Sonic Blast

Sonic Blast
"Sonic Blast? Should've been called Sonic Slow-Ass. Not much else to say, just a poor man's version of Sonic." — The Angry Video Game Nerd
Protagonist(s): Sonic the Hedgehog Knuckles the Echidna Genre(s): Platform Side-scroller Platform(s): Game Gear Sega Master System Release Date: Game Gear NA: November 14, 1996 EU: November 1996 JP: December 13, 1996 Sega Master System BR: December 1997 Developer(s): Aspect Co., Ltd. Publisher(s): Sega Tectoy (Brazil) Country: Japan Series: Sonic the Hedgehog Predecessor: Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble Successor: Sonic Advance

"I don't know, guys, this game wasn't doing it for me. I'm not sure how Aspect stooped so low. They finally got it right with Sonic Triple Trouble, so what the heck happened here?"

— redhotsonic, Sonic Blast - Straight to the point

Sonic Blast (also known as G Sonic in Japan) is a 1996 side scrolling platformer developed by Aspect Co. (who’ve previously made other 8-bit Sonic games) and published by Sega. The game was initially released on the Sega Game Gear on November 14, 1996 in North America, November 1996 in Europe and December 13, 1996 in Japan. It was the final Sonic the Hedgehog game released on the Game Gear, as Sega discontinued it on April 30th, 1997, six months after the game’s initial release.

In December 1997, Tectoy released a Sega Master System version exclusively in Brazil, it was also the final game released on the Master System altogether.

Plot

Sonic the Hedgehog was enjoying a nap on his palm tree hammock during a peaceful afternoon on South Island. His repose was interrupted, however, by the blinding flash of a Chaos Emerald. The Emerald shattered into five different-colored pieces with an earsplitting shriek, scattering off into the distance. Suddenly, the booming laughter of Dr. Eggman echoed above him - the villain had been aiming for Sonic with a laser beam, but struck the lone Chaos Emerald instead. Despite his error, Eggman was pleased with the unexpected results. He impulsively wanted to use the five shards of shattered Emerald to fortify his new aerial base, the Silver Castle, which he created after he realised that the other Emeralds began to scatter away from South Island. Just as Sonic prepared to set off in search of the pieces, Knuckles the Echidna stepped out from the shade of a nearby tree, having witnessed the event. The two heroes resolve to foil Dr. Eggman and collect the miniature Chaos Emeralds to restore it.

Gameplay

Sonic Blast plays the same as it’s other predecessors on the Game Gear, you can play as both Sonic and Knuckles, you have to collect five pieces of a Chaos Emerald, where the Emeralds are obtained during the second acts of each zone.

Sonic plays almost like the other 2D titles, but Sonic gains the ability to double-jump which makes him gain extra heights, and Knuckles plays like he does in Sonic 3 & Knuckles with the climbing and gliding abilities.

Bad Qualities

1. While the concept of pre-rendered visuals on a 8-bit handheld isn’t a bad idea (Donkey Kong Land on the Game Boy has the same graphics as Donkey Kong Country, and manages to do it well.), this game does it poorly compared to it’s aforementioned game, the sprite-work is horrible, stiffly animated, and almost take up the entire screen (at least on the Game Gear version).
2. Much like other Sonic games on the Game Gear, the handheld version suffers from awful screen crunch, making some sections sometimes harder than it has any right to be.
3. Wonky and awkward collision detection, this is especially noticeable when trying to go through a loop, which you could get stuck on.
4. Uninspiring level design, most of the levels are very short and take under a minute to complete, the higher paths are pathetically easy to reach, exploration is based on extremely basic platforming and don’t have any interesting moments in them.
5. The level design hardly takes advantage of Knuckles' abilities, almost like he was added in the last minute.
6. It features a rather horrid take on Sonic 2's Special Stages. The problem with these stages lay in the awkward pseudo-3D perspective, and the fact that there are hardly enough rings in the stage itself (you have to get 50 rings). As the game's character sprites seem larger than the actual area, jumping at rings can often cause the character to simply pass through them. Also, you only get one shot at each stage, so if you messed up, you couldn't retry the stage, so there goes your chances of getting the good ending.
7. The Master System version, while fixed the screen crunch, was clearly not optimized for said system, and it shows in most parts, such as the title screen which looks the same as the Game Gear version, just with a white border around it, and the special stages have an ugly colour border trying to replicate the special stage’s terrain, said border looks unintentionally corrupted and glitched.
8. Some of the boss fight’s have broken hitboxes, where sometimes, you jump on it, but the game doesn’t register that as an attack and you get damaged from it.
9. The enemy placement can sometimes be awkward, with a big example being Silver Castle Zone, where there are enemies that appear when you’re going fast, causing you to lose rings.
10. Blue Marine Zone is the worst zone in the entire game, aside from it being a water stage, it is also another “where am I going?” type of stage, and it’s sometimes easy to get lost in it, to add salt to the wound, Sonic moves even slower in this level, making this stage boring and frustrating to complete.
11. Some of the zone names are pretty unclever and redundant, such as Yellow Desert Zone, Red Volcano Zone and Blue Marine Zone, which feel bland compared to names like Spring Yard Zone from Sonic 1, Aquatic Ruin Zone from Sonic 2 and Hydrocity Zone from Sonic 3.
    • The name of the game's five zones each begin with a type of color (Green, Yellow, Red, Blue, and Silver respectively). These colors relate to the Chaos Emerald found in each zone.
12. While the controls are not absolutely terrible, both Sonic & Knuckles feel slower compared to their predecessors, because they kinda take a lot of momentum to get speed, in fact, the characters start slowly walking before even kind of starting to actually gain momentum, and even with their speed, they feel kinda clunky to handle, it’s worse when going through a loop or being underwater as mentioned above.

Good Qualities

1. The game allows you to play as Knuckles for the first time on a handheld, which is neat.
2. The Master System version, while unoptimised in some parts, fixes the screen crunch from the Game Gear version, which makes the game more bearable.
3. Decent soundtrack, especially the main theme of the game.
4. While they look muddy, the graphics are well optimized and impressive for the Game Gear, which was on it’s last legs like the Sega Mega Drive in 1996.
5. Aside from both characters having heavy momentum to build up speed, the controls are decent and not bad.
6. Competent box art for all regions, the japanese one is actually great since it features the same style as Sonic & Knuckles' and Sonic CD's Windows 9x versions.
7. This is the first game in the Sonic series that has the double jump without using any shields.
8. The story is unique for a Game Gear game.

Reception

"What were they thinking?"The Shit Scale Games that are debatably bad High level of shit contamination The very high category The severe zone Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Major code red 👆 This product belongs to the "High Level of Shit Contamination" category of the AVGN's Shit Scale.

In his review of the game, SomecallmeJohnny stated he felt out of the all the Sonic platformers on the Game Gear, this is the worst of them and that it was just a rushed game late into the Game Gear's lifespan. He described the graphics as "Like someone put a Sonic toy from a happy meal, and placed it on a microwave", and said that the models from the Pakistan Sonic commercial look better compared to the Sonic Blast sprites.

Trivia

• In Japan, it was released under the Kid’s Gear brand, since Sega stopped supporting the Game Gear in Japan in 1995, and was the the final Game Gear game in that country.
• The Japanese version of the game is pretty rare to find, and is very expensive, costing around $300-$400 on eBay.
• This was the final 2D handheld Sonic the Hedgehog game released for a Sega console, as Sega left the console business in 2001 due to the commercial failure of the Dreamcast.
• Some of the game's japanese artwork was used in Sonic 3D Blast's US manual.

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