"Please buy my new, definitive collection of classic Sonic games, featuring new content like mission modes, animations, wid-"

Shut the fuck up Iizuka, ain't nobody gonna drop 40 dollars for some dumbass romset.

"ソニックオリジンズを購入するか、私があなたの指を取ります！"

Anything for you, my queen. I only regret that I have but 40 dollars to lose for you, my queen.

Ever since Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2 got the Taxman treatment in 2013, I've been aching for home console ports, just as was done with Sonic CD. For whatever reason, Sega opted to keep both titles strictly confined to mobile phones and Android devices. Nearly ten years later I'd all but written off the possibility of getting the original games in 16:9 on a home console or PC, and it would seem more resourceful fans felt the same way if projects like Sonic 2: Community Cut and Angel Island Revisited are any indication.

With the announcement of Sonic Origins it seemed Sega was finally prepared to fix all that, with a ground-up remaster of Sonic 3 & Knuckles to sweeten the package. But anyone with as much of an affinity for these titles as I have has probably lived long enough to build a well developed level of cynicism towards Sega, a company that is seemingly incapable of stepping out of its own way. Suffice it to say, Sonic Origins delivers on the bare minimum with so many compromises that you have to wonder if it's worth it at all.

The Taxman remasters are ostensibly here, reworked for this collection by the fine folks at Headcannon. For the most part Sonic 1, 2, and CD play fine and come out the least scathed, though there's some odd things about each. Sonic 1 and 2 feature the upgrades from the mobile game, like the inclusion of elemental shields, or the seventh emerald in Sonic 1, but these options are buried in each game's level select rather than baked into the main menu, which is a frustrating level of obfuscation. CD appears to be a straight port of the Taxman release rather than a rebuild as evidenced by the Taxman version's bespoke menus being present. A consequence of this is that switching between the American and Japanese soundtracks requires you to launch into the anniversary mode and toggle between regions in order for your choice to reflect in the Classic and Story Mode versions of the game. Also, you can't play as Knuckles in CD because he wasn't in the Taxman version, sorry!

The drop-dash has also been added to each game, but the implementation into 1, 2, and CD seems dodgy at best. There's a brief moment in the animation that gives the trick away: for a single frame the moment you touch the ground you can see Sonic curled up, mid-charge for a spindash. It's an interesting way to fake it, but it also causes the drop dash to feel distinctly off, and I found myself disregarding it outside of one specific use case in CD where you can simply drop dash back and forth to time travel more reliably.

The main attraction of course is Sonic 3 & Knuckles, which hasn't been rereleased for quite some time due to legal issues concerning Michael Jackson's contributions to the soundtrack. At this point you've probably heard the whole story and all its twists and turns, and I actually have to wonder if Sega would have remained blithely unaware of the problem if not for the story gaining more and more attention online. The solution was to remove these tracks and instead use those found in the beta version of Sonic 3, which themselves are used in the original 90's PC release of the game. Personally, I don't think these tracks ever fit in the first place. Their melodies sound inconsistent with the rest of the soundtrack's style, and outside of Carnival Night, they don't really match their levels either. Ice Cap is a poppy upbeat tune that betrays how isolated and cold the level is, which is something Brad Buxer's reuse of Hard Times captured perfectly. The audio quality is also piss poor, but really all of Sonic 3 sounds weirdly muffled here, with the exception of the new Super Sonic theme which pipes through crystal clear. This isn't too surprising as it's very obviously not using the Genesis sound font. I am perplexed by why it's even in the game, as the original Super Sonic theme is still present in this collection. Was it to alleviate how annoyingly short the original theme's loop was? If so, replacing it with something that sounds gratingly similar to the music from Sonic 4 doesn't seem like much of a solution at all. I am begging someone to keep Jun Senou away from synthesizers.

