Retro Review: Sonic Labyrinth

It is possible to take away Sonic the Hedgehog's trademark speed temporarily and place him into a situation where he has to rely on other skills to save the day. This concept worked quite well in one episode of Sonic SatAM, in which a wizard stole Sonic's speed and forced him to use his intelligence in order to retrieve a magic crystal that had been stolen by Dr. Robotnik. Where it did not work well at all, however, is in the 1995 Game Gear game Sonic Labyrinth. In this game, Sonic has to rely on his spin dash instead of his speed to escape from Robotnik's dungeon. What could have made for some interesting game play instead becomes a title which many consider to be one of the worst Sonic games ever made.

It all starts when Robotnik manages to slow Sonic down by stealing his trademark red sneakers and forcing our hero to wear boots that hinder his abilities. As a result, Sonic can no longer run; he can only move very slowly. Now he will need to explore Robotnik's fortress, collect the Chaos Emeralds, and retrieve his sneakers. I have said it before, and I will say it again here: in the early years of Sonic games, many of the stories were not particularly deep, and this story is no exception. However, having Sonic's speed practically stolen from him seems to be a good concept in theory. As you are about to read, however, the execution is anything but good.

The game takes place in an isometric view, as would be the case for another bad Sonic game, Sonic 3D Blast. In each level, Sonic will need to collect keys in order to escape from one part of the fortress and enter another. Of course, there are plenty of obstacles and enemies to be found, and every stage has a time limit. The keys also act like rings in that they allow Sonic to sustain damage without losing a life. At the end of each of the four zones, our hero can collect rings that can protect him while he fights a boss. As usual, too much damage results in losing a life, and losing each life means the game is over, though there are unlimited continues.

The boots, which apparently can not even be taken off without Emerald power, prevent Sonic from running or even jumping. However, he can still use his spin dash, which is ideal from defeating enemies and getting to parts of the fortress faster. His walk is quite slow, so you'll need to use the spin dash a lot if you wish to get anywhere quickly. This rather slow game play can get boring quickly, and the somewhat non intuitive controls do not help. When you realize that Sonic's movements have been reduced to a crawl, you'll wonder why Sega thought it was a good idea to make him slow at all. At least in games, a slowed-down Sonic simply does not work: Sega failed to heed that lesson when they made the hedgehog into a slow, lumbering beast in Sonic Unleashed.

Among other flaws are bonus rooms in some levels that are hard to find. Only by finding these rooms will you get a perfect ending. However, I am not sure people who actually complete the game will want to beat it a second time with all the secrets found. Some levels have confusing paths that will merely take more time off the clock. While the amount of trial and error here is nowhere near that of the Game Gear version of Sonic 2, it is still present, and still annoying. The music, while sometimes good, really does not fit, and the graphics are only decent and not outstanding. All in all, this game does not have a lot going for it, and since it takes place in a pseudo-3D environment of sorts, it could be argued that both it and Sonic 3D are early examples of why Sonic and 3D do not seem to mix well at all.

Sonic Labyrinth is yet another mistake in Sonic's history: slow, boring game play does not result in a great Sonic game at all. Sega should have just left the act of making Sonic into a slow hedgehog to comics or cartoons, since they seem to do a far better job of having Sonic deal with his temporary loss of speed as best as he can. Here, a slow Sonic simply creates a really huge mess. There are far better Sonic games, for the Game Gear and other systems, worth checking out. As for Sonic Labyrinth, perhaps it is best that we pretend that it does not exist. Sonic needs to be really fast and not weighed down by stupid, needless gimmicks in order to be a respected video game superstar once again.