Sticking Points: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Game Gear)

Sonic Month may be over, and the franchise may be settling into its third decade, but my adoration -- and coverage -- of the franchise will never end. (Let's hope.) With the wealth of material provided to us within these two decades so far, you may very well pretend that Sonic Month is still going on. So, allow me to let you celebrate for real, by giving you the knowledge to beat Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Game Gear and play it for all it's worth. For this new installment of Sticking Points, I'll turn my focus towards those two aspects which contribute the most to this game's difficulty: the Chaos Emerald locations and the bosses.

Under Ground Zone
Chaos Emerald: In both Acts 1 and 2 of this Zone, there are two parallel paths: an upper and lower path. You start out on the upper path at the beginning of both Acts, but if you fall to the lower level, there aren't any ways to get back up. Your reward for sticking to the top in Act 1 is an extra life item, and in Act 2 the first Chaos Emerald. Note that you'll encounter a mine cart on your way to the Chaos Emerald; to make the final jump, you'll have to bail out in mid-flight.

Boss: *sigh* ...We've hit our first sticking point in the first Zone already. Basically, this boss is a robot pincer which you cannot harm directly, but rather let a series of bouncing metal balls hit it. At least it could qualify it easy on the Master System version, where all the balls bounce low and are easily jumped over. But on the Game Gear, the balls have three patterns: two that bounce high and one that bounces low. and those high-bounce patterns are way tough to dodge. The best advice I can give you is to stand on the kink where the slope deepens, and react to the balls the best you can. Oh, and Robotnik will fly in on his jet-car to deliver the final blow; jump over him and you win. Good luck

Sky High Zone
Chaos Emerald: For the longest time, this was the hardest Chaos Emerald for me to find. Long story short, it's in midair at the top of the level's midpoint. Given the prevalence of hang gliders in Act 2, you would think this is the way to go, but believe me, it's all but impossible to get it this way, however there is a far more reliable, if roundabout, way to get the Emerald.

Along the middle of the entire level is a row of clouds. At some point, you can walk on these clouds. Jump off the right of this "platform" and onto a small cloud with a spring hidden on it. Go right off of this and you should land on another cloud platform. Jump off the left of this platform and try to land on another cloud spring (Hint: it's under the second-to-left column of a cloud). Bounce right off of this and you should hit the second Chaos Emerald.

Boss: You'll start out this fight by facing two waves of small robot enemies. Beat these and you'll fall through the clouds. There are four little yellow nubs which spawn more of these monsters; break these and boss itself will appear: a long-necked bird robot. Hit it anywhere, but avoid the fireballs it shoots, and if you fall behind it, don't let it crush you against the edge of the screen!

Aqua Lake Zone
Chaos Emerald: There are two pipe mazes in Act 2: one at the beginning and one in the middle. In the second pipe maze, just hold Left all the way. This will take you to a small room with the third Chaos Emerald. One of the easiest to find, really.

Boss: A robot seal which inflates and bounces balls on its nose, then attacks you with them. To deal damage, jump on one of these balls when it's blowing one up. Easy, if a little tedious.

Green Hill Zone
Chaos Emerald: In the middle of Act 2, you'll roll down a slope and land on a platform with springs on it, surrounded by a wide field of spikes. Hold Right and land on another platform of springs. After bouncing off of that, hold Right for about... yay, three seconds to land on a high-up platform with the fourth Chaos Emerald.

Boss: The trek to this boss, which involves a lot of springs and spikes, is harder than the boss itself, a sumo-wrestling pig robot. ...Yyyeeeah. This boss will curl up in a ball and move in one of three ways: jumping, directly sideways, or down along the valley in the arena. Jump over or run under the boss depending on how it moves - touching it even while curled up will kill Sonic - and attack it while it's upright. You don't have too much of a window of time to attack it, but just don't try anything daring and you'll do fine.

Gimmick Mountain Zone
Chaos Emerald: Early on in Act 2, you'll go up a slope. At the top, jump to the left and you'll go through a false wall. Follow this path up and over to get the fifth Chaos Emerald.

Boss: A robot pig with retractable spikes on its back. It will charge at you to attack; jump over it and it will hit the wall, causing its spikes to withdraw temporarily and some rocks to fall from the ceiling. Dodge these and hit the boss before its spikes come out again.

