For the love of... Sonic and Knuckles

The general view of newly released games featuring the formerly loved blue hedgehog, Sonic, are very negative these days. However, back in the 90's, Sega and Sonic Team could do no wrong. After releasing the highly succesful Sonic The Hedgehog, with it's sequals on the Mega Drive/Genesis, they were more popular than ever. They could be reclaiming this love of their fans soon, with the announcement of a new 2D Sonic game, built around their old games selling point, speed. This isn't what I'm talking about though. I'm talking about their 4th Sonic game on the Mega Drive. Sonic and Knuckles.

Sonic and Knuckles was essentially the first console game expansion pack. The cartridge was unusually bulky, and had a flap on top. This allowed you to load in another cartridge. When combined with Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, (Sonic 1 did work too! In a different way.) it would allow the player to use Knuckles, throughout the entire game. When the original Sonic was entered, a "No way? No Way!" screen would appear, but with a certain button combination, this unlocked Blue Sphere, a Secret Stage mini game with a huge load of levels.

Not only this, but it made Sonic 3 a longer experience if played with the Sonic and Knuckles cartridge, by continuing on the game. By doing this, the player unlocks the chance to become Hyper, rather than just Super. This was achieved by collecting all Chaos Emeralds in Sonic 3, then all Super Emeralds in Sonic and Knuckles. Sadly, when playing this as a kid, I never even got to be Super. This didn't stop me playing this game over and over again. Why? It was awesome! I would always load in Sonic 3 and blast through every stage, either as Sonic himself, or Knuckles. Admittedly Knuckles was, and still is, my favorite Sonic character; being able to play him in the previous games just made Sonic and Knuckles oh so much sweeter. The fact that this was possible blew my mind away as a child, probably fueling my love of downloadable content in games of today.

So this was a three-games-in-one deal, if you owned the previous games. Which I did. I played the hell out of all of them. The bulk of my childhood memories are sitting playing Sonic games on the Mega Drive, mainly this one. In my little mind, it was the best game out there. It was challenging, not difficult. It was the perfect length, I could sit down for a couple minutes and speed through a few levels, save, then come back later. Even when I was at school, I would always want to "play" Sonic. Which is what some of us did. We pretened to be Sonic and his gang in the playground or my friends back gardens. I would even attempt to chant the Invinsibility music to myself. Yeah, I realise I was a bit of a weird child, but that's just how much I loved that game.

Which brings me to another point which I loved about the game: the music. Every single stage's music sticks out to me, and each one I love. They are all suited to their respective stages, and all completely unique, with a catchy and cool tune for the many boss encounters in the game. The epic conclusion is made even more so by the score, and as always, the remix of all of them at the end credits screen. This is how video game music was back then, and for me, it was the best.

I was really happy to hear when Sonic and Knuckles was coming to the Xbox Live Arcade, and especially happy that it would feature the "Lock-on" function if you purchased the previous games. I've played it every day since then, and I've already gotten most of the new achievements. One I can work on, which I planned on doing anyway, is the infamous 7 Chaos Emeralds. I can't wait until that moment when I get to that stage, and see even more of a game I used to play so many years ago. It's very satisfying, and it's never lost it's fun in all this time.

Simply put, I love this game a lot. It combines all that was good about the first three Sonic games and mushed them all together in one cartridge, even adding some familiar bosses to the games final level. Not only that, but it lets you replay two of the previous games in a completely different way, using Knuckles' different powers of gliding and of course, his own fists. There just hasn't been a Sonic game this good since, although I hope it won't stay that way.