Sonic the Hedgehog 2
is a 1992 platform game developed by Sega Technical Institute for the Sega Genesis. Players control Sonic as he attempts to stop Doctor Robotnik from stealing the Chaos Emeralds to power his space station, the Death Egg. Like the first Sonic the Hedgehog, players traverse side-scrolling levels at high speeds while collecting rings, defeating enemies, and fighting bosses. Sonic 2 introduces Sonic's sidekick Miles "Tails" Prower and features faster gameplay, larger levels, a multiplayer mode, and special stages featuring pre-rendered 3D graphics.
After Sonic the Hedgehog greatly increased the popularity of the Genesis in North America, Sega directed STI's founder, Mark Cerny, to start Sonic 2 in November 1991. Members of Sonic Team—including the programmer Yuji Naka and the designer Hirokazu Yasuhara—moved from Japan to California to join the project. Sonic 2 was intended to be faster and more ambitious than the first game. The development suffered setbacks, including cultural differences between the Japanese and American staff, and numerous levels were cut due to time constraints and quality concerns. As with the first game, Masato Nakamura, a member of the J-pop band Dreams Come True, composed the soundtrack.
Sonic 2 was widely anticipated, and Sega backed it with an aggressive marketing campaign. It was released in November 1992 to acclaim and received numerous year-end accolades, including two Golden Joystick Awards. Critics considered Sonic 2 an improvement over the first game and praised the visuals, level design, gameplay, and music, but criticized the low difficulty level and similarities to its predecessor. Sonic 2 grossed over and sold six million copies by 2006, making it the second-bestselling Genesis game behind the original Sonic the Hedgehog.
Sonic 2 solidified Sonic as a major franchise and helped keep Sega competitive during the console wars of the 16-bit era in the early 1990s. It continues to receive acclaim and is considered one of the greatest video games. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles followed in 1994. Sonic 2 has been rereleased on various platforms via compilations and emulation; a remake was released for Android and iOS in 2013 and ported to consoles in the compilation Sonic Origins in 2022. A number of Sonic 2 prototypes have leaked since the release; the first, discovered in 1999, played a significant role in the development of a game datamining community.
Gameplay
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a side-scrolling platform game. It features a story similar to the first Sonic the Hedgehog: Doctor Robotnik, a mad scientist, seeks the Chaos Emeralds to power his space station, the Death Egg, and traps the animal inhabitants of West Side Island in aggressive robots. As Sonic the Hedgehog, the player embarks on a journey to collect the Chaos Emeralds and stop Robotnik. The player character can run, jump, crouch, and attack by curling into a ball. Sonic 2 introduces the spin dash, which allows the player to curl while stationary for a speed boost, and Miles "Tails" Prower, a fox with two tails who acts as Sonic's sidekick. In the default single-player game mode, the player controls Sonic and Tails simultaneously; a second player can join in at any time and control Tails separately. The player can also choose to play as Sonic or Tails individually.The game takes place across 11 zones with 20 levels. The acts are larger than the first game's, and the player navigates them at high speeds while jumping between platforms, defeating robot enemies, and avoiding obstacles. Springs, slopes, bottomless pits, and vertical loops fill acts, as do hazards like water and spikes. The player passes checkpoints to save progress. The last act of each zone ends with a boss battle against Robotnik. Sonic 2 features twice as many unique level themes compared to the first game, and most zones end after two acts rather than three.
The player collects golden rings as a form of health: if they have at least one ring when they collide with an enemy or obstacle, they will survive, but their rings will scatter and blink before disappearing. The player starts with three lives, which they lose if they are hit without a ring, fall down a pit, get crushed, drown, or reach the 10-minute time limit; they receive a game over if they run out. Power-ups like shields and invincibility provide additional layers of protection, and lives are replenished by collecting 100 rings or a 1-up.
If the player passes a checkpoint with 50 or more rings, they can warp to a special stage for an opportunity to collect one of the seven Chaos Emeralds. The player runs through a half-pipe course, collecting rings and dodging bombs. A set number of rings must be collected to obtain the emerald. If the player collides with a bomb, they lose ten rings and are immobilized momentarily. The stages rise in difficulty and the player cannot enter any stage without passing the previous one. After finishing, the player is transported back to the star post they used to enter, with their ring count reset. When all the Chaos Emeralds have been collected, Sonic can transform into Super Sonic by collecting 50 rings. Super Sonic is nearly invincible, runs faster, and jumps farther, but loses one ring per second and reverts to normal when his rings are depleted.
Sonic 2 introduces a multiplayer game mode where two players compete against each other in a split-screen race across three levels. After one player finishes a level, the other player must finish within a minute. Players are ranked in five areas. The player who excels in the most categories wins. Players can also compete to obtain the most rings in the special stages.
