Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Special Edition

If madness were a video game, this would be its title screen.
"Can God create a game so bizarre, that even He could not play it? Y/N" [1]
—Mystic Cave Zone Boss

Some people remember the only Sonic game to appear on Sega's 32X console. Far fewer remember this Sonic game that almost appeared on the doomed console.

Sonic 2: Special Edition was originally conceived as an Updated Rerelease of the extremely successful Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but this was complicated when Sonic Team decided to take advantage of the capabilities of the 32X by adding a ton of new content, to the degree that many of the later levels bore only a passing resemblance to those in the original game. By 1996, the game was a few months away from its release date, and the ballooning project had barely avoided collapsing under its own weight — then Sega's decision to cease supporting the 32X caused the project to be canned altogether. The legend of this game persisted for years afterwards, as copies of the beta (and a rumored handful of finished games, manufactured but never sold) were highly sought after by hardcore collectors, but none ever turned up...

Then in 2007, on the Something Awful forum, docfuture (aka Robotnik DDS) revealed that he had a copy of Sonic 2: Special Edition, given to him as a present by his uncle (a Nintendo employee who pulled a few strings to get the game...or maybe he just bought it from Chinese bootleggers — it's not clear). Further, he decided to start a Let's Play thread to share this weird piece of Sonic history with the entire world.

From watching the LP, it's clear that had Sonic 2: Special Edition been released it would've been the greatest game ever made. While rough at some points, it is clear that if development continued, it would have been a classic that would have influenced games to this day.

docfuture's LP can be watched here on the Let's Play Archive, or here on the Internet Archive.

What's that? You doubt that this game actually exists? Oh, so you're the one responsible for the shoddy graphics...[2]

Tropes used in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Special Edition include:
  • All Just a Dream: Several people are shown waking up at the end of some cutscenes, although the game continues as "normal" from there.
  • All There in the Manual: Here.
  • And I Must Scream: Failure Cresh, a man with a monitor for a head, lives on even when his head is cut off.
  • Anticlimax Boss / Zero Effort Boss: Sonic 2's original endgame is nerfed for some reason. The Wing Fortress boss is the same, but you fight it as Super Sonic. In Death Egg Zone, Silver Sonic doesn't fight at all, and just directs you to the location of the final boss...who goes down after a single hit.
  • Anti-Poopsocking:

Tails: Protip — Why don't you go out and meet some girls instead of staying shut in all day?

Tails: ...Because if you fuck with Sega, then Sega fucks with you.

Tails: GET OUT OF THIS THREAD WHILE YOU STILL CAN.

  • Captain Obvious: The in-game hint messages contain very important information. Such as "To collect rings, simply touch them," or "Each directional pad button corresponds with movement for your character."
  • Chekhov's Gunman: The Mystic Caves boss, who shows up near the end of the game to release Tails from his brainwashing.
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe / Your Mind Makes It Real: The game itself begins to degrade if there aren't enough people who believe in it. This even is accompanied by an excerpt from Peter Pan.

docfuture: Okay guys, well, truthfully that was pretty fucking weak. I should have really told you guys — this game runs on a belief-based engine. And apparently not enough of you watching this video actually believe that this game could exist.

Knuckles: I won't let you have the unlimited power of the Stamford branch!
Robotnik: There's only one way to settle this!
Knuckles: DANCE-OFF!
Super Sonic Dance Attack!

  • Covert Pervert: Knuckles' apparent lust for Amy Rose's booty.
  • Cryptic Conversation: Robotnik and Silver Sonic hold a conversation midway through Chemicals Zone Act 2. Although the music drowns some of its volume out, they were actually just speaking backwards and saying inane things.
  • Dummied Out / Easter Egg:

Anonymous Sonic Team Member: We added a sh*tload of secrets into this thing. Seriously. You thought Hidden Palace was bad? This thing is gonna be like g*ddamn JFK.

Mystic Cave Zone Boss: You may have received messages about the universe being destroyed or some nonsense. These are lies of a bored child. They are meant to amuse you.

"Sometimes I wonder if it's possible for a black man to have a fetish for black chicks."

Commercial announcer: With the most playable characters of any videogame created throughout the history of mankind!

docfuture: For some reason, this game is really big on metacommentary.

  • Mind Screw: The whole game is so illogical that "the last piece of logic" is literally the final boss.
  • Military Mashup Machine: The boss of the Mystic Cave This Thing Zone is a robot. His head is M. Bison Balrog the Boxer, his hands are Amy Rose and the Vectorman box art, and he attacks by asking you questions.
  • Mission Control Is Tripping Balls
  • Mister Seahorse: Maybe. In the end, Sonic and Tails are married with five daughters. It's not explained whether this tropes is in effect, or if they just adopted.
  • Mood Whiplash: The viewer witnesses the death of Failure Cresh, a man they've spent the last five minutes getting to know rather well... and then the LP continues right along as if nothing ever happened.
  • More Than Mind Control: Your mistreatment of Tails causes him to resent you, then unexplained brainwashing turns this resentment into outright attempts on your life.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Nonstandard Game Over: Just try to kill Silver Sonic in Hill Top Zone.
  • Robosexual:

Tails: Protip — Memorize Silver Sonic's attack patterns, because he is one sexy robot.

Anonymous Sonic Team Member: Problem is, we had like 500,000 yen left over. So we decided to add in these cool 3D effects for no reason at all.

  • Shout-Out: The level select code in this game is 4-8-15-16-23-42. Entering it lets you go to stages with names such as Chemical X and Gotham City.
    • The code to unlock Sonic 1: Special Edition is 8-6-7-5-3-0-9.
  • Show Within a Show: Multiple layers, to the extent that it becomes impossible to tell what within the game is "real" and what's "fictional".
  • The Stinger: If you beat Sonic 1: Special Edition without collecting all the Chaos Emeralds, then after the credits roll, there's a shot of Robotnik juggling the Chaos Emeralds over text reading TUPAC LIVES
  • Stop Helping Me!: Hint Mode. The tips are useless, frequently distorted, and, according to docfuture, written in Chinese.
  • Take a Third Option: The proper answer to the Mystic Cave Zone boss' question is neither yes nor no, but "It depends on whether you need to specifically believe in a classical Judeo-Christian ideal of omnipotence for this corny paradox to even work. Don't waste my time with this Philosophy 101 crap."
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: Normal Sonic-style platforming, Chaotix-style two-character platforming, Beat'Em Up action, logic puzzles, Marble Madness, Fighting Game-style special stages, a side-scrolling Shoot'Em Up finale, and even dance competitions.
  • Updated Rerelease
  • Video Game Cruelty Punishment: See Artificial Brilliance and Breaking the Fourth Wall, above. If you mistreat Tails (by, say, abandoning him in Casino Night Zone), his "hints" are replaced by passive-aggressive mockery, and he eventually tries to kill you in Wing Fortress Zone.
  • We Can Rebuild Him: In the Casino Night Zone opening cutscene, Amy is accidentally killed, so Knuckles and Tails have her cloned back to life, and older to boot...which handily explains her change in appearance between Sonic CD and Sonic Adventure.
  • What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: This game wasn't made on drugs — this game was made of drugs.

docfuture: Seriously, when you think about what's going on here, it's like a hedgehog running around an oil refinery, fighting robots. Pretty damn crazy. And you gotta wonder sometimes, where does the crazy start and stop?

