In what may be yet another blow to US fans Sonic Team’s latest compilation, Sonic Gems Collection, will once again not contain bonus additional MegaDrive/Genesis games, just as it is with the previous modern collections.
The Streets of Rage trilogy which was confirmed to appear in the upcoming title has been revealed to not feature in the US version of the game, as reveled by GameSpy in a preview recently published online. SEGA told GameSpy when questioned:
“While Streets of Rage will ship with Sonic Gems Collection in other markets, the more mature game does not conform to the E-rating of Sonic The Hedgehog games in North America.”
Whilst they didn’t make it clear whether the PAL version of the game would include the omitted games, they did infer that only Japanese gamers will be playing the trilogy this August.
Sonic Gems Collection will however feature Vectorman and Vectorman 2 as unlockable bonus games.
The second big thing to be revealed by this article, is that the US version will indeed contain the US Sonic CD soundtrack due to licensing issues with using the Japanese one. It has been debated by fans for years and will be in years to come, is the original Japanese soundtrack to Sonic CD better than the US one? Either side of the debate the numbers supporting each are huge, so this news will no doubt come as a major blow to some.
Hardcore Sonic fans will be disappointed to learn that the version of Sonic CD in Sonic Gems Collection only features the U.S. soundtrack, which is completely different (and many would argue inferior) to the Japanese one. Although it would have been nice to have the choice of either soundtrack in this collection, Sega explains that licensing issues kept the original music off of this U.S. release. The Japanese version of Gems does feature the original tunes, which should please importers.
Sonic fans should keep in mind and appreciate that we have been lucky enough to once again be given a chance to play what many will tell you is the pinnacle of 2D Sonic gaming.
Sonic Gems Collection will be released worldwide early this August on GameCube and on PS2 additionally outside of the US.
Thanks to Poridet for the tip off.