When Sonic Origins launched in 2022, I was kinda disappointed. It should've been a home run for Sega in terms of being the defacto way to play Sonic 1, 2, CD and, barring changes to the soundtrack, 3K, finally giving the mobile releases of the first 2 proper console releases, and giving 3K the same treatment. But the final product released buggy, seemingly feature incomplete, lacking proper parity between games with things like the way the Drop Dash functions, budgeted in places, and just a disappointingly subpar collection. Not outright bad, we aren't dealing with Sonic Genesis or Colours Ultimate, so hey, pat on the back there. And between things like the new boss rush and mission modes, QOL features, and new cutscenes, there was good stuff to be seen in there, no doubt. But it wasn't everything it could've, and should've, been, and much like Sonic when you aren't touching the controller, we were left tapping our feet in hopes of a patch.
So I was pretty pissed about the announcement of Sonic Origins Plus. They make us wait an entire year after the subpar release of Origins with nary a peep, only to pop back out of the woodwork to announce they're gonna charge us even more money for a collection that already got lambasted for its convoluted Ubisoft preorder chart? I mean, there's also a physical version now, yippee, but we'll get to all that later.
For full disclosure, this is really just a review of what Plus brings to the table and fixes up from the original release, when taken into account that this was a year long wait. My opinions on the base collection, playing at launch on PS5, were that it was a mediocre to decent collection, one of those "6/10s that's closer to a 5 than a 7", ya know? So, picking the full collection up on a Steam sale on a whim, what's Origins Plus got to show for itself? Aside from Denuvo, I mean. Holy shit, the amount of times the game froze for a second while playing was insane, did Sega REALLY need that dogshit in their collection of 30 year old Sonic games, why hasn't it been patched out already?!
The biggest feature of Plus, without question, is playable Amy across all four games. She was pretty heavily prominent in the marketing for the base release; on the box art, in the new cutscenes for CD, and I suppose with Amy being a major player in The Murder Of Sonic, as well as the then-upcoming releases of Superstars and Frontiers: Final Horizon, the team figured it'd finally be time to go back and reintroduce her to the 2D titles after abandoning her after the Advance trilogy. And she's alright! Not super fun or anything, she's basically just got a hybrid insta-shield and drop dash, so I'm dreadfully sorry to anybody who was praying for her Sonic Advance playstyle to return. But even as a purist who's pretty much always playing as Sonic in these games, more characters is always welcome. If anything, I wish we'd gotten even more! Throw Mighty and Ray back in, since canon isn't something that matters! Give me Team Chaotix, maybe jerryrig up a playable Metal Sonic? The possibilities, man!
Beyond that, Knuckles is also added to Sonic CD, something that really should've been in from day 1, but the work wasn't already done so we were stuck waiting. I don't get it, this was something I'm pretty sure modders did for the 2011 PC release, but multi million dollar company Sega had to wait a year after their $40 collection released? If I'm not mistaken, since I'm going off of the additional little challenge menu that Plus introduces, the ability to play Knuckles in CD is also seemingly locked to Plus? Fucking insane if so, Sega are mental to think that just letting you play as a character who was playable in all the other games in the collection day of release is a bullet point worth shelling out the extra money for.
For some reason, the Game Gear games are used as a major selling point, for like, the 5th fucking time. This was something I was surprised wasn't done at launch as well, as it would've played a huge roll in the collection's theming being, well, Sonic's origins. Tails debuted in 8-Bit Sonic 2, so his origins are totally left hung to dry otherwise. And boy, these sure are the Game Gear Sonic games! Again! The whole lot of them are here, and they've got dogshit audio for some reason, like what's up with that? To make it quick, the only ones I'd honestly say are worth playing are Sonic 1, Triple Trouble and Tails' Adventure. The rest are either spin-offs that barely serve as distractions, like Labyrinth and the Drift duology, genuinely dogshit like Blast, Sky Patrol and Spinball, or completely forgettable in the cases of Chaos and the 8-bit take on Mean Bean Machine. And once again, we couldn't even get the Master System versions for that extra twist of the knife.
