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The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Original Platform: PC

Original release: 1st April 2023

Available to buy: Yes

Announced as an April Fool’s Joke, this is an actual game…and surprisingly very entertaining. You play as an assistant on a train hosting a murder mystery party for Amy’s birthday, Sonic gets murdered and you have to help Tails figure it out. Except that Sonic seems seriously injured and everyone just think he’s acting really well.

The game is a visual novel where you will click on items to collect evidence and then present them to work out smaller mysteries before working up to the main mystery (this has some interesting twists). After you present evidence you have to complete your train of thought by thinking of what Sonic would do – which involves an auto runner minigame where you collect rings. It’s simple, but a lot of fun (there are also lots of options to make it easier if you need it.

While it’s short, its a lot of fun and completely free!

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All Star Trek Games

While I'm also planning on doing more Sonic content here (things like logos, box art, music), my next big project for playing games is playing all Star Trek games, which will appear on the following Tumblr:

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Sonic Speed Simulator Reborn

Original Platform: Roblox

Original release: 11th Feb 2023

Available to buy: Yes

The new version of Sonic Speed Simulator, called Sonic Speed Simulator Reborn, replaced the old one and boasted bigger environments and a boost feature. It also removes a lot of stuff that was previously available – the Tornado mission, Jet hoverboard race and Metal Sonic race are all gone, along with multiple areas such as Metal City, Chemical Plant and more. The remaining levels, Green Hill Zone, Lost Valley and Emerald Hill Zone have been reworked.

The new Green Hill Zone is a complete mess. It seems like they weren’t planning on expanding this world until the last minute, you’ll go out of bounds just trying to explore and you can even see floating trees and the edges of the blocks of water by following the actual paths – there’s even a grind rail that shows off all this broken stuff. The new stuff seems poorly botched onto the old map. Surprisingly, the Lost Valley and Emerald Hill maps have been completely rebuilt from the ground up and are actually quite nice maps.

At least, they would be if there was something to do in them. The core gameplay remains the same repetitive grind of running around in circles. Progression though levels is now quest based, but the quests are mostly just the same griding. Occasionally you’ll have to spend rings on chao. There’s one mission where you have to destroy 10 power generators, but they respawn so you just destroy the same ones a few times instead of properly exploring. It’s still by far the most interesting mission in the game – the rest are just grinding by running around in circles.

This version of the game also desperately requires using codes to unlock promotional chao (these increase the rings and experience you collect). The grind is already miserable, but without these promotional chao, it would be a hundred times more tedious. The game even knows how tedious it is because they added an “auto run” feature, where the game plays itself for a bit so you can grind while doing other things.

While the Lost Valley and Emerald Hill levels are nice, this version of the game pretty much removes the only fun parts of the game

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Sonic Super Teams

Original Platform: Board game

Original release: 2019

Where to get: Limited availability in Germany/UK

The most striking thing about this is the absolutely gorgeous artwork. Our of all the Sonic board games, this has by far the nicest original art.

In Sonic Super Teams, characters are paid into groups of two: Sonic & Tails, Knuckles & Amy, Shadow & Silver and Metal Sonic & Rouge – these pairings are a bit odd and feels like they picked the characters first and the teams second. Personally, I would have paired up Shadow & Rouge and replaced Silver with Dr. Robotnik to team up with Metal Sonic.

Each team has a deck of movement cards (with movements of 1-6). However, the team playing as those characters doesn’t get their team’s cards. Instead, the cards are shuffled and each player gets six. You take turns playing a card and moving a character from that team, meaning you can send them into traps. As you select item cards, the team being moved can play a bonus card to influence their movement, such as moving one more space or protecting themselves from spikes.

The game is very simple but there’s a lot of depth do it, you have to work out how to best use the cards in your hands to hamper enemies – you can use loops to waste some cards (if you end your turn mid-loop, you return to the start of it) while using bonus cards to push yourself onto better spaces. I also think a few variants could also be fun, such as a full four player mode (in the rules, players form teams of two) for more chaos.