Music aside, Sonic 3 is buggy as hell. I had the game lock up multiple times on PS5, and Sonic has a nasty tendency to stop moving entirely when hanging from objects like vines or monkey bars. A couple times I had to restart the PS5 because the game became completely unresponsive. The rest of the games are much more stable by comparison, though Sonic 2 has an issue with Tails failing to rejoin the player after scrolling off-screen, resulting in constant jumping sounds, and an audio bug with the drop dash that causes a high pitched chirp out of the right channel that sounds like a smoke detector beeping.

There's some cosmetic changes to Sonic 3 as well, including an impressive amount of new sprites to fill in some of the gaps present in the original sprite sheet. Things like Sonic facing forward and looking up, and a few tweaks to cutscene animations. They look quite nice and only really stand out if you're intimately familiar with the original. More broadly, special stages are redone in each game, allowing for much smoother scrolling. This cuts down on the difficulty of collecting Chaos Emeralds tremendously and is a welcomed change.

There's a variety of other modes on offer, including a Classic mode that allows you to play each game in 4:3, mirror mode (which isn't a wholly original idea, but a fun novelty), and boss rush. Tying each of the games together is story mode, which allows you to play the Anniversary edition of each game in chronological order with newly animated cutscenes serving as connective tissue. These cutscenes are by the same people who did Sonic Mania Adventures, and they're really great. Humorous, but a bit more serious and true in tone to the games. And if you aren't completely burned out by this point, you can jump into the mission mode, which allows you to take on bite-sized challenges in remixed levels from each game. These aren't terribly difficult and I S-ranked most of them on my first attempt, so don't expect to get much more than an hour of out it.

Rounding out the collection is the museum, which features an audio library, illustration gallery, and movies which can be unlocked when certain conditions are met or via the use of coins earned from missions or Anniversary mode. Most of what there is to unlock you've probably seen by now, but there's a few gems in there. I wish they found more concept and game plan documents to throw in as opposed to style guides, but considering Sega has lost track of a lot of masters over the years, it wouldn't surprise me if their backlog of design docs is similarly limited. The audio gallery is a bit underwhelming, however. There's so many Sonic games with excellent soundtracks, but Origins restricts itself to only songs present or related to the games on offer, unless you pay more for DLC that adds Spinball, Knuckles Chaotix, and Sonic 3D Blast to the track list. You can also set up a playlist if you like, but you can't actually do anything with it.

The pricing and DLC plan for Origins is just as much a mess as the collection itself. The base game is 40$, which is asking a bit much already, with additional DLC setting you back 8$ total, unless you opt for the deluxe edition for 45$. Do not pay for the DLC, it does not add much to the overall package. The quantity of "extreme" difficulty missions is meager at best, the extra soundtracks can just be found on Youtube (and god knows you can do more with a youtube playlist than one that tethers you to your Playstation), and the extra character animations on the menu or borders for the 4:3 mode just aren't worth the price of admission. It is mildly infuriating that some of the menus are designed around Sonic Spinball and Sonic 3D Blast when neither game is included, too. I'm not expecting full remasters of these, the market just doesn't really exist for that, but would it have been so hard to toss in a few extra ROMs as unlockables?

To be fair, just because the presence of Sonic Spinball art and music tricked me into thinking it might be int he game doesn't mean I should've trusted that it would be. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... I'm gonna keep buying this garbage.

Being a Sonic fan is exhausting. A port of the 2013 and 2011 remasters along with a new port of Sonic 3 with widescreen support by Headcannon should have been a layup. But a lack of features, messy user interface, and glitchy compromised titles hold Origins back from being the definitive collection it could and should have been. No doubt this frustration is shared by Headcannon, as their founder Simon Thomley recently aired his grievances with Sega on Twitter. It's a shame Thomley has to jeopardize Headcannon's partnership with Sega, but his honestly and unwillingness for all the blame to be pinned on his staff is admirable. It should come as no surprise that Sega is still mired in self-sabotaging behavior, of course, and I can't imagine it being any different moving forward.

