The Neo Geo Pocket, then later the Neo Geo Pocket Color, was a pretty cool little system. Given that it was a handheld by SNK, it would be a given that the NGPC would be home to a lot of fighting games. Despite being a portable system with only two buttons on it, they were fucking awesome, and sometimes better than the full-fledged arcade games SNK would be putting out. But the thing wasn’t just a home for fighters, as there were a number of RPGs on the system as well. SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters Clash, Faselei!, and the awesomely titled Dark Arms- Beast Buster 1999 were a few notable RPGs.
So naturally I’m going to forego covering any of these to instead focus on the fact that the NGPC got a Sonic game.
This game is pretty cool. SNK took Sonic 2, then proceeded to make numerous changes to it to make it barely resemble Sonic 2. So while it looks like a portable version of Sonic 2 on the Sega Mega Drive, and the first couple of levels feel a lot similar, Pocket Adventure does diverge pretty quickly and become its own game. For the most part, the redesigned levels are pretty good. I admit I was pretty worried about that. See, Sonic Pocket Adventure was developed by SNK, but several members of the team would soon leave to form their own company: Dimps. Probably due to their work on this game, Dimps were handed the task of making several Sonic games for quite a long time. Now, Dimps can make some great games, like Street Fighter IV, but their Sonic stuff fucking sucked. This was the era of bottomless pits every two seconds just out of frame so you have no time to prepare for it. The era of speed boosts everywhere, propelling you forward through the levels, usually directly into those pits. No time to actually enjoy the levels, you have to go faster and faster! Fuck you, here’s a boost that propels you forward with no way to slow down! Here’s a spring to jump on that sends you directly into a flying enemy you couldn’t see! Dimps did not make good Sonic games, except for maybe the first Sonic Advance. That one was fine. But fuck me, Dimps and Sonic Team were putting Sonic and Sonic fans through the fucking dark ages around this time. At least this game is good, with only a slight amount of Dimps-related bullshit. I just needed to complain about a really shitty period for an otherwise great series of games. All it did was give every xenophobic dickhead either on YouTube or one of the many publications I don’t read out of principle an excuse to shit talk my boy Sonic.
So this game rules. There’s not much to say about it, as it’s pretty short; the developers took the phrase “Pocket Adventure” literally and simply made a small Sonic game that ends before Dimps could really cut loose at my expense.
HOWEVER
There is one thing I am going to complain about. The kind of thing that matters to any autistic Sonic fan (so probably all Sonic fans): the physics. I’ve written at least twice about how important Sonic’s movement, handling, and momentum are. There’s a very specific process to Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s not like a Mario game, where Mario can handle differently so as to complement the level design. Sonic levels are the opposite, designed around Sonic himself. Making a Sonic game, let alone a good one, is one of the hardest things you can do in game development.
Sonic rolling into a ball in order to build up speed in a half-pipe is the classic example of physics in a Sonic game. You realize pretty quickly that this is the only way out of this pipe, as running left, then running right, does not build up the speed the same way rolling does. That is not the case here. In fact, it is the opposite. Rolling is actually pretty useless outside of attacking enemies, as it doesn’t really build up any speed or momentum. I missed a number of Sweet Jumps because I just couldn’t figure out how to move properly. Having to ignore a lifetime of muscle memory is pretty fucking annoying. I don’t think most people will care about this aspect of the game, and not let it get in the way of pressing buttons and looking at how cute the Sonic sprite is, but I needed to bring it up regardless.
Oh, right, this game looks great! The NGPC was a system with some tremendous sprite work, and Sonic is no exception. Everything is smaller, and therefore cuter, than their console equivalents. I feel like any portable version of a console game should follow that example, especially if they have animal mascots in them. Sonic 1 and 2 on the Game Gear also did this, and the cutesy graphics were better than their Master System equivalents, and made me like those ports more, even if there was a loss in screen resolution that affected those games. It didn’t matter! Those games looked nice! This game looks nice, too! It’s small, it’s cute, it’s adorable, and it’s pretty damn fun, being only mildly annoying at worst. Sonic Pocket Adventure was one of the last Sonic games before things went down the fucking toilet, and it’s a good way to end that era of Sonic, and a great way to end the millennium.
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