Sonic 4

It took me buying Sonic 1 and 2 on Virtual Console to realize that Sonic games aren't that great. They were fun when I was a kid but I think I'll pass on this one.

Nostalgia be damned, few songs get me all giddy like Stage 1 in the first Sonic.
Avoid getting the Sonic collection for DS (heard its got bad emulation) but i have all sonic genesis games on the 360.
Would kill for Sonic CD to get a live release.

You can get Sonic CD for Gamecube, but there's no way I'd want to play it with that shitty d-pad.

I gave Sonic up after the first installment - can someone explain the appeal to me above and beyond running really fast up walls and through loops? I'll admit, it was a bit thrilling to 11-year-old me to haul ass and hear that jingly sound when I gathered all those coins, but the novelty wore off quickly. Never understood how the property stuck around.

Google "sonic erotic fanfiction" and you'll know why.

The world around Sonic just never seems tailored to Sonic. Yeah, you get to run fast which was cool and all in 1992, but the level design punishes you for it. Going too fast can lead to you jumping on spikes, falling into a pit or running into an enemy that's right in your path. The levels aren't very linear either. There's multiple paths and if you want to get all the chaos emeralds or grab a few 1ups/rings (how DARE you call them rings Jeremy), you have to stop at every crossroads and do some exploring, which completely slows down the gameplay. The more the series progressed, the more evident this became. It's kinda why I never liked Sonic and Knuckles.

Also the games get a huge jump in difficulty around the last few levels. Why don't you get rings before the last boss? It forces you to be flawless, which isn't how you've been playing the game.

Yeah, Sonic and Knuckles and Sonic 3 were both great. Even Sonic 2 wasn't bad. The lack of the charged roll in Sonic 1 really hurt it after 2 came out.

I wasn't really a fan of the water levels though. The mechanic for getting more air combined with your sluggish movements underwater could make them really frustrating.

Sonic 1 is the first game I ever played; perhaps due to inexperience, I never went for the speed thing much, either - I'd carefully explore, but the pace still felt a lot faster than, say, Super Mario (really hard to get used to the more sedate pace of those games at first.)

Try fucking terrifying! Underwater zone in Sonic 1 was the stuff of nightmares.

Aside from Mario Is Missing, I don't think I've ever played a "sedate" Mario game.

But I liked Luigi's Mansion....

Though if you're going to call Luigi's Mansion a Mario game, you might as well call Wrecking Crew a Mario game.

Wasnt there an awful coma inducing CD-I mario game as well?

Give me a call when they remake Final Fight.

Firstly, for me, it's the music man... and the cool way the title bars for the stages pops up (motherfucking ZONES! and ACTS!) Kicking robotnick's ass and freeing the animals man... good times. I always found it hilarious when you would kill enemies and then the little critters that you had just set free would fall ino bottomless pits and stuff though.

I never played Sonic CD, but i remember listening to the music and not being impressed.

Wait, what? Was there some voodoo twist at the end where Mario was controlling Luigi the entire time?

Anyway, my initial point was referring to Mario gameplay. Basically Mario 1, 2, USA, 3, World, Yoshi's Island, and then the 3D ones that deviate from the formula, but are still Mario games. And yes, crap like Mario is Missing is still Mario, albeit watered-down Mario. My point was that the finesse, timing, and the need to discern when to run for your life and take your time is what Mario games were always about for me. It never felt slow or sedate. The perfect controls and brilliantly-designed levels are what always put Mario over Sonic for me as a kid and still to this day. I still love playing the original Super Mario Bros. It never gets old.

/childish defense of mario

Or American butt-rock.

Im ashamed that played that garbage t the end...I refused to let it win by default.

I'll dig it out and give it another shot (and honestly I just skimmed through the tracks), but I guess I expected tunes similar to the first 3 games + & Knuckles. There was a lot of techno stuff instead, right? Shit, I really need to just play the game and then it will probably gel.

can't wait to try this out.

my favorite sonic game was actually Sonic Spinball for some reason.

Same here.

I was thinking of picking this up for my phone but will try and wait. It'll probably drop in price once episode two rolls around.

OH DEAR GOD NOT THE FUCKING CROCODILE!!!

Even though half of the character paths that you had to play through were pure scrote-pain, I loved the shit out of the first Dreamcast Sonic.