The world of fan remakes is fraught with all kinds of legal ramifications such as cancellations due to cease and desist orders from publishers. We have seen this in the past year with a fan made campaign to remake Star Wars Battlefront 3 . (Note: don’t mess with Disney)
However the Sonic 2 HD project seems to have gotten away (so far) with their project to completely remake the beloved Sega classic.
I for one have been excited about this project as I hold a very special place in my heart for Sonic the Hedgehog. As a kid who grew up playing Sega, I was always in defence mode with my Nintendo friends and never had a valid argument when ever they brought up the question “Who is the icon for Sega? you don’t even have a Mario!”…. until the blue blur!
This project is 100% built by fans of the game in their spare time and insist that this is a not for profit passion project stating:
Sonic 2 HD is an unofficial overhaul of SEGA’s franchise classic for the modern world. It is made for fans, by fans, with no financial gain whatsoever.
With a firm belief that what fans want in a Sonic game is NOT a open world, or a 3D rendered modern game, but a 2D side scroller… and you just have look at the popularity and success of Segas official return to form Sonic Mania as proof of this. (Ironicly, this was lead by Austrailian developer Christian Whitehead. who got the nod after building an unofficial Java remake of Sonic 2)
The passion that has gone into this project cannot be understated:
Sonic 2 HD is amazing, Even just the opening screen had me in awe with its fantastic remade music, smooth animation and perfect translation from the 16bit version to HD.
But then you get to the actual game.
I only made it through the first four worlds so actually cannot tell you how much of the game is squeezed into this demo but its awesome that it wasn’t just the first couple of worlds!
The game play looks amazing and feels exactly how you hope it would. It’s scrolls smoothly and and looks beautiful.
Apart from gushing over how great this game looks theres not much else I can say as we have all played the Sonic franchise!
What i will say though is that I hope they finish the game and I hope someone at Sega is watch this closely as THIS is exactly what we want from a new Sonic title! In fact, Sega should hire this team!
Get your hands on the demo for free here: https://sonic2hd.com/
And check out my first play through here:
