Sonic CD Shrine

Sonic CD holds a very special place in my heart above all other Sonic games, all other platformers, and really above all other video games in general. It was an object of comfort for me during a very hard time in my life, and its themes of exploring multiple possibilities and tendency towards visual maximalism helped me learn to see myself and my situation from multiple different perspectives. It has always inspired me as artist and is a big motivator behind my dreams to make video games and possibly learn music composition someday.

For the
Uninitiated...

Sonic CD is the (little appreciated) second mainline Sonic the Hedgehog game released in 1993 for the Sega CD, Sega's first foray into disc-based console hardware years before it was popularized by Sony's Playstation. Somewhat like Knuckles Chaotix spin-off on the Sega 32X, Sonic CD - from visuals, to game design, to music - was meant to be a colorful and chaotic showcase of the console's name-based power, and the game is stand-out among the classic Sonic line-up for this. For better or for worse.

The game was developed alongside Sonic 2, with 2 focusing on refining Sonic's speed, and CD on the sprawling levels and momentum-based physics of the first game. Sonic CD and Sonic 2 are my favorites out of the mainline Classic games because they explore two very different visions of Sonic based on that first foray, which goes to show just how dynamic of a character Sonic has always been. And even though history would overwhelmingly declare Sonic 2's focus on action and speed as the true identity of the blue blur moving forward, Sonic CD still stands as a bizarre and fascinating look into an alternative vision focused on extravagant landscapes and momentum-based puzzle platforming.

Playing the Game

When I say "bizarre" I really do mean BIZARRE. Sonic CD can be a very disorienting game to pick up, especially for anyone more familiar with the pure speed focus associated with the series. It's similar to Sonic 1 which has its moments of slowness, but CD has far more direction. There are few levels that are made just to slow you down like the infamous Marble and Labyrinth Zones, but there are plenty of traps and obstacles meant to send your head spinning if you just focus on moving forward without engaging with the levels' sprawl.

And that's just if you're looking to play like any other Sonic game and get the Bad Future! Sonic CD has multiple endings based on an incredibly unique time-travel mechanic, whereby Sonic must gain enough speed to travel back in time to destroy Dr. Eggman's contraptions to save the present and future from his mechanization. This is where the game turns entirely into a puzzle platformer, where your objective each level is not to move fast, but to explore for both the time posts you need to trigger the gimmick, and then the right speedway to allow you to trigger it.

Speed is not an attraction but a tool which must be used carefully to influence the world around you, creating an experience I have yet to see in another Sonic game or platformer in general. For the brave who enter the experimental world of Little Planet, you will be whisked away to a dream-like loop of moving between the different identities of each zone across time, becoming intimately familiar with its layouts and character.

Art and Sound Direction

For most however, the main attraction of Sonic CD is not its controversial game design ethos, but its soundtrack and the novelty of its famous opening cutscene featuring Sonic's first fully animated appearance within a Sonic game, created by the classic anime studio Toei Animation. Married with this gorgeous and character-filled short will be one of two songs depending on the regional soundtrack chosen. While I greatly enjoy the U.S. "Sonic Boom" AND the JP and PAL "You Can Do Anything", this is where all of my care for the U.S. soundtrack is thrown straight out the window. Sonic CD's Original Soundtrack is my favorite soundtrack ever created!

However, I have learned that despite its awesomeness, it really shines most in context of the entire audiovisual package. Every zone's visual identity is a sweeping kaleidoscope of color and texture which further shifts in tone when moving between time periods while still managing to tell visual stories throughout. Sonic CD carries the torch of environmental themeing lit by the very first game, using the transformation of the landscape to highlight not just technology's destructive power in Bad Futures, but how it can be used to support and enhance natural beauty in its Good Futures. In the past you can appreciate the raw beauty of the untapped land, but for your successful trip you can later catch a glimpse of those hints of industrialization interwoven into the new shimmering landscape of clean metal, air, and flora.

I adore this approach more than anything, not just for being a surprisingly nuanced take on tired environmentalist tropes, but for also exploring the idea that just because something has begun to change does not mean that it is scarred or lost. Sometimes what is most important is moving forward with the difference than trying to preserve and idealized past. An interpretation I would likely never have had the motivation to extract from the game if not for how much the soundtrack effected me at a time in my life where I struggled to cope with personal change. The game is such an aesthetic treat with so many ideas explored across itself, it's impossible not to fall in love with it, even if I rarely play it myself.

Legacy and... Should You Play It?

Sonic CD has a very funny reputation in the Sonic fandom, being a black sheep among the darling Classic or Genesis-Era games that is often misunderstood by fans. It got its kudos in Sonic Mania which is what brought it to my attention, and is the unsuspecting home of two series mainstays in Amy Rose and Metal Sonic (my absolute beloved). It (or just Metal Sonic) also inspired the FIRST Sonic movie, the OVA of 1996 which like CD itself is a bit of an aesthetically hedonistic mess, but does sadly tend more towards boring for the uncaptured mind. (Basically, you need prime Sonic brain rot to get the most out of it).

The game's presence is somewhat ghostly, inspiring such icons who exceed its reputation and appear as orphans in their own series. This mystique first drew me towards the game from Mania and my love of Metal Sonic, only to be very disappointed by the initial experience which I found plainly headache-inducing. It wasn't until a very recent revisit right off the heals of the first game that its approach was put into context and I found myself enjoying my time with it more than most of the other classic games! It's a very acquired taste but I think once you immerse yourself in it it is an experience like nothing else between the unique, thoughtful gameplay and the insane attention to detail in sound and visuals.

If you want to play a Sonic game, I wouldn't recommend Sonic CD. But if you want to have a Sonic Experience^TM, Sonic CD is a must play.

Soundtrack
Appreciation

Tidal Tempest suite

As said previously, it's Sonic CD's (JP) Soundtrack which has bound me to it heart and soul for so many years, most of them I spent regarding the game itself as a mess before coming around to it. My love of the music is now mostly in compliment of it as its own journey outside of the game itself, hence deserving its own section.

Tidal Tempest and its multiple mixes are my absolute favorites in the soundtrack because of my particular history with it. It was a song that I listened to obsessively during a specific rough patch in my life, entranced by its dark, dramatic atmosphere. I had never really listened to video game music like it before with its distinctly pop-y complexity; I was a darling of much Nintendo music which often separated more electronic/pop ditties from orchestral arrangements reserved for drama. This made TT's marriage of hip-hop, R&B, and such vibes with this moody atmosphere very novel to me, as well as oddly familiar given my nostalgia for those genres dominance in the soundtrack of my parent's lives. But that dissonance between the novel and familiar as well as the track's oppressive tone began to ensnare itself in my anxiety problems at the time, and over time this gorgeous song that I loved so much became un-listenable.

But what TT would teach me to adore about this soundtrack is the way that each motif is not defined by one singular tone or "future". In the past, the oppressive, swelling bassline of the Present was deconstructed into an almost childish xylophone arpeggio, while other dark but simple sounding instruments kept up that effect to a more digestible extent. It was distinctly the same theme but literally reverted back to a simpler time, one that showed its own vulnerable core in need of protection from the machinations of Dr. Eggman who wished to turn the levels intimidating elegance into a new nightmare. And following in the game's steps, my fascination with TT and its power over me inspired me to break it apart as well and attempt to use my elementary sheet music reading skills to transcribe it, as well as any other song that confused me with the emotions it evoked.

The Bad Future version was probably the first song I actually heard from the soundtrack, but largely divorced from this episode of fascination. It was recommended to me by a close friend who found it similar to a song from Splatoon 2's singleplayer and I always just took it in as a pounding, club-y bop, that well contrasts the elegance of Tidal Tempests' Present. As if Eggman had incorporated this free-flowing natural beauty into a pulsating machine that worked at his pace. And of course, despite everything, that prominent bassline is still there, very powerfully too compared to the hollowed out melody.

But what solidified Tidal Tempest and all of Sonic CD for me as the powerful and self-defining work it is was when I finally heard the Good Future mix many months after my initial fixation and demonization of the theme. I spent a lot of time with my school friends sitting around and just absorbing video games at this time -- playing some, watching playthroughs of others, just enjoying the music and the vibes. And the same friend who had recommended me the Bad Future mix had put on the Good Future mix while we were sitting around alone in their basement, and I was instantly taken aback.

It is a mesmerizing song with these shimmering arpeggios in the background of its melody played on noble brasses and warm flutes, and in the background that bass that was always such a staple to me mixed into a playful hip-hop track. Out of the four iterations of the song this one is absolutely the most radically different, though notably its relaxed tone bears more resemblance to that of the Present and Past more than the hectic Bad Future. The land had come into its own, evolving from this watery basin in the heart of nature's crucible to a beautiful waterworks. That lack of natural fury is very much present in the Good Future's electronic feel, but it still moves at its own pace, not forced to become something it wasn't.