Sadly, the ROMs Sega was offering on digital storefronts for the original Sonic games were all delisted ahead of Origins release, and while this doesn't mean much from a preservation standpoint given how easily accessible they still are off certain sites, digital scarcity is never a good thing. Fans have long been using these ROMs coupled with fan projects to upscale these games legally, and those versions are still the best way to enjoy Sonic in 16:9. Your choices are to mod the games the way they ought to be or settle on a product that is buggy and compromised. When it comes down to it, that too is a celebration of what Sonic is: a series consistently outshined by the efforts of fans.

Correction (6/29): According to Digital Foundry, Sonic CD has some differences that make it clear that it is also a unique build for Origins, so I really have no idea why the 2011 menus are still present in it.

As a collection first and foremost I would say that Sonic Origins does the job well enough and does it with a little bit style. The presentation is slick and there’s obviously so much love put into this, from the animated cutscenes to the 3D modeled islands showcasing where each game takes place, it’s content packed, and a lot of the enhancements to the classic games themselves are nice (widescreen support, full sprite rotation, new animations and new sprites entirely with Super Sonic’s case). Mission mode has some extra bite size challenges to tackle, not spectacularly made but it’s there to fill the collection with more stuff to do and it gets the job done. I will say without having played many of the fanmade classic game enhancements I’d say this is the definitive way to play these games…but it ain’t perfect. For one the delisting of the original games on steam is pretty awful but the game is also riddled with technical issues from what I’ve been seeing, especially related to performance on PC thanks to Denuvo. I haven’t experienced anything negative myself mind you, my experience has been flawless, but I can only speak for myself. Honestly though I think my biggest issue is that it’s only a collection of Sonic 1 2 3&K and CD, games we’ve seen get rereleased time and time and time again. As awful as Knuckles Chaotix is why not release that game? It hasn’t been rereleased anywhere and is basically stuck on the 32X atm. Where’s some game gear support or more saturn sonic games? Heck where’s stuff that hasn’t even been seen in the US like Segasonic? This collection could’ve been so much more than what it is, but I guess they were just really focused on bringing us these 4 games and nothing else. It’s fine but like, you know, not super exciting. $40 is a bit too steep so I’d still wait for a price drop. It has some extra DLC where you get…more music, uh…you can zoom in on the 3D modeled islands…yeah don’t get the DLC lmao

I have no strong opinions on the new 3&K music. Launch Base’s new track is kinda catchy tho ngl

While I see why some would consider this a kind of lackluster collection, especially with the pricing in mind, I think as a compilation with arguably the best versions of each game it does a great job. The new animated intros and outros are gorgeous, adorable and funny, the restored cutscenes in Sonic CD look incredible, the 3D islands used for the menus are very pretty and the way the characters interact in them is great, and the museum has quite a lot of interesting material from the series.

I didn't encounter any glitches whatsoever in my back to back playthrough of all four games on Switch, but I'm aware other people are experiencing a lot of issues.

Some short thoughts on each game:

- Sonic 1: This is dramatically worse than I remember. I know it's pretty common to see people joking about how Green Hill is the only good level in the game but.... Maybe it is???? Kinda??? Lmao. I really don't mind too much when 2D Sonic straight up doesn't let you go fast. Yes, speed is his most well-known characteristic, but I've always seen it as more of a marketing thing than something that should be prioritized above all else in his games.

Sonic 1's levels though... They all feel like the team was still figuring out how to design fun levels around Sonic's movement and physics, and most zones have fun portions, but IMO none of them really feel wholly good and fun save for Green Hill, which is natural because it's the last one they designed.

- Sonic CD: Yes, these levels are kind of a mess, but with the years I've found that if you're not seriously engaging with the time travel mechanic purposely and instead treat the game like a roller-coaster that you just roll with it can be pretty chill. And if you really care that much about saving the futures and getting a good ending you can just do the special stages (which are good for once), get all the time stones and call it a day.

Gorgeous, beautiful game. The restored cutscenes look incredible too.

- Sonic 2: This game is still good and I had a good time, but it's bizarrely overrated, I'm sorry.

- Sonic 3&K: I genuinely love every bit of this game except for Sandopolis Zone, which is horrible, and I guess the bonus states (not blue spheres), which aren't great, but you have no reason to engage in them if you don't want to, so who cares.

