Sonic 3D Blast — Sonic in 3D! Well… Kind of...

Sonic? in 3D? and it’s a blast!?

In the mid 90s, gaming was in a transitioning phase when it came to the graphical capabilities of what games could be and what systems could accomplish. Gaming was starting to break into the frontier of going from 2D to 3D. In the mid 90s, gaming was also in a transition phase when it came to home systems. On the way out were the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis as both Sega and Nintendo were ready to take the next step in gaming with their future systems, 1995 in the US saw the release of the Sega Saturn as 1996 would get the release of the Nintendo 64. Oh yeah and a new comer know as Sony was starting to make an impact with their new PlayStation video game system.

However, not everyone can just fork over the money for a brand new system once it’s release as more times than now, new systems released are quite expensive. Most times a ton of gamers will wait for a price drop before getting a new console or wait until the system has a decent library of games to go with it. Remember when game systems had price drops and not price hikes? We didn’t know how good we had it.

Another thing about these transitional periods is developers have mastered the art of making games for older systems to really push the systems like the Super Nintendo and Genesis to their graphical limits. An example of this was a review I did for “VectorMan”, also on the Sega Genesis.

Of course this also goes for Sega and Nintendo’s mascots in Mario and Sonic The Hedgehog. In 1995, Nintendo would release Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, as it’s quite different from the standard Mario game as it has you playing as Yoshi to protect a baby version of Mario, you can’t doubt the colors, design and impressive graphics of the game just by seeing a screen shot of it alone. Showing that games around this time were going for different kinds of artistic styles.

The artistic style of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island makes it stand out.

I assure you this is a review for a Sonic The Hedgehog game, I wanted to point out that games were trying different styles of games to appeal to gamers. In the early 90s, Sega was cooking something for the Genesis to have a good app for the system for people who were not quite ready to afford the new Sega Saturn, so the current players need something, also Sonic did not did not have a game on the Genesis system since Sonic The Hedgehog 3 2 years prior.

Sonic 3D Blast’s concept in fact started in the early development stages of Sonic 3 before it was deiced to do a standard 3D side scrolling platformer with Sonic 3 much like the first two games. Sonic 3D Blast would get outsourced to a British studio called Traveller’s Tales. In fact Traveller’s Tales is still going today, making the “Lego” series of platform games based on the building block toys, such as the Lego Star Wars series and the most recently released “Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight” (as the time of me writing this review). 3D Blast was outsourced at this time as the main Sonic Team was working on their new game for the Sega Saturn known as “NiGHTS into dreams”, more on that one in a future date.

Sonic 3D Blast (“Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island” in other parts of the world) would be release on the Sega Genesis in 1996 and would get a re-release on the Sega Saturn later on. It would be the final Sonic game for the Genesis, talk about an end of an era.

So as you are seeing in the name, woah, Sonic in 3D on the Sega Genesis, is that true!?

The game is in an isometric corner prospective that gives Sonic all directional movement, so in that sense of not just limited to forward and backwards as you would other Sonic The Hedgehog games, yeah it’s 3D…ish? 3D yeah but in the sense of 3D polygon models? Yeah the 3D here is not what you might think, but hey it was cool enough to make me play the game so… mission accomplished. Sonic would not see a full 3D model until Sonic Jam on the Saturn, that was a gaming compilation of the older Genesis games in the game’s main hub world. Sonic would not his full 3D game until Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast in 1998/1999. Don’t let all that rain on your Sonic parade, let’s look deeper into Sonic 3D Blast because there could be a hidden gem here.

The game starts with in fact a full FMV (full motion video, on the genesis. Yes, it might look super low quality and slow as heck but the fact this was even possible on a Sega Genesis with the cartridges not exactly having the most room to play with, yeah I’m very impressed. Kudos for the introduction video.

full motion video as it looks rough is an achievement in its own right

Sonic 3D Blast’s story is simple, it takes place in the island of Flickies, bird like creatures that will be important here and can contain mysterious powers. The sinister and evil Dr. Robotnik (or Dr. Eggman) wants to capture the Flickies to harness their power to take over the island. It’s up to the fastest thing alive, Sonic The Hedgehog to free the Flickies from their robot captivity and save the day, pretty standard stuff here.