Scrambled Egg Zone
Boss/Chaos Emerald: The boss is named Silver Sonic, and I shouldn't have to describe this any further. It uses jumping spin attacks and dashes just like Sonic. Hit it when it's upright, real simple. If you have all five Chaos Emeralds before fighting Silver Sonic, it will give you the sixth Emerald upon its defeat, but if you don't, the game will end when you beat it, and you won't be able to experience the...

Crystal Egg Zone
Boss: Yup, it's Robotnik time. You fight him in a small room looped by a pipe. Robotnik's attacks include flower-shaped bullets that spiral out from the center of the room, lightning bolts that travel along the floor, and an electric flash which engulfs the entire room. Fortunately, you're invincible when traveling along the pipes, so just be patient and you can win and rescue Tails.

Sonic Month: Sonic Chaos

Sonic Chaos

• Publisher: Sega 
• Developer: Aspect 
• Platforms/Release: 
• Master System (Europe/Brazil only): October 1993 
• Game Gear: November 1993 
• Genre: Action 
• Rarity/Cost: 
• Game Gear: Very common (US$1-5) 
• Master System: Rare (US$10-30)

Forget that thing they put on Game Gear and named Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Its sequel, Sonic Chaos, is closer to the Genesis Sonic 2 than the real thing. As such, it's no suprise that Chaos was one of my favorite Sonic games growing up. It's the first entry in the Game Gear series to feature Tails the fox as a playable character, and interestingly, the first instance in the entire franchise where you could manually make him fly, a feature absent from his appearance in the 16-bit Sonic 2. There are more things that invoke that other game for me, but we'll get to that when we get to it.

A short cutscene that runs before the title screen portrays Sonic and Tails running after Dr. Robotnik, who has the red Chaos Emerald in the clutches of his jet-craft. As per the enclosed instruction book, the theft of this Emerald has shifted the other five (yeah, the GG series uses six total emeralds rather than the traditional seven) to a parallel dimension, and made their home of South Island start to sink into the ocean. I applaud the decision to give Robotnik a more specific method of taking over the world - of course - but it's not exactly alluded to in the game. Besides, anyone who's familiar with early Metal Gear knows better than to trust stories from the manual. However, the method of getting the Chaos Emeralds does tie into the story, if you think about it.

Sonic can use Rocket Shoes and enter Special Stages... (Game Gear version.)

It all starts out with whom you choose to play as: Sonic or Tails, because unlike in Genesis Sonic 2, this is more than a cosmetic choice. It's true that both of them have the same basic performance and, in a feature added since Game Gear Sonic 2, can do a Spin Dash while stopped (hold Down, press 1 or 2 repeatedly, release Down). However, they have separate abilities triggered by pressing Up and 1 or 2. Sonic can do a Strike Dash (an ability imported from Sonic CD), which is a lot like the Spin Dash, and Tails can fly for a few seconds. As always, collecting 100 rings will give your character of choice an extra life, but when Sonic does it, he also gets transported to one of the five Special Stages. Unlike the fancy faux-3D experiences from the Genesis series, the Special Stages here are platforming worlds (likely set in that parallel universe from the backstory -- in my 15 years of playing the game, I literally just made that connection while writing this review!) where you must pick up the Chaos Emerald within a one-minute time limit. On the other hand, with Tails, the Chaos Emerald side quest -- and any alternate endings -- are effectively ignored, so your choice of characters also serves as a difficulty selection.

Coming from its predecessors, the art style in Sonic Chaos takes a turn towards being more detailed and less cartoony. Aspect's experience gained from making their last Sonic title has given their programmers the experience to let Sonic and Tails run at faster speeds than in the other two games. The level designs are geared more towards intricate platforming than speed, but the inclusion of rocket shoes (exclusive to Sonic), pogo springs, and warp tubes let you break loose every once in a while. Curiously, Chaos is also the only Game Gear Sonic title with corkscrews to run through -- that must be a harder feat of programming than you might think. The levels bear a lot of similarity to those from the Genesis Sonic 2 as well (for example, Turquoise Hill = Emerald Hill, Gigapolis = Chemical Plant, and Mecha Green Hill = Oil Ocean). Sonic Chaos was also released for the Master System, in Europe and Brazil only. Unlike with the previous two games, differences between the versions are negligible.

...But Tails can fly.  (Master System version.)