Now that I'm older and I am interested in more than just the action in this I've gotten to love the game even more. The attention to detail to the environments, the backgrounds, and the way they're used to add to the storytelling is very impressive. A game like this having a cohesive narrative and a pseudo cinematic presentation despite being an otherwise arcade-ass console game is extremely cool. Love it.

Thankfully I got over the changed tracks in 3 too. They're actually quite good, except for the whack-ass instrumentation in Carnival Night Zone, what even is that, lol.

Replaying these has also confirmed for me something I've had in my mind for a couple of years, that platformers with restrictive or non straightforward jumps and/or physics are my favorites, because when done well the very act of jumping and moving around is engaging and can feel rewarding. I love it in GnG and Castlevania, and I love it in 2D Sonic. The momentum is just inherently fun to the point that just doing the most basic platforming challenges is entertaining. The lava reef boss in &K is s great example of that, and my love for this sort of movement is what makes me not care that much about speed for the sake of it, although I have to admit the absurd speeds you can reach in S3K when you play well enough is exhilarating, so I won't complain when that's done well, obviously.

Overall a good way to play these games but I wish they went a little further in a few areas. I never expected them to have fangame levels of customization but there’s some really obvious settings that would just be nice for a collection like this.
•The drop dash is weird as hell in all the games minus 3&K.
• Tails AI seems wonky?
•A few bugs, checkpoints being busted in a level
•The hyper sonic screen flash seems even brighter?? Could be a side effect of widescreen but I wish it was toned down.
•New sonic 3 music overall disappointing
• Missions are cool, fun extra
•It is very nice having these officially in widescreen
•Super nice being able to retry special stages
•Steam achievement was bugged, had to make a save file backup to fix it
•Mirror mode is cursed

So my feelings on this collection are kinda mixed overall, on one hand, this is definitely the best way to experience these classics on consoles and the like (offically at least). The wide-screen and HD visuals along with the neat animated segments for each game, and the general convenience of being on consoles help out this collections overall worth when it comes strictly to the games. The remasters themselves are great, adding a great tight gameplay feel to the games along with some great extra bits added in. This is outside of a few glitches, some major and minor, and sonic 1 where I felt a bit of delay which was pretty bad.

My main complaints come with some of the extra content feels lacking. There are some songs from sonic 3 that are left out, sonic spinball, 3d blast, and chaotix only having their music in the game reeks of laziness, the recompossed music sucks of course, i get not being able to get the rights for the tracks but you could at least make the replacement tracks good, and other general issues with content bring down the collection. The way this game has been handled with its realease was also messy. Sonic Team making many different ways to just buy 5 dollars of extra content felt like forced DLC and complicated things with the collection. Sonic Team also using the wrong build of the Sonic 3 remaster was also a shame to see, even though I think headcannon did a great job with their remaster. The delisting of the standalone remasters on digital store places is also awful, there are some people that find that more convenient and have had those versions available for things such as fan projects like sonic air, a baffling move on every front

All in all, it's not a perfect collection, and the issues I have with some of the extras don't bring down the fact that these are the versions of the games I will come back to play with in the future, but maybe try and see if you can catch this one on sale, because the 40 dollar price is not worth it, maybe 30 to 20 dollars is an appropriate deal

Some nitpicks aside, this is the definitive way to play Sonic 1, 2 and CD!

For 3 and Knuckles, I'd still recommend A.I.R due to it having more QoL improvements and customization but overall, this is a stellar compilation with some beautiful 2D animated cutscenes to boot.
My complaints mostly stem from the slightly blurry looking visuals and generally wishing there were more content included, i.e. Knuckles Chaotix, Sonic Spinball, 3D Blast and the 8-bit games.

I feel as though the expensive price tag is definitely questionable and would say to wait for a price drop if you're unsure, but the game does have plenty of additional side content worth playing. In the end, you're receiving 4, technically 5 great games for a moderately expensive price tag and whether or not its worth said price is up to your interpretation.

bad collection of good games.

if this is how you want to play the classic series, that's fine by me, but personally I just have better more fun ways to engage with these games with more options, and a better drop dash lol.

