The 10th Hour 10.16.09: Top 10 Sonic Games

Posted by Derek Robbins on 10.16.2009

It's no secret that Sonic has been in a rut for some time, but this 10th Hour celebrates the best of Sonic. From Sonic Heroes and Sonic the Hedgehog to Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic & Knuckles, 411's Derek Robbins ranks his 10 favorite Sonic games this week in the 10th Hour!

Hello and welcome to the 10th hour. As always, this is your host with the most Derek Robbins. Couple of tangents I need to go on real quick…

-I got Uncharted 2 the day it was released. It's a big surprise, I'm sure. Anyhow, yeah, the single player is about as good as the game reviewers are saying. The story is nice, funny and well-written, the gameplay is fun and exciting…honestly, there is not a single thing that I hate about it.

-I am about to beat Final Fantasy VII for roughly the 8 billionth time. It's a shame, what with school and work at the paper, that most of my free time is dedicated to a game that came out in the 90's, but hey? What can I say? It's become a bit of a yearly habit of mine to beat that game and dammit, I'm about to do it again!

-I totally can't wait until Smackdown v. Raw 2010. That storyline editor is going to be totally awesome. Why don't you hook me up with some of your stories? My PSN is Croix22. I'll share some of mine, too. Who knows what I'll come up with, but I can't wait to tinker with it. Should be awesome.



Top-10 Sonic games
Well, sorry for no reader feedback this week. I'm running up against deadline and really need to get this sucker in. So, yeah, I read everything you said and I thank you for reading. I assure you, on the next 10th hour, I will reply to feedback! So send mail to [e-mail] or simply comment below, it is your choice.

Anyhow, the list this week is about the best Sonic games. Sonic the Hedgehog is one of my favorite franchises ever. I know that Mark Salmella did a 10th hour on this subject, but I figured I would give my thoughts on it as well. After all, I think I love Sonic more than he does! Anyhow, I know the series is kind of in a slump, but looking through this list makes me realize how much I loved Sonic in the first place. What are your thoughts? Make sure to let me know a list of your own.

10-) Sonic Heroes - To be honest, selecting this game here was simply selecting the best of the worst. Sonic Heroes is really not that good of a game. The harder levels almost feel like they are cheating, the easier levels are too easy, and it also has some of the worst bosses in the franchise. The thing with Sonic that this game proved, especially through the demo, is that Sonic Team is still capable of creating one hell of a first level. The first level in Sonic Heroes is actually pretty fun, but…almost every other one is tedious.

This game also – from what I can remember, at least – introduced my absolute least favorite thing into the Sonic franchise. Regular enemies with health bars is such a terrible idea. Listen Sonic team, I do not like having to hit enemies multiple times to kill them. I should be able to hit a bad guy once and be done with it. Continually jamming on a button to kill an opponent is not my idea of fun. Power ups allow for quicker kills though, which is nice, but it really should be that way on a default. So nice try.

Also, as an aside, I had to force myself not to place Sonic R here. I know Sonic R is arguably the worst racing game of all time, but man, the music in that game is so awesome. I am perhaps the lamest guy ever, but let me tell you, I have several songs from that game on my iPod. It has a place in my stone cold heart because when I was younger I really wanted a Saturn. I couldn't get one and this game was available to me on PC. I kind of liked it and played for hours trying to unlock Hyper Knuckles and Super Tails. They weren't available but I tried, dammit. I loved that game.

But dear lord did it suck.



9-) Sonic Rush Adventure - A lot of people, including myself, consider console Sonic to be dead. The same cannot be said for his portable iterations as Sonic Rush Adventure was not half-bad. The game is a sequel to Sonic Rush and features "story" elements. It doesn't try to go too deep into the story like the current Sonic franchise, so it's nice and simple, which I enjoy.

Now, the main problem with this game is that it incorporates a lot of that "press-right-to-win" stuff that Sonic detractors use to bash the franchise. Sonic wasn't always like that as the older Sonic games incorporated some platforming, but this one kind of is. It's still fun, I mean, I like holding the right-button as much as the next guy, but there is a reason that this game is ranked at the nine position.

Unlike the number 10 game though, this is actually a pretty good game. If you have a DS, I would recommend you pick either this up or the original Sonic Rush. Both titles are fun…and significantly better than any current-gen Sonic title on the market. This one gets ranked



8-) Sonic the Hedgehog - It's the original, the game that invented blast processing. It hasn't quite aged as well as the other Sonic games. After all, the later Genesis Sonic titles and Sonic CD implemented features that helped improve the series and made it a legendary franchise. Really, there isn't much else to say about Sonic. It's great, you know it's great, it's the reason this list even came into existence…whatever.



7-) Sonic Advance 2 - For whatever reason, a lot of people seem to prefer Sonic Advance 3 and I can't quite figure out why. I was super hyped for Advance 3 because I loved Advance 2 so much, and I was actually quite disappointed with what I got. Don't get me wrong, Advance 3 is better than Sonic Heroes and Sonic Rush Adventure, but from the spin-off franchises I like to try to keep it to one entry, especially if they are kind of similar.

