got to beat all 7 halfpipe stages without save states the draw distance is a hell of a lot better and it controls so fluently cyber shell said it best but how the do you expect me to go back to the original version of these stages when this version exists jesus the multiplayer mode is also back sort of you have access to more than just three zones but i'm not too sure how to set up a match especially when using the bluestacks emulator but hey at least it's still there i think christian and simon did their best after only being allowed to put this port on you know a phone it's such a shame that this excellent port of sonic 2 is limited to mobile devices same with the sonic 1 remaster they both deserve so much better than this holy while i was editing this review the sonic 1 and 2 decompilation project got released created by rubber ducky coley and rmg rich this project takes the android remasters of sonic 1 and 2 and gets them running on native pc hardware yeah no android emulator required tracker td made a pretty solid video showing off the project i'll have a link to his video in the description i still don't completely know how to set up these versions of the game but good job guys keep up the excellent work well sega's not gonna do anything with both these remasters anytime soon so in the meantime you can still get sonic 2 on xbox live arcade which is backwards compatible on the xbox one and the series x you can also get sonic 2 on the ps3 but since it's a ps3 game ps4 and ps5 users have to use ps now i'd recommend just getting the genesis classics collection on ps4 which comes with sonic 2 sonic 1 and many other genesis games and also because ps now there's also the second ages port of sonic 2 on nintendo switch which i would consider the second best version of the game it comes with all the same features as sega ages sonic 1 port this includes the drop dash challenge modes etc etc they even included the ability to play as knuckles skin colored arms and all how nice the sega aegis port is alright not as good as the mobile remaster but not a bad pick if you want a different portable version of sonic 2. also i would be absolutely crazy if i didn't mention the sonic 2 hd fan project a project that began around the late 2000s cancelled around the early 2010s and was pretty recently re-revealed in 2017. yeah this project has been worked on for over a decade it'll honestly be a miracle if it ever gets finished but hey it does look pretty neat so i felt like giving it a shout out one important thing worth noting most of the original team behind sonic 2 hd would actually leave the project to form a new company pagoda west games who of course helped christian whitehead and headcanon create sonic mania in 2017. another member from the original sonic 2 hd team who would go on to work on sonic mania was actually t-ropes yes t-wopes was the original composer of sonic 2 hd that is crazy the current sonic 2 hd composer is tony lees who released a few tracks from the 2017 demo on their band camp and it sounds pretty good so far actually some of the music tracks have them listed as act 2 of the levels does that mean both acts are going to feature different arrangements of the level music like what sonic 3 and sonic mania did too that's pretty cool i hope we get to see more of that so best of luck to the current sonic 2 hd project team hope you guys can get the game finished but yeah that's really all i've got to say about sonic the hedgehog too it's an excellent game it's one of the most replayable sonic games like ever go play this if you have not especially if you're a sonic fan like holy even if you're purely a modern sonic person i feel like sonic 2 would probably be the best pick it's not my all-time favorite classic sonic game but it is definitely right up there and replaying it for this review really made me realize that even more before i go if somehow this video didn't fill your sonic 2 needs then i recommend checking out cybershell's legendary sonic 2 bonus video he covers a lot of stuff there some of it i couldn't feature in this review so go check it out it's easily one of his best videos alright i'm done talking about sonic 2. i love this game thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Coop

Views: 10,250

Rating: 4.9530334 out of 5

Keywords: sonic the hedgehog 2, sonic, 1992, sonic 2, coop's reviews, coopercastille, coop, sega genesis

Id: WbuacuZiYTU

Length: 47min 49sec (2869 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021