Video Review - Sonic CD

Mais um episódio do Videocast do Passagem Secreta, dessa vez avaliando um jogo polêmico escolhido pela galera: Sonic CD, lançado para o SegaCD em 1993 e posteriormente para PC em 1996 e PS2, NGC e Xbox como parte da coletânea Sonic Gems, que foi lançada em 2005.

Link do post: http://passagemsecreta.com/videocast-sonic-cd-mais-polemico-da-franquia/

Passagem Secreta Presents
Sonic CD

♪ Ten, ten!

♪ Y' can go again!

♪ Nine, nine!

♪ Don't fall behind!

♪ Eight, eight!

♪ Say, don't be late!

♪ Seven, seven!

♪ Destination heaven!

♪ Six, five!

♪ So, stay alive!

♪ Four, three!

♪ Now it's you and me!

♪ Two, one!

♪ We're gonna have fun

♪ Say, blast off!

♪ It's Sonic Boom!

♪ Toot, toot, Sonic Warrior!
♪ Toot, toot, Sonic Warrior!

♪ The power is in your mind,

♪ to shake the planets and conquer time

♪ Yay!

♪ Toot, toot, Sonic Warrior

♪ Always takes a chance

♪ Toot, toot, Sonic Warrior

♪ Never says he can't

♪ Nothing can survive the will to stay alive

♪ 'cause if your try, you can do anything!

Sonic CD Video Review

>>Rafael Fernandes: The year was 1991, twenty years ago.

Sonic the Hedgehog, released on June 21,

became a huge success with the audiences and critics.

Tom Kalinske decision to sell the game along with the Mega Drive also proved to be very important

to remove Nintendo from the supreme leadership of the market, which they already had for many years.

All this happened thanks to the charisma of the character created by Naoto Oshima and the impeccable programming of Yuji Naka,

responsible for one of the fastest and fluid games so far.

However, Naka felt wronged by not receiving from Sega the proper credit that he thought he deserved by the success of the game,

and after failing to reach an agreement with the company's management,

he decided to quit and pursue other work.

At the same time, Sega of America branch was inaugurating the Sega Technical Institute,

that hire inexperienced programmers and artists to teach them and thus

develop new games on their own.

One of Sonic the Hedgehog directors, Hirokazu Yasuhara,

was invited to the United States to instruct new employees and as soon as heard about the resignation of Yuji Naka,

invited him to work with him offering greater executive power,

a decent salary and also a Ferrari, which the developer was an aficionado.

The temptation was too great, and Naka soon found himself working in the United States and,

consequently, producing Sonic the Hedgehog 2,

released for the Mega Drive in November 1992 and became a huge success,

with over 6 million copies sold.

At the same time, Naoto Oshima was in Japan with the difficult task of commanding the remains of the original Sonic Team

for the production of a hedgehog game for the Sega CD.

The project, which was initially called CD Sonic,

incorporated several ideas discarded by Americans during the development of Sonic 2,

and also brought some own innovations…

So, in September 1993,

almost a year after the second Mega Drive game, Sonic CD was released,

being a parallel sequel of the first Sonic adding other game mechanics and a new story.

In the last month of each year, a place called Little Planet arises,

where Sonic and Amy go and find the place completely covered with machinery and metals,

indicating that Robotnik was there too.

Thus, the hedgehog's mission is to recover all Time Stones,

which would be equivalent to the emeralds that we know well,

destroy all the facilities of the villain, and rescue Amy,

who was kidnapped by a mechanical version of the hero, here called Metal Sonic.

Sonic CD brings something new with multiple versions of each stage.

In specific parts of the map, some posts are installed indicating the past or the future.

After going through one, Sonic must run at high speed for at least two seconds,

in order to be teleported to the other space-time.

The stage changes its appearance and layout, introducing new obstacles and enemies,

that vary according to the time where the player is.

Each stage in the present has a variation to the past and two for the future,

being one good and one bad, and what defines this is if the player manages to destroy these generators that are on the map of the past.

Translating for those who did not understand, the mission is to go to the the past of the stage,

search for the generator and destroy it, and finish the stage.

If the player can destroy the generator of the first two stages of the entire zone, the third,

that is a battle against the boss, will be in the good future, which does not directly affect the confrontation with Robotnik,

but changes interestingly the design of the stage and the bosses, like this version a bit LGBT of the villain.

