This has been one game I've been looking forward to reviewing for some time. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Game Gear and also the more well known Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Sega Genesis are two games I have been wanting to write about for some time. This game for the handheld Game Gear (and Master System) was released on November 17, 1992, only days before Sonic 2 on Genesis was released. It is quite different from the first Sonic the Hedgehog for the Game Gear/Master System. That game was mostly just a port of the original Sonic game re-done for the Game Gear with new stages that had the same themes.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Game Gear is an original game with new ideas with the storyline, soundtrack, and graphics. However, all of these cool new concepts are ruined by some of the most frustratingly difficult gameplay I have ever seen! I plan on discussing the pros and cons of this lesser known Sonic game for Sega's rare handheld Game Gear console.

Graphics 9/10: For starters, Sonic actually looks like Sonic in this game! His sprite looks closer to what it looked like in the 16-bit game and so do the sprites of the other characters. The backgrounds look decent in this Sonic game too, but they are a little dated looking. The characters and sprites look amazing. The backgrounds aren't perfect looking, but that's forgivable considering this is an 8-bit handheld game. Not to mention a game that was released in the early '90s. Other than that, Sonic 2 on Game Gear is nearly flawless looking aside from some fuzzy looking backgrounds.

Music 10/10: Sonic 2 for Game Gear has some really great classic Sonic music. Every track in this game sounds wonderful. There are no dull or boring songs in this game. The game sounds like it was made in 1992 and has a very nostalgic style to it. The Green Hill theme is my favorite, and it is not the Green Hill that we are used to hearing. It is a completely new track especially made for this game. The title song is also pretty cool, and you get to hear it again on the Scrambled Egg Zone. The game has a decent amount of variety, but it's mainly just the quality of these songs that get me. All of them are catchy and memorable. 

Gameplay 3/10: The gameplay of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the same as in any other Sonic game. You have to get to the end of the level under 10 mins while avoiding enemies, bottomless pits, spikes, etc. Sonic collects rings along the way that give him an extra hit, but on some levels there are no rings in this game. There are also no bonus games at the end of the stages like in the first Game Gear/Master System Sonic game. Extra lives are pretty scarce in Sonic 2, and that is a big problem in this game. Sonic 2 is very difficult to play because of this, and to make matters worse you're ringless for all the boss fights! You don't even get a shield box in this game either!

Basically, this game has less lives and continues than the previous handheld Sonic game and the Genesis game. Even after a lot of trial and error, I still kept finding myself re-playing the first 2 zones of the game over and over again because I would Game Over on one of the first 2 bosses. The third zone (Aqua Lake Zone) gave me more trouble, and by the time I got to Act 3 of Green Hill Zone (Zone 4), I would often lose all my lives and continues and have to re-start the game again! I did beat this version of Sonic 2 eventually, but the hell I had to go through was almost too much. As you can see it took many playthroughs to beat the regular game, so it is a game that can be beat, if you're not trying to get the Emeralds that is!

These things are an absolute nightmare to try and collect! A few of them are easy to reach, like the ones in the Aqua Lake and Gimmick Mountain Zones, but the ones on the Green Hill and (especially) Sky High Zones are almost impossible to get to. The Chaos Emeralds are well hidden, and they are placed in parts of the levels that are very difficult to reach. You'll use up all of your lives trying to get the things and have to restart the game. The thing I hate the most is that you can't go back to a level once you have missed one. You might as well restart the game and try again! I say screw the Emeralds and just play the game like normal!