This isn't the first time a Sonic collection has been rereleased with Game Gear games being used as a major selling point, but at least Mega Collection Plus was done under the guise of bringing Mega Collection to PS2, Xbox and PC. This just feels like Sega shrugged their shoulders and said, "Uhhhh, fuck we need a little extra content to justify the price tag? We got some Game Gear roms, I guess". It's the most flaccid excuse for an extra selling point a remaster like this could have possibly included. Furthermore, I remember the argument around release that it wouldn't have felt right for Sonic 3D Blast, Spinball, Knuckles' Chaotix, Mean Bean Machine and the sort to have been included due to them almost certainly being emulated, as opposed to the main advertised quartet on offer, but that's clearly out the window now, since all the Game Gear games are running in some dogshit emulator, so why not just go all the way? Sure, three of those games are varying degrees of not very good, and the other is a reskin of Puyo Puyo that's only tangentially related to Sonic, I get it. But when you have the Game Gear versions of both Spinball and MBM in the very same collection, as well as the dogshit Game Gear title 3D Blast was supplementing, what excuse is there to not have them? 3 of them have their entire soundtracks in the collection menu, and both 3D Blast and Spinball are represented on the main menu alongside Sonic 1, 2, 3K and CD.
Hell, why stop there if this is truly a collection about Sonic's origins? Throw Sonic The Fighters in there too, since there's a perfectly good emulation of it used in the recent RGG games, maybe Sonic R as well. Remember those MegaPlay versions of Sonic 1 and 2 included in the Switch SEGA AGES releases? Why couldn't we get those in there, too? I probably sound like I'm coming down really hard on Origins Plus for this, because I am, and that's only because the state of Origins Plus upsets me so much. In terms of pure content in comparison to previous Sonic compilations, it not only feels lesser, but more frustrating both given what it sells itself as, and the price points on offer.
And that's... about all there is new about Origins Plus! You pay for this expansion pack and get jack all, while Sonic Frontiers, mixed as the contents might have been, had the gall to give out 3 massive content updates out for completely free. And sure, Mania Plus's major addition of Encore Mode wasn't anything groundbreaking either, but it gave two playable characters, as opposed to just one, and the ability to play as another in a game they probably should've been in already. And hey, at least Mania got a free update to quell a few fan complaints, like the missing zone transitions and the updated Metal Sonic fight phase! Which brings me to the biggest issues I really have with Origins Plus.
What upsets me isn't so much the lack of new features in Origins Plus, but rather that Sega still haven't addressed the myriad of new glitches found in the base release. The roll lock neutering the drop dash in Sonic 1 and 2 is gone, and Tails' broken AI in Sonic 2 seems to be entirely fixed, both of which are great to see, given they were chief complaints among players. There's also the addition of the "nearest neighbor" filter for all the games, which thankfully fixes up the blurred look of the original release, how did it take over a year and change after release for that to be included?
But through my experience with Plus, a ton of issues ranging in severity present from day 1 continued to plague the game near 2 years on from its initial release onto digital storefronts. Off the top of my head, the touted "Original mode" for all the games is still just the respective Anniversary Mode running in 4:3 with lives and the removal of the drop dash, while offering no option for lives in Anniversary Mode. There's still no custom save slots outside of Sonic 3K like the mobile releases had, and the character select screens still clash with the collection's aesthetic, as do the 2011 Sonic CD menus when you go to select your preferred OST or spin dash. Sonic CDs voice clips are still gone, and the ending cutscene is still totally out of sync. Sonic 3's OST is still compressed with the replaced tracks still sounding like garbage regardless, Marble Garden's opening slope still kills your momentum partway through, and the spinning tops still feel like dogshit. And that's just the stuff I can recount off the top of my head, there's definitely more I either missed, or just never got to encounter, I'm sure.