One let down is that there’s only one board, so the map will be the same every time. A bit more variety would be nice. Still, this game is pretty fast paced, is nice and short, easy to set up and is easy to understand. It’s the best choice for a Sonic game if you don’t want something as complicated (or expensive) as Sonic Battle Racers.

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Sonic Battle: The Search for the Chaos Emeralds

Original Platform: Board game

Original release: 2019

Where to get: Amazon UK

Like Dice Rush, this is another board game with the “Classic Sonic the Hedgehog” brand, featuring the old artwork. This also feels like a classic board game, but not in a good way.

Each turn you move one space, look at the token and do the action printed on it and then replace the token. There’s zero strategy or thought involved. The aim is to collect all 7 chaos emeralds then defeat Dr. Robotnik.

The tiles will make you draw an emerald (of a certain colour), give you actions like steal emeralds from other players or it will force a battle with Dr. Robotnik – if you win, you gain an emerald, if you lose, then you have to put one back.

To battle, you have a deck of cards numbered 1 to 6 (multiple of each number) and draw a hand of two. You play one of these and reveal one of Dr Robotnik’s cards. The highest umber wins.

Due to losing/stealing emeralds and having to collect seven of them, this game is slow, boring and goes on and on.

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Sonic the Hedgehog: Super Spinners Plus

Original Platform: Board game

Original Release: 2020

Not played: This game was only available as a promotional campaign from Dutch supermarket Plus.

Sonic Super Spinners is a very simple spinning top game (similar to Beyblades) which was available as part of a promotional campaign for the Dutch supermarket Plus.

Both players spin their character in the arena, and the last one still spinning wins.

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UNO: Sonic The Hedgehog

Original Platform: Board game

Original release: 2019

Where to get: Limited availability

The classic game of Uno. Take turns getting rid of cards, matching the colour or number shown at the top of the pile on the table. The aim is to get rid of all your cards and special cards can force you to miss a turn or pick up cards.

This version of Uno has pictures of Sonic characters on each card, each one matching a different number or special ability.

This version of Uno has an additional special card: Victory Lap (featuring Super Sonic). This works similar to a wild card (where you pick which colour it turns to) but also makes all other players pick up a card.

Aside for the additional card, this is regular Uno.

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Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Happy Meal Game

Original platform: Browser

Original Release: 2022

Available to play: Yes

A Sonic game that was made accessible via a QR code from a McDonald’s Happy Meal. It was made to promote the second Sonic the Hedgehog film, so features the Sonic design from the film.

Sonic runs forward on his own and when he approaches a junction, you press left or right to take that corner. The aim is to collect rings, emeralds and boosts. It feels very much like a modern version of the LCD Sonic games that McDonald’s used to give out in Happy Meals due to the simplicity of it. Even if you do absolutely nothing, you’ll still get a good score.

One bonus feature is that you can use your camera and have it be the background of the stage.

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Sonic Frontiers

Original Platform: Xbox Series, PS5, Switch

Original release: 8th November 2022

Version Played: Xbox Series S

Available to buy: Yes

While the focus on Sonic Frontiers is on the open world – or open zone as Sega call it – I think it’s worth taking a look at the more traditional levels first. The disappointing thing about these are the themes, they take a few level themes from older games (including the much repeated Green Hill Zone and Chemical Plant Zone) as a basis for the levels, I would have much preferred if they just used the theme of the current island instead. At the very least, each individual level has its own unique (and really solid) music. 

That said, the levels are still fun to play. They are a bit simple with only a few branching paths and don’t reach the height of Sonic Generations or Colours, but they’re still a ton of fun to play. Some levels focus on specific gimmicks while others are a bit more traditional. With these levels alone, Sonic Frontiers would be a pretty good game.

But, the main bulk of the game is the open zone islands, something that sounded like it could easily go very wrong, especially if they don’t get Sonic’s movement’s right. Luckily, they did a great job. Sonic went where I wanted him to go, and turning was incredibly easy. Running around enemies is extremely easy, which ties into Sonic’s new power where he can draw a shape to hurt enemies or activate objects inside. I do wish that Sonic’s starting speed was much faster. Towards the end of the game (with my speed levelled up to around 25 out of 99), it felt amazing, but this really needed to be the starting point. 

