So after the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991, SEGA needed something big to follow it up. Sonic was a smashing success, and this was somewhat anticipated. Sega began work on a follow-up, which was released the next year as Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
My personal time with Sonic 2 began, just like with its predecessor, with Sonic Classic Collection for the Nintendo DS. Strangely, this was the one I never really played. I have vivid memories of eventually beating Green Hill, and of failing at Angel Island and Mushroom Hill - but for Sonic 2, I got nothing.
That was until a few years back, when I found out they ported Sonic 2 to mobile. Back then, you had to pay for it on Android - so I did some consumerism and jumped right in. These days, Sonic 2 is my personal favourite of the classics.
Sonic 2 is, in a nutshell, everything the first game did but better. Sonic Team took what worked for the original and expanded upon it, while throwing the stuff that didn’t in the trash. They introduced Tails, a cute new companion who allowed for multiplayer and just made the adventure that much less lonely. Also new is the Spin Dash, which allows the player to rev up and zoom off within a second.
Let's head into the stages.
Emerald Hill Zone is often forgotten when talking about Sonic zones, and I don’t really understand why. They took what made Green Hill the best of the first, and added more on. Instead of just loops, there are loops that roll into other loops, while going downhill. There are new corkscrews, where you have to keep your speed up or risk falling to the bottom path.
Emerald Hill is a huge improvement over Green Hill, and yet its the latter that always gets brought back in newer games. Despite selling roughly the same, Emerald Hill is not nearly as iconic. And I think I know why.
Yes, Chemical Plant is next. This zone is intense - but in a fun way. The stage is huge, you’re almost always at full speed, and the music is a bop. Chemical Plant is generally regarded to be a highlight of Sonic 2, and I understand why.
As far as second levels go, Chemical Plant puts Marble Zone to shame. While Marble severely broke the place, Chemical Plant knows what you want and literally runs with it. There are always two, three or even four paths happening at the same time when running through this zone, and it makes for an incredibly fun, replayable experience.
Ah, Aquatic Ruin. Don’t worry - this isn’t like Labyrinth. Aquatic Ruin Zone is the only water-themed zone in the classic games (excluding CD) to allow you to entirely skip the water. There’s a top path, which stays completely dry, as long as you have the skill.
This is what people love about classic Sonic level design. If you play well, you’re rewarded with a faster, more fun level. If you mess up, you’re punished by being dropped into the slow water below. To me, Aquatic Ruin is the perfect example of a water level done right.
Casino Night Zone takes the bounciness of Sonic’s physics and pushes it to the extreme. This is the upgraded version of Spring Yard, and it shows. All around are bumpers, springs and the brand new pinball flippers. Sonic’s momentum is used both for and against him here, and it plays surprisingly well.
There’s a neat mechanic in which Sonic is dropped into a pinball machine. In the centre is a slot where, if Sonic enters, it will spin like a slot machine and either reward or punish the player. Got three Sonics? That’s a lot of new rings for your collection? Oh, but you got three Robotniks? Say goodbye to all your rings!
I have yet to mention the bosses, as most of the time they’re not very special. The Casino Night boss, however, is unique in that it takes place in one of the pinball machine, and Sonic must use the flippers to bounce himself onto Robotnik’s machine and destroy it.
A lot of people complain about the music in Hill Top Zone, but personally I like it and don’t find it annoying. With regards to the rest of the level, it’s fine - nothing of note, to be honest. Hill Top is the first zone that feels like a small pacebreaker, however for the most part it’s a fine level.
I enjoy the enclosed sections with the rising lava, I think they add some much-needed tension to an otherwise fairly forgettable level.
Mystic Cave is one of my personal favourites. It has banging music, looks really pretty and has crushing pillars of death. Okay, that last one isn’t so great. There are also blocks that can crush you easily if you don’t pay attention.
Unfortunately, unlike Aquatic Ruin, you can’t easily avoid the hazards in this stage. This zone is a turning point in the game, as it starts to get trickier here.
