12/18/2023 0 Comments Sonic happy hour time morning![]() It only has four levels, so the developers wanted to make sure they’d last - but each is fairly expansive and fiendishly difficult. Part of this is probably the result of a truncated development. It’s also hard as nails, which I appreciate. In a weird way, there’s something Metroid-ish about the way you navigate each individual level in this game, completing tasks to open doors and passageways – just without the backtracking. But as soon as you jump into the pinball action, that’s it he’s almost permanently rolled up, being catapulted hither and thither to try to trigger doors and secret passageways to navigate through the level. The game teases you with this paradigm at its outset - placing Sonic on two feet at the start of a level. It’s a pinball adventure game, where you journey across levels in order to collect Chaos Emeralds, defeat Badniks, and battle fearsome bosses. Therefore, for a quick buck, Spinball just asks the question: what if a Sonic game were actually a straight-up pinball game?īut this isn’t really a simple Pinball game. Casino Night, in particular, was beloved as a level – and Sega’s market research told it as much. When curled into a ball, Sonic can be hurtled around ‘boards’ of play just like in pinball, giving birth to classic zone designs like Spring Yard and Casino Night. The concept of Spinball is glorious in its simplicity. In a way, you could say that the other Sonic games were developed for the Mega Drive Spinball was made for the Genesis. There’s a bite to the crunchiness of its soundtrack and the ear-piercing shrieks of its bosses that hits different to the platformer adventures. Characters from the US-made Saturday-morning cartoon make brief cameo appearances, and the in-game art resembles the more spikey, harder-edged Sonic from US box arts rather than the cuddler, softer Sonic drawn in Japan. I think a lot of this disconnected nature seeps into the finished product, giving it a texture and style that sets it apart from the other Mega Drive/Genesis Sonics. Composer Howard Drossin had to compose a new title screen track in just a few hours. At the eleventh hour, a horrified Sega Japan realized that Spinball’s music used the theme they didn’t own - and they weren't about to cough up the licensing money. ![]() So disconnected was this development from Japan that famously nobody told the team that Sega didn’t actually own the rights to the Sonic the Hedgehog theme tune featured in the first two games. While Japanese producers still held a tight hold over the broad direction and the Sonic IP in general, Spinball’s lead designers, artists, and even composers were all Westerners. Back then, this was the stomping ground of Mark Cerny, now of PlayStation fame. While Westerners did work on Sonic 2 & 3, I’d really say this is the first ‘Western-made’ Sonic game, as it was led by employees of the unfortunately-acronymed STI, the Sega Technical Institute, based out of California. | Image credit: SegaĪs a result of this conception, Sonic Spinball represents a lot of firsts. It needs to be out for Christmas.Īll early Sonic cover art is amazing. So the order came down: make us a Sonic game, fast. Thus, Sega was left vulnerable in its then slugfest of a war with Nintendo, and crucially, without its greatest asset for the 1993 holiday. Sonic 2 came out in 1992, and Sonic 3 wasn’t going to be ready until early 1994. I love how Spinball came about for its sheer tenacious cynicism. ![]() Sonic Spinball, meanwhile, is all about the blue blur. I don’t, because, well, they’re crossover games they just put Sonic in the title ‘cos he’s most famous. Spinball remains a remarkable, brilliant game – and for my money, it’s probably the best non-platformer Sonic game, unless you count the more general ‘ Sonic & Sega All-Stars’ crossover kart racers as Sonic games. I’m talking, of course, about Sonic Spinball. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. ![]()
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