The Rebirth of Sonic 2 Turbo

Happy 20th Birthday Sonic!

So, with the 20th Anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog, I've decided to start back on a ROM hack of Sonic 2 that I once called Sonic 2 BOOST, but have since renamed Sonic 2 Turbo.

Why Turbo and not BOOST?

Well, there's no BOOST button. Sonic's is just naturally moving faster than he did in the original game.

Why are you not releasing this today? On, you know, Sonic's 20th Anniversary?

Now technically, I could literally fix the speed and release the hack just like that today. But instead, I'm going to do some additional work on it. While the levels are going to be the same, there are plenty of the spots in game where if you go too fast, you'll get stuck, so I'll have to prevent stuff like that. There are also plenty of other issues with the game that need to be addressed, so I'll try to address them before releasing this.

Why are you hacking Sonic 2 and not Sonic 1?

1) Because I am more familiar with Sonic 2 than Sonic 1, and 2) because Sonic 2 is what made me a Sonic fan. I truly believe that if I somehow played Sonic 1 first, I might not be the fan of the series that I am today.

So yeah. Sonic 2. Let me celebrate as such.

Why are you hacking Sonic 2 and not Sonic 3 (& Knuckles)?


A valid question... first off, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is much harder to hack, and most of the issues that are involved in trying to hack Sonic 2 with the extra speed are in Sonic 3 & Knuckles 10-fold because of it's difficult-ness to hack. Additionally, I tried to turbo that game up, and it's very trippy, but I might release the work that I managed to do on that as a bonus... just because.

I heard you already completed a Sonic hack...


Oh, you mean Sonic 2: East Side Island? Sure did. This was a hack that I literally wanted to do since 2006, and I finally completed it last year for the Sonic Retro Hacking Contest. (that links to this year contest, which I'm not entering... I'm not finishing Sonic 2 Turbo in a month... at least I don't think I will... still, I'll use this blog to cover it for those who are interested.) That hack is pretty difficult, and for all different types of reasons depending on the level. It's playable and it's beatable... but at what cost?

And on that note, I simply wanna wish Sonic a Happy 20th Birthday! Dude's pretty cool.

I should probably get something off my chest in the next blog about Sonic Generations though...