Overview of Sonic Origins – the pillar of the genre

Born in the 1990s, the Sonic the Hedgehog platformer series was more than a fitting response to Nintendo’s highly successful Mario game. I remember very well how I was amazed at the speed and color of this 16-bit game on my parents’ color TV when they were not at home (otherwise I could only play on my black and white TV in the children’s room). The original trilogy of these games has remained unbeatable despite many attempts by Sega itself, and are still some of the best classic 2D platformers you’ll ever play. The latest collection brings them together beautifully with the addition of “Sonic & Knuckles” and the mechanically and musically whimsical “Sonic CD” spin-off. How did you manage to maintain or improve the quality of the original games, and is the added content worth it?

• Platform: PS5 (Review), XSX|S, PC, PS4, X1, Switch
• Publication date: 06/23/2022
• Producer: Sonic Team (Japan)
• Genre: platformer
• Czech localization: Not
• Multiplayer: 2 players locally
• Data to download: 4GB
• Game time: 10+ hours
• Price: 999 CZK (couples)

Technically controversial

Sonic Origins offers two ways to play the included five games: in the original 4:3 aspect ratio and traditional difficulty setting (you have limited lives) or in modern 16:9 widescreen, where you also have unlimited lives (after you die, you always respawn at the last checkpoint). While the first two games are based on pre-existing remasters (created using the Retro Engine), Sonic 3 & Knuckles (a tie-in to the third installment and latest addition to the 2D series with Knuckles) has been completely remastered. Across all games, you’ll find efforts to improve and harmonize everything, whether it’s adding moves/controls from newer games to older ones, or completely reworked animation sprites, or even “resurrecting” additional levels that were once omitted from the original. . In addition, the sound is mostly re-mastered.

Unfortunately, this creator love affair wasn’t carried through, as evidenced by the shootout on Twitter between some of the creators complaining about hanging deadlines and not being able to finish the job properly. This left a few issues in the game that we’re not entirely sure we can fix with patches. For example, Tails’ inability to follow your character smoothly enough: he gets stuck more than ever and you have to listen to him frantically jump in place, and you are already far away and want to enjoy a great soundtrack. , among other things. By the way, the music also suffered for another reason: some songs in the third part, apparently, were the work of Michael Jackson, and they could not be relicensed, so they were replaced by songs from the original prototypes of the game. As someone who grew up with these games and original music, I felt like someone pushed me to plagiarize instead of the original game.

Unfortunately, the creators’ loving care was not completed.

But if we think about all these little issues, we’re still left with a collection of great platformers that can also be played entirely together, for the first time in history, combined into one big sequel game within a brand new “Story”. mode. This in itself is such an experience that, in my opinion, is worth buying the game. The vast majority of the original’s qualities are present, and features such as infinite lives or the ability to replay a failed bonus level (to get all the Chaos Emeralds for the best possible ending) make this widescreen mega game really fun. play. The only pity is that the developers did not offer image settings from Sonic Mania, and instead you only have the option to turn on “anti-aliasing”, which really only blurs the game ugly.

Excessive monetization

Of course, this would not be a full-fledged anniversary collection if, in addition to the games themselves, it also did not contain additional content – both in-game and in the form of all kinds of additional bonuses. For example, I personally enjoyed digitally flipping through the original manuals for each game (you can find the versions for each region here). In addition, the galleries contain all kinds of advertising art, game covers, as well as, for example, videos from concerts or parts of animated series. Also, one of Origins’ most notable bonuses is the brand new animated intros and outros for each of the games included in the bundle, and these shorts have been a hit and perfectly match the original style of the games.

In addition, there is a relatively diverse set of bonus game content, which, in addition to being able to play levels in reverse order (mirror mode), are mainly special missions in which you have to complete a certain task – for example, reach your destination. at a certain time, with a certain number of rings, or destroy a certain number of enemies in the allotted time, or jump over a special / new obstacle course. Unfortunately, many of these extra missions, as well as, for example, most of the music gallery are hidden behind additional payments in the form of paid add-ons, which looks really out of place in the context of the annual collection of old games. This spoils the impression that the player receives a complete collection for his money.