And all this is made that little extra worse by the pricetag of Origins Plus, either physically or digitally. Sonic Origins already had plenty of debate about it being worth the $40 price point, and the fact Sega had to squeeze an extra $5 out of anyone who wanted the deluxe edition for such riveting features as controlling the camera and animating the characters on the main menu was pants on head stupid. So Origins Plus comes out with its physical release and its cool artbook, promoting that you'll naturally get the Plus content included! Which it is, but only as a download code. That kinda bites, since Mania's DLC was included on disc, and the possibility of the Switch, PS4 and 5 or Xbox storefronts going offline is always a threat many, many years down the line.
But hey, it's at least nice they included it in box I guess, and it's even pretty cheap digitally! And then you look at the contents itself and see that it includes the deluxe edition content within the Plus expansion. The content that any dumbfuck who preordered Origins' initial deluxe edition for that fat $45 price (it's me, I'm dumbfuck!) already have. Already owned Origins on your platform of choice from day 1? You've gotta double dip into DLC you already fucking own, rather than being rewarded a free upgrade path or something of the sort. This might seem really petty to bring up, but the exact issue I have is that most people DON'T bring it up. If Nintendo did this kind of bullshit, I bet you money they'd be racked over the fucking coals for it. Then again, people made jokes about them selling Galaxy 2 as DLC for Mario 3D All Stars, and now here we are with Origins Plus asking me to pay actual money for Sonic Blast...
If you'll give me a moment to go full doomer mode, I'll end this off by saying that Sonic Origins, throughout its 2 years of announcement, formal reveal, release and expansion has been frustrating. Incredibly, incredibly frustrating. More so than that, though, it represents all the worst aspects of Sega's mishandling of the franchise, in a package that should've been an easy slam dunk. Announcing the game way too early, trying to nickle and dime players with pointless DLC that should just be in the game from the start, rushing a product out to meet an arbitrary anniversary deadline (to the point that Stealth had to, once again, express disappointment and frustration over Sonic 3's handling in Origins, much like he did during Mania's PC release), and an almost parodic disinterest in patching the many, many glaring issues. Origins Plus is just the year late cherry on top, and it just makes me sad.
If they go 3 for 3 with Origins and Colours Ultimate by fucking up Sonic X Shadow Generations, my review of that game'll just be a fucking LiveLeak video.
So I was pretty pissed about the announcement of Sonic Origins Plus. They make us wait an entire year after the subpar release of Origins with nary a peep, only to pop back out of the woodwork to announce they're gonna charge us even more money for a collection that already got lambasted for its convoluted Ubisoft preorder chart? I mean, there's also a physical version now, yippee, but we'll get to all that later.
For full disclosure, this is really just a review of what Plus brings to the table and fixes up from the original release, when taken into account that this was a year long wait. My opinions on the base collection, playing at launch on PS5, were that it was a mediocre to decent collection, one of those "6/10s that's closer to a 5 than a 7", ya know? So, picking the full collection up on a Steam sale on a whim, what's Origins Plus got to show for itself? Aside from Denuvo, I mean. Holy shit, the amount of times the game froze for a second while playing was insane, did Sega REALLY need that dogshit in their collection of 30 year old Sonic games, why hasn't it been patched out already?!
The biggest feature of Plus, without question, is playable Amy across all four games. She was pretty heavily prominent in the marketing for the base release; on the box art, in the new cutscenes for CD, and I suppose with Amy being a major player in The Murder Of Sonic, as well as the then-upcoming releases of Superstars and Frontiers: Final Horizon, the team figured it'd finally be time to go back and reintroduce her to the 2D titles after abandoning her after the Advance trilogy. And she's alright! Not super fun or anything, she's basically just got a hybrid insta-shield and drop dash, so I'm dreadfully sorry to anybody who was praying for her Sonic Advance playstyle to return. But even as a purist who's pretty much always playing as Sonic in these games, more characters is always welcome. If anything, I wish we'd gotten even more! Throw Mighty and Ray back in, since canon isn't something that matters! Give me Team Chaotix, maybe jerryrig up a playable Metal Sonic? The possibilities, man!
