The content is stellar, but the execution is terrible and lacking.
User Rating: 7.8 | Sonic Mega Collection Plus (Greatest Hits) PS2
It's a fundamental given that if you're interested in this collection, you either have extensive memories of the classic Sonic games or you are wishing to try some games that you might have missed in the past. Given these two possible situations, it doesn't change the fact that the original sonic games included here are some of the best of the classic era ever made. However, all this collection is, well, is exactly what you get. You get Sonic the Hedgehog and it's brilliant sequel, along with Sonic 3 and Knuckles- where a secret cheat code must be used to unlock the "lock-on" gimmick that should be the standard). In addition to these 4 great games, you get many other not-so-good games. Sonic 3D and Sonic Spinball really only exist to cater to those looking for tons of sonic content of those who actually did like the original games, which shall be envisioned as very few people. Some of the Game Gear games included are outright horrible or emulated terribly. It should be noted that the only games worthwhile are the initial batch of sonic games. It doesn't quite make sense why they gave us so much garbage when another untapped well of great sonic games exist. Sonic CD is absent from the collection, which is a major letdown to those wanting the full "Sonic" experience. As well, The 32X Sonic Chaotix, which was also another Sonic titles inaccessible to many, is absent. In conclusion, the initial content of Sonic Mega Collection represents some of the finest 16-bit games in existance. Unfortunately, some bugs exist in the emulation and the screen ratio is a little off, but they actually don't damper the experience much at all. It would have been nice to see a better save implementation, such as each game having saves added in as in Sonic 3 (rather than the clunky system in place now) and the inclusion of the lost beta levels from Sonic 2 (which may be asking too much...) as well as the other strangly absent games would have really boosted the quality quite a bit much. All in all, if you want to play the old Genesis Sonic games over again, then get this collection. It's price well justifies the difficulty in attempting to find the original packages. However, if all you want extra content or to try the terrible Game Gear games, then don't bother.
