One of the most elusive games in the entire Sonic the Hedgehog back catalogue is the arcade game, Segasonic the Hedgehog and we’ve always been denied the chance to play. Of course, The Mobian is always slow on the uptake and we’ve finally learned where to get a good copy of it and we’ve played it! Time to review a game previously unavailable on any home console.

Sonic Arcade (as most people know it and I’ll refer to it) is unlike any other Sonic game in the whole franchise. Played with a trackball, the idea is not to rescue your friends or to halt one of Robotnik’s evil master plans, but just to get the heck out of his trap-ridden base before you die. There’s barely time to breathe as you spend every second running from an ever-moving wall of death advancing on you, whilst dodging traps springing up through the floor and from walls. Whilst this doesn’t sound that hard, the trackball would make controls extremely hard and when this is emulated on a computer, the problems are greatly magnified. It’s almost impossible to run in a straight line and there’s no sensitivity in the keys. There’s only one speed – fast.

So, the story. For once, Robotnik is trying to get Sonic the Hedgehog out of the way once and for all and he actually manages to capture him for the first time. For some reason, he also captures Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Squirrel who’re enjoying a nice run alongside Sonic. So you start as one of these three heroes, locked in a cage, and begin to you’re your way to the rather sneaky ‘Eggman’ (this was only released in Japan, hence Robotnik’s goofy name). There’s barely anything to decide between which of the three to play as; I actually thought Mighty was marginally faster than Sonic but I may be wrong. It’s just a matter of preference really. On the version I played, you can play with a friend for massive multiplayer fun (!) but in the actual arcade version, up to three people can escape from Eggman together.

The game is played on an isometric landscape, much like Sonic 3D Flickies Island/Blast. Not running straight forward is a bit of a problem with trackball/computer D-pad as Sonic or his friends just won’t go where you tell him. When you finally get them in a straight line, a slight turn will send them flying off the nearest cliff, with an admittedly good animation. It’s still easy to praise the look of it, though. Sonic looks the best he has in any game yet and the overall look is reminiscent of several other arcade games of the time.

Two bigger niggles; there’s a section on the level ‘Wild Water Way’ where you have to navigate your way across a river by means of planks of wood. The control system means you will constantly go flying off into the water and there’s no recovery system. Lack of sensitivity means you will always go too fast. If you touch the walls, you’ll go bouncing off into the water. The only thing that saved me from using over 9 credits was the fact you eventually move up the river every time you revive. The other is the end. I won’t spoil it but it’s very unlikely you’ll avoid a Game Over at the end. Just leg it. You’ll see what I mean.

In all, Segasonic doesn’t take too long to complete. You should be able to get through a game in under half an hour because you’ll be running hell for leather through the entire game. It’d have been nice if this game could have got on the Sonic Gems Collection but when you use the controls, it’s easy to understand why they weren’t able to emulate it. It’s definitely a fun game (since you don’t have to put more coins in every time you die) so it’s worth getting the MAME emulator and finding the game, even if it’s just to get a go at one of Sonic’s least known adventures.

Graphics – 8. Great for the time and the traps are so well put together.

Sound – 4. The tiny amount of digitised speech really gets annoying before too long.

Replayability – 6. I keep wanting to go back and have another game just to finish it but I don’t want to get to ‘Wild Water Way’… It’s definitely a fast and fun game, though.

Gameplay – 5. Definitely a novel idea but I wouldn’t want to play another game on a trackball.

Difficulty – 9. I’m glad I didn’t get to play it at the arcades. I’d be quickly out of yen.