For the first time, Sonic Chaos marks a conscious effort to evoke the speed and spirit of the Genesis trilogy, and I have to say they succeeded. Aspect's experience from their first attempt at a Sonic game have paid off. While Sonic Chaos is on the easy side, and many of the levels are short enough to finish in under a minute, it runs and plays smoothly. There is virtually no additional learning curve for those of you who have migrated from the Genesis trilogy, but that's not to say Chaos plagiarizes Sonic 2 or anything. It's a worthy experience not only for series newcomers, but any other Sonic fan who owns a Game Gear -- and yet there's one other Sonic game for said system which is even better... stay tuned!

Control: 5 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Design: 4 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Graphics: 4 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Audio: 5 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
The Call: 85% (B+)

Sonic Month: Sonic the Hedgehog (Game Gear)

Sonic the Hedgehog

• Publisher: Sega 
• Developer: Ancient 
• Release: 
• Master System: October 1991 
• Game Gear: December 1991 
• Genre: 2D Action (Platformer)
• Players: 1 
• Rarity/Cost: 
• Game Gear: Very common (US$1-5) 
• Master System: Moderate (US$5-10)

The funny thing about handheld video games based on, but not direct ports of, console game is that the end result often turns out to be something almost, but not entirely, unlike the source title. Maybe I should explain better: I was thinking primarily of Super Mario Land for the Game Boy when I said that. It's a different game from Super Mario Bros., what with having completely different (and fewer) levels, but some of us treat it as a port of the latter. This practice was more commonplace -- and justified -- during the first wave of handheld game systems. The processors for those early handhelds didn't have the power to fully recreate a console-based title, nor did their downsized cartridges pack enough space to hold it all. Also following this trend is none other than Mario's rival: the first Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Sega Game Gear.

Although it is separate from its big brother, the developers of the Game Gear Sonic went the extra mile to include a couple of similarities. One, there are three environments present in both versions: Green Hill Zone, Labyrinth Zone, and Scrap Brain Zone. Even though the levels are completely different, that's more than can be said of other Game Gear Sonic titles. Two, this is one of the few Game Gear Sonics that have Shield power-ups, letting Sonic take a hit without losing any rings. The only other game that used it was Sonic Blast, and that sucked... but we'll get to that issue later. There are even Special Stages in this game, but you don't get Chaos Emeralds in them this time around (they are found in the main zones themselves, and unlike in the 8-bit Sonic 2, may show up in either Act 1 or 2 of each zone). Rather, the Special Stages in this game are just opportunities for you to stock up on rings, lives, and continues. There's a time limit on the Special Stages, but with all the bumpers and springs knocking you about, you may occasionally get stuck in a (seemingly) endless loop and want the time limit to take you out of there.

The aptly named... Bridge Zone.

It's a good thing the Game Gear port of Sonic the Hedgehog has that much in common, because it lacks much of the X-factor identified with its big brother; namely, the sense of speed. There are none of the franchise-famous loops, corkscrews, or speed power-ups to be found. Really, the most extreme you're going to get is rolling down a ski-slope and launching off with the momentum - although oddly, doing this can sometimes make you go too fast for the camera to keep up. Even taking this game out of context, some of the original worlds are awfully generic, for example the Jungle Zone and - I'm not kidding about this one - Bridge Zone. ...Yeah, Sonic Colors this is not. I must admit that I found the graphics to be rather well-drawn in this game, especially on the Game Gear, where its expanded color palette lets the game easily outclass its rivals on the NES in this regard. There's even animated rivers and waterfalls, plus transparency effects during underwater segments, although sadly these have a tendency to ruin the frame rate, especially if you have a shield on.

Underwater areas ruin the frame rate.

Like its sequel which I had reviewed previously, Sonic the Hedgehog for Game Gear was developed separately from the Genesis title of the same name. It was also released on the Master System console, except this time, the latter port was released in North America (in fact, it was the console's last game sold in the region). The Game Gear version is readily available in cartridge form, and is also included in Sonic Adventure DX (GameCube, 2003) and Sonic Mega Collection Plus (PS2/XBox, 2004).  Changes between the Game Gear and Master System versions are merely graphical; since the Game Gear's screen resolution is smaller, Sonic's sprites were re-drawn to compensate for the loss of space, whereas his sprites on the Master System port were re-used for both 8-bit versions of the sequel, Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

I suppose I could give this tame experience a little benefit of the doubt. It may not have much of a Sonic feel to it, but if one were to ignore that possibly, this is a perfectly serviceable platformer. It's also on the easier side of Sonic games, except for the fact that there are no rings to protect you during boss stages, where you'll go down with one hit. But to be fair, this was among the first games made in the franchise, so the developers may not have known what to aim for just yet. It would be wrong of us to write this game off as a failure for not adhering to a formula that was unbuilt at the time, but that still doesn't make this game any more of an exciting ride.

