I have seen lots of complaints pertaining to specific Sonic games over my time playing them. Some say that 06 is the worst, or that one Labyrinth spinoff is bad. They are all wrong: nothing compares to this specific Sonic title.
Sonic Jam on the Tiger game.com is an incredibly barebones and barely operational Sonic game that isn’t even a “compilation” like its Saturn counterpart. You get 3 “games” in total: Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. Note the usage of quotes on “games”, as in reality each game has one zone spread across a tedious four acts. 2 gets Emerald Hill, 3 gets Angel Island and S&K gets Mushroom Hill.
The “Sonic World” overworld present in the Saturn counterpart is outright missing here, and so is Sonic 1. Sonic 3D Blast, present in pre-release material for this game, is also not here. Must have either been a time related exclusion, or a quality assurance thing. Would be hilarious if the latter.
What does not help matters is the fact that not only is the game.com hardware clearly having trouble running the game in the first place, but controls are wonky and certain characters cannot clear specific levels. Sonic and Knuckles can not get up the Angel Island tree sequence, it is outright bugged in this version. If you don’t know this, then you’ll find out the hard way by repeatedly trying to run up it.
Tails is the only one capable of bypassing this sequence by virtue of Tails having flight (though busted in comparison to even the Mega Drive original). Knuckles doesn’t even have his gliding or climbing abilities from the Mega Drive original, he is practically just a skin of Sonic himself. If you want to actually play through the game in its entirety, then you are effectively forced into playing as Tails.
Visuals are awful and are reminiscent of those unofficial Game Boy Sonic bootlegs, and the sound doesn’t fare much better either. There is zone music present in the game but because of the hardware it’s slowed down to an outright crawl; it sounds like incoherent beeps and boops.
There are special stages in this game but they are not mandatory to beat the game. Literally. It doesn’t even matter. The special stages themselves are the same ones present in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, being Blue Spheres (albeit hardware limitations make them look more like Black Spheres). I only ever got to these once, then never bothered reaching them again.
Unless you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for Sonic games to play, don’t bother touching this one. I wouldn’t even recommend playing this. Play the Saturn counterpart, or any Sonic compilation to get a better experience.
Sonic Jam on the Tiger game.com is an incredibly barebones and barely operational Sonic game that isn’t even a “compilation” like its Saturn counterpart. You get 3 “games” in total: Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. Note the usage of quotes on “games”, as in reality each game has one zone spread across a tedious four acts. 2 gets Emerald Hill, 3 gets Angel Island and S&K gets Mushroom Hill.
The “Sonic World” overworld present in the Saturn counterpart is outright missing here, and so is Sonic 1. Sonic 3D Blast, present in pre-release material for this game, is also not here. Must have either been a time related exclusion, or a quality assurance thing. Would be hilarious if the latter.
What does not help matters is the fact that not only is the game.com hardware clearly having trouble running the game in the first place, but controls are wonky and certain characters cannot clear specific levels. Sonic and Knuckles can not get up the Angel Island tree sequence, it is outright bugged in this version. If you don’t know this, then you’ll find out the hard way by repeatedly trying to run up it.
Tails is the only one capable of bypassing this sequence by virtue of Tails having flight (though busted in comparison to even the Mega Drive original). Knuckles doesn’t even have his gliding or climbing abilities from the Mega Drive original, he is practically just a skin of Sonic himself. If you want to actually play through the game in its entirety, then you are effectively forced into playing as Tails.
Visuals are awful and are reminiscent of those unofficial Game Boy Sonic bootlegs, and the sound doesn’t fare much better either. There is zone music present in the game but because of the hardware it’s slowed down to an outright crawl; it sounds like incoherent beeps and boops.
There are special stages in this game but they are not mandatory to beat the game. Literally. It doesn’t even matter. The special stages themselves are the same ones present in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, being Blue Spheres (albeit hardware limitations make them look more like Black Spheres). I only ever got to these once, then never bothered reaching them again.
Unless you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for Sonic games to play, don’t bother touching this one. I wouldn’t even recommend playing this. Play the Saturn counterpart, or any Sonic compilation to get a better experience.