Sonic CD is a pretty impressive remastered version of the Sega Saturn classic at a cheap price. The biggest issue with the game is the fact that Sonic CD isn’t that great. Sega did not rush this one out the door but the extremely dated Sonic CD game play with little explanation and extremely confusing setup will turn off new players. The entire premise of Sonic CD centers around each level having a past, present, and future component. You need to make these places in time brighter and better by destroying the technology of the past that corrupts the future.
The problem of Sonic CD’s design is the layout isn’t as tight as other 16 bit Sonic titles. There is a lot of stop and start for Sonic who can
have a lot of trouble picking up decent running lanes. This is a bad thing when the only way to travel through time is to run without stopping at a fast speed for a reasonable distance.
Sonic CD includes both the American and Japanese soundtracks. If your looking for the classic Sonic Boom song then the American tracks are for you. The big add-on here is the addition to play as Tails, a character who wasn’t in the original version. Much like adding Knuckles into Sonic 2, these levels weren’t built for the fox but can be abused by him. His flying ability is an edge that Sonic didn’t have, but the spin-dash isn’t the same story. Sega added the spin-dash for Sonic from his 2nd Genesis outing. Previously the only move Sonic had in CD was a rev up, run in place move.
Is Sonic CD worth five bucks? Yeah it is. It is not Sonic 3 & Knuckles but a rare piece of Sonic History before the age of 3D wounded a great series. Sonic CD is extremely confusing and sometimes the layout of stages will never make any sense but it has enough polish added on to it to mask the problems left behind by the old Sega CD title.
Pros
- A lot of extra content not available in the Sega CD version
- Amazing Soundtrack
- Metal Sonic
Cons
- Level design hasn’t held up
- Time traveling is a pain
- Going for a perfect finish is outright frustrating
Score: 3/5
