Collection essentials #135: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis)

The sequel to the smash hit Sonic the Hedgehog, obviously, was highly anticipated. It was one of the first games to have a pre-announced nationwide release date in the USA, which was advertised as “Sonic 2sday”, being on a Tuesday of course. 

Sonic 2 is another example of how to make a great video game sequel. It took what the first game did best, focused on those elements, and made additions to make it even better. The first stage of Sonic 1, Green Hill Zone, was masterfully designed, with opportunities for great speed and multiple paths to take that rewarded players able to avoid falling down to the lowest level. A problem with the original game is that a lot of the other levels in the game didn’t replicate this type of level structure to the same degree. Sonic 2’s levels do it much better. 

Sonic 2 also added crucial new elements that came to be defining characteristics of the series. One of these was the “spin dash” move. Sonic in the original game was capable of going super fast, but he needed a downward slope in order to get going to his top speed. But starting in Sonic 2, all the player needed to do to propel Sonic forward was to hold “down” on the d-pad and “charge up” Sonic by pressing one of the other buttons a few times, then upon releasing “down,” ZOOM! There goes the hedgehog. 

Sonic lacked any kind of a sidekick in the first game, and that would be rectified with the introduction of Miles “Tails” Prower, an orange fox with two tails who also possesses Sonic’s moves and abilities, plus an ability to fly by twirling his tails (although you can’t do that willingly in this game when controlling him). By default, Tails tags along with Sonic as a computer-controlled ally, mimicking his actions. Tails can die, but automatically comes back after a short period of time upon death, so he’s sort of immortal in a way. One can choose to play as Sonic alone or Tails alone if they please, and the reason why one might want to leave Tails behind is because the bonus stages are arguably easier without him (which I’m not going to go into detail about).

And as you’d guess from the presence of a sidekick character, Tails being around means that this game introduced MULTIPLAYER! Tails is normally controlled by the computer, but any human player can start pressing buttons on the second controller at any time and start controlling Tails if they want to. It’s a rather unique sort of co-op multiplayer. You can cheese your way through a lot of the game this way since Tails can’t truly die, but the final stage is always done solo so you can’t actually finish the game through “Tails cheesing.” Thankfully they didn’t just stop there; there’s also COMPETITIVE split-screen multiplayer which can be a lot of fun. Two players race to get to the end of the stage first, as well as play the bonus stage vying to get the most rings.

Sonic 2 was one of the Genesis games I played the most in my childhood, frequently playing it at my cousins’ house. When playing versus mode, we famously would say, “Eat my dust!!” We loved the game, but I was never able to get very far. Unlike the first game, my cousins didn’t know the level select code, so I almost never saw the later stages in the game and it was many years before I actually beat it.

To this day, Sonic 2 is still considered one of the best Sonic games of all-time, if not THE best. I think for me it’s probably second or third place, but that opinion could change upon a future revisit that will definitely happen at some point. It’s another bonafide video game classic, the epitome of an essential.