Control: 3 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Design: 3 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Graphics: 3 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Audio: 3 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
The Call: 60% (C-)

Sticking Points: Winter Olympic Games '94

The reason LordKaT started "Until We Win", his video series of walkthroughs for the most famously hard games of old, was to exorcise the demons of his childhood.  Now that he announced he was ending UWW (with a bang, if I say so myself: Comix Zone), my timing couldn't be better for launching my own series of text walkthroughs, dubbed "Sticking Points.  The first installment of Sticking Points is indeed something which gave me no end of trouble when I played it as a lad.  I'm talking about Winter Olympic Games: Lillehammer '94 for the Game Gear.  I have more to say about this game, like how I came across it in the first place, but that might be better suited for a traditional review.  Look for it soon.


It's odd that I'll have to start off with the first menu in the game, but there's no in-game indication as to what it does.  This is the language selection screen; the eight flags here represent eight possible languages you can set the menu text to.  By default, the cursor will hover on the United Kingdom flag; this refers to English.  Just press 1 or 2 and advance to the main menu.  From here you can select one of three modes, plus options.  Full Olympics takes you through all 10 of the game's events in a row, Mini Olympics lets you run a program of only the events you want, and Training is just that: practice an event as long as you wish.  Before starting either Olympics mode, you can set your name (press 1), gender (2), and nation (Left/Right).  Press Start once you're done making these changes.


This game has ten events across six different sports, which are listed below in the order they appear in Full Olympic mode:

1. Downhill (Alpine Skiing)
2. Luge (Sled)
3. Moguls (Freestyle Skiing)
4. Super-Giant Slalom (Alpine Skiing)
5. Ski Jump
6. Biathalon
7. Giant Slalom (Alpine Skiing)
8. Short Track (Speed Skating)
9. Bobsled (Sled)
10. Slalom (Alpine Skiing)

Since some of the events are so similar, I'll cover them grouped by sport instead of individual events.  The tips I present will cover all the events in a sport, but I will point out differences when they pop up.  While I'm at it, this game was ported to other consoles, including the Genesis and Super NES (hence my use of the Genesis box art at the top of this entry), but the content within all the ports are identical.  Button names refer to the Game Gear and (Europe-exclusive) Master System versions; I am not sure what their counterparts are on the other consoles.

Alpine Skiing
At the beginning of each skiing event, before starting down the slope you get to choose from one of three steering control setups.  The first two turn your skier clockwise or counterclockwise when you hold Left/Right, and the third aims him in whatever direction you press the D-Pad.  I prefer the first option, but try them all out for yourself, preferably in Training, until you find one you can get used to.  Holding the 1 Button makes your skier crouch for more speed, but you may have to let go if you can't react fast enough.  The 2 Button makes your skier hop, which is useful if you need to continue from an emergency stop and nothing else.  Regarding the actual skiing, the top-down, isometric perspective doesn't give you much time to react to the next gate you must pass through.  As a general rule, follow the contours of the snow, and don't be afraid to turn to a near-horizontal angle even if it will cut your speed.  Hitting a gate counts, but if you miss one gate, you'll be disqualified once you finish the run.  Should this happen, save yourself some time by crashing into a bank of trees and ending the run prematurely.


Out of the four events in alpine skiing, Downhill is the longest yet easiest, with the gates farthest apart compared to the Super G, Giant Slalom, and Slalom.  Regardless of your skills in the other courses, it would be worth slowing down part of the way in the Slalom (release the crouch button, or do a sharp turn) - the track is that tough.  In addition, the Giant Slalom and Slalom courses have to be raced twice in a row; skiers are based on the sum of their two run times.  Failing either run, whether by missing a gate or crashing, ends the event prematurely.  I'm not a fan of this setup, but we'll get into it more in the review.  Note that the Luge, Moguls, Ski Jump, and Bobsled also follow this setup.

Sledding
The two sledding events, Luge and Bobsled, use the same track.  The biggest difference lies in how fast they go.  To start up in both events, you have to mash buttons 1 and 2 until gravity starts pulling your craft.  Strangely, I couldn't get past this simple step in the Luge event - the second event in the Full Olympics.   Sounds like a silly thing to mess up, right?  Not if you're like me and didn't have the instructions.  See, whereas the Bobsled gets started with just one push of either button, the Luge does not.  So I would press the button once and get nowhere fast, thus rendering this event and the Full Olympics mode unplayable.  ...Yeah, I got better.  Once you get started, your only controls are Left and Right which steer your craft.  Keeping your speed up is everything in these events; in order to do that, you have to stay in the center of the track as long as possible.  In turns, this means hovering over the border of light and shadow whenever possible.