The only thing bad about playing Sonic 2 like that is that you'll miss out on playing the final Crystal Egg Zone, fighting Dr. Robotnik, rescuing Tails, and finishing the game properly. You need all 6 of the Chaos Emeralds in order to beat this game! If you fail to get the 5 Emeralds, the game stops after Sonic defeats Silver Sonic at the end of the Scrambled Egg Zone and rolls the credits. If you do get the 5 Emeralds in the stages, the 6th Chaos Emerald is rewarded to Sonic after defeating Silver Sonic, and you can keep playing. Although, without the 6 Chaos Emeralds, the game ends, and Sonic looks up into the sky to see Tails out there somewhere still waiting to be rescued.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on Sega Game Gear is an almost unplayably difficult game, and I find it an impossible task of collecting the Chaos Emeralds and getting the proper ending. I don't feel like it can be done, and just trying to get the bad ending is hard enough! This is a game that almost falls into the same category as the first Mega Man game. I give the gameplay of this Sonic game a big thumbs down! It is impossible to finish properly. The screen crunch, poor controls, ringless boss fights, lack of extra lives and continues make me dread playing this game. It is not fun to play, it's just plain hard and frustrating and feels unnecessary.   

Story 10/10: Like some of the other people who have already reviewed this game, I happen to like the story of the Game Gear version better than the one for the Sega Genesis game. Sonic receives a note informing him that an old friend of his by the name of Miles Prower "Tails" has been kidnapped by Dr. Robotnik. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Game Gear brings in a new character to the Sonic trilogy named "Tails" and explains how he entered into the Sonic series. Prior to this game, Tails was a lonely, depressed type of character until he became friends with Sonic. Tails found a companion, and Sonic found a sidekick.

It is a touching backstory and makes you really want the best ending for the game. Sonic goes to rescue Tails after getting all 6 Chaos Emeralds if you are an expert at this game. Anyway, I liked how this plot was played out a lot in the Sonic cartoons that would come on in the afternoon after school. It was something different instead of Sonic just fighting Eggman and saving South Island. He now has to rescue his best friend/sidekick, save South Island, and go onto another adventure with Tails on the Sega Genesis. It is a perfect setup for things to come.  

Content 7/10: If you are able to get through this complete game without many deaths Sonic 2 only takes about 45 mins. The whole game consists of: The Underground Zone, Sky High Zone, Aqua Lake Zone, Green Hill Zone, Gimmick Mountain, Scrambled Egg Zone, and The Crystal Egg Zone. The final Crystal Egg Zone can only be played by getting the 5 Chaos Emeralds hidden in the first 5 zones and defeating Silver Sonic. If you fail to do this, you can only play 6 of the 7 zones which is still a reasonable amount of content. These levels are hard and feel like they are designed more for experts.

Difficulty 10/10: This has been the hardest Sonic game I have ever reviewed up to this point. It is similar in difficulty to the original Mega Man on NES, and I found it only slightly easier than that game. The game has very limited continues and doesn't start giving you many lives until the Green Hill Zone. The final act in this zone was (and is still) a nightmare to get through. You had to jump on these springs in order to cross large bottomless pits with spikes, and you were also ringless during this part because it was a boss level. You also couldn't see where you were going due to the camera being so zoomed in. There was no way of knowing where Sonic was going to land. You didn't know where the springs were unless you played this part many times and had it memorized.

All the lives you collected in the first 2 acts would be gone after this part, and you'd only have a few to beat the rest of the game with. In the first 3 zones, getting a Game Over wasn't as big of a deal because you didn't have to go back that far, but by the time you got to Green Hill, you'd have to spend another 30 minutes trying to get back to this part not knowing if you were just going to Game Over and do it again! To make it even more worse, you couldn't earn any more than 9 lives! By now, this game should have been a little more reasonable with its difficulty. Sonic 2 on Game Gear gets a big thumbs down and has very unbalanced difficulty due to poor visibility and no room for error!

Overall 7.8/10: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Game Gear/Master System is a game that takes an intense amount of memorization. It amounts to the player just replaying the levels (especially the bosses) again and again, and even then, it is still difficult. The other ideas and concepts are a welcome improvement over the first Game Gear game, but they only do so much due to the poor gameplay and difficulty. When you think about it, this game isn't much better. It is a better game overall, but I hated the controls and difficulty even more in this Sonic game.