Happy Sonic 2sDay, everyone!
#SEGAForever pic.twitter.com/2smqubYNOP
— SEGA Forever (@SEGAForever) November 19, 2017
Following the tease two days ago, a new classic SEGA title is joining the company’s SEGA Forever initiative on the 25th anniversary of its genesis.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has relaunched on iOS and Android earlier today as part of the SEGA classics lineup. The 16-bit legend is now free-to-play online for newcomers to the Sonic franchise, albeit with in-game advertisements, but you can turn off ads and play the game anywhere once you pay a small fee of $2 USD; or, if you own the app already, you can simply restore your old purchase and carry on as per normal.
The iOS and Android versions of Sonic 2, being the Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley remaster from late 2013, have been updated accordingly on their respective digital storefronts, and already feature multiplayer, achievements, and online leaderboards. The remaster also touts a restored Hidden Palace Zone, updated physics, widescreen, and Knuckles the Echidna as a playable character. A future update to the game will include Bluetooth controller support for those who aren’t keen on touchscreen controls.
Happy 25th anniversary Sonic 2! We've added the remaster to our line-up of free (ad-supported) mobile games! #Sonic2sday #SEGAForever
Android (Worldwide) ➡️ https://t.co/xlaUGRHwgY
iOS (US/Canada) ➡️ https://t.co/7aordAV2g0
iOS (International) ➡️ https://t.co/MpzNeNrnVj pic.twitter.com/LYrA7MhACz— SEGA Forever (@SEGAForever) November 21, 2017
SEGA has kept a pretty consistent release schedule of two classic games per month since the SEGA Forever program launched in June. The lineup so far mostly consists of Mega Drive/Genesis titles such as Ristar, Golden Axe, and just recently ESWAT: City Under Siege, but Crazy Taxi and Virtua Tennis Challenge from the Dreamcast (while already ported to mobile years ago) have been rereleased under the Forever banner as well.
The promise behind SEGA Forever is that nearly every retro game in the publisher’s vault, as far back as the SG-1000 and Master System days to the end of the Dreamcast’s life, will be brought back to the modern era. While their focus is on mobile for now, these classics can later be ported to consoles such as the Nintendo Switch too with enough demand.
(If Sonic 3 & Knuckles is to follow, however… please let it be a Taxman and Stealth remaster? Please SEGA?)
Now, with all of that said…
Happy 25th anniversary, Sonic the Hedgehog 2! And happy birthday Miles “Tails” Prower!
Virtua Tennis Challenge isn’t from the Dreamcast, out of all the Dreamcast games they ported to the PC and 360, why not add Sonic Adventure 1 and 2? SEGA Bass fishing? Space Channel?
SEGA Forever is just a bunch of Mega Drive roms and a few ports of pass Mobile games.
I agree with you I wish they would release sonic shuffle(dreamcast) and popful mail a sega CD game. Also one popular sega saturn game.
I don’t know if anybody else has been getting this issue, but I’ve been getting this bug with Sonic 2 that causes everything to move and control in slow motion, with the exception of the music and sound effects.
I’ve tried re-downloading it several times on my phone. But the same thing keeps happening.
For some reason I am getting ads despite verifying I purchased the game in the past. What gives SEGA?
And yet, this version of Sonic 2 is STILL unavailable on PCs. Lame.