Sonic 3D Blast

By 1996, Sega had all but completely abandoned the Genesis at this point, with their focus being the fledgling Saturn. But Sega would give their franchise mascot one more adventure on the console that made him a mega star. While Sega was working on the ill-fated Sonic X-Treme for the Saturn, another project was underway from Sonic Team and Traveller's Tales, whose work on the Toy Story games the year prior had impressed many. And thus the collaborative effort gave us Sonic 3D Blast (AKA Sonic 3D Flickies Island in PAL Regions), released November 12th, 1996 in North America. It followed with a Saturn port a few months later, as attempts to bring X-Treme to life continued to flounder.

The game was met with mixed reviews and has been considered by many as one of the worst Sonic games of all time, and the point where the dip in quality for the Hedgehog's adventures really began to show. Is that a fair assessment? Is Sonic 3D Blast as spiky blue lemon? Let's delve a little deeper to find out.

The Story is as follows. Robotnik discovers a race of birds known as flickies, which can travel through ring-shaped portals. He roboticizes them all in hopes that they'll do his bidding to help him once again obtain the chaos emeralds. It's up to Sonic to save his avian friends and put a stop to Robotnik yet again. So yeah, not exactly the most original of stories, but Sonic games in the end were never about the deepest of depth. Then again, you've followed the adventures of a blue hedgehog trouncing Theodore Roosevelt for years, you shouldn't come in expecting Shakespeare.

Sonic 3D Blast is a one player action platformer. You control Sonic through seven zones, collecting the flicky birds that have been turned into robots by Dr. Robotnik. However, the main change in gimmick from Sonic games prior is the shift from 2D sidescroller to isometric play area where you have more directions to move. Sonic jumps with the A and C buttons and can spin dash with B.

The object of the game is to collect the flickies trapped in the robots. Like all Sonic games prior, you simply have to jump on top of them to free them. Flickies come in red, blue, green and pink varieties. Despite the different designs, they serve no real change in gameplay elements. After collecting five, you dunk them into a giant ring and can advance either further into the level, or finish that level. You can choose to dunk the flickies early or wait to do so after collecting all five for extra points.

Zones are your basic Sonic fare. Green Grove is this game's Green Hill knockoff. Rusty Ruins is filled with spinners that let Sonic whirl around, letting him break columns in his way. Spring Stadium is a carnival like area filled with springs and traps. Diamond Dust is your snow level and Volcano Valley serves as your fire levels. Finally there's Gene Gadget and Panic Puppet, which serve as the robotic final levels. Each level also contains a boss fight with Robotnik as expected.

Much like most Sonic games, there are special stages. These can be accessed by finding either Tails or Knuckles hidden in each level and having at least 50 rings. These are similar to the half pipe levels in Sonic 2 where you have to collect a number of rings before making it to a goal area, while avoiding spiky obstacles. You collect a chaos emerald after completing the stage. Unfortunately, this game doesn't give you Super Sonic for collecting the emeralds. It just allows you access to the game's true final boss fight with Robotnik, so collecting them is essential.

So overall, there is some interesting things going on with Sonic 3D Blast. Unfortunately, it's the gameplay itself that hinders the game. The isometric angle makes Sonic a bit trickier to control now that he can move 360 degrees. Because of this, Sonic loses his trademark speed as you'll always have to turn in different angles, destroying his momentum. Sonic's long time gimmick is his super speed and this game makes him feel slower than he ever has before. The angle can also make it tricky to tell if you jumped on an enemy just right, causing easy deaths if you are just slightly off.

Another gripe is the levels can be far too long. You'll sometimes have to collect up to three sets of Flickies to complete the level, meaning you have to spend a great deal of time scoping around the areas, dealing with sometimes annoying platforming segments (again hindered by the isometric angle) and feeling slow doing it. There are items like the standard invincibility, running shoes and shields (regular and fireproof), but they don't always feel as helpful as you'd hope.

So, for this "3D" approach, does the game look good graphically? Yes. Though the 3D isn't really as 3D as the game claims, the design of the enemies and levels do look really good. The issue is that this new look doesn't have anywhere near the charm of the more vibrant 2D worlds of the prior Sonic games. Traveller's Tales definitely put in a great effort, and it's appreciated, but it doesn't have the soul that Sonic Team provided in their classic games.

Musically however, this game has an amazing soundtrack. All the themes are amazing, once again composed by Jun Senoe and  Tatsuyuki Maeda, so the great quality of Sonic 3 & Knuckles is retained, only with less Michael Jackson influence. Best track of the game is Volcano Valley Zone 02 in my opinion. It's a hauntingly beautiful track. Why is it the lava themed stages often have my favorite songs in their respective Sonic games?

Sonic 3D Blast is far from perfect. It's definitely ambitious with the complete change in look and feel compared to any other Sonic game up to this point. The problem is that the controls and gameplay suffer from this isometric gimmick hurting the fun factor. It's the earliest example of why Sonic has never truly been perfectly executed inside a 3D plain. However, despite its flaws, I still enjoy the game and feel it isn't as horrible as some people claim. It looks good and has a great soundtrack. If you want something different than the normal Sonic title, I'd say give it a play.

RATING: C+