Each island consists of collectables, challenges, levels, story missions and fishing.

The collectibles are “memory tokens”, used to progress the story and unlock little side cutscenes. Most of these are found by completing mini levels on floating platforms (although some are nicely integrated into the world itself). There are a lot more than you need to unlock everything, so they’re more of something to find on the way between everything else and not something you have to painfully track down one by one. The floating platforms that these are made from do have major pop-in issues – although it does seem to be managed in a smart way where parts you need to work out a route to an object are visible. I feel like they could have added a “cyber” animation to these objects to make them seem like they’re being generated by cyberspace instead of just popping in,

Challenges help unlock the map, some are little puzzles, some are timing challenges, some are time trials (which are like mini levels integrated into the world) and some make use of specific powers. They’re fun to discover and do. One kind I did find odd is one where you have to parry objects, as to parry you just need to hold down the button, there’s no timing, but these challenges were definitely designed with timing in mind, so I think they changed the parry system fairly late on in development.

Story missions are…quite bad. They’re a bunch of mini games that involve herding, pinball and a hacking minigame which is a very simple Ikaruga-inspired 2D space shooter. These could have been missing and nobody would care. Fishing is an optional extra and is nice and relaxing, although it seems like way too much effort has gone into the rather detailed fish models – and there are a lot of different fish.

Combat is a lot of fun. With the cyloop opening up enemies for attack and a lot of special moves to perform. There’s also an option to perform these automatically (at the cost of slightly reduced damage) if you prefer to button mash instead. Each enemy also has specific ways to deal with them and their design is a clue as to how to defeat them. In the open zone there are also “guardians” to fight – large bosses which feel like full on bosses from other Sonic games. These are an absolute delight and it’s very surprising that they work well in the open world as they feel like full on set pieces. The final boss of each island is also spectacular – although the final boss is downright awful, nothing more than a quick time event.

There are some parts of the open world that feel like a mini level, parts like long underground tunnels or other small sections. These parts are brilliant, and I really hope the next game focuses more on this – having levels built into the open world itself is a great way to go about expanding on the formula. I really hope Sega builds upon Sonic Frontiers instead of their usual method of ditching something and trying something new.

Overall, I absolutely loved Sonic Frontiers, and while the standard levels aren’t quite Sonic Generations, I do rate this as Sonic’s best 3D game. 

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Sonic Origins

Original Platform: Xbox One/Series, PS4/PS5, Switch, PC

Original release: 30th March 2022

Available to buy: Yes

This compilation release features the following games:

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic CD

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

These are the Retro Engine versions of the games, with Sonic 3 & Knuckles being available in this engine for the first time. This compilation also acknowledges that Sonic 3 & Knuckles is a single game. The lives system has been removed and replaced with coins, which can be spent on retrying special stages or unlocking artwork and music.

This also features a campaign mode where you play all the games in order (with CD being put before 2). Sonic 1, 2 and 3 also have new animated cutscenes, which look fantastic.

Another addition is a mission mode. Each game has a bunch of missions which take place on unique mini stages, these are a lot of fun to complete.

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Sonic Speed Simulator (Frist Version)

Original Platform: Roblox

Original release: 30th March 2022

Available to buy: No

A Sonic game released inside the child labour and child abuse game Roblox. In this game, you start off as a custom avatar based on the knock-off LEGO figures you find in places like Poundland, with the unlock for Sonic hidden in the first level (thankfully, very easy to get). Other Sonic characters are available, but they’re just skins that don’t change anything.

The game starts out super slow. It’s a game of grinding experience orbs. You just run around (or walk around at the beginning) and pick them up. You collect them and level up, which makes you faster so you can collect more to level up. You can find some time trials in the levels (which do set your speed to a certain level) and there are multiple levels to explore. You start off with Green Hill Zone and one level is unlocked by levelling up. The remaining ones are locked behind the “rebirth” system – once you reach max level, you can reset back to zero and gain a higher max level. The benefit (other than accessing new areas if you do it enough times) is that levelling up is quicker.

