I have played through the three titles from Sonic Team that are present on SEGA Genesis Collection. SEGA wanted a killer application. The Genesis had some momentum in the market from the hardcore gamer. They wanted a title to help push them over the edge. They wanted something that would sell the system to the masses. They were even specifically looking for a mascot character. Imagine the pressure this put on the team charged with making this all happen. That team was AM-8. Luckily SEGA had a wealth of talent at the time they could draw from. Noteworthy members of the twelve person team were Naoto Ohshima, the man who created Sonic and Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Reiko Kodama of Shinobi and Phantasy Star fame handled the background art. Yuji Naka was considered the wizkid within the company at the time for his programming skills and he coded the game. And Masato Nakamura for his amazing music. Nakamura happened to be a member of a famous band in Japan called Dreams Come True. Sonic the Hedgehog was released on June 23, 1991. AM-8 not only succeeded in making a great game, but they did in fact create the new mascot for the company and made the game that sold the system to the masses and pushed the Genesis over the edge into the mainstream. To the point that Sonic the Hedgehog replaced Altered Beast as the pack-in game sold with the Genesis. AM-8 changed its name to Sonic Team after the success of the game. So what did they do? They created a game that was simple to pick up and play yet provided enough challenge for the hardcore while never frustrating the casual player. The made what was at the time the most impressive visual presentation for any console game with the graphics. They filled the game with great music and sound. They filled the game with speed. A level of speed also never seen before in video games. Sonic was the fastest thing around. They filled the game with character by giving Sonic character. He would have reactions to being too close to the edge. He would become annoyed if you let him idle. Action games didn't have that level of personality before Sonic came along. Now every game has idle animations. They're not even expected anymore, they're almost required. It was a small thing at the time but it did a lot to add some charm and really helped endear the character to the players. They put Sonic up against a cool villain in the form of Robotnik and his different machines as bosses. The boss battles were all fun and varied. They included the Chaos Emeralds and bonus stages. The bonus stages were clearly a shot at the rotation capabilities of the Mode-7 built into the SNES. Naka was able to pull off amazing rotation in the bonus stages all from within the software programming and not having to rely on hardware tricks. If you were able to hold fifty rings until the end of act one or two of any of the game's five zones you would see a giant golden ring at the goal. If you jumped into this giant golden ring you would be taken to the bonus round. In the bonus round a maze like area would be rotating around and you had to maneuver Sonic who was spinning like a pinball through the course to the Chaos Emerald. Along the way there were exits to be avoided and bumpers to knock you around and triggers that would slow or speed up the rotation of the maze. You had to collect all six Chaos Emeralds to be able to see the true ending. The bonus rounds were absolutely brilliant. Some of the most tension filled moments in my gaming history come from trying to avoid those damn exit pits. Playing through the game today I'm amazed by how visually impressive the title remains. The music also comes off as impressive as it was then. It's still as fun as it ever was. It's truly classic stuff that will remain timeless.
On "Sonic 2sday" in November of 1992 SEGA released Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Genesis. Sonic Team was expanded and split into two different teams following the completion of the original title. Sonic Team stayed in Japan and began working on Sonic CD while the other team became SEGA Technical Institute and set up shop in San Francisco at SEGA of America. All of the key players returned for Sonic 2. Naka, Kodama, Nakamura and the rest were back. Sonic 2 was everything you wanted in a sequel. They offered up everything great about the first one and more. It was a little over a year on from the original which meant that they had gotten a better handle on making the Genesis kick and it shows. You have improved visuals and better sound quality. You have Sonic being able to do the spindash, so he could get up to full speed standing still. That greatly improved the gameplay and added a little depth. You have the addition of a new character in the form of Miles 'Tails' Prower, a two-tailed fox. This allowed for a versus mode to be added to the game. You could race a friend through split-screen versions of some of the levels. They increased the size of the acts to almost double that of the previous game. They did remove the third act from each zone and had Robotnik at the end of the second act of each zone. They increased the number of zones from five to eleven. It all resulted in a game that was roughly twice as large as the original title. They increased the number of Chaos Emeralds to seven. They changed the bonus rounds. You still had to carry fifty rings on you to access them, but there wasn't a giant ring at the end of the act. You could access the bonus rounds from the checkpoint markers in the acts. Some acts had as many as three checkpoints which meant you could collect all the Chaos Emeralds by the first checkpoint of act one in zone two. The bonus rounds this time around were winding courses where Sonic would run into the screen. You had to collect enough rings while avoiding the obstacles to reach a checkpoint. There were three checkpoints and if you didn't have enough rings you'd fail at the checkpoint. Having enough rings at the final checkpoint allowed you to reach the Chaos Emerald. Collecting all the Chaos Emeralds this time around enabled you to turn into Super Sonic. Super Sonic is invincible to everything except bottomless pits. The invincibility lasts as long as you had rings. While Super Sonic, your ring total steadily ticks down to zero, so you have to keep collecting rings to keep it going. They added in great new boss battles with Robotnik. Even more varied and inventive than the originals. They stepped the challenge up, especially in the final two battles. The challenge of the overall game was tougher than the original. The enemies where more difficult to avoid. It's a bigger, better, prettier version of the original with enough new to be another perfect game.
In 1995 SEGA released Ristar the Shooting Star on the Genesis. This game was produced by SEGA Technical Institute. When they were first creating the original Sonic the Hedgehog they were initially moving forward with a rabbit character who could reach out and grab things with its ears. As the game became more and more about speed, they had to morph the character into what became Sonic and dropped the grabbing gameplay aspect. When it came time for them to make another game that wasn't Sonic, they decided to return to that original gameplay aspect. They ditched therabbit character and created Ristar. Ristar is a character that is literally a star with arms and legs. He's able to reach out and grab enemies and items. He can reach in eight directions. When he grabs on to an enemy he holds them and then headbutts them. SEGA Technical Institute wanted to get away from Sonic and his speed so they kept things deliberately slow with Ristar. There isn't a timer and the gameplay is more about rewarding exploration. The game is structured like a Sonic game though. You get two large acts per zone and then a boss battle. The boss battles are all very different and interesting. There are hidden bonus rounds in each zone to be found. The bonus rounds are gauntlets that must be cleared. You have to figure out how to make it to the treasure within the time limit. Ristar represents a development team pushing the Genesis to the utmost. Ristar is a beautiful game. It's even more bright and colorful than the Sonic series. It sounds great and features heavy use of voice samples. The gameplay is fun standard action platform fare. Jump, swim, attack. Ristar is a surprisingly maneuverable character. The later half of the game really shows that off with what they make you do. By the time Ristar was released, everyone was looking at 32-bit systems. The game was lost in the waning days of the generation. It's nice to see it available within SEGA Genesis Collection, and on the Wii's Virtual Console. It's a great title that plays wonderfully, has impressive visuals, and provided good challenge.
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