Beyond that, Knuckles is also added to Sonic CD, something that really should've been in from day 1, but the work wasn't already done so we were stuck waiting. I don't get it, this was something I'm pretty sure modders did for the 2011 PC release, but multi million dollar company Sega had to wait a year after their $40 collection released? If I'm not mistaken, since I'm going off of the additional little challenge menu that Plus introduces, the ability to play Knuckles in CD is also seemingly locked to Plus? Fucking insane if so, Sega are mental to think that just letting you play as a character who was playable in all the other games in the collection day of release is a bullet point worth shelling out the extra money for.
For some reason, the Game Gear games are used as a major selling point, for like, the 5th fucking time. This was something I was surprised wasn't done at launch as well, as it would've played a huge roll in the collection's theming being, well, Sonic's origins. Tails debuted in 8-Bit Sonic 2, so his origins are totally left hung to dry otherwise. And boy, these sure are the Game Gear Sonic games! Again! The whole lot of them are here, and they've got dogshit audio for some reason, like what's up with that? To make it quick, the only ones I'd honestly say are worth playing are Sonic 1, Triple Trouble and Tails' Adventure. The rest are either spin-offs that barely serve as distractions, like Labyrinth and the Drift duology, genuinely dogshit like Blast, Sky Patrol and Spinball, or completely forgettable in the cases of Chaos and the 8-bit take on Mean Bean Machine. And once again, we couldn't even get the Master System versions for that extra twist of the knife.
This isn't the first time a Sonic collection has been rereleased with Game Gear games being used as a major selling point, but at least Mega Collection Plus was done under the guise of bringing Mega Collection to PS2, Xbox and PC. This just feels like Sega shrugged their shoulders and said, "Uhhhh, fuck we need a little extra content to justify the price tag? We got some Game Gear roms, I guess". It's the most flaccid excuse for an extra selling point a remaster like this could have possibly included. Furthermore, I remember the argument around release that it wouldn't have felt right for Sonic 3D Blast, Spinball, Knuckles' Chaotix, Mean Bean Machine and the sort to have been included due to them almost certainly being emulated, as opposed to the main advertised quartet on offer, but that's clearly out the window now, since all the Game Gear games are running in some dogshit emulator, so why not just go all the way? Sure, three of those games are varying degrees of not very good, and the other is a reskin of Puyo Puyo that's only tangentially related to Sonic, I get it. But when you have the Game Gear versions of both Spinball and MBM in the very same collection, as well as the dogshit Game Gear title 3D Blast was supplementing, what excuse is there to not have them? 3 of them have their entire soundtracks in the collection menu, and both 3D Blast and Spinball are represented on the main menu alongside Sonic 1, 2, 3K and CD.
Hell, why stop there if this is truly a collection about Sonic's origins? Throw Sonic The Fighters in there too, since there's a perfectly good emulation of it used in the recent RGG games, maybe Sonic R as well. Remember those MegaPlay versions of Sonic 1 and 2 included in the Switch SEGA AGES releases? Why couldn't we get those in there, too? I probably sound like I'm coming down really hard on Origins Plus for this, because I am, and that's only because the state of Origins Plus upsets me so much. In terms of pure content in comparison to previous Sonic compilations, it not only feels lesser, but more frustrating both given what it sells itself as, and the price points on offer.
And that's... about all there is new about Origins Plus! You pay for this expansion pack and get jack all, while Sonic Frontiers, mixed as the contents might have been, had the gall to give out 3 massive content updates out for completely free. And sure, Mania Plus's major addition of Encore Mode wasn't anything groundbreaking either, but it gave two playable characters, as opposed to just one, and the ability to play as another in a game they probably should've been in already. And hey, at least Mania got a free update to quell a few fan complaints, like the missing zone transitions and the updated Metal Sonic fight phase! Which brings me to the biggest issues I really have with Origins Plus.