The game features a few attractions. You can fly the Tornado for a mission – it’s very slow and the level lasts for way too long. You can have a race against Jet on “Extreme Gear” hoverboards (it’s nothing like Sonic Riders, though) and a race against Metal Sonic in Metal Madness.

Once you level up, Sonic definitely feels very fast, but the controls are always a bit janky. The entire game is quite janky, some parts can look great visually, but have low quality stuff right next to it. It’s a mixture of random assets (plus advertising billboards).

There are a lot of cosmetics to unlock, either from a massive amount of grinding, or by buying them with real money.

This is a game with little to actually do other than run around in circles, and feels like it’s on the verge of falling apart at any moment. It feels like another game pretending to be a Sonic game.

Note: This version of Sonic Speed Simulator was removed and replaced with a very different version in February 2023.

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Sega Streaming Theater Sonic Edition

Original Platform: PC

Original release: 24th June 2021

Available to buy: No

Not played: Only available to a small number of streamers in Japan

This is a special version of Sonic the Hedgehog where the players have to collet 200 rings in three acts of Green Hill Zone, Labyrinth Zone and Scrap Brain Zone.

The level layout is completely controlled by commenters. Various words will add slopes, loops, rings, springs, enemies and item boxes, along with stickers that fly across the screen. The words can even act as platforms.

As you can expect, it’s a bit of a mess, but definitely in a fun way.

[allsonicgames]

Sonic: The Card Game (2021)

Original Platform: Board game

Original release: 2021

Sonic The Card Game is a blatant rip off of a board game called Diamant or Incan Gold (It has been released under different publishers form the same designer). There’s are no credits credits to the original designers (Bruno Faidutti and Alan R. Moon)

I’ve played Diamant a few times and it’s a very enjoyable push your luck game where you’re exploring a cavern. Before each card flips, you have to decide if you carry on or retreat (you have two cards representing this, you all decide in secret and then flip your choice over at the same time). Any players that retreat will share the gold (rings in this case) on all previous cards and are out of that round (there are five rounds in total).

If two of the same trap type (or enemy type in this, with Dr Robotnik, Metal Sonic and….er Orbot and Cubot, who have never been much of a threat on their own and there could have been so many better choices, even just a Motobug and Buzz Bomber), then any player still racing end up collecting nothing.

At the end of five rounds, the player with the most rings is the winner. There are also relic cards (bonus cars in this, depicting Cream, Charmy, Big, Cream and four Chao), which are worth 5 points, but can only be collected if only one player decides to retreat in a round.

There are a couple of differences in this to Diamant. It only does six players, instead of eight, consisting of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow and Blaze. There are enough characters to pick to do two more.

You also have three lives, if you get defeated by enemies you lose one. Lose all three and you’re out of the game. Frankly, this is a terrible addition to the game and you should just ignore it (not collecting anything is enough of a punishment). The tokens for lives are handy for putting one above the cards and removing it when you leave, so players can easily see who is in or out of the current round.

The other change are special abilities for the relic/bonus cards. I quite like these. One lets you see the top card, one shuffles an enemy back in and one lets you change your card after players have revealed. The risk being that these are worth 5 points if you don’t use them. I like the aspect of sacrificing 5 points for a risk or a potentially higher reward. There’s one that counts as an extra life, which as said above, is a poor feature of the game.

If you want a more portable version of Diamant, or very specifically the Sonic theme, it’s fine, and you can play with the original rules (ignore lives and you can just keep the bonus cards as being five points with no abilities), but overall it’s a worse version of Diamant.

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Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

Original Platform: Android/iOS

Original release: 5th May 2020

Version Played: Android

Available to buy: Yes

Surprisingly, it took SEGA 10 years in between releases of Sonic Olympic games on mobile devices, and this was the first one available on Android devices. While it uses some assets from the Switch game, the structure of the game is completely different.