Past Mixes

The rest of the soundtrack I would like to survey over as they do not have as much context to unpack as Tidal Tempest alone, and I think Tidal Tempest works as a nice little anecdote on how I appreciate other zones's and their themes.

The first couple Past mixes from Palmtree Panic up through Quarzt Quadrant have a motif of taking the theme of the zone and putting a uniquely primitive sounding spin on them. For CC and TT, this goes for almost literally childish or caveman-esque sort of vibe I find hard to describe but is hopefully present to the average listener. But PP and QQ instead make things sound primitive in more of a nostalgic oldie-sound, turning the themes into simpler and warmer latin rhythms. This is natural for PP which had been playing with that sound the whole time, though the gorgeous effect it produces for its Past mix is not to be understated, but I find it most interesting with QQ.

Quartz Quadrant's Present theme does not have any uniquely latin elements, yet its Past mix is steeped in that groove -- wistful, playful, and woody. And once again like Tidal Tempest, you have a very commanding bassline which looms in its background and gives those light elements in its melody and harmony a rich, and somewhat dark presence that compliments the somberness that can be found within. It's probably my favorite among the Past mixes for this reason, the emotional complexity it injects into an ironically simpler song than its main version.

But then still there is the back half of the zones, Wacky Workbench through Metallic Madness. If I'm being honest, WW is one of my favorite full suites of mixes, and I think part of that is owed to it being the first of the stages to have a Past mix that is still very electronic or modern while communicating its nostalgia for a simpler time. WW is still the most natural with its transition from an indoor workshop to the beginnings of outdoor construction, but I like the fact that we are also made to sympathize with these scenes which have always been defined by industry, what is natural and beautiful is not just about the woods, it's all about finding harmony with out surroundings.

SS has actually never been a standout to me (I would probably more if I ever made it to play on and face Metal Sonic), but Metallic Madness' suite as a final zone is immaculate even just to the ears. It's Past mix wouldn't seem to stand out against the Present and Bad Future with this iconic raps, but it is always fun to hear these songs stretched to their limits in the old soundfont. The pace being just as high as the Present and Bad Future's creates a great sense of continuity for that final stretch to reach the Good Future...

Good Future Mixes

And speaking of, Metallic Madness Good Future is one of my favorites of the batch for many of the same reasons I found Tidal Tempest Good Future so cathartic. Though I never dealt with that hassle of the final zone as a gameplay obstacle (and therefore made TT the more eminant zone in my mind), I can absolutely appreciate how rewarding and comforting it is as your final send-off for a perfect run.

Good Futures in the back half and including CC and TT, have a very similar sleek and futuristic vibe, but PP and QQ have far warmer tones to me. Quartz Quadrant brings back in so much of the Past's earthy sound with its strings and clarinet, making it sound like a beautiful little lounge between a well-respected natural habitat and a modern but modest industrial hub. Then of course you have PP who's Future mix is almost indistinguishable from its Present theme except for an even more excessive amount of cheering. Which I really don't mind, I think it's fun for the game to be slow in revealing how dramatic the shifts in motifs will be between zones based on player actions. These little thematic narratives start small and grow more complex as the game moves further, adding more stakes and depth to each along the way.

In a way, Palmtree Panic Future is still one of my favorites because of some history with it again. For a couple years, and especially for the year after I first discovered Sonic CD and went on my emotional odyssey with it, I made a tradition of listening to the Good Future mix in full as soon as I got out of school for the summer. It was a small little thing that I shared with my friends to a small extent, but with how much I went through personally between that winter with Sonic CD where I grappled with so much to that summer - managing to keep my school life together through it all, also notably with the help of a pure, raw Sonic hyperfixation - meant the world to me. The music of this game has had an unparalleled therapeutic effect on me.

Related
Things

My personal list of favorite Sonic CD material from the internet, supplemental and fan-made.

Game Related

The Spriter's Resource Page

TSP is a gem for all your 2D game asset needs, alongside its 3D cousin, The Model's Resource. Most of what I got to put this mini-page's look together is either ripped from or inspired by studying what they've pulled from the game over there. It's fun to see this visual masterpiece (and/or clusterfuck) of a game broken down.

Sonic CD Decompilation

Still not exactly sure what a decompilation is... I think it has something to do with having all of the backend code and logic rewritten and made open for anyone to edit, and to avoid copyright trouble they only give you that and makes sure the game can't run without an official copy. So of course remember, you need to own a LEGALLY ATTAINED copy of Sonic CD before you can mess with this if you're a nerd or a modder. I can't do anything with it but maybe one day I'll be able to, Sonic CD is one of my biggest inspirations to make video games.

