Recently, I had the chance to try out Sonic Origins, the latest Sonic collection from Sega. While it was nice to see the games presented in the best possible way, it just wasn’t enough to overcome what this game actually is, and what Sega has done to try and extract more money out the fans through it. It absolutely is a beautiful product with some real heart put into to too, which makes this all the more difficult to say: Sonic Origins is good, but it’s just not worth it.

On its own, Sonic Origins is a really well-made collection of classic games. The music is appropriately bright and cheerful, the menus are well-animated and flush with bright colors and fun designs, and the main menu is made up of 3D renditions of each game’s setting. Those islands are even populated by Sonic’s animal buddies and various Badniks. In other words, the presentation is absolutely fantastic.

The games included are Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic CD and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles. Each has been remastered for HD, offers widescreen presentation, choice of character at the start and almost fully-3D special stages in the cases of Sonic 2 and Sonic CD. Fans can even enjoy them in their original, letterbox formats. There’s also a boss rush mode for each game as well as lots of new missions to try. Fans can even earn coins to spend in the Museum to unlock music, animations and illustrations. There’s a lot of stuff here! However, most of it is minor and doesn’t justify what is essentially a $40+ upcharge for games that are 25+ years old.

There’s very little here that’s actually new, it’s only these four games that are included in the collection, and all of them play more or less identically to their previous iterations. All of these Sonic games could be acquired much more cheaply until recently, when Sega de-listed them from most digital storefronts in order to push more fans into picking up Sonic Origins. The company also put things like letterbox patterns, hard missions, animated characters on the menus, and a main menu camera angle behind another $4 or $5 paywall. Seriously, what the heck?

This is a very beautiful wrapper with clear passion and effort put into it, but that’s all it is: an expensive wrapper for old games that were much more accessible until Sega decided it was time to try to fleece their fans again. How is it that we used to get bigger collections with more games and more effort for $20 (I remember you Sonic Mega Collection!) and now have to pay double for less? It’s kind of crazy. Anyway, this isn’t a bad product per se, just not worth $40+. Wait a few months and get it on sale.

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How do you feel about this collection? Do think they should have included more games? Perhaps even some that’ve never gotten a re-release (*ahem* Knuckles Chaotix! *ahem*)

Image from the Sonic Origins trailer