Sonic Labyrinth (Game Gear) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
Вставка
- Опубліковано 21 жов 2024
- A playthrough of Sega's 1995 action game for the Sega Game Gear, Sonic Labyrinth.
Sonic Labyrinth is probably one of the least known Sonic games made by Sega, even compared to the somewhat obscure entries in the Game Gear line. It's played from an isometric, faux-3D perspective, and each level has Sonic searching for three keys in order to open the goal. At the end of each set of three stages, Sonic then will go flying down a slope collecting rings before facing off against the area's boss.
It's an interesting concept, to be sure. It reminds me a great deal of Snake Rattle 'n' Roll (NES and Genesis), given the perspective and the general flow of the game play. Like Rattle and Roll's body segments, Sonic's keys give him "health," acting as the rings do in his more traditional games. He can withstand another hit if he is carrying keys, though they will scatter and need to be recollected if he gets hit.
Like so many of Sega's projects in the mid-1990s, Sonic Lanyrinth game didn't fare too well critically or commercially. It was criticized for the limited view: some of these mazes get huge, and because everything is zoomed in so far, the tiny Game Gear screen doesn't allow for looking ahead very far. My suggestion is to draw maps for the levels that are too large to memorize. I did out of necessity for this video, but thankfully there is only a couple of stages that really require it thanks to the timer. The stage graphics look good even if they are a bit simplistic, and the sprites are big and well detailed, so at least the excessively close camera manages to provide an attractive view of Sonic's surroundings.
It was also criticized for its sound and its controls. I didn't think the sound was bad, though I could've done without the constant beeping for certain things (grr... those timer power-ups!), and the music is about par for the course on the Game Gear, and the compositions are generally fine.
The controls seem to bear the brunt of the criticism, and I won't argue that they don't take a bit of getting used to. They aren't bad, but they aren't anything like those in Sonic 3D Blast. Sonic's walking speed maxes out somewhere around -3 mph, so the spin-dash is the only viable alternative to scuffing up the floor with neon red trainers. To spin, you hold down button 1 or 2 and aim in the general direction you want to fly as the power builds up. Once you're ready, let go and pray that you didn't just launch the poor hedgehog into a hazard! The spindash can feel a bit unwieldy at first, but the awkwardness goes away once you realize that you rarely need more than the lowest level of charge to get Sonic where you need him to go. If you let lose after charging him up to four, you're best bet is to write that life off - there's no way you can control him at that speed, and since Sonic will go faster than the screen can scroll, it becomes all but impossible to do anything productive at full power. But like I said, the lowest power level makes Sonic's movements very managable, and since he stops almost immediately when you hit the button again, it's not too difficult to make precision moves if you have some knowledge of the level layouts. While I'd agree that the controls are needlessly difficult to come to grips with, they do work just fine after some practice.
It's a difficult game, for sure, but if you ever wanted to play Marble Madness with Sonic the Hedgehog in place of a screaming marble, this might just do the trick. If nothing else, it's a novel concept that, for better of worse, hasn't be visited again by everyone's favorite erinaceous star.
Almost forgot: that code that is shown in the ending will change the sound test into a level select option!
*Recorded using an LCD shader in Retroarch to mimic the Game Gear screen.
_
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (www.nintendocom...) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Visit for the latest updates!
/ 540091756006560
/ nes_complete
I think this was in the manual, but the reason why Sonic runs slow is because Dr. Robotnik broke into his house while Sonic was sleeping and replaced his running shoes with “slow shoes”.
Or in other words, Dr. Robotnik replaced Sonic's sneakers with a pair of Robotnik sneakers that resemble Sonic's.
It must have been very hard for others to get the best ending of this game, and you did it! I'd always knew you were the person to avenge our childhood of games we couldn't beat. Congratulations!
Great representation of the Game Gear and original screen with its vertical scanlines!! Haven't played this but here to get a feel for it before I buy.
Eventually Arena: Maze of Death would be released on the same handheld. It was said to have looked & sounded better, but didn't play as well as it looked. From what footage there is of it, it's not amazing, but it's... tolerable, if very boring.
Sonic Labyrinth is a pretty neat take on Snake Rattle 'n' Roll's style of gameplay, and it looks really nice for a Game Gear game. Definitely worth a look for fans of the blue hedgehog!
NintendoComplete I don't think so in my opinion. I bet even die-hard Sonic fans will hate this.
Extremewrecker2000 The willer. Fair enough. I liked it well enough, but I'm sure not everyone would. It's very different from the usual Sonic games.
NintendoComplete I know it tries to be different, but most people will hate it due to awkward controls, & such. At least it ain't as bad as any game in the Bubsy franchise.
NintendoComplete When did that came out?
1995
what if there was a Sonic game where Eggman does the Opposite of Labyrinth and makes sonic Can’t stop running and he increases speed every zone which increases the difficulty. He runs at a sorta fixed path. He can choose which branch to pick that leads to different routes. A good Reference would be. “Hey I’m running too fast, huh? Words I never expected to say. At least it’s the opposite of eggmans Other past plans.”
LonelyFoxz Aka OverTime That sounds almost kinda like SegaSonic, the old arcade game with the trackball. It's stupid fast feeling when you play it
NintendoComplete yeah Good Point. Then again the main aim was chaos. So yeah.
If Sonic’s normal walking speed hadn’t been so ridiculously slow, this game might have been decent enough.
I remember Labyrinth mainly from a little unlockable demo of its final boss in Sonic Gems Collection. Not a bad game, but, well... *Sonic 3D Blast* this is NOT! I guess it's a fun little handheld alternative.
whoa, I owned a game gear as a kid and I've never seen or heard of this before now
This game runs so slow the only way to get around is to spin dash but you bounce all over the place. So either you're going to fast or to slow
Yeah. It was a cool idea, but the execution isn't really up to 90s Sonic standards
In this game, Sonic lost his speed & unable to jump thanks to the slo-mo boots that Dr. Robotnik invented which was powered by the chaos emeralds.
The sprite of Sonic lying on the cloud there on the menu screen looks an awful lot like when he's waiting to move and lays down in Sonic Spinball!
This would be ok if it was on Sega Genesis. Even though this game is awful, it shows the early days of what 3d graphics were like. 3D blast is better. But that still is terrible.
Wow sonic is really fast 😒
Not a good Sonic game. Ask WatchMojo.