Sonic Classic Collection

“The best of Sonic returns!” screams the box art. I’d like to add something to that – “The best of Sonic returns! Again!” There we go, that’s better.

Sonic Classic Collection is simply Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles collected together for your DS. There’s an added ‘bonus’ of being able to play Knuckles in Sonic 2 and 3, but essentially, you’re just getting these four games. While I’m not a hardcore Sega fan, I am a Nintendo DS fan so from this angle it’s pretty fun to play Sonic on the DS. If you’re technologically minded with great attention to detail, I’m sure that you could find one or two things wrong with the emulation on this game, and compare it to the quality of emulation on other consoles. To be honest though, the whole package doesn’t really disappoint if all you’re looking for is a speedy Sonic fix. If you’re a more dedicated Sonic fan, then no doubt you’ll probably have other console versions of these games and find little to satisfy you here beyond the portability and the novelty of yet another version.

There are no brand spanking new features, nor are there any fancy additions to the games. It would have been more fun if they’d swapped the Knuckles versions of Sonic 2 and 3 for two other whole games, that would probably have made this collection more worthwhile.

While the action plays out on the top screen, the bottom screen gives you options to pause, quit and save. The saving seems like a nice touch, it gives you the impression that you can spot save anywhere. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. It only saves what level you’re on. Maybe spot saving is asking too much, but to at least have checkpoint saving would have been a nice touch.

Finally, the only other thing this game gives you apart from the credits is an illustration gallery. The gallery is nice to look at for one or two minutes, but you could probably do the same with a Google image search with far funnier results if you take off the safety filter.

It does serve, I suppose, as a good introduction to the Sonic series for younger players. A young family friend absolutely lapped this up, since he found these classic Sonic games on a large TV didn’t ‘look that good’. He’s been spoiled with fancy graphics, and the Sonic games on this collection suit the bright portable screen of the DSi in particular. If you get this, you’ll no doubt be entertained for hours; these games are ‘classic’ for a reason. Plus the original music for the Green Hill Zone will get you every time.


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One response to “Sonic Classic Collection”

  1. Michael avatar

    I read the title, thought good things, saw it was on DS, thought not so good things (but only as I don’t have a DS and DO have the four games on the Mega Drive Collection).

    Green Hill Zone is indeed teh awesome 😀

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