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Archive for February, 2009

SNOW DAY! Snowy stages in Sonic games

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

Hello to everyone who has been forced into their homes because of the mass amount of snow that has hit the UK today. In honour of our crazy weather I thought it would be a great opportunity to take a retrospective look at snow in Sonic games.

Snowy stages have been making regular appearances in Sonic games since Sonic 3. The zone in question is Ice Cap; a popular level among fans and its’ theme has become the most remixed Sonic song on OCRemix.org. The stage re-appeared with a different layout in Sonic Adventure. It also contains one of the coolest snowboarding sequences to ever grace a Sonic game.

Next on the list is Diamond Dust Zone from Sonic 3D. Despite the bashing that Sonic 3D gets for being too slow and including a silly gimmick like collecting flickies to progress, it’s a cool little game and features 2 of the best Sonic soundtracks available. My personal preference has to go to Jun Senoue for the Mega Drive soundtrack as Diamond Dust Zone was always my favourite tune from the game.

The PC release of Sonic R added weather to its’ graphical effects, making every trip to a stage a very unique one. I liked the addition of a cold, snow-based stage as it opened new shortcuts thanks to the lakes getting frozen.

My favourite snowy Sonic stage has to go to Robotnik Winter in Sonic Triple Trouble for including the greatest monitor to ever appear in a Sonic game; the snowboard monitor. Why this never made a comeback is beyond me but having the snowboard as an additional item instead of a gimmick was a genius inclusion by the developers.

Click HERE for video footage!

The Sonic Advance series has always been a fan of winter madness and a snowy stage has appeared in each game of the series. Special mention has to go to Sonic Advance 3 for the most gimmick-heavy snow-stage in the history of Sonic games.

Click HERE for video footage!

Even though the mention of Sonic the Hedgehog ’06 brings back horrible memories of pitfalls, bugs, cheap deaths and general unfinishedness, props have to go to White Acropolis for having one of the best tunes in the game. I absolutely love the 90s, dance vibe it brings to the stage.

Sonic Unleashed should be brilliant. It has all the right ideas but its just thrown them against a canvas and used whatever stuck. But when it works, it works well. The Holoska day stage is a perfect example of this. I love the nod to Ice Cap by using a bobsleigh section instead of a snowboard and the music (like the rest of the soundtrack) is sublime.

The sharp-eyed Sonic fan will have noticed that there are quite a few other snowy stages that we missed from this list. I was never going to list them all as this was more a personal reflection of memorable Sonic stages than a detailed list of every snowy stage.

How about you dive into your own personal collection and enjoy today’s wintery happenings in a more Sonic way? Have fun!

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