Cutscenes are nice though.

An okay compilation of some classic games, even if they are some of the most widely available games ever - but this is the first time Sonic 3 has been available in at least a decade. Plus it's one of the very rare times Sonic 3 & Knuckles has been in a bundle as a full game.

The new additions are nice bonuses, but don't go far. Widescreen is great (I don't keep up with all the billion releases so I'm not sure if this is even the first widescreen release of these games), and mission mode is fun, but you can breeze through it in an hour or so. Boss rush is probably the best addition, even if the decision of which bosses to give you rings or not for can be baffling. It's also short, but it's the kind of thing that makes you want to keep going for the best time.

Speaking of which, the leaderboards on Playstation seem bugged to crash the game whenever you try to view them. I won't take that into my rating since it seems exclusive to the PS version and may be a hardware problem that isn't the games fault.

But the game does have bugs. A lot of them according to some people. I personally didn't experience that many though, with the only truly horrible one being when playing Sonic 2, Tails will get stuck in the stage and his constant jump sound effects make it an earsore. Other than that, the game crashed twice in the exact same mission, but never again (other than as mentioned in the PS-specific leaderboard bug).

You've got your museum content which is nice I guess. But I can't imagine anyone who is opening up an entire video game so they can listen to a playlist of music. The art and movies are nice at least, even if I probably spent less than 30 minutes total looking at them.

The animated cutscenes are super short, all less than a minute each, but they look pretty great.

Story mode is one of the weirdest things about this game. It's literally just the 4 games in a row. Zero, and I mean zero effort was made into making it feel like a real story mode. No making it all one visual style or anything. Even those new cutscenes aren't exclusive to it, as they play when you play the games solo. Even the freaking credits for each individual game will play. What's the point of a "story mode" when you still have to sit through the credits at 4 different points of the "story". I can't see a single reason to play story mode over just playing the games normally since this mode doesn't even give you a choice of characters, it's always just Sonic, or Sonic & Tails in the last 2 games. May as well have just called it marathon mode or something.

You can't customise the features in the game either. If you want widescreen but keep the lives system and no drop dash, you're out of luck. Also the "classic" version of Sonic 1 still has spin dash....why? You can't play the actual original Sonic 1.

I won't say anything about the games themselves since I have reviews for them all.

So basically it's a a bunch of classic games, which vary in quality but I find them all at least fun to play, but has a bug that basically ruins the default way to play Sonic 2. It's also a good modern way to get your hands on the elusive 3&K. But for what it promises, it feels underdelivered. It'd honestly have been better as just a straight up basic bundle (with the widescreen), but cheaper.

Oh and the Hidden Palace Zone bonus for Sonic 2, from the 2013 mobile version is included, which is great.

impressively, all of sonic team's greatest minds have come together to fuck up remastering already great ports of 30 year old games


if you'd love to pay five dollars for expansive day one content such as... the characters moving in the menus, then this is the game for you. integer scaling? fuck you. everything is blurry, play at 320x224 for the authentic Sega Genesis experience. shitty DRM to protect these untouchable, pirate proof genesis games? check. do you like your games optimized, because we don't, god bless whatever rig you're using because it won't get past the title screen. high quality audio? nope, it sounds and loops like shit. also we couldn't get the sonic 3 songs back so here are awful rearrangements of the prototype tracks that sounded fine lmfaooooo. welcome to the museum featuring NEVER BEFORE seen content such as youtube.com sonic mania adventures part 2. it's a 2d platformer but sorry! you're not allowed to bind anything to arrow keys.

you get the idea. somehow, this isn't all of it. sucks because somewhere under the slew of baffling decisions and technical issues is a great collection, but I suppose sonic being run through a shit filter a few dozen times is par for the course now. better versions of these games exist already via Sonic 1 Forever, Sonic 2 Absolute, Sonic 3 AIR, and Sonic CD Restored, but if you want to play the last two legally, you're probably out of luck - because both sonic 3 and CD have been delisted.

at least the cutscenes are boss

Would be a decent collection with some fun and challenging missions (Though there isn't many) with a cool new story mode and 16:9 but is ruined by lacklustre and short cutscenes though are animated well, Dumb and unesscessary DLC that makes no senese from a business standpoint, poor optimization due to denevo, weaker prototype music, some sprite bugs being unaddressed, game looking blurred and lack of any real customizability, at least the bonus content is decent.