Advance 2 was another one of those "press-right to win" titles, but for whatever reason when I play this game, I don't really notice it. The only thing I didn't like about this game was that it gave us Cream the Rabbit, arguably the lamest one of Sonic's friends. Given that Sonic the Hedgehog introduced us to Big the Cat and Shadow the Hedgehog, that's really saying something harsh.

Perhaps the feature I liked most about the Sonic Advance series really isn't even gameplay related. The chao garden was so addictive. I got Sonic Adventure 2 and I really loved raising my chao, but I had this pesky thing called school to do and couldn't spend all hours of my day trying to raise a chaos chao. A solution came along! I could now raise my little creatures on the road and it was excellent!

If you are going to choose one Sonic Advance game to play, listen to me and play number two. Do not listen to anyone else. I assure you! They are all wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrooooong.



6-) Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine - This is the only game on the list that doesn't include traditional elements of Sonic play. There is no hopping, there is no bopping, there are only puyos to be popped. Mean Bean Machine is puyo pop, but it was given a Sonic make-over to kind of…make it a Sonic game. If you think that is not fair, deal with it.

To compete in Mean Bean Machine you had to match up "beans" of a similar color. You are doing this against an opponent and your goal is to make their screen fill up before yours. So what you have to do is combo your color matching, and if you do that effectively, beans will fall on your opposition and hurt their case for clearing them. If their screen fills up, well, you win! Sound familiar? Yeah, it's pretty much Tetris Attack with Puyo Pop mixed in for a bit of flava. Got a problem? Deal with it.

Mean Bean Machine is not a traditional Sonic title by any stretch of the imagination, but it is still a fun title and worthy of you time. Plus, when it came out, it came with a fruit roll-up. Dead serious, when I opened up my copy of the game, there was a fruit-rollup! So, not only is it one of the best Sonic games, it is also one of the most delicious!



5-) Sonic Adventure 2 - There is a lot of ire directed towards this game and I never quite got it. Honestly, I love it. While I do think the story can be kind of silly and I would much rather be playing as Sonic the whole time, there is just something about the title that intoxicates me. Certain moments from Sonic Adventure 2 rank among my favorite moments in game history. Like, when you transform into Super Sonic and Live and Learn starts blaring…I think that is epic. Yeah, the story has its share of problems, but a small part of me really loves it.

The gameplay is what people tend to crack on, and honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. Yeah, the camera is bad. I really, really don't care. I never, EVER was so hindered by the camera that I couldn't complete a level. The Sonic and Shadow levels are both a blast to play. They mix speed and platforming in a thrilling way. I'm not sure how Sonic Team forgot how to make a compelling Sonic level along the way, but whatever the case is they nailed it here.

Everyone seemed to like the Sonic levels. I am talking about complaints and the complaints seemed to be directed towards the other playable characters. I never really had much of a problem with the Tails and Dr. Robotnik levels. You walk around, you shoot stuff, you fly around. What isn't to love? Yeah, I guess they could have made it more skillful, but I did not hate it. The real ire seemed to be directed towards the Knuckles and Rouge levels. Yes, they were bad, but they weren't the abortions people made them out to be. Honestly, sometimes I like to explore.

So yeah, the story kind of helped push Sonic down the dark path it is on and the game introduced us to the cancer killing Sonic, Shadow the Hedgehog, but to be quite honest I really enjoyed Sonic Adventure 2 and I still do. Plus: Chaos! They gave us the great Chao garden! There is nothing wrong with that.



4-) Sonic Adventure - The original Sonic Adventure had me so hyped to get a Dreamcast. The problem was, I was a poor kid, my family was poor, and I couldn't afford one. Not for a very long time and that was depressing. I would be reading Gamepro or something and I would see pictures that absolutely drove me insane. Like, remember that fucking whale? Holllllly shit, that whale had me pumped up to play this game. And I didn't get to for years.

When I finally did get a chance to play the game, it was at a friend's house. I saw that whale and I fell in love. Sonic Adventure was just a great game. The Sonic levels were fun, the Tails levels were fun, heck…even the Knuckles levels which are practically the same as they are in Adventure 2 are done better here. Sonic Adventure did so many things right and it's easy to see why it is the greatest selling game for the Dreamcast. I mean, I assume everyone else saw that fucking whale and was like: "I NEED THIS GAME."

There are two things wrong with this game: One is Big the Cat. Seriously, the Big levels are among the worst in video game history. Yes, we get it, you want froggy. But dear God, do you have to fish for them? Even then, it's not like the levels are THAT bad – actually, they are mercifully short. So even with Big, your pain is limited.

The second is the overworld. Sonic Adventure introduced us to it, and it is just as maddening in Sonic Adventure as it is today. I hate wondering around the world to find my next level. Maybe if there was something to do in these hubs, but no. It's just "Point-A to Point-B." It's dull, but whatever.

