If not for Vectorman, this collection would suck hard.
Sonic Mega Collection has been THE retro collection for S3K fans so they can stop complaining about Silver the Hedgehog being too "DBZ" like. It's collection of genesis titles and comic illustrations, movies, etc made it one awesome collection to have. One problem. ONLY GENESIS GAMES! That sucked. Now we have Sonic Gems, hyped as the collection that contains the rarest sonic games around. We were all thinking "Knuckles Chaotix" and "Sonic Fighters!"
Unfortunately, we get only fighters, The best sonic game of all time (CD), the mediocre sonic R, and 6 of the biggest scams of all time.
Firstly, the layout is pretty nice, nothing stellar like Mega Collection, and most of the features are pretty weak compared to the previous. The Museum feature is nothing but artwork collections you can find on the internet and demos of the game on mega collection and trailers to already released games. On the other hand you have the 3 main hyped up games.
Sonic CD: What I call the BEST sonic game ever made. It's got time travel, the crappiest special stages ever, cool soundtrack, and great level design (every level has a unique distinct feature to it) and strange secrets. Waaaay better than S3K (there I said it0
Sonic The Fighters: Stupid name btw. This is sonics first fighter and it's really f'ing funny! Fortunate, as the fighting system feels incredibly restrictive and controls are sometimes irresponsive. It feels like button mashing is the only way to go. You'ed think the game would be fun (and it is to an extent) but it's really showing you why they never bothered to release the game on saturn. Plus since it's a console port, you'ed THINK they would put in console fighter features. No all you get is an option mode, vs, and arcade mode. No training modes or anything. Still, it's fun factor comes from how silly it is.
Sonic R: It's not that bad of a racing game, but I have been spoiled by Riders so this looks like crap in comparison. But hey, 64 bit graphics has a grand charm to them, and the game has some lasting...oh who am I kidding, Sonic R is BS. 4 courses, lack of secrets, crappy multiplayer, not worth porting.
Now the games most hyped up titles are that way because Sega decided to BS you with Game Gear titles!
A lot of people were pissed off about this. Not only do Game Gear sonic games suck harder than the NES megaman games, but this is pure laziness and a general scam. Why? Because you can get these same damn games from Sonic Adventure DX. Thats right, the whole Game Gear collection can be unlocked on that one game right there. The whole damn collection. So WHY THE HELL DID THOSE IDIOTS PORT SIX OF THE GAMES ON THIS COMPILATION WHEN THEY KNOW DAMN WELL OF THIS FACT!? This absolutely ruins the whole collection because thats six out of 9 sonic games that aren't even worth it. There's a reason why nobody remembers those games or care about them. Because are not worth talking about and they suck.
Fortunately for this collection, two of my favorite genesis games, Vectorman and V2, were ported, which barely saves this collection from being called a pile of @#$% by me. Now what would have made this collection greater would've been Sega Sonic Arcade and Knuckles Chaotix. Instead we get an excuse for Arcade being that it has controller problems or w/e, but we get no excuse for Knuckles Chaotix. Add insult to injury, they put the artwork of THAT game in the collection, but not the game itself. Stupid crap.
Other than that, the game offers cheats that we can find on the internet, and remixed music thats decent. but all in all, this collection is not worth anyones time in the slightest. Unless you like irresponsive fighting games.