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### Sonic Megamix [SMD]

#### Reviewed By Dudley

Rom hacks are not really our thing here at RGCD, we generally prefer to cover full new homebrew games or complete remakes on other platforms. Technically Sonic Megamix is neither of these things; everything that's different from the original is simply due to the very clever people at Team Megamix editing bits of a dump from the cartridge.

That seems a somewhat churlish distinction as soon as you get your Megadrive emulator or flash cart and actually boot Sonic Megamix however. The intro is familiar enough from Sonic 1, with a couple of musical differences and a couple of extra credit screens thrown in, but as soon as you start the game, all memories that this was ever a copy of Sonic 1 go away completely.

For a start you're in the sneakily titled "Sunset Hill" and as Sonic bursts in from the left running at a suitably frantic pace you immediately realise you have abilities that you never had in Sonic 1 before. Sonic has a homing attack while in the air for instance, allowing him to propel himself sideways into enemies. All the special shields from Sonic 3, such as bubble, lightning and fire also make an appearance and their benefits become very useful.

You see, most importantly, the levels aren't the same as Sonic 1 either. While loosely based on the same tile sets, the layout is completely different. Whereas the first level of Sonic 1 can be completed by the dedicated player in maybe 25-30 seconds, you'll be lucky to finish Sunset Hill act 1 in under a couple of minutes. The special stages, share the premise and 50 ring entry requirement of those in the original release but the layouts of these are also different.

These aren't the only advances though; Sonic Megamix also features two extra characters, the slightly surprising choices of Shadow and Mighty. This is not just a cosmetic difference too; both have abilities distinct from those of Sonic. Shadow has a double jump, allowing him to reach parts of the levels that are inaccessible to Sonic and Mighty has a little shield thing.

There are some downsides of course, there had to be, it's Sonic after all. Most notably, this game frequently tried to ask too much of the Megadrive, leading to massive slowdown as the poor machine tries to sort out everything on screen. The special abilities of the characters aren't quite as well catered for at times either, Shadow's double jump for instance makes a lot of the boss levels very easy as Robotnik is no longer out of reach.

Sonic Megamix isn't short of a few level design issues too either, too often Sonic's trademark speed is used in sections which end with almost unavoidable traps and reverse springs. The really good speed based Sonic levels should be all about flow and when a solid wall or worse, a hidden enemy is your only reward it's really quite irritating. There are also a couple of sections where Mighty (the only character without a second jump capability) can actually get stuck. However, none of this is enough to stop you playing and Sonic Megamix does have a few other tricks up its sleeve with camera options, the ability to play with the original controls and abilities and of course the almost obligatory sound test all help to flesh out a remarkably well rounded experience.

So we return to my original point. We're not big fans of reviewing hacks at RGCD but I really don't think this counts. It's so distinct as to be virtually a completely new Sonic game; if this hack had been available a decade ago it really wouldn't have required much work at Sega to change it into Sonic 4. It's a testimony to the work of Team Megamix that it would have stood up in those circumstances. It's longer than Sonic 1 and more fun than Sonic 3. To me at least it seemed that for the first time in years the Sonic I grew up with was back and if that isn't a recommendation to you I'm not sure what is.