  • What Measure Is A Mook Power-Up: Poor 10-Ring monitor Failure Cresh.
  • Where Are They Now? Epilogue: Modeled after the one from Animal House.
    • Knuckles the Echidna became a professional beekeeper.
    • Mikhail Gorbachev became the mascot of Fruity Pebbles.
    • Silver Sonic is a judge with attitude who don't take no crap.
    • Melissa Joan Hart became the first woman to walk on the moon.
    • Disney's Aladdin is currently serving time in Guantanamo Bay.
    • Dr. Robotnik is so fat that he stepped on a rainbow and made Skittles.
    • Amy Rose built the world's first solar-powered buffalo.
    • Sonic and Tails are married with five daughters.
    • Ray the Squirrel holds the world record for least employed squirrel.
    • Failure Cresh was reincarnated as John Belushi.

docfuture's Let's Play provides examples of

  • Affectionate Parody: Both of the entire Sonic franchise, and of the Let's Play phenomenon.
  • Alternate Universe: "I'm still quite high from that Firefly season opener, man. Season 5, it's gonna be the last one."
  • Back to Front: The Metropolis Zone video is chopped into segments and in reverse order, Memento-style, for no reason whatsoever.
  • Bilingual Bonus (possibly): The first half-minute or so of the Mystic Cave video is done in Spanish, and the title and description are also written in Spanish in order to sell it.
  • Bowdlerise: Sort of? The rap song that plays during the Clap Your Hands If You Believe segment has a few completely uncensored profanities, but the subtitles during the song employ some very Unusual Euphemisms.
  • Game Breaker: Docfuture complains that Knuckles is cheap, and that his ability to glide, climb walls, jump high enough to bypass large portions of the levels, and call in artillery support against the bosses, makes the game too easy.
  • Kissing Cousins: Implied. During the Aquatic Ruin Zone video, when docfuture starts reminiscing about the time he and his cousin played the game together. He says it was very hot in the room and she was wearing overalls. She leaned toward him, then docfuture's story gets cut short when Sonic starts drowning.
  • MST3K Mantra:

docfuture: Weren't you just up in the air a bit ago?
Tails: You're thinking too hard, that's your problem.

  • Once Per Episode: Every gameplay video starts with a prayer, which may or may not be spoken by docfuture. Except for the Metropolis Zone video, which instead ends with a prayer.
  • Orphaned Punchline: "...so he says to his wife, 'What's with all the dollar bills?' and she says, 'Not everyone's as cheap as you are.'"
  • Perverse Sexual Lust: Discussed by docfuture and Tails, who suspect this of Robotnik.

docfuture: Why would you put a living turtle inside a robotic turtle, riding another turtle?

Tails: Maybe he always had a crush on April O'Neil.

docfuture: I know this game was half made by Sega, half made by weird bootleggers, but these days, Sega pretty much is a Fanfic company anyway.

docfuture: (referring to Silver Sonic) Uncle Chuck- (GAME OVER) What the-?!

  • The Stinger: "Hey! I just noticed! I'm a girl!"
  • Thing-O-Meter: While calling upon his viewers to clap their hands and will the game back into existence, he uses a Clap-o-Meter to measure how much they're clapping.
  • Unreliable Narrator: At times, what docfuture is saying doesn't match up with what's happening on screen.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Your first clue that this whole thing's a joke is the way docfuture treats the random changes in gameplay or graphics like they're perfectly normal, in some cases not even commenting on them at all.
    • Near the end, even he gets tired of it. But then he accepts the wisdom of Evil Crazy Tails and decides that it isn't worth worrying about.
  1. ↑ It depends on whether you need to specifically believe in a classical Judeo-Christian ideal of omnipotence for this corny paradox to even work. Don't waste my time with this Philosophy 101 crap.
  2. ↑ Okay, in all seriousness, Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Special Edition does not exist (and never has). docfuture's LP is a Stealth Parody, and this article is playing along with the joke.
  3. ↑ (aside from misspelling the zone name at the start of act 2, using music from OverClocked Remix and Machinae Supremacy, and a brief Non Sequitur Scene as Sonic approaches the boss...oh, and the opening screen has the game copyright 1991, the year the first Sonic game came out)
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