Still if you just want the missions and maybe the story mode wait for a discount, there's many better ways to play the classics thanks too fans and sega delisting them is stupid too.

Nota de repudio a essa desgraça, caro pra caraio 214 em jogo veio??? Dlc que adiciona fundo no título kkkkk skybox dlc kkkkkkkkk, anniversary mode é só um port cagado da versão de celular que é de graça kk, sonic 3 com a pior ost que já vi na vida olha oque fizeram com ice cap, fora que o bitrate das músicas enfiaram no .... Enfim, ainda me tiraram os jogos originais da steam, quer jogar só sonic 1? Ou sla o CD? Fodase tem que comprar essa coletânea podre tudo de uma vez(venda casada do krl kkkk nem Halo faz isso), não sei hoje em dia mas day 1 o jogo tava repleto de bugs, os cara conseguem me errar num port de jogos com mais de 30 anos, se tiver os 3 jogos na steam(se n tiver tbm fds, ninguém é obrigado a gastar 200 conto em jogo veio, ainda mais cash grab de otário), baixa o mod por fãns que melhoram os jogos originais e tá bem melhor que essa coletanea.
Sonic 1 Forever
Sonic 2 Absolute
Sonic 3 A.I.R.
E tenha a experiência absoluta de jogar esses jogos antigos e com qualidade, sonic cd ngm liga é ruim pra caraio esse jogo msm kkkkkkk

I will say this is indeed 4 classic Sonic games, and on a very basic level they do function (sometimes), but this collection is not really worth the money whatsoever in its current state.

First off let's go over the content you get shall we? You get a new challenge mode, a story mode connecting all 4 games into one cohesive story, a museum with music, artwork, and all kinds of other goodies, and a few other neat features. These are cool and what I expect from any collection of this caliber, BUT a lot of these features come off as feeling rushed.

The music in the museum (especially the DLC music) is not recorded correctly from the Sega Genesis and a lot of the music is not labeled correctly making it difficult to kind certain tracks without skimming through every song in the menu. Door into Summer is now Midnight Greenhouse, The 3D Blast Invincibility theme is just the boss music, etc. And a lot of the "Premium" music is just Sonic Generations and other modern Sonic remixes from past games (again not being labeled correctly). Would it have been so hard to include something like the Sonic Arcade techno music since those were a lot more nostalgic of that era? Or the Sonic Boom/Virtual Sonic CDs? That would have been great even if they weren't playable in game.

The story mode I generally have no major complaints about it's a pretty cool mode that new players and old players will get a kick out of playing. The boss rush is also fine and offers a cool challenge (especially for Sonic 3K) to run through. Mirror mode is... ok. My biggest problems lie in the Anniversary and Classic modes. Anniversary mode is a version of Sonic 1-3K with no lives, coins you collect to use in the museum, and no continues. This is fine as an accessibility option and I don't blame anyone for using it over the original gameplay style, but I don't like how Sonic Team didn't give a fleshed out options menu for the 16:9 mode to have the old live and continues system. It's really weird they didn't include a feature like this because every other fan port and the mobile versions have it. Again I am perfectly ok with an accessibility mode and I think it's a great idea, but please let me use lives and continues in the remastered aspect ratio!

The challenge mode was the most intriguing to me out of most of this games new features. I wanted to see all the creative ways they could design new classic Sonic challenges and levels, but sadly these felt very rushed and many of the challenges felt like they were designed by an AI. Sonic 1 by far has the best challenges of the lot, but the rest ESPECIALLY SONIC 2 are just so annoying rather than being challenging.