Moguls
This is a freestyle skiing event where you zigzag down a series of small hills, the titular "moguls".  During the run you are expected to not only make it to the bottom as quickly as possible, but jump off the bumps and perform tricks.  You ski down automatically, but have to press Left and Right in time with each turn point to move faster.  To jump, press 1 or 2 with any direction on the D-Pad whenever you're above any of the right-hand moguls.  You have to be exact with this timing, because if you're too late or early, your skier will take a smaller jump, crash, and be disqualified.  The contestant with the best total of speed, turn, and air points wins, so for best results, take a jump at every fifth or sixth jump point.  Playing this event in Training mode adds beeps whenever you hit a jump point so you can practice your timing.

Ski Jump
This is a complicated event, and I had to do a whole mess of experimenting in Training mode to find the winning formula.  First, you have to push yourself down the ramp manually (press 1 or 2).  The torch on-screen indicates wind speed, but since there's no direction indicator, start when the flame is at its shortest.  Second, press 1 or 2 again just before you take off from the ramp; and I do mean as late as possible before going airborne.  Third, while you're airborne, your skier will lose balance and shift left or right.  Press Left/Right to correct this and stay as balanced as possible.  This will build up your style points.  Fourth, about a second before landing, press 1 or 2 one more time to land safely.  Fail to do so and you'll crash; it's not an instant disqualification like in the other events, but you'll take a severe cut to your style points.

Biathalon
If you don't know, the Biathalon combines cross-country skiing and target shooting events.  In this game's interpretation of the sport, there are five skiing and four shooting segments, with the types alternating between the two.  In the skiing sections, you'll see a bar on-screen with a slider moving back and forth between both ends.  To make your skier go faster, you have to manipulate the slider with Left/Right or 1/2.  If you can, get the slider to stop in the colored edges of the bar without hitting the end for best results.  In the shooting segments, you simply move the cursor with the D-Pad and press 1 to fire.  You have to hit all five targets, and you have only five shots to do so, but missing a target only adds one second onto your time.  The challenge lies in how the cursor moves slightly on its own, as if to simulate muscle fatigue.  It may seem unfair, but honestly without it, the shooting parts would be way too easy.  Note that in the final skiing segment, you have to mash 1/2 in order to move instead of using the other control scheme.

Speed Skating
The final sport, and second-to-final event, puts you on an ice rink against three other skaters with the goal of completing four and a half laps before everyone else.  Mashing 1/2 moves you forward , and since you'll spend a good 45 seconds straight doing this, find the best way to hold your Game Gear or controller and prepare for a little fatigue.  While turning corners, you'll drift to the outside, so you need to steer with Left/Right.  The trick is to avoid hitting other skaters and the inside wall, which will slow you down considerably.  It might even be worth letting yourself drift outside to avoid getting boxed in by other skaters.


And that's it for the events.  See you in four years!

Game Review: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Game Gear)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

• Publisher: Sega 
• Developer: Aspect 
• Platforms/Release: 
• Master System (Europe only): October 1992 
• Game Gear: November 1992
• Genre: Action 
• Rarity/Cost: 
• Game Gear: Very common (US$1-5) 
• Master System: Moderate (US$10-20)

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is not only the best-selling game for the Sega Genesis, at 6 million copies, but for me it's the most iconic Genesis game of all time. Yes, even more so than the first one, which I wasn't familiar with at first. Despite my equating the sights and sounds of that game with the system as a whole, I was never able to get through the Chemical Plant Zone, only the second zone out of about nine. Chalk that up to the fact that I never used to own a Genesis, and could only play it on the rare occasions when I visited someone who did. I did have a Game Gear, however, and they did release a version for that handheld. The experience, however, was nowhere near the same.

Right off the bat, there are two things that should tip you off that you're not playing the Genesis version. One, the new character, the orange fox Miles "Tails" Prower, is not a playable character. He was captured by Dr. Robotnik, as told by the opening cutscene. Instead, you must play as Sonic and make it through seven zones to reach Robotnik and, if you have all six Chaos Emeralds, free Tails. The second difference is that Sonic's standing spin dash ability from the Genesis version is missing. I'll explain why later, but what that means is if you have to break down a wall, you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way: by getting a running start, rolling your thumb roll to Down, and rely purely on Sonic's momentum. If you're used to revving up from a standstill, then this will take practice, but if you weaned yourself on the first Sonic the Hedgehog, then more power to you.

