Sonic Origins Plus (Sonic Origins) was originally announced way back in May 2021 and flew under the radar for a while until its release. Headcanon and Sega have crafted a nostalgic 2D platforming package here that will satisfy casual fans but also leave the more hardcore perplexed and not too happy at all, especially with the audio.
Players who purchased the original package got SonicThe Hedgehog, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic CD. The Sonic Origins Plus DLC adds an additional 12 Sega Game Gear Sonic franchise titles to the mix, including some which never saw the light of day outside of Japan.
The plus pack also includes a playable Knuckles in Sonic CD, and for the first time ever, Amy Rose as a playable character in Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and Sonic CD. Being able to play as Amy is great and she has her own unique abilities which she can use in each title much like her counterparts. Whether or not paying $10 for the DLC just to play as Amy or Knuckles is worth it is up for debate. Honestly, they should have been added as free DLC while the Game Gear titles could have been paid DLC but Sega opted to bundle all the content together.
The Game Gear titles on offer here are a mixed bag with some that definitely should have remained in the past. Though if you’re a video game history fan or a hardcore Sonic fan, it is quite cool having access to these in one package. Unfortunately, though, there seem to be some performance issues with these titles with the audio seemingly being rather lacklustre in them.
Additionally, the Game Gear versions of Sonic Spinball and Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine feel like a wasted opportunity here. Sega could have easily included the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive versions of these titles but they didn’t.
Booting up any of the 4 major games in Sonic Origins Plus will treat players to an animated opening that oozes 90s style. The animation team that worked on these newly animated cutscenes that play in the game deserve a tonne of praise. It truly does make you wish that we could have a full-fledged Sonic The Hedgehog anime with this level of quality. It’s a shame that there aren’t more of these scenes and that they are all rather short.
Sega has included 2 options for each of the major Sonic titles here. An “Anniversary Mode” and a “Classic Mode”. Anniversary mode offers up unlimited lives and fullscreen support while Classic mode is true to the originals including the lower resolution visuals. Players will swap between games and can interact with a diorama map on-screen. You can zoom in on the diorama and view characters but that’s about it.
This also brings me to my major grievances with this collection of games. Since we’ve been getting a lot of older games remastered or brought back recently, a lot have been given various quality-of-life improvements. Side-scrollers have been given a rewind feature, CRT filters, save states and much much more. Sega however barely included any of these here. The only thing we do have here is a Museum where we can look at concept art and manuals. It would have been appreciated if Sega could have included some more bonus features because even with the Plus DLC pack, Sonic Origins Plus is still pretty barebones.
Thankfully you can listen to the game’s original soundtracks but you can’t fast-forward the music either so you’ll have to sit through an entire track even if you just want to listen to a specific part.
Some more behind-the-scenes commentary regarding the history of the iconic character would have also been greatly appreciated here. Especially since Sonic himself is quite popular worldwide now given how successful the recent two movies have been.
Sonic Origins Plus‘ core gameplay itself is unfortunately a bit of a hit-and-miss. Casual fans will enjoy themselves here but hardcore Sonic players will find specific things to nitpick at. Amy can use her Super form as well as her Hyper form and she is able to throw hammers in her Hyper form which is great. Most of the core gameplay is relatively unchanged from the original titles but the Anniversary Mode’s unlimited lives feature does make the game a tad too easy.
At the time of writing this review, there isn’t a way to disable this either without swapping over to Classic mode but then you’re left with the older resolution visuals. Being able to pay in coins to retry bonus sphere levels is great and helps to alleviate some of the frustration those levels would cause back in the day. Purists will scoff at this though since it does make getting all the chaos emeralds a lot easier.
It should be noted that Carnival Night Zone, Ice Cap Zone and Launch Base Zone quite literally do not feel the same as the new music tracks in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It’s like a major aspect of them has been destroyed and replaced with something bland in comparison. It’s extremely noticeable if you’ve played the original games back in the day and it strips away much of what made these levels so enjoyable.
Sonic Origins and its Plus pack of DLC relies way too much on the nostalgia factor but this isn’t enough when Sega’s asking price for the full game is so expensive. Yes, it is a collection that you can play on modern consoles and PC but you could just as easily have done this before with the Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classics collection for a fraction of the price.
Overall, Sonic Origins Plus banks too much on nostalgia to carry it. The games are functional and enjoyable as always but the glitches and audio issues introduced here are disappointing. Sonic Origins Plus is therefore a title we can only recommend picking up if you’re a Sonic fan. This package does let you play the blue hedgehog’s past game gear titles on modern devices though in a legal manner without diving into the grey area of emulators, and this is a noteworthy plus (heh, pun intended).
Sonic Origins Plus Trailer
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