The Sega Genesis was around for a while before Sega really had a well known mascot. Nintendo had Mario from the beginning but Sonic was a late arrival for Sega. However, when Sonic the Hedgehog arrived in 1991 for the Sega Genesis, it was an instant success. The Super Nintendo hadn’t arrived yet so the graphics were better than existing Mario games and the game play was much faster. Sega made the most of this comparison in their “Welcome to the Next Level” advertising campaign to great success.
So it’s no surprise that a sequel, aptly named Sonic the Hedgehog 2, followed not too long after the original. Sonic 2 introduced Sonic’s sidekick, Miles “Tails” Prower. It quickly became the second best-selling game for the Genesis behind only the original Sonic (which was included as a pack in so the comparison isn’t really fair). A total of around 6 million copies were sold for the Sega Genesis.
The game play was quite similar to the original. This was a fast moving, side-scrolling platform game. The player could play either as Sonic or Tails or both though there wasn’t really a difference in terms of their abilities. The game also introduced a new move called the “spin dash” in which the player spins in a ball while stationary which gives you a speed boost. Otherwise, why mess with success? The game was very similar to the first other than the addition of Tails, a new move and new levels and opponents. Nevertheless, Sonic 2 is considered to be one of the best games of all time. Much of this comes down to the game play and level design. If you’ve never tried Sonic or Sonic 2, you should definitely give them a try.
Personally, I preferred Super Mario World when that game arrived. It just felt so much larger and more varied than the Sonic games to me. However, there’s no doubt that Sonic was extremely popular and an excellent game. Fortunately, the original Sonic games have been re-released in a variety of ways so you don’t necessarily have to bother with emulation.
Sonic 2 has been included on the following compilations: Sonic Compilation for the Genesis (1995), Sonic Jam for the Saturn (1997), Sonic Mega Collection for the Nintendo GameCube (2002), Sonic Mega Collection Plus for the PS2, Xbox and PC (2004), Sega Genesis Collection for the PS2 and PSP (2006), Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for Xbox 360 and PS3 (2009) and Sonic Classic Collection for Nintendo DS (2010). In addition, Sonic 2 was ported to the Wii Virtual Console in 2007, the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade in 2011, the Nintendo 3DS as part of Nintendo 3DS 3D Classics in 2015, and as part of Sega Ages for the Nintendo Switch released via the Nintendo eShop in 2020.
You have plenty of options so definitely give this one a try if you haven’t yet and like 2D platformers at all.
