Sega: Quit screwing around and give us a real Sonic collection!

The BBQ Pit
#1

Alright, Sega, I’ve had enough. Back when I was one of the few who owned your Saturn system, I bought a copy of Sonic Jam. It was pretty fun. You gave us, I believe:
[ul][li]Sonic the Hedgehog[/li][li]Sonic the Hedgehog 2[/li][li]Sonic the Hedgehog 3[/li][li]Sonic and Knuckles w/lock-on[/ul][/li]It wasn’t much, but I was glad to have something. The lack of more games was somewhat made up for by the neat extra features, like difficulty settings for each game, saves for games that didn’t have them on the Genesis, bug fixes, and extra features. And the Sonic World portion of the game had a bunch of Sonic history, like game music, ads, a timeline, concept drawings, etc., and a new 3D mini-game.

I sold my Saturn a few years back, and ever since I’ve been waiting for a new Sonic collection. So I was quite excited when I heard that Sonic Mega Collection was released for the GameCube, and I ran out to buy it. And it was a disappointment. Yeah, it had more games than Sonic Jam. But many games from the main Sonic series were omitted, and some games were hidden, accessable only after loading the initial set of games a certain number of times. Frustrating and stupid. All of the bonus features from Sonic Jam were eliminated. I was upset.

So when I heard about Sonic Mega Collection Plus for the PlayStation 2, I thought that maybe, maybe, it would be what I’ve been waiting for. Nope. The inclusion of Sonic games from the Game Gear seemed promising, but Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is mysteriously omitted. Other important parts of the Sonic series are still missing. All the bonus features and Sonic history from Sonic Jam have been removed. Yet the stupid unlockable games remain. When I buy a collection of old games, I expect to be able to play ALL of them right out of the fucking box. Don’t make me work to unlock something I’ve paid for.

Now, I’m going to buy Mega Collection Plus because I need to fulfill my Sonic cravings. But I’m not going to be too happy about it. Please, Sega, next time you feel the need to suck more money from the pockets of Sonic lovers, at least be nice enough to give us the full series, at least through the Genesis/32X/CD era. And no more of these damn unlockables.

#2

Sometimes when life gives you lemons you just have to deal with it.

http://www.gamewinners.com/gamecube/SonicMegaCollection.htm

#3

The Sonic Mega Collection Plus includes Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

#4

For Game Gear? (I’m going off an IGN review here, I might be wrong)

#5

The PS2 and XBox versions also include Comix Zone, one of the best obscure titles on the Genesis.

Still, Sega has this way of screwing over everyone, especially Gamecube owners. All the good titles that everyone wants went to where there will be a low audience for Sega games (the XBox), all the niche Japanese titles went to the PS2, and all the remakes went to the Gamecube. Sega’s also been hit hard lately, since Yu Suzuki (Virtua Fighter, Shenmue) left to form his own development company and Yuji Naka (Sonic, NiGHTs) is considering doing the same.

Unless Sega gets some new management, I don’t see them even lasting as a third-party after this next generation.

#6

That’s a bit of a half-assed metaphor.

#7

I’ve been saying this for a while, too. I have SMC for Gamecube (don’t have a PS2), but I’d absolutely kill for a collection that included all the Genesis Sonics, all the Game Gear games (I want Tails’ Adventure, dammit!), Sonic CD (which I don’t think has been reproduced anywhere but on the PC), Knuckles Chaotix (which I don’t think has been reproduced at all), the Sonic arcade game, Sonic Fighters, Sonic R, and all of the GBA Sonic Games (I’ll let Sonic Adventure 1/2 and Sonic Heroes slide). Plus the 3D world from Sonic Jam (which was awesome, but made it even more infuriating that we never got a real 32-bit Sonic Game - and no, 3D Blast does not even count).

Actually, there’s enough that they left out of the already released Mega Collections to easily make another volume. Heck, include whatever videos might be left of Sonic X-Treme before it got canned. And while the extra games included in the PS2 SMC are awesome (and almost make me want to pick up a PS2 just so I can get them), give us NiGHTS Into Dreams and Burning Rangers!

I will say, though, that the Sonic comic cover gallery from SMC is awesome, even if I have a lot of the issues already.

#8

Anyone wanna buy a Genesis with two Sonic games?

#9

…Dreamcast. I meant Dreamcast. I can’t remember what the games are called, but I definitely have two with the blue hedgehog and the 2-tailed squirrel and whatnot.

#10

Ah, I must’ve parsed your sentence wrong. Maybe they felt that it was too similar to the Genesis version to merit inclusion?

And regarding the later Sonic titles… I’ve read on some message boards that they were originally going to be included but that Sega has not been able to effectively emulate the later systems.