Sonic CD takes place sometime after Sonic 1, but before Sonic 2. This game introduces Sonic's pseudo-girlfriend Amy Rose and his metallic rival Metal Sonic. Against popular belief, Metal Sonic in both this iteration and it's modern form are completely unrelated to the Silver Sonic boss found in the final level of Sonic 2. Since Sonic 2 and Sonic CD were developed at the same time, they may have shared some ideas like a robot Sonic you have to fight, as you fight one in both games.
The plot of Sonic CD goes like this. After his defeat during Sonic 3 and Knuckles, Dr. Robotnik planned to take over a mysterious new mini-planet that appeared in the sky called Little Planet to use as his new base. Guess what, he succeed! Well, in one possible timeline. Sonic is warned by Tails that if Robotnik is not stopped from robotizing Mini Planet, he will become unstoppable and will inevitably conquer the world!
As sonic arrives on Little Planet, he finds that Robotnik has already robotized most of the planet, and the only way to stop him now is to either use time travel to stop Robotnik's influence on the planet in the past, or find the 7 time stones, relics similar to the chaos emeralds, to purify Little Planet.
Sonic quickly meets a resident of Little Planet named Amy Rose, who instantly falls in love with him. Amy gets kidnapped by another new character, Metal Sonic, right afterwards. Now Sonic has to save Little Planet and Amy.
Sonic successfully collects all 7 time stones, defeats Robotnik, and mostly purifies Little Planet. Thus, the world is saved from Robotnik once again.
The game play is very similar to Sonic 1 and 2 in game play, having fast passed momentum based platforming levels. Like Sonic 1, this game does not feature any additional characters as Sonic is the only playable character. The game does feature a time travel system, which in my opinion is handled poorly. Throughout the stage, you can find many "time gates," signposts that when run though at maximum speed, transports you to a different version of a stage.
There are 4 different stage types. Present, the type you always start every zone in, The past, which you can access by rushing though "Past" time gates, and the Good and Bad Futures, which you can go to either of them by rushing though a time gate marked with the word "future."
As stated in the story segment, there are two ways you can obtain the good ending and truly beat the game. You could aim for the special stages by collecting 60 rings before the end of a stage, sending you to a special area where you need to complete a mini-game. If you are successful, you will obtain one of 7 time stones. You have plenty of chances to get them if you get a special stage every level, so don't worry too much if you plan to get the good ending this way.
The other way is to destroy 4 Robotnik capsules hidden across both the past and future segments of the level, requiring a lot of exploration and time travel. There are two capsules in each time period, as well as one at the end of the stage but that doesn't count since you will always get that one no matter what.
Once you destroy all four capsules, the bad future area will revert into the good future, completely changing the level layout. The past is usually easier than the present while the bad and good futures are generally harder. The biggest problem with this time travel system is that there's no reason to go to the future, which accomplishes nothing. As well as that, time travel in this game is a major hassle, as you need to reach maximum speed and find the time gate without losing any speed. This makes a game where the main gimmick is very unappealing unless you really don't like the special stages.
Finally, lets talk about the music and Easter Eggs. For some strange reason, the Japanese/European version's music is completely different from the music we got in the US. Only the Japanese OST is reused for future games and remixes, with the US OST forgotten except for two particular songs which forever turned Sonic CD from a fun, light-hearted classic sonic game into a living nightmare.
These songs are the US Boss Theme and the US Game Over music. these songs bluntly sound like they were composed by Satan in the depths of hell. I'm not exaggerating, there that disturbing. Don't believe me? Listen to them yourself. Unless you are not easily frightened, you will be unable to sleep for a long, long time. They were so scary that they are commonly used in creepy-pasta/horror videos on YouTube to this very day along with FNAF jump scares, even when they are not sonic related.
This was made slightly worse by one of the secret images found in them game after entering a cheat code into the sound test. One of the pictures is a piece of art one Japanese fan made and sent to SEGA which depicts a chibi sonic. So cute! The next picture was a image of tails and a race car, saying "See you next game!" in Japanese. However, it was the final secret image that become infamous among Sonic fans everyone for it's disturbing content. After entering the cheat code, a screen would pop up with many pictures of a distorted, deformed, almost demonic-looking sonic with red words in Japanese that say "Fun is infinite at SEGA enterprises. -Satan"
The music that plays in the background was the boss theme, which in the Japanese and European versions was a funky, silly beat implying that the message and pictures were intended to be humorous. However, the the English version of Sonic CD, the boss theme literally sounded like Satan' literal nightmares after falling asleep in a fiery river filled with millions of the sinful souls of the dead simultaneously screaming in agony. This caused the image to have a much different tone, scarring children for life across america.
Overall, Sonic CD is a decent classic sonic game. It's classic sonic like you knew him, and continues to hold up better today. However the time travel system is badly implemented as well as the numerous disturbing issues with the US OST makes this game inferior in many ways to Sonic 2. Not having the spin dash definitely contributes to that. I think Sonic CD is better than Sonic 1, but not as good as Sonic 2, so I'll rate it a 7.8/10.
Good
- The classic sonic you know and love
- The Japanese/European soundtrack is great
- The graphics and sound are much better than the other genesis games due to being on a CD instead of a cartridge.
Bad
- The US version had some very disturbing music choices.
- There is no spin dash. The "super peel out" just can't compare.
- The game was extremely rare until it was ported to mobile and PC, so much so that most people didn't know that the game even existed.
7.8/10
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