Sonic Origins Plus does little to justify its existence.

This game trying to repackage the Digital Deluxe content as new alongside Knuckles in Sonic CD (something that should’ve been in the base game or a free update) and Amy is a new degree of insulting for those who already paid for it. Amy herself is an alright addition I have no qualms with though. Her hitbox and jumpball is smaller, and her hammer attacks are an insta-shield that lasts longer and drop dash reskinned that applies to all three games. Lazy? Maybe, but I see this as her being an easy mode akin to Team Rose in Sonic Heroes even when there’s an argument for these games being easy enough now, Amy is good. Not worth an entire rerelease, but good.

I brought up in my base Origins review that Mission Mode was a genuine highlight and the trailer saying New Challenges while offering nothing in that section is a little irritating. In retrospect it’s likely referring to the new “Surprise” mode which is just an incredibly short achievement board that reveals a picture to incentivize the player to care about Plus’ additions.

As a softie for Sonic’s Game Gear library, I was rather excited to see these titles on modern consoles, though now I realize they must’ve been haphazardly included to justify spiking the price with “Now instead of 4 games, you get a whole 16!” I haven’t had any problems playing them so far though I’ve seen friends notice big emulator issues and I can’t get around the weird echo filter the sound now suddenly has either. You also only have one save state to use and overwrite per game, compared to Gems’ Collection allowing for several. Save slots is a complaint I’ll get to next, but unnecessary limitations is becoming a trend with this collection.

As for if anything got better in the four games Origins already comes with minus Amy and CD Knuckles, so far I’ve seen zero improvements aside from an update to how you can now change directions when charging a drop dash in 1 and 2. No lives toggle for anniversary mode and no custom save slots, it’s still only one per character. The replacement tracks for 3&K are still not as high quality as their prototypes to boot. I know a good number of people saw the announcement for Plus as an opportunity to fix their issues with Origins, so seeing nothing done with it is both expected for Sonic Team and makes the game even more contentious.

The physical copy only having the base game on disc/cartridge and the Plus content being a download code voucher was what made me cancel my preorder, even the manufacturers knew the additions were negligible.

The Plus DLC for Sonic Mania added more content and costs $5 opposed to Origins Plus’ $10, that should speak for itself. It’s also probably not a good thing one of my longer reviews on here after a long time was a rant against an expansion.