Sonic's back and he's brought his friends too! Is it possible to out do the original? Find out!
As said above the game came out a year later following the original's success, very little in the game-play has actually changed. Well one major thing has changed. As I said above their is a new character in the game. Tails is a two tailed (as his name suggests) fox who also possess the ability to fly because of his tails., who has become Sonic's best friend and has agreed to help Sonic in his battle against Robotnic. While a great idea, Tails sadly brings very little to the game in his first appearance. If you play with both characters you'll notice Tails is constantly left behind and struggles to catch up. If you play as Tails individually, You'll notice despite flying around constantly when your Sonic, he has no such ability here. You might also notice he is a clone of sonic who possess all the same abilities and is just as fast. But at least when you play as Sonic and Tails you do have the option to plug in the second controller and play as Tails. This ability to work as a team is very helpful considering Tails has unlimited lives. So when you come to a boss level just have sonic kick back and let Tails deal with it. But in all honesty you'll mostly being playing this alone so this has very little use for me. Other than Tails you have a new feature, the spin-dash. If you remember Sonic's first appearance you'll remember he had to get a running start and duck to use his roll, which was very slow and not very useful. Here Sonic and Tails just need to stop, drop, hold A, and roll. This is very good when you need up a hill or just a quick burst of speed, as well as attacking enemies. Lastly levels in this game are much larger. This allows you to explore. While you may sacrifice time, you will be rewarded for exploring.
Special Zones also have had their difficulty increased. If you remember the last game, Sonic just need to hold on to 50 rings till the end of the level and jump into a big ring to find an emerald in a very easy mini-game. Here you need 50 rings and a checkpoint to enter the special stage. While this sounds easier, several of the posts are placed in odd areas and you will have to go out of your way to find some of them. Once inside the special Stage you may notice the game has turned 3D, someone help you if didn't. Here you run along a half pipe trying your best to collect set amounts of rings while avoiding bombs. If all goes well your rewarded an emerald; if not well you can always try again. If you do manage to get all the emeralds you can turn into Super Sonic on just about every level, the only requirements are that you have 50 rings and jumping (according to my friend since I've never gotten them all). Doing so makes Sonic invincible until you run out of rings or finish the level. Be careful doing this, exiting Super Sonic and special stages leaves you with no rings and vulnerable.
So how is the plot in this game? Well its very similar to the first game. Except Sonic has teamed up with his new friend Tails to fight Robotnic. Robotnic is still trying to take over the world and still capturing Animals then putting them into robots. Honestly there isn't much more than that...or at least anything I can think of. I'm sure Sonic Wiki or an old game manual can fill in the blanks
So after 20 or so years does it hold up? Well in all honesty this is my least favorite in the original Sonic Trilogy. I respect this game for improving the game play from the first game and very much so for introducing me to my favorite video game character. I also enjoy the challenge the game brought and to this date I still haven't beat it unlike Sonic 1 or 3. Yet when I play it I just don't feel the same joy I get with the original or Sonic 3. Its something I can't really explain why I feel this way or even give a reason. In all honesty this game has brought more to the series then Sonic 3 did to Game-play and Story both, but there's just something that won't let me like it as much as I should. Yet I fully Understand that without this game their is no Sonic 3, so thank you Sonic 2 you've paved the way to my favorite of the classic Sonic games. Well now that I'm done bashing this game I will say this: I would say its definitely worth buying and play and is definitely in the top 10 best games ever. You should take a look if you haven't already, it fully deserves your attention and awards its received.