Note from Wololo: To run the games mentioned below on your device of choice: If you run the Rejuvenate hack on firmware 3.51 and below, you can download Retroarch and other emulators for your PS Vita on our PS Vita Emulators page. People running ARK or VHBL on their Vita, as well as PSP owners, can get Picodrive on our PS Emulators page. For other devices including PC and Android, check our Emulators page.

Of the three fan hack games I downloaded to try, Classic Heroes was probably the one I had the lowest expectations for. The main draw for this game is actually rather simple since it’s mostly Sonic 1 and 2 with the team mechanic from 2003’s Sonic Heroes game. If you are familiar with this game you should know what to expect; if you don’t I’ll break it down for you: you play simultaneously as Sonic, Tails and Knuckles and have the ability to switch between them to better fit your play style. Simple, yet extremely satisfying. The main difference from Sonic Heroes (besides the fact it’s not 3D) is that the characters you do not control basically function as Tails did in the original Sonic 2. Let me go into a little more detail with all the cool changes present in this fan hack.

The one thing this game excels at is its level of customizability. The menu at the start of the game is a port/enhancement of the menu that was present in Sonic 3 and it is the stuff Sonic fans’ dreams are made of! Here is a small list of the many ways in which you can modify the gameplay to your liking:

• You can choose which level you want to start at/the levels you want to play: because you may not always feel like playing the game from the start, or maybe you feel like picking up from a certain stage. This game makes all of that really easy for you!
• You can choose if you want to go with any one of the three characters or any combination of them: ever felt like using Tails’ flying ability to cheat through Sonic 1? Or maybe you always wanted to explore the outer limits of Marble Zone with Knuckles alone! Fear not, this game has you covered!
• In the case you go with more than one character you can turn off their presence in the Special Stages: this is my favorite feature of the bunch! As a kid it infuriated me that if I wanted to play with Sonic and Tails in Sonic 2, but doing so would make catching all the Emeralds exponentially harder. So now I can actually play with three character and have only one go to the special stages!

Now on the meat of the game, the gameplay changes: you will notice that the A button on the Genesis controller switch between the characters, while B and C do the normal jump/double jump combo. Another thing you will notice is that characters share all the power-ups, but do not share any of the hits: catching a flame shield all three characters will share it, but if one gets hit and loses it only he loses it. If you play smart enough, you quite literally have three shields to play with! Speaking of the flame shield, I think this is a good time to explain what my main gripe with this game is. Since the game is really well made, some things can feel broken: like having the flame shield in the Marble Zone, in which the main hazard is fire. It can make some things really easy. A gameplay change that was ported from Sonic 3/Sonic and Knuckles is that each character has a jump and a secondary ability: Sonic can jump and use shield powers, Knuckles can use his glide ability and Tails can fly (this includes carrying Sonic and Knuckles at the same time, though this will tire him faster).

Something else that fans of later Sonic games should be pretty happy about that I didn’t really care for all too much is that if you don’t feel like playing the usual array of heroes, you can actually play with Team Chaotix: Espio the Chameleon, Vector the Crocodile, and Charmy the Bee. Their play style is reminiscent of the lesser known, lesser loved and lesser play Knuckles Chaotix game for the Sega 32X (something that the Genesis Plus GX port of RetroArch still can’t run, unfortunately).

That aside, it’s pretty much the same old Sonic and Sonic 2 that you know of: no cut content was restore like in Sonic 2, Long Version. Another thing you may notice is that you have access to both the special stages from both games and there is a purpose to it: I can’t stress how important this is but get the 14 Emeralds! Something really cool awaits you should you actually get all of them. Another thing that most people will be glad to hear is that Sonic’s double jump from the later Genesis games was also ported over along with the Sonic sprite: this means that you will no longer trigger the Super Sonic transformation simply by jumping when you’re just going about your business.

Only one more thing is worth noting in this game and it’s the amazingly cool transition the two hackers behind this game did: the transition between the end of Sonic 1 and the start of Sonic 2. Not only is it something created totally from the ground up for this game, but it adds just a little bit of flavor to the story of this game and makes the transition between the two games make a little bit more sense. I always thought it was weird that Sonic 2 did not do the same thing as Sonic 3 and start the game with a small build-up explaining how we transitioned from the first game into the second, though I guess the manual took care of that.

If you asked em to point out the one thing that disappointed me with this game, it is that the hackers did not find a way to program-in a better co-op mode that would allow me to play this game with other people. It would have been a blast! However even taking that into consideration, when everything is said and done, I can’t recommend Sonic Classic Heroes enough: although I know both Sonic games by heart, being able to play with three characters at the same time and changing the way a played to fit my mood each time was amazingly fun. It was almost like playing again for the first time! If you want to download this game just head on here for the download of the latest version!

Next time I will speak about the last of the three fanhacks I’ve been toying with: Sonic Zeta Overdrive, an wholly original game from the ground up, so expect something maybe more akin of a rewiew than what the last two articles have been. Until then friends, keep those Vitas rolling and play on!

(Warning: If you experience any sort of lock-ups or freezes – consistent ones, randoms may happen but are extremely unlikely – in your game I advise you to go into your RetroArch core settings and turn off “System Lockups” and “68k address error” – or whatever is the closest to that one your Genesis emulator)