Soundtrack Related

The Soundtrack on KHInsider

Though I usually prefer the order of Present-Past-Good Future-Bad Future, I wanted to spotlight this independent website I found while purposefully trying to avoid YouTube a while back ^_^

The Sonic CD Grand Beta by Siivagunner

Siivagunner is important to me for many of the same reasons that Sonic CD is, though it is far more on the unserious shitpost side of things than the official game soundtrack of Sonic CD. But both helped me play around and remix the sound and texture of some of my favorite pieces of art at a time when I most needed perspective - earnest or silly - on these things, and for that I am forever grateful.

The album itself is a collection of High Quality Rips^TM which flip the soundfont gimmick of the original soundtrack by arranging the past themes in the CD style, and the Present and Futures in those of the Genesis soundfont. The lush and mystical tracks of the Present and Future (along with a few extras) are condensed into crunchy bangers, while the previously crude Past themes are expanded on with new life. There's even some US soundtrack songs in here, which are honestly the most I've ever listened to them.

Also it used to be hosted on Bandcamp but the Siivagunner page got removed :,(.

Sonic CD Oscilloscope Deconstructions

While first and foremost being just very interesting ways to look at the tech that went into the construction of older program-based songs, there is something super addictive about getting to hear these songs my mind has been turning over for so many years perfectly broken into their individual parts. Even though the CD-Style songs are the most complex, there is so much layering and care put into the samples of the Past themes and it makes it clear why they've always attracted me just as much as their successors.

Despite Tidal Tempest being such a baby of mine - and how much I LOVE its breakdown giving me new appreciation for its baseline - I think this made me appreciate Palmtree Panic more than ever before. Isolating the samba and bossa sound makes it feel so gentle and fuzzy, like a half-remembered standard off an old radio.

And more importantly than any knowledge or comfort these have imparted on me, they have given me material to sing! When I first found these I would hum every piece by itself just for fun to occupy myself the way I've been singing these songs to myself for years. It just repackages the same shit to me as a DIY and I love it.

Alex Yard's Sonic CD Music Theory Series

Video game music theory has always deeply fascinated me, because video game soundtracks have always affected me more than almost any other yet go so underappreciated as an artform. The entire medium does in general, but it is such a niche for those interested to get into the nitty gritty of how these songs are not just constructed but add to the atmosphere. I'm very grateful that Alex Yard does both with a focus specifically on this soundtrack (and others from the Sonic series), the way he playfully visualizes things is perfectly in line with the ways I did as a child and still do today and really validate all the love I hold for these songs.

If there will ever be a body of songs that inspires me to learn music composition, it would probably be Sonic CD's, because I will never get over the power the tracks had over me and how they add so much depth of theme and narrative to an otherwise generic platformer (with its promising gameplay gimmick). And Alex Yard would probably be where I start trying to learn about those trick which most caught my ears.

The Festive Rendition of Collision Chaos in Sonic Mania Adventures Ep. 6

Also a bonus that this episode is just about my two little goobers from this game, the highlight for me was always the soundtrack. I don't know if Collision Chaos was considered Amy's theme often before, but it's very fitting and I love the idea of associating that spunky, pink and orange clusterfuck with her, even if she's only there for a few seconds.

A Palmtree Panic Sample in うずまき by MachineGirl

I said it was MY favorite things, not stuff that's actually worthwhile and relevant to the average Sonic fan. Really love this song and album, and it wouldn't have fully caught my eye if not for this sample. Not even giving you a timestamp, it's a great tonal whip in context of the whole chaotic mix that moves between mind-numbingly harsh noise and these more lo-fi moments.

Art Related

HoppersPoppers Static Sonic CD Skyboxes

Since the backgrounds held on The Spriter's Resource are made for developers and sprite artists, its broken into component parts for animation rather than complete works. I'm not sure how Hoppers put these together (whether they're file rips or reconstructed), but I am thankful for having these in this simple form. Though... some aren't exactly the same without the level geometry complimenting it.

Favorite's are: Collision Chaos Past, Tidal Tempest GF, Quartz Quadrant Past, Metallic Madness Present(s)

AztecWarrior28's Sonic HUD (With Lowercase) Font

Was surprised how hard this was to find since it's so prevelant in the classic games, but I think most of the larger graphics are based on pre-existing fonts while this one was more incidental. Thank you to him for the work. Otherwise I would have had to construct this myself from the good old Spriter's Resource...