Now the games themselves. This is the part you'd think would be the easiest to not screw up? There is already source code for Sonic 1, CD, and Sonic 2 available to Sonic Team from Whitehead's mobile ports and features like the drop dash have been done perfectly in the rom hacks like Sega Ages, but NOPE somehow Sonic Team screwed it up. The drop dash feels so jank on these games almost as if they are just a modified spin dash. At the peak of your jump using the drop dash you drop off all of your speed and lose a lot of your control mid air, and not to mention the 2 frames when you land that you are vulnerable because of how this version of the drop dash plays the spin dash animation as you land! It's horrid! And not to mention the blur filter put over the entire game! No pixel perfect, no CRT filters, no nothing just bad anti aliasing you can't turn off. Don't worry tho you can turn off AA...only for the menus! And Sonic CD loses a lot of it's charm as they either forgot or didn't both to include Sonic's voice acting when he gets a life, gets a continue, or when you do the "I'm outta here!" easter egg (WHICH WAS IN THE WHITEHEAD VERSION!).

Sonic 3K is a very special case as it was probably the higher quality of the ports in this collection. Headcannon included new animations, the drop dash functions correctly in this port, and there are some neat new features that other versions don't have like added sfx to make the game feel more cohesive, BUT this isn't a port without flaws. For some reason the special stage music doesn't speed up every time your speed increases which threw me off as I usually use the speed up to tell how fast I am going. The music was destined to be replaced and I understand why, but idk why they couldn't just use the superior prototype music. The music for Carnival Night, Launch Base, and Ice Cap sound so distracting compared to the rest of the soundtrack.

There are a lot of other things I could talk about like the amazing new animated cutscenes from Tyson Hesse or the new restored Sonic CD animations from Tanks, Quazza, and Brady Hartel, but my final thoughts on Sonic Origins in general is disappointing. Fans have made much better and intuitive ports of these Sonic games with more options and features than Origins has. And with the scummy deluxe edition selling content already in the game at launch and the insanely high price tag I can't really suggest this collection to anyone especially people playing on PC.

There's a lot this collection does right
A museum full of music, art, and manuals from the classic games is a nice feature to look through.
A story mode bridging together Sonic 1, CD, 2, and 3&K with brand new animated cutscenes that are super adorable is a nice feature for long time fans.
Each game being updated to a widescreen resolution, with Sonic's drop dash ability from Mania being added and lives being replaced by special coins that allow you to retry Special Stages or unlock museum items are all excellent changes.
Yes for the most part, this is just the Taxman mobile ports of Sonic 1/CD/2 ported to consoles (which includes Hidden Palace Zone in Sonic 2) but this is something we've asked for ages so I'm personally glad at the opportunity to finally be able to play these games.
There's some other extras like a mission mode, boss rush, and mirror mode which are nice extras but don't really do much for me.
Another huge plus is that Big Arms and a proper transition to the Sonic & Knuckles portion of S3&K has been added to the Sonic route of the game (S3&K removed the Big Arms fight in the Sonic/Tails route)

Now the collection does have some big flaws
Tails and Knuckles are playable in Sonic 1 but for some reason Knuckles isn't playable in CD
Carnival Night, Ice Cap and Launch Base Zone have had their music changed from the original Sonic 3 release due to the issues surrounding Michael Jackson's involvement on the soundtrack. While I understand why these songs had to be changed, I really don't vibe with a lot of the new music, Launch Base ESPICALLY AS IT DOES NOT FIT AT ALL. I don't mind the new Super Sonic theme but that was an unnecessary change for the sake of using something different from the Sonic & Knuckles invincibility theme.
The museum includes music from Sonic Spinball, Sonic 3D Blast, and Knuckles' Chaotix and I love that but it's also like, you included those games full soundtracks but not the games themselves? Like a rerelease of Chaotix would've been really nice, even if it was just the original game.
It also would've been nice if they included Mighty and Ray in these games as well. They borrowed the drop dash from Mania so including those two as bonus characters would've been a nice treat (honestly have the feeling they'll release an enhanced version of this game alongside a physical edition down the line just like they did with Mania)