What upsets me isn't so much the lack of new features in Origins Plus, but rather that Sega still haven't addressed the myriad of new glitches found in the base release. The roll lock neutering the drop dash in Sonic 1 and 2 is gone, and Tails' broken AI in Sonic 2 seems to be entirely fixed, both of which are great to see, given they were chief complaints among players. There's also the addition of the "nearest neighbor" filter for all the games, which thankfully fixes up the blurred look of the original release, how did it take over a year and change after release for that to be included?
But through my experience with Plus, a ton of issues ranging in severity present from day 1 continued to plague the game near 2 years on from its initial release onto digital storefronts. Off the top of my head, the touted "Original mode" for all the games is still just the respective Anniversary Mode running in 4:3 with lives and the removal of the drop dash, while offering no option for lives in Anniversary Mode. There's still no custom save slots outside of Sonic 3K like the mobile releases had, and the character select screens still clash with the collection's aesthetic, as do the 2011 Sonic CD menus when you go to select your preferred OST or spin dash. Sonic CDs voice clips are still gone, and the ending cutscene is still totally out of sync. Sonic 3's OST is still compressed with the replaced tracks still sounding like garbage regardless, Marble Garden's opening slope still kills your momentum partway through, and the spinning tops still feel like dogshit. And that's just the stuff I can recount off the top of my head, there's definitely more I either missed, or just never got to encounter, I'm sure.
And all this is made that little extra worse by the pricetag of Origins Plus, either physically or digitally. Sonic Origins already had plenty of debate about it being worth the $40 price point, and the fact Sega had to squeeze an extra $5 out of anyone who wanted the deluxe edition for such riveting features as controlling the camera and animating the characters on the main menu was pants on head stupid. So Origins Plus comes out with its physical release and its cool artbook, promoting that you'll naturally get the Plus content included! Which it is, but only as a download code. That kinda bites, since Mania's DLC was included on disc, and the possibility of the Switch, PS4 and 5 or Xbox storefronts going offline is always a threat many, many years down the line.
But hey, it's at least nice they included it in box I guess, and it's even pretty cheap digitally! And then you look at the contents itself and see that it includes the deluxe edition content within the Plus expansion. The content that any dumbfuck who preordered Origins' initial deluxe edition for that fat $45 price (it's me, I'm dumbfuck!) already have. Already owned Origins on your platform of choice from day 1? You've gotta double dip into DLC you already fucking own, rather than being rewarded a free upgrade path or something of the sort. This might seem really petty to bring up, but the exact issue I have is that most people DON'T bring it up. If Nintendo did this kind of bullshit, I bet you money they'd be racked over the fucking coals for it. Then again, people made jokes about them selling Galaxy 2 as DLC for Mario 3D All Stars, and now here we are with Origins Plus asking me to pay actual money for Sonic Blast...
If you'll give me a moment to go full doomer mode, I'll end this off by saying that Sonic Origins, throughout its 2 years of announcement, formal reveal, release and expansion has been frustrating. Incredibly, incredibly frustrating. More so than that, though, it represents all the worst aspects of Sega's mishandling of the franchise, in a package that should've been an easy slam dunk. Announcing the game way too early, trying to nickle and dime players with pointless DLC that should just be in the game from the start, rushing a product out to meet an arbitrary anniversary deadline (to the point that Stealth had to, once again, express disappointment and frustration over Sonic 3's handling in Origins, much like he did during Mania's PC release), and an almost parodic disinterest in patching the many, many glaring issues. Origins Plus is just the year late cherry on top, and it just makes me sad.
If they go 3 for 3 with Origins and Colours Ultimate by fucking up Sonic X Shadow Generations, my review of that game'll just be a fucking LiveLeak video.