With Sega going multiplatform, it was a good opportunity for them to re-release some of their classic games on other platforms. One of the first major ones was Sonic Mega Collection on GameCube, which brings all of Sonic’s Mega Drive outings (standard console, no add-ons) with a few bonuses.
There’s a good amount of extras to go through, like one full comic, a load of covers, a history of Sonic and the intro and outro to Sonic CD (but no Sonic CD itself). The emulation was also really good, especially for the time. It’s a great collection, but here’s a quick view of all the games.
Sonic the Hedgehog: The classic game, and still my favourite one. I really enjoy that it has a mixture of levels built for speed, and ones that are supposed to be taken slower like Marble Zone. That said, you can speed through it really well once you learn it.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Tails joins the fray and can follow Sonic along or be controlled by player 2. There’s some wonderful levels here, and amazing music.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3: Sonic 3 never felt quite right on its own, but it’s still a great game.
Sonic & Knuckles: The second half of Sonic 3, which means the starting level feels like a later stage. A great end to the classic series, especially as you could plug in the other games.
Blue Sphere: In Sonic Mega Collection, the lock-on games are “unlocked” by some odd methods, as you have to boot up other games multiple times. Blue Sphere is the special stage from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and this version expands it to a colossal number of levels (over 128 million).
Knuckles in Sonic 2: Play as Knuckles in Sonic 2. It sounds simple, but they adjusted the levels to match the abilities of Knuckles, so much that the entire game was on the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles: Sonic 3 as it was supposed to be played, combining all the levels of Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. This should have been available from the start, instead you need to boot up Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles 20 times each.
Sonic 3D Blast: The Mega Drive version of it, not the Saturn one (which has never been re-released). It’s very different to a regular Sonic game, and despite some nice parts, has a lot of frustration. There’s a “director’s cut” version now that fixes some of the game’s issues.
Sonic Spinball: A 2D platformer that uses pinball mechanics, rather than a pinball game. Learning how to progress in the levels is extremely challenging, but it’s fun once you start figuring it out.
Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine: It’s the puzzle game Puyo Puyo with the characters replaced with those from a Sonic cartoon. I could never play this version much due to being colourblind.
Flicky: The Mega Drive version of an older arcade game. It features Flicky, who is one of the animals that Sonic rescues from the Badniks. It also influenced the mechanic of saving animals as seen in Sonic 3D Blast, so it’s a very sensible addition.
Ristar: While Ristar has nothing to do with Sonic, it’s an incredibly fun Sega 2D platformer with a vibe and style that really goes well with Sonic. If anything, Ristar also could have done with being a little bit faster. He has stretchy arms which you use to pull yourself towards objects and enemies. I’d love to see more done with Ristar.
The Ooze: In the Japanese version of Sonic Mega Collection and the PS2/Xbox version of Mega Collection Plus), there are two additional games. The strangest part of the collection is The Ooze, where you control a toxic puddle as you squeeze through gaps and try to maintain your size. Even stranger is that the only time this was ever officially released again was on the Mega Drive Mini 2, having been omitted from most compilations.
Comix Zone: The second Japan/Plus game is an extremely difficult beat-em-up that is dripping in style. It has a Comic Book theme and you jump between pages. I’d love to see a remake of this as it would look amazing with some hand drawn graphics.
Sonic Mega Collection was an amazing collection at the time it came out, although most of the games have been re-released multiple times now. Even so, there’s a lot of love shown in the collection outside of the games that it’s still nice to look through.