Sonic & Pals by Priscilla Tramontano

Sonic Mania - RUN FLY CLIMB

Judged on this 90 second hype reel, Sonic Mania is shaping up very nicely indeed. Christian Whitehead, Headcannon and PagodaWest Games' first stab at an original Sonic the Hedgehog instalment looks exactly like the game Sega should have produced for their Saturn console, a wonderful remix with the nounce to draw visual and interactive influence from overlooked 16-bit platformers like Treasure's Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy or Sonic Team's very own Ristar the Shooting Star.

SONIC MANIA

As a series, Sonic the Hedgehog has been struggling with irrelevance since the late 90s. While arch-rival Mario has made several successful generational leaps, Sonic has floundered, lumbered with dozens of games that wilfully obscured the core appeal of colourful speeding to concentrate on empty RPG worlds and an extended cast of insipid furry friends. Thankfully, Sega has finally wised up, handing over the needle mouse's reigns to Christian Whitehead, the ace programmer / digital curator who lovingly rebuilt Sonic's best games on the iPhone. Sonic Mania sees Sega's mascot back leaping and sprinting around pixel landscapes that resemble Saved by the Bell's opening credits.

HIDDEN PALACE

Previously only accessible as a corrupted mess via cheat cart hack codes, the scrapped Sonic the Hedgehog 2 level Hidden Palace Zone has been given a new lease of life thanks to couple of committed fans and a recent mobile release. Using assets only available in Beta code, and level layouts suggested by pre-release magazine appearances, Sonic sceners Taxman and Stealth have created a wonderful, speculative stage tucked away in a dark, cavernous corner of the main game.

Vid on the fritz?

Deadlock and Sonic the Hedgehog by Mike McMahon

From McMahon's wonderful 'tugging your coat' blog.

Toot Toot Sonic Warrior

With Sonic the Hedgehog's Lead Programmer Yuji Naka hard at work helming a Mega Drive sequel in America, it fell to to Sonic's creator Naoto Ohshima to develop a separate release designed to take advantage of Sega's new supplementary hardware, the Mega CD. Sonic CD featured crisp J-Pop anthems, and animated cut-scenes by Toei Animation and Studio Junio, as well as a time travel gimmick that allowed players to leap back and forth undoing Dr Robotnik's techno-pollution. Despite a PC port, and an appearance as part of a GameCube / PlayStation 2 compilation, Sonic CD's initial release on an expensive, niche system assured the title the dubious distinction of being the least played Sonic game. Thankfully, this forthcoming digital release looks to be fairly definitive, adding in the instant momentum of Sonic the Hedgehog 2's spin-dash attack, and retaining the Japanese soundtrack that was removed for the original American issue.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 disappoints. It tries to juggle nostalgia responsibilities with tick-box rejuvenation, and ends up a muddled thing. It seeks to please Mega Drive gamers by recreating classic stages and giving them a lush 3D scrub down, then fluffs the gesture by tinkering with instinct movement mechanics. In all Sonic's 16-Bit titles the basic joy was running through a series of loops before curling into a ball for a near vertical drop; Sonic would pick up a thunderous momentum that occasionally out-paced the console's ability to process information. In Sonic 4, the curl is recalibrated as purely defensive maneuver that actually whiffs any built-up speed. Rather than mark the beginning of a scroll stuttering peel, it signifies its limp death.

Movement in general stresses strolling - Sonic takes an age to rev up - a concession to a stage design remit that specialises in tease without release. Once out of Splash Hill Zone, levels junk roller coaster breeziness to concentrate on the kind of stop-start platforming utterly antithetical to the core Sonic concept. 1991's Sonic the Hedgehog found a pitch perfect balance between speed-run stages, and obstacle course interruptions that played with your freshly minted desire to sprint. Sonic 4 is a title built entirely out of these punctuations, peppered with enough punishment drops and sudden enemy attacks to make the whole enterprise feel self-defeating. What's the point of Sonic if you're not allowed to run?

Knuckles the Echidna

Continuing Sega's loose trend of one-off wonders, the cartridge for 1994's Sonic & Knuckles allowed players to plug in past Sonic titles for a little bit of added value. Plug in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and you were treated to an epic length conglomeration of the two parent titles; connect Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and you were able to take new kid Knuckles through the sequel stages. Strap on Sonic the Hedgehog though, and all you got were a slew of randomly generated mini-games. Ho-hum! Anyone expecting to take the red echidna for a spin around Green Hill Zone were about to be taught a lesson in bitter bitter disappointment. Hackers to the rescue! Through some nifty colour substitution tricks that circumvented Sega's original palette swap dilemma, home brewers were eventually able to insert Knuckles into an emulated version of the 1991 original. Above be the fruit of their labours. This speed run isn't perfect; there's an over reliance on no-clip shortcuts and Knuckles does appear to be in a permanent invincibility state, but it does represent a nice bit of pointless wish fulfillment.

Speedy Needle

Levels in the 16-bit Sonic the Hedgehog games were dense with diversion. Players could comb multiple stacking routes for secrets and bonuses, or blast right through mach speeding. Above is a finely honed example of the latter. Blast processing! Listen out for a soundscape struggling to keep up with the blistering pace.