Name: Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Genre: 2D Platformer

Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sonic Team

Review by Flash

It may have been released fifteen years ago but this game is still my favourite Sonic game of all time. Why? Well theres tons of reasons why. The level designs are good, the music is great, the gameplay is really fun, there are cool power-ups, great multiplayer and, well everything about this game is fun.

The problem with these newer games is that they keep messing things up with poor plots, bad cameras and controls, terrible voice-actors and new characters. However Sonic 2 is a simple, fairly easy game that's just good fun. It wasn't too long, wasn't too short, didn't get repetitive, it had a simple plot and, well, everything about the game was cool really. I find this even better than the original Sonic mainly because it introduces Tails, my favourite character and it only has two Acts per zone rather than three. In the first game, the zones were quite long and I kind of got bored with the zone by the time I got to Act 3 but this game had shorter zones but there was more zones, the first Sonic game only had six zones whereas this game has eleven zones.

Emerald Hill: Awesome music in this zone, levels very short and simple and nothing bad about it. Just a typical average 2D first stage.

Chemical Plant: Cool music again and the level is a bit more complex than most other stages and one of the slightly more challenging zones, still easy to beat though.

Aquatic Ruin: I hate underwater levels but even I like this zone, acts are simple to get through and has cool music.

Casino Night Zone: My favoruite zone, it's like pinball, the music's awesome, the layout and design of the level is brilliant.

Hill Top Zone: Very similar to the outside areas of Marble Zone from the original game. Nothing interesting in this level worth metioning though, except for the cool shortcut in act 2 that makes the level ten times easier.

Mystic Cave: One of the levels I'm not too keen on as there was so many traps. Easy enough to clear through.

Oil Ocean: These acts were too long for my liking, but the music of the levels good.

Metropolis: I love the music in this zone and the level designs great, although I would have prefered it if it wasnt increased to three acts.

Sky Chase: I don't really like this level much since you can't really move anywhere but it's only one Act long and its over pretty quick.

Wing Fortress: One of my other favourites, a nice challenging level, shame the music could have been a bit better though.

Death Egg: The final boss where you have to fight Silver Sonic and then the big robot boss without any rings. This level can be really frustrating but once you get into a pattern with the final boss it's not too difficult.

And then you have the ending which I like.

The special stages are not that great as they can be tricky but they are much better than the special stages from the orginal Sonic game. You enter a special stage by touching a checkpoint while having fifty or more Rings. Then you can jump in the portal that appears. You basically run down a half pipe collect a specified number of Rings and if you can do this three times you get a Chaos Emerald, and once you have all seven you can become Super Sonic for the rest of the game by jumping with more than 50 Rings. Mind you by the time you're able to get all seven Emeralds you'd have practically finished the game anyway so they aren't really worth it to be honest.

The multiplayer is great fun, its a split screen where player 1 is Sonic and player 2 is Tails and you play through Emerald Hill, Casino Night and Mystic Hill zones, minus the bosses, as well as a special stage tournament. The multiplayer is great fun if you have a friend to play with.

So overall this is a great game, the best Sonic game at the moment. It's a shame all the other games couldn't be more like this one.