Sonic Adventure is great and was the perfect Killer-App for the Dreamcast. People may look back at it poorly, but seriously: fuck them. Clearly you didn't see the whale.



3-) Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - The game that launched a billion fan-boys. Sonic 2 was side-scrolling perfection. The levels were great, the bosses were great, really…there was absolutely nothing wrong with this game and it's third. That's how good Sonic was in his heyday. Games like this could come out and they aren't even at the top of his achievement list. That's pretty fucking hardcore if you ask me.

This game introduced two major things to the franchise. First was Miles "Tails" Prower. Your partner, who was mostly just good for running into mines, set a trend of creating a new friend for Sonic in each of his games. Well, actually, Amy did that in Sonic CD…but most people forgot about her until Sonic Adventure came around. You could always pick up a controller and have a buddy play as Tails, which I really liked. Or if you want, turn your partner off and play only as Tails. Sure, they play the exact same, but Tails is a fox!

Sonic 2 also brought us the spin-dash. Which, you know, offered us a new way to go about killing enemies. That and speed up on the fly without getting off to a running start. The spinning up into a ball concept was explored in the first game since you could press down mid-run to curl up and take down enemies, but it was expanded upon here and became a staple of the Sonic franchise for years to come. Sadly, it doesn't really work in a 3D world, as proved in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 (Never used it there)…but it's a skill I'll miss. It was grand in the 2D days.

This game made Sonic Mario's rival, and dammit, I love it. I didn't even mention the music. Believe you me, Sonic 2 has one of the best video game soundtracks ever. If you haven't played it, do yourself a favor and do just that. Even if just to hear the music. It is amazing.



2-) Sonic CD - Many people consider this to be the greatest Sonic game ever, and I agree with that. Sadly, number one on this list is technically two games, so it beats it out. Toooo bad. But really, Sonic CD is a masterful game and one of the few must-own games on the ill-fated Sega CD. It also introduced us to Amy Rose, but I guess we can forgive it for that.

The big thing about Sonic CD was introducing the Time Travel feature. Each level has three different time settings. Past, present, and future. The time settings change the appearance of each level a little bit and can alter the way you play. To be honest, the changes aren't vast – but they are there and I think it's pretty cool. I mean, I am a big sucker for offering multiple ways to tackle the same obstacle, so sign me up.

Sonic CD also gave us one of the best boss fights ever. The fight against Mecha Sonic, which is actually a race, is very memorable and just incredibly pulled off. It's just the right difficulty and just the right amount of speed to be an amazing experience. I think Sega realized how amazing the boss fight was, as you can see in several games down the road, the "running boss battle" is used. Usually, they suck, but from time to time, they hit the nail on the head and deliver a nice little fight.

Sonic CD is praised, and for good reason: it's fucking amazing.



1-) Sonic 3 and Knuckles - See? I told ya, technically two games. Sonic 3 and Knuckles were originally supposed to be one game, but for whatever reason they split it into two. Like a sucker, I bought both, and I certainly don't regret it. The combined experience of the two games is something special and creates what is, in my opinion, easily the best Sonic experience on the market.

First of all, the save system is something that was much needed in the Sonic Universe. No longer did you have to start over a game from the beginning or put in a cheat for debug mode if you wanted to play a certain level over again. All you needed to do was make it to a level and your save file would have the ability to pick up from that level or any other level you so wanted. It's pretty cool and saves a lot of frustration from dieing without having any continues.

Also, the title had different abilities for each of the characters. Sonic had the ability to do special maneuvers with whatever power up he had. For instance, he has the fireball powerup? Well, he shoots himself like a fireball. You got the lightning? Boom, you shoot lightning sparks. Tails could fly for a short period of time and Knuckles could glide and climb on walls. You could select any of the three characters you want at the start…and I like that, it made each character feel different. This was the next logical step after Sonic 2.

The game also featured some of the best levels and boss battles in the series. The Mecha Sonic battle you go through with Knuckles – where Mecha Sonic goes SUPER Mecha Sonic – is still one of my favorite in the series. Also, Angel Island zone is probably my favorite first level in the entire franchise. Given the strength of the first levels in the franchise, this is saying quite a lot.

Speaking of that, the music is the best in the franchise. Seriously, listen to Ice Cap Zone and tell me you haven't fallen in love. Turn on Flying Battery Zone and just give it a shot. There is not a bad track in this game, and really, it ranks among the best in video game history. Just an amazing job all around.

Yeah, I guess it is kind of cheating putting this game at number one, but there is no way that this isn't the best Sonic title. It is a massive game that features 14 chaos emeralds and is just a pure blast to play through. If you can only play one Sonic game in your life, this is the one I recommend.



Well, that's it for this week. See ya next week!

-‘til the crossroads

Screenshots
All 9 The 10th Hour Screenshots