Once Sega established themselves as a worthy contender of the 16-bit era with the original Sonic The Hedgehog, they knew their newly successful mascot shouldn’t be relegated to a “one-game-wonder” status, so they set out to follow it up with a sequel in order to keep the public’s attention on them. Although Sonic was the true origin of the 16-bit wars between the giants Sega and Nintendo, this time Sega had a much greater challenge ahead of them. By 1992, the big N had just released their new SNES system along with a slew of outstanding games. Therefore Sega had to react fast. Sonic fast. They had to figure out how to draw people back to the ring collecting, speed shoes, chaos emeralds, and blue hedgehogs in a time when people were absorbed with Yoshis, Simon Belmonts, F-Zeros, and Street Fighters. Sega started work first on what would later become Sonic CD (for the Sega CD), but put it away briefly and made some other graphical upgrades to have a game ready for 1992. What resulted is Sonic 2. Did it live up to the original, or did the game fall under the inferior sequel curse? I’m sure you already know my answer…

This my friends, is a true classic. Sonic 2 not only puts to rest any worries one would’ve had with a Sonic sequel, but it improved greatly upon the original game as well! I’d have to say that this is probably the single best and most well-designed Sonic game ever made (although Sonic CD is still my personal favorite, and hooking Sonic 3 and Sonic