>>Dan Forden: Toasty!

>>Rafael Fernandes: The best ending of Sonic CD can then be achieved in two ways:

one is following this scheme I explained, and the other is in the traditional way,

through the Special Stage, which consists of destroying all the objects flying in this plane in 3D.

Is worth remembering that both tasks are very difficult,

making the game as one of the most challenging of the series.

The graphics take advantage of the special effects of the Sega CD hardware,

with rotation and scale effects, parallax,

and well detailed and colorful scenarios than any other Sonic game for the Mega Drive.

Unfortunately, at certain times, the stages have too much detail,

causing a certain visual pollution and disorientation, which hinders somewhat during the game.

Not to mention the slow motion that occurs at different times of the game and that is unacceptable in a Sonic game,

because, in addition to breaking the rhythm, it ends up confusing even more the navigation during the stage.

Speaking on them, another problem relates to the themes used to portray the universe of Little Planet in the game.

There is a certain exaggeration in depicting the stages with a certain metallic look,

which becomes quite repetitive in the latter stages, with excess of sobriety and few variations in design.

Still, Sonic CD is one of the most beautiful Sega CD games but,

if you think about it, this does not mean much, unfortunately.

The soundtrack is one of the best in the series, using the CD storage capacity

to produce music with arrangements of the highest sound and melodic quality.

Produced by Naofumi Hataya and Masafumi Ogata, the compositions follow the electronic style of the time,

with the right to the use samples of voices and other songs in the game music.

The most recognized is the one that plays during the fight against the bosses,

being a re-recording of an excerpt to Work That Sucker To Death, a disco song released in 1981. Check it out.

♪ Work that sucker to death, c'mon now
♪ Work that sucker to death

♪ Work that sucker to death, c'mon now
♪ Work that sucker to death

♪ Work that sucker to death, c'mon now
♪ Work that sucker to death

♪ Work that sucker to death, c'mon now
♪ Work that sucker to death

♪ Work that sucker to death, c'mon now
♪ Work that sucker to death

♪ Work that sucker to death, c'mon now
♪ Work that sucker to death

>>Rafael Fernandes: It is worth remembering that the songs related to the last version of each stage are not in the Red Book CD format,

being generated by the PCM sound chip of the Sega CD, similar to what we hear on the Super Nintendo.

It is not known why these compositions were produced in this format,

but they give a look let's say, more old-school and simple, which serve to well represent the past of each zone.

But the real highlight of the soundtrack goes to the main theme of the game.

♪ Toot, toot, Sonic Warrior!

♪ Deep in space and time

♪ Toot, toot, Sonic Warrior!

♪ Forever in your mind

>>Rafael Fernandes: The song You Can Do Anything, sung by Keiko Utoku,

is based on the music of Green Hills Zone of Sonic 2 for the Master System, which was composed by the same guys from Sonic CD.

Overall, the soundtrack is not as bright and memorable as those Masato Nakamura wrote for the Mega Drive games (even because this is a very difficult task),

but it can still be considered an excellent and consistent work,

since each stage of the game had at least four variations of the same theme, one for each time.

But as soon as the Sega of America heard the songs,

they concluded that the Americans would not welcome a track inspired by Techno,

style which at that time was already established.

Even so, the company gave Spencer Nielsen the difficult task of producing a completely new soundtrack for the game.

The musician, who had done the songs of other Sega CD games, such as the conversions of Batman Returns and Ecco the Dolphin,

had only a month to compose and arrange all the songs there, including a new theme song.

Called Sonic Boom and sung by the band Pastiche, the song is something like this.

♪ Sonic Boom, Sonic Boom, Sonic Boom
(trouble keeps you runnin' faster)

♪ Sonic Boom, Sonic Boom, Sonic Boom
(save the planet from disaster)

>>Rafael Fernandes: The final theme of the game was replaced by a variation of the same music,

which serves to illustrate well the American soundtrack of Sonic CD: generic, uninspired and just a little exciting.

With a similar style to progressive rock, the tracks unfortunately doesn't even come near the Japanese soundtrack,

and even the tracks generated by the Sega CD's PCM chip were not replaced, in other words,

when you go to the past time of the stage, what plays is the Japanese original composition, whose melody has nothing to do with the new American music.