The game starts as you are in an isometric prospective. You can walk all directions of the map. Sonic’s iconic speed is here but you will quickly learn that Sonic’s speed is more of a flaw as the maps are not very wide open so running fast might result in taking a hit or hitting a wall. It’s one of the very rare cases where you DON’T want Sonic to be fast for once. The isometric view can make depth perception a bit tricky as there’s times you don’t know exactly how close or far you are away from the eye of the player. This can result is trying to destroy a robotic enemy a challenge. Speaking of our enemies, there’s not many but they serve as a main goal here.

The 3D effect is cool, but precision platforming and attacking is another story

As in a normal Sonic game, it’s getting from point A to point B as fast and clean as possible and using your momentum to your advantage. That’s in most cases the bread and butter of most Sonic games in this era, however not the case here. In each area of a level there are 5 enemies to destroy. Destroying an enemy will spawn one of those Flickie birds I mentioned earlier. You have to also collect these birds to tag along Sonic. Get all 5 and then you can send them into a ring area that will take you to the next part of the stage, keep going and you past an act. Each stage has 3 acts, two levels and then a boss. You do not have collect all the Flickies in once swoop, you can drop 3 in and then go back to get the other 2. In fact there’s a few cases where this is encourage and will help you more than be a burden. A ton of the game play is trying to solve puzzles to figure out how to get to an enemy that would have a Flickie bird and learning how to return them to the end of the area without taking damage, speaking of that…

If Sonic gets hurt by running into an enemy or spikes or any other hazard, he loses his rings as most Sonic games that he needs to collect. Getting hit with no rings results as a death and you have so many lives before it’s game over, and there are not saves here. Game Over means starting all over from the start. You can also collect rings to give to Sonic’s friends, Tails and Knuckles as they can teleport him into a special stage. Doing all the special stages unlocks the true final boss and of course, the true ending, so It is worth going out of the way to get those rings and clear those bonus stages if you want the good ending.

When Sonic takes damage with him having Flickies, the Flickies will also spread out around Sonic as well, and you have to collect them back. Each Flickie is a different color and has different reactions when you are hit. One type might try to scatter away from you as another type might just jump around at random. It is kind of a neat little thing in the game and it gives each bird type somewhat of a personality. Getting hit can get very illustrating as a bird could go off into a dangerous area that if not careful will likely result in your death. So trying to not take any hits is key in this game. With the game’s weird isomeric perception, this can get very frustrating and as it does give the game it’s different and cool “3D” look and visual grab to players, it’s also one of the biggest faults in the game. No doubt a double edge sword in this game.

There are multiple worlds Sonic must get past in this game. Anything from lost forest temples of Rusty Ruins, to the frozen fields of Diamond Dust, to the hot hazards of Volcano Valley. Each with there amazing music to go with it. Sonic 3D Blast might have one of my most loved soundtracks on the Sega Genesis and it’s a shame it doesn't get talked about more. Oh yeah and the Sega Saturn version has its own soundtrack his also pretty great in its own way. Here are some of my personal favorites from both the Genesis and Sega Saturn versions of the game. The Saturn tracks of course being much more cleaner as the Saturn is a much more powerful system and is CD based as compared to the Sega Genesis.

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Overall Sonic 3D Blast is more of a game that’s honesty better to look at than play. The illusion of 3D is pretty cool especially for its time, but when you actually play it is when things start to break down. It takes some getting use to and feels slick at first but gets better once you get the feel of it down, but even then there are times the awkward depth perception becomes an issue. In the end the best take I can say is this might have been better if it was not a Sonic game but something else, as Sonic’s speed, the thing he’s most iconic for is kind of a hinder in Sonic 3D Blast and does more harm than good here. Again, its the one time I Don’t want Sonic to be fast as the levels really feel cramped at times and don’t take advantage of his super speed.

The game is cool to look at and is quite a different look for Sonic and the soundtrack no matter it be the Genesis or Saturn versions are both fantastic, but the game play sadly is where it starts to slip off a little. This one is worth trying out if you want to play a Sonic game that’s a little different than the others, it’s not bad but… You can do better with Sonic The Hedgehog, especially on the Genesis. As for the Saturn, your other option for Sonic is Sonic R and… ok yeah let’s just say Sonic 3D Blast for Saturn might be your best bet when it comes to Sonic games on the Saturn, but don’t let that scare you away from the Sega Saturn system, it’s a hidden gem that if I start now I’ll be here all day, so let’s wrap this one up. I don’t hate 3D blast but, yeah you can do better to get your retro Sonic The Hedgehog fix.

Sonic 3D Blast gets 2 out of 5 Stars