Lava in the first level.  (Game Gear version.)

The seven worlds in this game are also quite unlike the itinerary the Genesis version makes you go through. For one, you don't start out in some variant of the Green Hill Zone, the first level of the first Sonic games. They have one of those (here called the Green Hills Zone... Lazy.) No, you start out in the Under Ground Zone, which has caves, mine carts, and lava. Yes, lava in the first level. I've got a bad feeling about this. On the other hand, the level design is much improved from the first Game Gear Sonic, which suffered from not having much of what made the Genesis series famous. For one, there are actually loops in this game! You'll also take on some rides: mine carts, hang gliders, giant bubbles, and sling wheels. I'm sorry if that has sent veterans of Shadow the Hedgehog into post-traumatic stress disorder, but they're tastefully executed here, albeit nothing memorable.

When I played this game as a kid, there were two spots that gave me serious trouble. First, there was the boss of the Under Ground Zone - the first one in the game. It's a pair of robotic crab pincers, but you can't hurt it by jumping or rolling into it. Instead, you have to let a series of metal balls bounce into it, until Robotnik crashes his craft into it to deliver the final blow. If any of these projectiles hits you, even if you're curled up, you die. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: like in the Game Gear's first Sonic title, there are no rings in the shorter levels where you fight bosses, so one hit of any kind will cost a life. Given how many rings you can find in the normal stages, it's easier to stock up on lives, but that's beside the point. Back on the point, what makes this boss hard is A) the ground is sloped down towards the boss, making it hard to move, B) the balls each follow one of three patterns that are selected randomly, and C) the Game Gear's low-resolution screen makes it hard to see the balls in time to react, especially when they bounce higher. Even to this day, I blow much of my existing stock of lives on this guy - and let me remind you, this is the first boss. Oh, and to rub salt in the wound, the Master System version not only has a larger screen resolution, letting you see farther, but all the balls follow the same, easy-to-jump-over pattern. Bite me.

If you can manage to survive this boss, then you've pretty much gotten past the hardest segment in the game, until the final two zones. The second sticking point I was leading up to is technically an optional objective: gathering the Chaos Emeralds. Like in the first Game Gear Sonic, you have to pick up the Emeralds in the action stages themselves instead of in Special Stages, although they're only found in the second acts of each zone this time. They are easy enough to find if you choose to follow directions online, except for the second one, in the Sky High Zone. Hint: it's really high up. Also note that without collecting all the Chaos Emeralds, not only do you get the "bad" ending, but you don't even get to play in the final zone! Considering how much trouble I, personally, went to find them, that's a real ripoff.

Left: Master System. Right: Game Gear. See the difference? [1]

Oddly, the Game Gear version was released days before its Genesis counterpart in America and Europe (same day in Japan). There was also a version released for the Master System in Europe (and possibly Brazil) even earlier than that, but since people elsewhere had moved on to the Genesis/Mega Drive, it was never released elsewhere. That's a shame, because the Master System version is superior. I had mentioned the screen resolution issue earlier, but being able to spot danger from farther away makes a world of difference. There's even a speed power-up that was taken out in the Game Gear version (yet left in its instruction book - again, laziness abounds)! You can always import it from Europe and play that, but it since it's synced to the PAL format's 50hz frame rate, the music may play faster on NTSC-format consoles.

The 8-bit versions of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 have the odd distinction of improving upon their predecessor, yet feeling completely dated next to not only the 16-bit but (most of) the later 8-bit Sonic games. If you were expecting an experience like what you knew from the Genesis, you may feel disappointed. And for those of you unable to get past the first boss, it's okay to feel cheated. It's not your fault; it was the developers. But if you can forgive them for this big problem and all the other little ones, it is a decent platformer you could do far worse with. Game Gear users, however, could do far better.

Control: 4 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Design: 3 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
Graphics: 3 Chaos Emeralds out of 5 (GG) / 4 Chaos Emeralds out of 5 (MS)
Sound: 4 Chaos Emeralds out of 5
The Call: 65% (C) (GG) / 70% (C+) (MS)

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[1] "Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992) Screenshots". MobyGames. http://www.mobygames.com/game/sonic-the-hedgehog-2_/screenshots.