Sonic Origins Reviews

honestly not bad for what it is... its a collection of sonic games with tweaks and some minor bugs. its infinitley better now that the bugs are more ironed out

i forgot how fun classic sonic games are until i played this game, its a great time

great versions of great games! all of them run in widescreen, and function cleanly. The improvements of anniversary mode are super helpful, this is the best way to play Sonic CD for sure, and a fantastic way to play the other games too.

pretty fun game it gave me a bit of nostalgia i do love the old classic sonic game but overall it a good game.

It's fun to play the classic games in full screen on pc and have the dropdash and unlimited lifes

I mean, this is an okay collection of games that includes Sonic 1 - 3 and Knuckles, but to me, it isn’t worth the full price. It’s feels incomplete, and the only way it feels better is when you use certain mods like the one that bring’s back Michael Jackson’s music in Sonic 3 and Knuckles that he composed. If you really want this, make sure to get it when it’s on sale because that’s what I did.

One of the most egregious Sonic titles in the entire series. Sloppy ports with barely any changes that are insanely taxxing on my computer because they didn't bother with managing the actual games. This game should not take THAT much power from a computer when I run way higher-end games than games from over two decades ago and ran through an emulator and then charged at the insane price that the game expects to you give for essentially ZERO real effort or work. I just wanted to play some old Sonic games, and instead got a buggy, laggy and hardly performing mess that made me want to slam my head against a wall. I'm mad at myself for not refunding this when I had the chance.

