Retro Review: Sonic 3D Blast

In my opinion, Sonic the Hedgehog's glory days occurred in the early- to mid-1990s, when his Sega Genesis titles were absolute masterpieces. Well, almost all of them were, anyway. By 1996, the era of the 16-bit system was drawing to a close as more powerful 32-bit and 64-bit systems came along. Sega itself had already entered the field with the ill-fated Saturn, but they decided that Sonic should star in one more Genesis game before that system would be retired. Unfortunately, the game in question would turn out to be the single worst Sonic game to appear on the Genesis. Simply put, Sonic 3D Blast was not a very good swan song for the world famous hedgehog. Let me tell you why I feel that this is the case.

As usual, Dr. Robotnik has concocted another wicked scheme. This time, he has invaded Flicky Island, where he proceeds to capture innocent birds known as Flickies (derived from similar looking birds in previous Sonic games as well as an earlier arcade game called Flicky) and change them into evil robots. When Sonic arrives on the scene, he learns of Robotnik's plans and proceeds to stop the mad doctor. Of course, this will involve rescuing his friends and collecting Chaos Emeralds as usual. Basically, it is the same type of plot used in many other Sonic games, and thus it serves its purpose, but it is nothing really special. The story is the least of the game's problems, however.

Whereas most of the other Genesis games were side scrolling adventures, this one places our hero in an isometric 3D environment, similar to that used in Super Mario RPG. It is not a simple means of reaching the goal this time, either. Instead, Sonic must first destroy the robots in order to save the Flickies. The stages are divided into sections, each of which contains five robots that must be eliminated. Once the Flickies have been saved, Sonic must bring them to a giant warp ring that will lead them to safety before he can reach the next section or the next stage. This is easier said than done, however, because if the Flickies are hit, they will panic and fly away, forcing you to track them down. Usually, I do not mind a game that requires you to collect things to progress, but the execution here is rather poor and frustrating.

One would expect a Sonic game to be filled with high speed action, but that is not the case here. Sonic runs at a medium pace, and only really speeds up after a Spin Dash. The way that his run appears also seems rather odd, as if he were ice skating. Also, some of the game's puzzles and obstacles can be tough to get around, slowing the action down even more. Some of the usual Sonic features are present, however: he can collect rings to protect himself from dying from enemy attacks, grab shields for added protection and effects, and Spin Dash his way through obstacles and robots. Sadly, he cannot change into Super Sonic once he collects all seven Chaos Emeralds.

The emeralds, which are required to unlock the true final boss and ending, are hidden in special stages, as is par for the course in classic Sonic games. In order to access them, you will first have to pick up at least fifty rings and then track down Tails or Knuckles, both of whom are hidden in the normal stages. Since they are sometimes hidden a little too well, finding them is the first problem. After you locate them and you cash in your rings, you are transported to a special stage that can best be described as a dumbed-down version of the bonus stages of Sonic 2. You will need to collect a certain amount of rings while avoiding spikes as you run across a simple bridge. This is not especially difficult, and is rather lacking in creativity...as tough as the bonus stages were in the past, they at least had the sense of being innovative. It is also possible to have all seven emeralds by the second stage of the second zone. Did Sega and Traveler's Tales run out of ideas at this point?

Hidden in the stages are Sonic heads, ten of which will reward you with a continue. However, they can be quite tricky to reach unless you have a flock of Flickies following you. This is unfortunate, especially since this game lacks a save feature. While the game is not very long, only requiring a couple of hours or so to beat, it should have had a save feature for those who do not have the time or patience to play the entire game in one sitting. By the time the game was released, the lack of a save feature could be considered quite unforgivable and inexcusable. Speaking of having a shortage of patience, that is what players will likely get when exposed to the somewhat clunky controls, which are not really suitable for a standard control pad. Later releases on such systems as the Gamecube and X-Box added the option of moving Sonic with a joystick, which helped a little, but it still made the overall control scheme feel odd.

The game's redeeming features are few and far between. There are some neat and epic boss battles if you are willing to get past the rather slow stages in order to get to them. The familiar sound effects from past games are present, and the soundtrack is actually a pretty good one, filled with cool and epic songs. Some of these were remixed and included in the superior Sonic Adventure. In terms of graphics, the game looks somewhat impressive for its time, with nicely rendered enemies and shadow effects. It is not groundbreaking by any means, as Donkey Kong Country proved two years earlier that rendered games could work on a 16-bit system. About the ugliest thing in the game as far as graphics go is a (thankfully) brief CG opening filled with slowdown. I know that CG movies in games were new and tricky to pull off at this time, but Sega could have still done better.

In fact, Sega should have given Sonic a far better send off for the Genesis than the one that they did give him. I would not have minded one more side scrolling game, even with rendered graphics, since it would have at least kept the feel of a classic Sonic game intact. Nintendo was giving its characters wonderful swan songs for the Super NES at this point, so why did Sega fail to do the same? A couple of months after the release of Sonic 3D Blast, an Archie comic adaptation was released, and I absolutely loved it. Still, that only goes to show that when a comic adaptation is better in just about every way than the actual game, you know that the latter was a mistake. It could be argued that Sonic 3D Blast is an early indication of why Sonic and 3D simply do not mix very well. Only absolute die hard Sonic fans should try this game to see just how awful it really is. Everyone else would do well to stay far away from this sorry excuse of a game. Sonic deserved a much better Genesis swan song than this poor effort.