Past, way cool.

Sonic the Hedgehog is like a 16-bit Skyrim: SEGA has re-released the Mega Drive classics on just about every platform you can think of, and it shows no sign of stopping. The latest effort is Sonic Origins, a collection that brings Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and Sonic CD to modern consoles under one banner. Even if we’ve all played these games a thousand times, there’s still value in revisiting old-school favourites — and this compilation’s extra bells and whistles present the quadrilogy in a fresh and interesting way.

To start with, the games themselves remain a mostly great selection of platformers. What’s interesting about playing them one after the other is how the series changes and improves over time. The inaugural adventure introduces Sonic’s satisfying, momentum-based movement but doesn’t fully capitalise on it, with many zones forcing you to play slowly. Sonic CD is a really interesting diversion incorporating time travel; destroy Eggman’s robot-producing contraption in the past to create a better future. Stages are consequently much more open, allowing you to search for time gates and build up enough speed to reach different time periods.

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