Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Usually, sequels are pretty 50/50 in terms of whether or not they may outshine their predecessor. Though, after the success of Sonic 1, it was as clear as day as to what to do to make the sequel a big improvement: make Sonic...well, Sonic. The first game, while still a very good introduction and a very good 2D platformer, did an admittedly poor job at balancing speed and great level design, as there was not a lot of speed in it. Aside from a few stages, it felt as if it could've been any 2D platformer. Thankfully, this game solves that basically perfectly.

This is possibly the most well balanced Sonic game ever made, and, because of this, makes for one hell of a leap forward in the series, and while it's not quite my all time personal favorite, there's damn good reason as to why it is for many. The levels have that balance that raises the bar for Sonic levels forever, as they're both fast and fun (with the only exception being Metropolis Zone-still a good, albeit rage-inducing level), the controls are perfect and the introduction of the spin dash would prove to be essential in every game moving forward, the boss battles, while simple, are fun to take down, the music is bumpin' and just fantastic, the visuals are detailed, colorful, and full of life, and the introduction of Tails is awesome. This smart and adorable 2-tailed fox may have been originally been in here for multiplayer, but he'd end up being one of the best characters in the series, and one of my favorites.

All of this makes for a damn near perfect game, and honestly, I wouldn't blame you if you thought so. The only thing I have a major gripe with is the difficulty spike of the 3D half pipe special stages. While they're very impressive (especially for it's time) as well as fun to play through, they get very hard to fully get a grasp on without multiple play throughs of each. I'm at least happy there's an ability to try again with each checkpoint when you have 50 rings (which is better than hoping you have enough when you beat a stage), but the kicker is that you lose them when you lose a special stage (which is guaranteed to happen a few times), so even that is difficult in some cases. I feel like this makes the completion process a bit unfair, because the game can get difficult on its own, which is not a bad thing, of course, but keeping 50 rings on you at all times, especially during a hard level, is difficult without mastering each level with multiple full game play throughs.

However, the reward for collecting the chaos emeralds via completing each of them is pretty damn awesome (won't say it just in case anyone hasn't played the game-which if you haven't, please fix that). Also, to be fair, despite how I feel with how the special stages were handled, the game is so close to perfection otherwise, that mastering the game anyway from many replays is inevitable, because everything else about it not only improves upon everything from the original, but also makes Sonic live up to his name. It's not just fun and well designed. It's Sonic. The first game may have introduced the Blue Blur, but this game perfects him.