In Sonic at the Olympic Games, Dr Robotnik has decided to take over Tokyo, agreeing to Sonic’s challenge that if Sonic wins in events, Dr Robotnik will cancel his plans. Dialogue is presented in mobile phone text bubbles, and is cheesy but enjoyable.

The challenges are scattered throughout different areas of Tokyo, with a lovely isometric 2D map serving as a background. You’ll tackle these one at a time, trying to get at least a bronze to progress. You’ll be playing the whole game as Sonic, but once a challenge is completed, you can re-try them as a couple of other unlocked characters (provided you have unlocked them).

Some events have special versions that you will encounter a lot (some are just special versions, like BMX), which involve rings, enemies, springs and powers. This does feel like a Sonic Olympic game rather than just an Olympic game with Sonic in it. A lot of the events are quite fun, and are very short so can be played in quick bursts.

I really enjoyed Speed Climbing, where you have to “throw” Sonic into the direction of the next handhold (avoiding enemies and timing right for moving handholds), as well as Badminton which is surprisingly tactical, letting you use a “slow motion” to get into place for more difficult slots. You automatically move (like Wii sports), but it adds a little something to it. Diving is also a lot of fun, picking the angle of your jump to hit springs, performing additional mid-air jumps and then trying to swipe down as straight as possible.

Not all events are great, shooting is horrible to control, you have to drag to aim and let go to shoot, but it feels way too slow and imprecise, and you pretty much need to get a near-perfect score to get bronze. I also can’t get to grips with fencing, as the controls feel inconsistent. It’s possible to skip a challenge if you can’t complete it, but you have to fail it five times and spend “TP”. TP is gained whenever you complete a challenge, but some challenges require you to spend large amounts of it to wipe your supply. After around 70 challenges, I encountered an extremely difficult shooting challenge and it felt like a good place to stop – although if none of the other Sonic mobile games grab my attention, I may return.

You can boost how much TP you get, these seem to be on-off purchases that give you a permanent upgrade to how much TP you earn. There are no temporary boosts, items, and not time-gates that you can use premium currency to remove, so Sonic at the Olympic Games does not feel greedy. You can also buy additional background music to replace the original music, and I may have bought the pack which includes Can you Feel The Sunshine?*

There also a few mini games you will encounter, such as one based on Sonic Jump, a quiz and a crane game, which are nice distractions.

The biggest issue with Sonic at the Olympic Games, however, is that doing anything needs an internet connection.* There were a few times where my internet dipped, and I had to wait ages for the loading screen to finish. It makes it a game more to play at home instead of out and about due to that.

I was pleasantly surprised by Sonic at the Olympic Games. It’s a decent mobile game that doesn’t feel like it’s constantly asking for money, which makes it leaps and bounds above most mobile games. In terms of classic video game companies, there’s another whose mobile games are savagely greedy, so in terms of making a respectful mobile game, it seems that Sega does what Nintendon’t.

*Since writing this, the app has been updated. It’s now a single £1 purchase with all things you could pay for unlocked, and it’s is now a fully offline game. This is great for preservation, as the game is no longer tied to a server.

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Monopoly Gamer: Sonic the Hedgehog

Original Platform: Board Game

Original Release: 2019

Available to buy: No

Monopoly gamer is a quicker, simplified form of Monopoly, which is a huge improvement as it means you can stop playing quicker. Another improvement is no player elimination, so others aren’t waiting around for the game to finish.

That said, it’s still very much a “roll and follow instructions” game. The most interesting part of this are the boss battles. You can select another player to be your sidekick. If you win (by rolling dice), you get a Chaos Emerald while they get bonus points. If you both lose, the boss escapes and Dr Robotnik is harder to defeat at the end as he will have more Chaos Emeralds.

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Sonic the Hedgehog: Dice Rush

Original Platform: Board Game

Original release: 2019

This board game is sort of like a speed Yhatzee. There is a pile of cards, each worth different numbers of points and all with a dice requirement such as a pair, four of a kind, 4 straight or even just free (these are negative points). A number of cards are drawn at the start of a round equal to the number of players and everyone starts rolling.