''Knuckles in Sonic 2''
Sonic & Knuckles was released in 1994, two years after Sonic 2. The Sonic & Knuckles game cartridge features a "lock-on" adapter that allows players to insert other Sega Genesis cartridges. Attaching Sonic 2 unlocks Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, a variation of Sonic 2 in which the player controls Knuckles the Echidna, a character introduced in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The levels are identical, but Knuckles can glide and climb walls, allowing him access to areas inaccessible to Sonic or Tails. However, he cannot jump as high, making some areas, such as certain boss fights, more difficult.Development
Conception
The original Sonic the Hedgehog was published by Sega for the Sega Genesis in June 1991. It was developed by Sonic Team, led by the programmer Yuji Naka, the artist Naoto Ohshima, and the designer Hirokazu Yasuhara. Sonic greatly increased the Genesis's popularity in North America and is credited with helping Sega gain 65% of the market share against then-industry leader Nintendo, making Sega a formidable competitor. After the release, the team disbanded: Naka quit Sega due to disagreements over his salary, dissatisfaction over the time and effort it had taken to finish Sonic, and a lack of support from management, while Yasuhara moved to America to join Mark Cerny's California-based Sega Technical Institute.Cerny had established STI during the development of Sonic the Hedgehog because Sega wanted to develop more games in America, and his aim was to establish an elite studio that would combine the design philosophies of American and Japanese developers. During a trip to Japan, Cerny visited Naka's apartment, listened to the reasons why he left, and convinced him to join STI in America to fix the problems he had had with Sega in Japan. Other members of the Sonic development team joined Naka. Ohshima stayed in Japan to work on Sonic CD, so Yasushi Yamaguchi replaced him.
In September 1991, Cerny pitched Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as STI's project for the 1992 Christmas and holiday shopping season—giving the team 11 months of development—but Sega of America considered it too soon for a sequel and was still unconfident in the Sonic character. Cerny was not surprised since he believed the marketing executives who controlled game development did not understand the process. STI explored other concepts, but in November, Sega reversed course and told Cerny that it needed Sonic 2 for the 1992 holiday season. Cerny said that this did not cost STI any game ideas since they had yet to come up with one on par with Sonic, but they lost two months of development.
Now with a nine-month schedule, full-scale development started in early 1992. Sonic 2 development team was much larger than the first game's and consisted of both American and Japanese developers, although the majority of the team was Japanese. Cerny's idea was to have around a dozen of the original game's staff move to STI. Development began with only Americans because the Japanese faced immigration problems. According to Cerny, Sega had applied for O-1 expert visas, for "nationally or internationally recognized" people with "a record of extraordinary achievement", unaware that the Japanese developers did not qualify.
Design
Sega of America's marketing director, Al Nilsen, said that STI wanted "to go all out" to ensure Sonic 2 would be as successful as the original Sonic, since sequels were generally not well regarded. STI brainstormed various ideas to improve the first game's formula, beginning with making Sonic faster. In the first game, the developers limited Sonic with a cap that prevented players from running at his maximum possible speed; STI lifted the cap for Sonic 2. Naka conceived the spin dash to remove the need to backtrack for momentum, which he observed was a common criticism of the first game.STI's first step was to create a game outline for the developers to flesh out with "a book-length report" detailing the characters, story, and levels. Yasuhara had ambitious plans for Sonic 2 and designed it with blue sky' ideas". Assuming STI had two years of development, he conceived a plot in which Robotnik took over the world and Sonic used time travel to stop him. Yasuhara's concept featured a world map that would change in every time period and provide access to different levels. The idea was cut as it required too many levels and too much development time. Hill Top Zone, which features dinosaur enemies, was conceived as a past version of Green Hill Zone from Sonic 1, while Chemical Plant and Casino Night came from the Robotnik-ruled future.
Yasuhara designed the stages thinking in the context of a 3D world to work out elements such as corkscrew loops and pipes. He was inspired to design Casino Night because he found Sonic springs similar to the gimmicks of pinball tables, while Sky Chase—which features Sonic riding a biplane as he attempts to reach Robotnik's base—was inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's anime Future Boy Conan. The first game demo was playable around six or seven months after the initial outline's creation and featured a few levels without sound effects or significant detail. STI assembled focus groups to play the demo for feedback and created the alpha build afterward; by this point, 80% of programming had been finished.
Yasuhara wanted to add a second playable character so siblings could play together. Naka suggested the second character be endearing, similar to the kitsune from Urusei Yatsura, and beginner-oriented rather than Sonic's rival. An internal contest was held to determine the new character, and the winning design was Yamaguchi's fox, which he named Miles Prower. STI wanted the character to appeal to Japanese audiences, and Yamaguchi gave him two tails—inspired by the Phantasy Star character Myau—to make the design more impactful. He based Sonic and Tails' relationship on that of the Dragon Ball characters Piccolo and Gohan. Sega of America felt the name "Miles Prower" would not sell and suggested "Tails" as an alternative. Nilsen developed a character backstory to convince the developers to make the change; they compromised by making Tails his nickname.
Tails was implemented using an artificial intelligence routine that allowed him to mimic Sonic's movements. He was also used in the multiplayer mode, something that Naka had attempted to implement late in development of the original Sonic. The multiplayer mode was one of Naka's primary motivations to develop Sonic 2, since he felt multiplayer games were more fun. Naka created split-screen gameplay with the Genesis' rarely used interlaced mode, since he found the standard display mode made it difficult to see the player characters. Developing the multiplayer mode took six months.