Sonic Blast

About Sonic Blast

Sonic Blast (1996) is the last Game Gear Sonic platformer, in which Sonic and Knuckles chase Chaos Emerald shards through 15 zones rendered in Donkey Kong Country-style pre-rendered graphics.

Sonic Blast in Depth

Doctor Robotnik shatters a Chaos Emerald into five shards with a laser, and one strikes Sonic, who teams up with Knuckles to stop Robotnik collecting the rest and fortifying his island base. Both are playable: Sonic has his spin attacks plus a mid-air double jump, while Knuckles keeps his abilities from Sonic & Knuckles, gliding and climbing walls. There are 15 zones across five parts, from a traditional Green Hill Zone to underwater ruins, with loops, slides and teleporters, and every third zone ends in a fight with Robotnik and one of his larger robots.

Rings act as health, ten scattering when the player is hit, and lives are lost to crushing, drowning, pits or a hit with no rings. Monitors give rings, speed, shields, invincibility, extra lives or a mid-level save, though some show Robotnik's face and give nothing, and question-mark monitors grant a random power-up. A spinning signpost ends each act with a reward. As in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, giant rings hidden in levels lead to special stages in the style of Sonic 2's, where the player runs forward collecting rings to win an emerald shard. The pre-rendered visuals were meant to push the declining handheld, but they left Sonic and Knuckles with few animation frames and forced the removal of the timer.

Making Sonic Blast

Aspect developed it and Sega published it alongside other outsourced Sonic games such as Sonic Labyrinth and Sonic 3D Blast, rendering the graphics in 3D and converting them to sprites in the manner of Donkey Kong Country and Mortal Kombat, and reusing elements from Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. Retrospective reviewers have deemed it one of the series' worst games. Nintendo World Report called it "a step back" from the other Game Gear Sonic titles because of "the attempt at aping Donkey Kong Country's pre-rendered sprites on a handheld", Nintendo Life criticised its "muddy colours and shaky animation", and others found the large character sprites too big for the small screen and the levels slow.