You have to reroll your dice as quickly as possible (you can re-roll all or just a couple) until you get the needed result and then put your character card on top of the card you want to claim, you need to be the first to do so as once it has been claimed, nobody else can do so. After everyone has claimed a card, they all check to see if they can afford it and place them in their level. If they didn’t have the required dice, they must place it face down and not score it (free cards must always be added face up).

Some enemies had badniks on them, which are worth negative points. If you have any leftover 6 dice after claiming a card, you can use them to kill them, adding a flicky token which is worth one point.

After all cards have been claimed, you count up the points and the highest score wins.

It’s a basic game, but surprisingly entertaining, and a pretty fun fuller game that takes less than 20 minutes. The Green Hill Zone artwork is nice, and it’s nice to see classic artwork in use for a more modern product.

[allsonicgames]

Sonic the Hedgehog: Battle Racers

Original Platform: Board game

Original release: 2019

Where to get: Limited availability, currently a few copies left on Amazon.com in the USA

Sonic the Hedgehog: Battle Racers is quite a meaty Sonic board game. It can be played against each other, or you can have a card-controlled boss character (if you have a boss expansion – I have Dr Robotnik and Shadow, but Metal Sonic and Infinite were also available. Bosses can also be played as a normal character). The aim of the game isn’t simply to reach the finish first (although that does trigger the end of the game), but to score the most points by collecting rings and defeating badniks.

The track is built from very large card pieces, with rinks, badniks and rocks placed on them accordingly. You place two, followed by a turn (the person who first enters the turn will then place the next two). In total, there will be two turns and six sections of track. Each round, all players will pick an agility card form their hand and place it face down, flipping them over once all players have picked, they’re flipped over and resolved in order of the number on the card.

Each card consists of two sections. The top will have an optional action, this can increase your speed, let you perform a spin (to defeat enemies) or move a couple of spaces. Movement in this section can include moving to the side if you want (which lets you change lane). The second option is the main movement, which will be running, jumping or a choice of either. The distance is based on speed and must be forward (the rulebook is very unclear about this, as it’s quite poorly written), even if it means running into enemies.

There are four badniks which have different rules. Motobugs affect players running through them, but not jumping, Crabmeat will hurt enemies jumping past the spaces above and below them. Buzz bombers will hurt players running in front of them, and spinners will affect jumping enemies moving through them. Landing on them (or spinning through crawling enemies) will destroy them, giving you one point. You get a card explaining how they work, but it is a lot to remember to do while playing the game.

As you collect rings, they go on five piles, with the rings this round going on the smallest stack. When you get hurt, you lose all your rings and place them on the spaces around you. This can be devastating near the end of the game, so you’ll want to defeat badniks as you won’t ever lose their points.

There’s also a bit more regarding terrain types and how they affect speed, and expansions will add even more options. Battle Racers has a lot of maintenance to remember, so it’s very easy to mess up a game by making a mistake because you missed something that should affect your speed. It all feels a bit more complicated than it needs to be, but is a lot of fun nevertheless.

When playing against a boss, the boss will have a stack of cards that determines their actions. The next card is revealed when all players reveal their agility card and their action will take place based on the number on it. Bosses will have different abilities. Dr Robotnik will place new obstacles, while Shadow will defeat enemies and collect rings as he moves through them. Bosses start with 10 rings and hitting them will make them lose two. If they get hit with no rings remaining, then they are removed from the game (this rule only applies to players during a solo game, so nobody is eliminated and forced to wait for the others to finish).

When playing with other players, you are still competing to get the best score, but if the boss passes the finish line first, all players lose. When playing Solo, you still need to finish first and are awarded a rank based on how many points you have. I managed an A rank against Shadow, but got hurt near the end of racing Dr Robitnik and only got a D.

Each character has a special ability, but the retail game only has Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy. The deluxe version I have (which was Kickstarter only) has a lot more, while a few more were at an even higher tier. The models are quite nice, although Sonic does fall down quite easily. It’s a really nice looking game, with fun gameplay (once you get the right rules), but the amount of stuff you have to remember and pausing the game to set up the next sections of track add a lot of maintenance that makes it a pain to play at times.