Although not something so important, it only shows how the American version of Sonic CD has a very mediocre soundtrack

and lacks cohesion between itself, generating an unprecedented mistake from Sega to the point of even an American magazine called GameFan,

after rating 10 for the Japanese version, they rated it 7 for the American game only because of the change in the soundtrack.

Not that it is so bad to be radical as the magazine was, but,

compared to the original compositions, Spencer Nielsen's work leaves much to be desired.

With so much controversy, at least one thing was kept: the gameplay, right?

Well, sort of.

Sonic CD is very much a platform game than all others, and in fact,

there are few of those moments from previous games like when the hedgehog passed in a faster speed than the screen itself, sometimes.

The stages were built in order the player has to explore them in detail,

if they want to complete the game with the best ending, of course.

The pace of play is not as fast as before,

which can bring quite a letdown for those who really like the sequels on the Mega Drive,

and then decided to go back and get Sonic CD to play.

It can be said that this game needs to be understood before being played,

then much of the strangeness on the first impression may lead to the fun that the game can provide.

However, not everything is perfect, since there are several design and construction of the stages flaws,

like meaningless parts, different game situations that are not entirely intuitive, bugs and very strange places,

at last, several things that indicate that the game was not well polished or poorly executed its ideas.

The controls are virtually the same from the first Sonic, with the addition of the Spindash, unveiled in Sonic 2,

and another movement, called Super Peel-out, faster but vulnerable to attacks.

The big problem is that, unlike Sonic 2, both movements require a certain loading time,

which is a big problem in certain situations that require quick reflexes, as in the race against Metal Sonic, near the end of the game.

But with all these flaws I mentioned above, the game can be considered a failure?

Of course not!

Far from being the best game in the series, Sonic CD is still a fun game,

being a great alternative for those who are a fan of Mega Drive games and are looking for a different experience.

Unfortunately, the game is loaded with experimental ideas that were not very well executed,

perhaps by the absence of Yuji Naka in the production.

Incidentally, it is worth remembering that the game has some very strange secrets,

like these hideous screens that are enabled after playing some specific songs in the Sound Test.

Fear.

After the Sega CD version, the game was ported to Windows 95,

where it has based this version in Sonic Gems collection,

launched in 2005 for the consoles of the time, like the PlayStation 2.

In this conversion, the slowdowns were eliminated,

but the sound effects and the general sounds of the game, except for the songs, are in 22 kHz, which, for those who did not understand,

means that they are below the quality of the original.

Other than that, there are rumors going around that the game will be re-released soon on Steam,

what is another opportunity to check out a challenging game, beautiful to look and,

as we know well, much better than many of Sonic's latest games.

>>Sonic: I'm outta here!
♪ Believe in yourself

♪ Yourself, yourself! Hey!

♪ Extraordinary things can happen if you believe in yourself

Produced by Rafael Fernandes
♪ Extraordinary things can happen if you believe in yourself

Produced by Rafael Fernandes

Produced by Rafael Fernandes
♪ You've got to have some faith in yourself

♪ You've got to have some faith in yourself

♪ If you want respect from your friends

Thanks
Sonic Retro
♪ If you want respect from your friends

Thanks
Sonic Retro
♪ When you feel tight, look at yourself!

Thanks
GameTap
♪ When you feel tight, look at yourself!

Thanks
GameTap
♪ Inside your heart you will find a special place to unwind

Thanks
KobayashiBR
♪ Inside your heart you will find a special place to unwind

Thanks
KobayashiBR
Video Game Ephemera
♪ Inside your heart you will find a special place to unwind

Thanks
KobayashiBR
Video Game Ephemera
♪ When you feel right, look at yourself!

Thanks

Thanks
♪ Inside your mind you will see

Thanks
BO
♪ Inside your mind you will see

Thanks
BO
♪ Cosmic eternity

Thanks
♪ Cosmic eternity

Thanks
To all who watched this far :)
♪ Cosmic eternity

Thanks
To all who watched this far :)

♪ When you feel tight, look at yourself!

♪ Inside your heart you will find a special place to unwind

♪ When you feel right, look at yourself!

♪ Inside your mind you will see

♪ Cosmic eternity

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@rafafernandes64