Sonic Gems Collection

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sonic Gems Collection

Developer(s)	Sega, Sonic Team, Sega-AM2, Traveller's Tales
Publisher(s)	Sega
Release date(s)	August 17, 2005
Genre(s)	Compilation
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: Everyone CERO: All ages BBFC: Universal PEGI: 3+
Platform(s)	Gamecube PS2 (JP/EU)

Sonic Gems Collection (ソニックジェムズコレクション) is a GameCube and (in Japan and Europe) PlayStation 2 compilation of the more obscure games of the Sonic series. It could be considered a sequel to Sonic Mega Collection and, to a lesser extent, Sonic Jam.

1 Games
2 Games not in final
3 Trivia
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Games

Sonic the Hedgehog CD (Sega CD, port of PC version)
Sonic the Fighters (Arcade, ported by Sega-AM2)
Sonic R (Sega Saturn, port of PC version)

The collection also includes the six Game Gear games that were absent in Sonic Mega Collection Plus, which are:

In addition, there is also an extensive unlockable section, which contains over three hundred Sonic-related images, videos, music, and game demos, as well as a few hidden games. The Japanese edition of the game includes Vectorman, its sequel, all three Streets of Rage titles and Bonanza Bros.. Controversially, the American and European releases only include the two Vectorman titles, in order to keep the American version's ESRB Rating as Everyone. The compilation is a GameCube-exclusive in the United States, France and Canada, but has also been released on PlayStation 2 in Europe, Japan and Australia.

[edit] Games not in final

Knuckles Chaotix (32X) and SegaSonic the Hedgehog (Arcade) were games that were expected on this collection based upon the obscurity theme. Yuji Naka stated in an interview that SegaSonic was left out due to the original game being controlled by a trackball.[1] It's still unknown, though, why Knuckles Chaotix was left out. However, there is an entire art section of the museum dedicated to Chaotix which also testifies to this fact that Knuckles Chaotix was originally slated to appear in the collection.

[edit] Trivia

This article contains a trivia section.
Content in this section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article or removed, and the trivia section removed.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Two remixes of Sonic CD's original soundtrack are present as extras. A third remix of Sonic CD is based on the opening song of the American version, Sonic Boom.

In the PlayStation 2 version of Sonic Gems Collection, Sonic R is limited to a 2 player mode. In the GameCube version, Sonic R still has the 4 player mode.

The port of Sonic R had a much improved draw distance over any previous version of the game.

In the port of Sonic CD, the water in Tidal Tempest in all time zones is clear. In the Sega CD and PC versions, the water was colored differently in all time zones (Present was green, Past was brown, Good Future was cyan, and Bad Future was red). The reason for the clear water in the Gems Collection version is because the port of Sonic CD is the PC version. The PC version of Sonic CD made a call to a specific graphics card to display Tidal Tempest's water colors. This PC code was not optimized for consoles.

When Sonic the Fighters was released in the US and Europe, it was originally renamed Sonic Championship. In Gems Collection, the title of Sonic the Fighters was used for every region.

The hints for Sonic CD place the debug mode sound test code with the other hidden pictures.

Japanese version of Sonic Gems Collection played on a modded PAL PlayStation 2.

The PlayStation 2 version contains both Japanese and American regional data, including different released manuals scans and alternate and differing versions of games (for example, Sonic CD has both the Japanese and American sound tracks). The game will load the data depending on the language the console is set on. Therefore, if one were to play the PlayStation 2 version on a modified western PlayStation 2, which doesn't have a Japanese language option, the user would only be able to access the American data. However, the European PlayStation 2 version doesn't have the Japanese-exclusive games at all, and Sonic CD is still set to the American music by default. Also, the manuals for Sonic Spinball and Tails' Skypatrol will always be the same regardless which language setting is used. This is because the Game Gear version of Sonic Spinball was released only in the U.S., and Tails' Skypatrol was released only in Japan. The GameCube version only has the language for the region of release in the game data.

The "game demos" that are unlockable in the museum are actually the games in Sonic Mega Collection Plus with a time limit added. They skip to the final boss, (or final level, as is the case in Sonic 3 and Sonic Drift.) with said time to destroy it. Afterwards, the game starts over but an Act usually cannot be cleared due to the time limit. By using an Action Replay device, there are codes that will allow you to freeze the time limit.[2]