I’m sorry, but no. This zone is not good. There are unfair enemy placements that genuinely cannot be avoided when going fast, a lot of the level is spent shooting from cannon to cannon, and they brought back the slides from Labyrinth.
I think this zone has the potential to be good. They’ve proved that in Sonic Mania - but here, it ends up as a slow slog, which is not ideal for a Sonic game.
For most stages, the Act count was decreased from three, as it was in Sonic 1, to two. In my opinion, this is the optimal amount of acts. Introduce the zone in the first act, expand upon it and make it more challenging in the second.
Metropolis Zone, the longest, hardest and least fair zone in the game, has three. It is widely believed that an act from the unused Wood Zone was placed here, but that just resulted in an imbalance.
The level, itself, is not great either. Particularly those slicer robots, and the giant screws that force you to run on the spot, only to send you spinning into insta-death crushing spikes. Fun.
This one act zone is just Sonic and Tails chilling on the Tornado biplane, waiting for the next level. It’s fine, mostly boring with a not ideal glitch, in which Sonic can run too fast and fall off, plummeting into the void below.
This zone is most well known for having an easy skip that skips most of the level. Beyond that, I see it as a precursor to Sonic & Knuckles’ Flying Battery Zone. It’s clear to me that they needed more time to figure out how to scale difficulty in these games.
From the platforms which disappear into the wall, fan-assisted floating that makes controlling the hedgehog a pain, and some of the most precarious platforming in the series, death is likely, and you’re likely not gonna have many lives after Oil Ocean and Metropolis.
I find the Death Egg Zone music fascinating. Writing this blog, I listened to it in full for the first time. I’ve played this zone countless times, but you hear that music for, what, three seconds?
Anyway, this one is pretty interesting. You’re thrust in with no rings, where you’re up against the robotic Silver Sonic, who’s attacks are quick and unpredictable, and then you’re thrown into the final boss room, where you fight the Death Egg Robot.
The Death Egg Robot is a cool boss, for sure, but the strangely inconsistent hitbox and instant death (due to the lack of rings) goes against it, and this zone as a whole.
The Special Stages this time are the half pipes. You have to collect rings and avoid bombs to get the Chaos Emeralds. Alone, this is fine, but with Tails, it can quickly become a mess. He moves slightly after you do, so he is much more prone to crashing into those pesky bombs.
You find the Special Stages by passing Checkpoint Posts with 50 or more rings, at which point a red ring appears over the post. Due to the amount of these posts lying around, you can actually unlock Super Sonic in Emerald Hill if you’re skilled enough.
Jump in, and good luck. Collect all seven (yes, seven, they added another) Chaos Emeralds to unlock Super Sonic, a superpowered form that is invulnerable to most hazards. Collect 50 rings and jump in any level once you have the emeralds to transform.
Much like the first game, the best way to play this game right now is the Christian Whitehead port for mobile. It adds Time Trials, Boss Rush, achievements, online rankings, and does something incredible...
In the original, there’s an infamous pit in Mystic Cave that, if you run into it before dropping a bridge over it, you get stuck on spikes and eventually die. However as Super Sonic, you’re forced to wait for literal minutes as your ring count decreases and you eventually die.
In this port, you drop down here and you end up in the Hidden Palace Zone, a stage that is famous for being cut from the original despite being near completion. It’s a really, really cool easter egg and really makes this the definitive version of Sonic 2 - not to mention that it’s in widescreen, 60fps, the Special Stages are actually playable - you get the point.
I like Sonic 2. No, I love Sonic 2. It took everything that made the first game so memorable and cranked it up to the max. There are a few misses here, such as Oil Ocean, Metropolis and Death Egg, but overall this is a really solid experience.
This game is insane. You go from a Green Hill knock-off to gambling to a Emerald Hill but with lava to a dark spooky cave to a giant oil plant to Robotnik's airship to the Death Star (but named differently to avoid copyright) in the span of, what, twelve stages?
Even if you don’t like this game as much as, say, Sonic 3 or Sonic Adventure, it’s hard not to appreciate Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the solid experience it is.
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