Sonic Gems Collection (Nintendo GameCube, 2005)

Sonic Gems Collection brings in 9 more early Sonic games to complete those absent from Sonic Mega Collection.

You Get:
Sonic CD (Sega CD), Sonic the Fighters (Arcade), Sonic R (Sega Saturn) and a slew of Game Gear titles (Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic Spinball, Sonic Triple Trouble, Sonic Drift 2, Tail's Skypatrol, Tails Adventure).

Plus you can unlock Vectorman & Vectorman 2.

For Game Gear fans who missed out on some of the Sonic titles, this collection takes care of that pretty well. The age of the graphics is emphasized when playing on a large screen, but that may well add to the charm of these "ancient" games. Others may be turned off by the blocky sprites. I find them very playable, especially Sonic 2 which has some nice hiding places for the Chaos emeralds & pretty good boss designs.

Sonic CD is the other remarkable title from the 16-bit Sonic era. It's a nice update from the previous Genesis/Mega Drive titles, though the level theming is getting a bit tiresome by now. A circus level, an underwater stage... deja vu!

The other Sonic titles may just be there for the sake of completion. They don't really add much to the value in my opinion and are pretty forgettable.

The Unlockables: Vectorman & Vectorman 2 are well worth the play time you'll need to rack up to unlock them. They're a couple of great shooters with an intriguing storyline. Graphically these two were Sega's Donkey Kong Country, thanks to the nicely pre-rendered 3D-ish sprites. I love the power-ups that let you actually transform into different useful tools - very cool.

To Summarize:

+ lots of Sonic-themed games all in one package
+ The unlockables are worth it!
+ Art gallery & manual scans are a nice touch

- Not as strong of a showing this time: arguably the Mega Collection represents the best of early Sonic
- Because of the above, this set may be more of a companion to the first as there's little to make it really stand on its own.

So while Sonic Gems may not be the crown jewel of the two collections, it's still a worthy addition for the hedgehog who has everything... and wants a little more.

This is good collection of Sonic games that weren't included on the Sonic Mega Collection. Sonic fans would love this.

Sonic CD - The reason to buy this collection. One of the best games on the Sega CD & one the best Sonic games. Great 2D platforming.

Sonic The Fighters - Absolute ****. I played this for a half an hour and beat the entire arcade mode with Sonic by pressing ONE button. (the last battle took a few tries). Bad Game.

Sonic R - Sonic trying to capitalize on the racing game fad... and it failed.

(Game Gear games) - They're OK....


Unlockable Games ~

Vectorman - It's cool that this game automatically if you have a "Sonic Heroes" save file. Or you have to play at least 6 hours on any game. This is a great great genesis. Played through to the end, fun while it lasts.

Vectorman 2 - Play any game for 8 hours. Just like Vectorman, great game.


I recommend this game, it's a good price.

This is a must have collection if you love Sonic the Hedgehog. It has Sonic CD which is one of the best Sonic games ever. You can also unlock Vectorman 1 & 2(great games also).

The downside:

The rest of the games included besides Sonic CD are mediocre at best. They were included merely for their obscurity and rareness. Small children may enjoy them, but teens or adults will play them for 5 minutes and never play them again.

If you want to play Sonic CD, or just absolutely NEED to own every Sonic game this is a must buy. However if you want the most fun collection of Sonic games get Sonic Mega Collection instead. Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle are also must-have Sonic games for the Gamecube/Wii.

Overall this is a great collection of fun and obscure Sonic games.

My 7 year old son loves this game on his gamecube console. He owns a XBOX360, but he loves to play this game ever since he got it in the mail. It has multiple fun games on it, fun for 2 players even! I recommend this game if you get it at a good deal. It's good old schoolin' SEGA. :)

Sonic Gems collects some of the more obscure Sonic games. These include: Sonic CD, Sonic the Fighters, Sonic R, and six Sonic Game Gear games.

Older fans of Sonic will most likely have all these games in their collection, with the exception of Sonic the Fighters which was only release in arcade in Japan and in this collection.
Younger fans of Sonic will definitely enjoy Sonic CD, which is widely seen as one of the better classic Sonic games.

I would only recommend this item if you are a hard core Sonic fan and want to play Sonic the Fighters. Other compilations or platforms exist that you can play the other games on (including Sonic CD on Steam soon).