Sonic CD: Once More With Feeling
[ Company: Sega | Year: 1993 | Grade: A ]
Sonic CD (Sega CD)
We're thirteen days into the 32 Game Endings of Christmas and boy do I have a treat for you today. After watching a bunch of boring endings full of text and pixels, today we're going to take a look at an ending that ditches all that. Sonic the Hedgehog CD doesn't need sappy dialog; it lets the cheesy song do all the work. Get ready for a rap/rockin' good time when we dig into Sonic CD's Japanese ending!
Previously On Sonic CD:
"If you're strong, you can fly, you can reach the other side of the rainbow. It's all right, take a chance, 'cause there is no circumstance that you can't handle." These inspirational words come to us from
Sonic CD's intro cinema, thanks to the poppy Sonic Boom song. Here we're told that "trouble keeps you runnin' faster" and that we must "save the planet from disaster." I guess that's about all the set-up you need in a Sonic the Hedgehog game.
Blaring guitar riffs aside, Sonic the Hedgehog CD sees our hero racing through a bunch of familiar levels battling the dastardly Dr. Robotnik. This time around he runs so fast that he literally goes back and forth through time. Each of the game's stages features a past, present and future incarnation. Bonus items and coins can only be found in certain eras, requiring players to go all Marty McFly and navigate a bunch of time periods. Along the way you'll have to collect Chaos Emeralds and, apparently, save the world from disaster.
How It Ended:
Sonic CD ends a lot like it starts -- with a song! That's right, it's game ending that features a song about believing in yourself. After all, that is Sonic's super power. Wait ... no, that's
This robot Sonic may be fast, but you hear him coming a mile away!
not right. His super power is his speed. Either way, the message is that if you believe in yourself you can do anything. In this case, you can save a planet that has been literally chained to another planet and keep everybody from meeting their certain doom. Needless to say, Dr. Robotnik is none too pleased and attempts to make an escape. But our hero has the super power to throw rocks super accurately. So let me keep this straight, Sonic's super powers involve accurate throwing, speed AND believing in yourself? Make up your mind Sega!
After violently killing Dr. Robotnik (while
Sometimes I wish Dr. Robotnik would have won!
still believing in himself), Sonic relives the best moments found in this odd side project. We see him dodging killer bees, navigating his way around sinkholes, turning enemies into flowers, surviving explosions with nary a scratch, riding Battle Bots and generally running really fast. All this makes sense, but I'm left with one burning question: Whatever happened to the time travel gimmick?
How It Should Have Ended:
While zipping through time, Sonic the Hedgehog forgets to abide by the international rules of time travel. In one single spin dash, Sonic erases all life in the future. For years he is the last remaining hedgehog, slowly going crazy trying to find a way to reverse the damage he's done. But with each trip back in time, he only seems to make things worse. Eventually a kid haunted by a giant bunny rabbit has to go back and kill Sonic the Hedgehog. The next day he's crushed to death by a loose jet engine. Cue
Tears for Fears.
