A few months ago SEGA released Sonic Origins, a full re-release of Sonic the Hedgehog to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Knuckles, and it included a new mode helping new players to the series play the games without the worry of lives, BUT the game has been known for more bad reasons than good.

First the game is full of bugs, players come across many bugs just in a normal playthrough, sometimes the bugs can even softlock the game or make the screen break making the game unplayable. Another issue is that Sonic 3 and Knuckles had a lot of music paired with Michael Jackson so it made a legal mess and SEGA didn’t try to fix this so the music could be used, instead SEGA replaced the music with bad sounding MIDI’s that sound like they were made as a afterthought. Also with music, they put some of the Knuckles Chaotix soundtrack in the game menus but every track is labeled incorrectly. 

But more about the actual game there are 2 modes for each game, Classic Mode and Anniversary Mode. Anniversary mode makes the original games screen size fit the screen and replaces lives with coins so now you can’t get a gameover and the coins can be used to get artwork in the menus or be used to restart a Special stage if you fail it. Classic mode keeps the 16:9 screen size and lives which is good but some players are angry that these are the only 2 modes, some players want the bigger screen size but with Classic Mode’s original feel but there is no option for that. 

There are only three more issues and they are kind of small so I will list them quickly. First the menus for Sonic CD, SEGA downgraded the menus even though they could have just kept them. Second, Sonic CD’s music, Sonic Origins forces the music to be on the US version of the music but most people want the option for the Japanese version of the music as it sounds better. Finally, there is DLC just to add little things in the backgrounds, be able to move the camera around the islands in the menus, and different options for the letterbox background of classic mode. If this was in most versions of the game it would be fine but you have to have a specific version that adds these that costs way too much in most people’s eyes.