Sonic Blast No-Death Playthrough (Sonic Adventure DX - GameCube)

This is a capture of me playing through Sonic Blast for the Sega Game Gear via Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s Cut for the GameCube. I'm playing the game in progressive scan mode using an actual GameCube (not the Wii). I'm using Sonic and collecting all of the Chaos Emeralds in this playthrough.

Here’s the fifth and final mainline Sonic game for the Game Gear. Unlike the four prior Sonic games that all used standard pixel art, Sonic Blast was meant to coincide with the release of Sonic 3D Blast on the Genesis and Saturn, so it used prerendered graphics similar to Donkey Kong Country. However, likely due to hardware limitations, this game stuck with traditional 2D gameplay instead of an isometric style (which had been used the year prior in Sonic Labyrinth).

While all four of the preceding mainline Game Gear Sonic title were good games, Sonic Blast isn’t so great. In fact, a lot people seem to view it as one of the worst Sonic games in existence. I don’t think it’s quite that bad since it is easily playable, but the physics suck, the gameplay is generally boring, and the level design is bland. Building momentum feels like you’re running through mud, and the screen is even more zoomed in than any of the prior Game Gear Sonic games.

To make matters worse, Blue Marine Zone is probably the worst zone ever in a 2D Sonic game since it slows your movement down even more and subjects you to horrendous pipe mazes and invisible water currents that constantly send you flying backwards. The only way to make it through that area is to carefully memorize the correct pipes and the gaps between the invisible currents, but once you do so, the zone is manageable. Thankfully, the pipes at least refill your air supply each time you enter them.

This is the first and only mainline Game Gear Sonic game to feature Knuckles as a playable character, and he has the same basic moves from Sonic & Knuckles on the Genesis, which includes gliding and wall climbing. Sonic makes up for this difference by featuring a helpful double jump. I think both characters are fairly comparable and that neither one has a clear advantage.

There are five Chaos Emeralds in this game which you can obtain by entering giant teleporter rings hidden in the main stages, similar to Sonic 3. However, only the second act of each zone will reward you with a Chaos Emerald. The bonus stages in the first act only provide extra lives. The bonus stages are actually kind of easy in this game, so I’m happy about that.

In this video I beat the game with Sonic while collecting all of the Chaos Emeralds and avoiding any deaths. This wasn’t terribly difficult since you only drop 10 rings at a time in this game, but there are still areas where you can get caught off guard and easily die.

On a related note, after recording this game I finally finished an article that I was working on for my blog comparing the five Game Boy games in the Super Mario Land/Wario Land series to the five mainline Sonic the Hedgehog games for the Game Gear. You can read that article here if you like:

https://watchmeplaynintendo.blogspot.com/2018/06/game-boy-vs-game-gear-portable-mascot.html

Recorded with the Hauppauge HD PVR and the GameCube's component cables at 60 frames per second.