As someone who really enjoys the classic Sonic games, this collection had a lot of potential. I never grew up with Mega Collection, which for a long time was considered to be one of the better ways of playing these old games on consoles, so I was very excited about this collection, especially with this being the first time SEGA re-released Sonic 3 & Knuckles in a long time... But I just can't recommend purchasing this game, at least on Steam. Before I start talking about what I liked and disliked about the game, I should emphasize this: If you want a convenient way to play these classic Sonic games, I would recommend getting this collection on other platforms (such as PlayStation, Xbox, and/or the Nintendo Switch). However, if you want to play these classic games on PC, there are much better options you can choose from, especially if you plan on playing them on the Steam Deck (More on that toward the end). One more thing before I continue, I have yet to play the Origins Plus DLC, but from what I've seen and heard, it isn't very impressive. [u] [h2] The Positives [/h2] [/u] The first thing I'll compliment this game on is the presentation. This collection does genuinely feel like a celebration of Sonic's past adventures. The new music and remixes in this game are great (as you would normally expect from a Sonic game), the menus look pretty decent, and some of the bonus features, like the artwork, are neat additions to have in a game like this. The games included all run pretty well. Sonic 1, 2, and CD play identically to their Android and IOS remasters, with one of the few differences being that you now have access to the Drop-Dash when playing as Sonic. This is very good given how hard it can be to replay these games after playing Sonic Mania. As for Sonic 3 & Knuckles, it is a bit more mixed. On one hand, it felt refreshing to play an official version of this game with widescreen added and having it run at a high frame rate. On the other, this is where I did start to experience more issues. Besides those issue that I'll talk about later, I had a decent time replaying Sonic 3 & Knuckles as it's one of my favorite classic Sonic games and it was awesome seeing what they were able to re-implement and polish up in this version. The new modes seem fine as well. I hardly touched them, but they seem pretty decent from what I've played. I've played a little bit of Classic mode, Mirror mode, and the Boss Rush in some of the games and they were also pretty fine. Though do be aware that in Classic mode, it's still using the remastered versions of these games and not the original genesis versions (The only differences being the re-implementation of lives and the game's screen being in 4:3). The challenges added in this game were also pretty fun. It was enjoyable to try and get an S rank in all of these optional challenges. The last thing I'll compliment this game on are the new animated cutscenes added to the beginning and ending of each game. They add more personality to these games and give some people who haven't experienced these games more context as to what the classic timeline of Sonic is like. [u] [h2] The Negatives [/h2] [/u] As for the problems I have with this game, I'll only be going over the ones that are actually worth highlighting. The first one is the big elephant that is Denuvo. I take a lot of issue with this, alongside how it's used in a lot of other Sonic games released by SEGA (such as Sonic Frontiers and Sonic X Shadow Generations), and that's mainly because whenever this is implemented in any game, you can not play the game unless you have a Wifi connection. I can understand wanting to prevent people from pirating this collection or to prevent people cheating, but making SINGLE-PLAYER games, especially ones that came out in the 90s, require a Wifi connection at all times is stupid. The only thing I can think of that requires people to need to be online for these kinds of games are for things like scoreboards or if there's a multiplayer mode, which are things that are completely optional most of the time. This is the main reason why I wouldn't recommend getting this collection on Steam, especially if you own a Steam Deck because the game will not boot up if you don't have an internet connection. I know that Sonic Origins isn't the only game that suffers from this issue, like I said, games like Sonic X Shadow Generations and Sonic Frontiers share the same issue, I just find it frustrating that this is being used on games that came out more than 30 years ago as of typing this. The price, at least on launch, was also very bizarre. It used to cost $40 for the standard addition and $45 for the deluxe addition (which didn't have the PLUS expansion as that would be released 1 year later). The problem I have with this is identical to what I said previously. Back when it came out, that price was not worth it as it was better to wait for the game to go on sale than to purchase $40-$45 for these old games. It also doesn't help that these games that once came out as DLC for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive Collection alongside the standalone remaster of Sonic CD were all delisted around the same time this collection came out, making Sonic Origins the only option you have if you want to purchase these games. Even though the price of this collection would be lowered to $30 for the standard addition and $40 for everything in the previous deluxe addition alongside the Plus Expansion DLC, this felt like a slap on the wrist for the ones who purchased this collection before the price drop. The people who have already purchased this collection prior to the price drop would now need to spend 10 more dollars for the Plus Expansion DLC if they wanted to have the complete package which all adds up to $50-$55. As for problems included in the games themselves, roll Locking was an issue for a while in Sonic 1 and 2 before the Plus Expansion (Roll locking is basically when your horizontal movement is locked if you jump after rolling in a ball), the physics in Sonic 3 and Knuckles specifically is a bit off which has the unfortunate side effect of making some elements of the levels not flow the same way as the original version of the game, some basic features that felt like they could have been part of the base game were locked behind a paywall (I'm not sure if this was changed when the Plus Expansion came out, but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't), and the biggest crime of this collection: the replaced music tracks in Sonic 3 & Knuckles... Okay that last part was a joke, but the replaced music still isn't great. The music in Sonic 3 & Knuckles is one of the main reasons the game hasn't seen a re-release in a long time. I won't go into too much detail, but it boils down to who owns the copyright to those original tracks. As a result, songs used in stages like Carnival Night, Ice Cap, and Launch Base (alongside specific jingles like the Invincibility theme) had to be replaced with the versions used in an older PC port of the game (which would later be discovered through a prototype as the original tracks SEGA planned on using when developing Sonic 3 & Knuckles back in the 90s). [u] [h2] Overall Thoughts [/h2] [/u] In general, this collection is fine if you want a convenient way to play the classic Sonic games on other platforms. However, if you want to play these games on PC or on a Steam Deck, there are better options to choose from. The highlights being Sonic 1 Forever, Sonic 2 Absolute, Sonic CD Miracle Edition, and Sonic 3 Angel Island Revisited. All fan projects that build upon official versions of these games by adding quality of life improvements and additions to these games alongside having mod support. The only reason I could see having this collection is if you want Knuckles and Amy to be playable in Sonic CD Miracle Edition. Other than that, this collection is fine on other platforms, but isn't ideal on PC and/or the Steam Deck.

The Green Hill theme starts and the rings collected sound. It's good to enjoy them again, I miss the time with my java Nokia phone and the 2D version of Sonic Unleased, that was the first title of Sonic franchise I played,

I wish there was enough confidence in releasing these new collections that they didn't feel the need to remove the other ways of getting these games from the Steam store