While I have nitpicks with this collection, it is ultimately the best versions (music from Sonic 3 aside) of the games that defined my childhood and that remain some of my favourite games today, so in that regard, I have so much to love here. It is just unfortunate that there's a few missed opportunities that means this falls short of its potential

I’d like to start this review by making it clear this compilation wasn’t, isn’t, and will never be worth the $40 price tag it was released with, I ended up waiting until an eShop sale made it $22 and I suggest you do the same. The way Sega tacked on DLC for something like this is nonsensical too. That being said, this collection was exactly what I was expecting it to be and on that note I can leave it somewhat satisfied.

To get it out of the way, I believe players should be given the choice for whether lives should be limited or not a la Crash Bandicoot 4 and while Origins does this, locking it behind the 4:3 aspect ratio rubs me the wrong way though I won’t lose sleep over it. On the other hand I have issue with the stand-in, Coins. I feel the game doesn’t justify their existence enough with how useless they are once the Museum has been 100%ed and the cost of retrying a Special Stage after failing is such a poultry amount it might as well be unlimited, they’re also ridiculously easy to rack up depending on the game and when playing Mission Mode. I’d rather have taken a total Death Count for these games as a self-imposed incentive for more careful play.

Speaking of Mission Mode, I had quite a bit of fun with it! It’s very reminiscent of Challenges from New Super Mario Bros. U where you’re boxed into portions of a stage to complete a small task as best you can, and be ranked for it at the end. These range from killing enemies while submerged in oil to dodging enemies that move at double speed, it reminds me of NES Remix a bit(?) with how your knowledge of game mechanics is tested. My only complaint is that I wanted more out of it, and I hope a future Sonic collection has a similar kind of successor side mode.

If there’s anything I’m at all disappointed by if anything, it’s likely the Museum but only because of how elaborate they were in previous compilations, Mega Collection especially. More IDW covers to browse through would be nice, but I get it, this collection’s only about Classic Sonic. Still, with how Origins has tidbits of new developer art for games to show off, I would’ve liked watching the commercials for the included games like Sonic Jam did at least, maybe even the Man of the Year short animation from that game? The controls for the Museum itself is a bit finicky too. Unlike Mega and Gems, when reading the instruction manuals you can’t turn pages while in full screen mode. It may be a nitpick but it trips me up having to press B to be able to advance with the right bumper, then press A to zoom and keep reading again. I’m also kind of miffed that there’s no unique gallery theme like Jam/Mega/Gems, you have to arrange your own playlist of existing tracks from the games to play in the background.

Last thing to note is I really love the presentation of this collection, the menus represent the aesthetic of this era rather well and the new animated cutscenes are awesome. The islands for each game acting as a backdrop to the selected title is a welcome visual too, bonus points for Angel Island floating upon completing S3&K. Oh and SONIC CD’S OPENING AND ENDING GOT THEIR VOCALS RESTORED AND NO LONGER IN CROPPED WIDESCREEN. If a sale’s going on and you want the best official version of Sonic CD, this is the one for you.

I think the best way I can describe this collection in a single sentence is, it gets the job done and then some but it could’ve been so much more. I’m glad to have this on my Switch alongside Mania, but a little more put into it could’ve gone a long way. Anything to actually justify $40, and to me Sonic 2 alone is not even worth $10 no matter what you sprinkle on it. If only strict deadlines weren’t a factor…

Maybe expect standalone reviews of each game included here later down the line? They’re more fresh in my mind now thanks to this so I’ll consider it.

Completed the Story Mode of all the games and unlocked most of the museum. This is a really well put together collection that I wish Sega would do for more of there franchises. Fantastic quality games, great unlocks, it really reminds of of the gamecube era Sonic collections in that regard. The new cutscenes are great and add alot of charm. Upseting that Sonic 3s music is frankenstined, but its understandable given the situation. Challenge mode is also a great addition that I will definitely be coming back to.