I can’t tell you how many hours I spent battling my way through Sonic The Hedgehog 2 on the Sega Genesis as a kid. That game meant more to me than anything else in the world at the time. I was little and didn’t really understand video games too well, so when I made it to the last level, I couldn’t kill Dr. Eggman because I hadn’t grabbed all of the Chaos Emeralds to activate Super Sonic—little did I know there was a cheat code for that. So I’ve taken the time to rank the zones in Sonic The Hedgehog 2 that made me rage the most, and still make me rage today.
3. Wing Fortress
Sky Chase was the precursor to the level, Wing Fortress, and they were both air-based. This meant there were plenty of opportunities to fall—and I mean plenty. But maybe the most annoying part about this level is when I first played it, I kept getting lost. I couldn’t find my way around the damn map and I would run into a dead end and have to backtrack and find another way around. It took me awhile, between falling off of ledges, to find my way to the end of the level. It was just flat out irritating.
2. Casino Night
How can Casino Night not be on this list? The level itself is a fantastic and memorable piece of the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise, and probably one of the most creative in Sonic The Hedgehog 2. It wouldn’t be the same game without Casino Night. But for me, it definitely had a very annoying aspect in the gameplay that drove me absolutely nuts. At certain points in Casino Night, you can jump up into a lottery spinner that will either grant you a certain number of rings or spikes that will take away rings. But when you’re done with the slot and jump down, you’re caught in an odd space. You can try to crouch down and speed out of the small space, but then you hit a certain number of bumpers that bounce you back into the small space. It takes me a number of tries to bounce Sonic just right to get him out of the space. It’s absolutely terrible.
1. Chemical Plant
Chemical Plant tops my list of most annoying Sonic The Hedgehog 2 zones for one solid reason: the water portion of this level is ridiculous. While it only makes up a small part of the level, it shows no mercy. At one point during the level, you come to a set of moving platforms and as you are climbing, water begins to fill the area, but you can easily bounce right out of the danger zone. But then, the next part gets tricky—and annoying. There’s a moving platform that’s moving across a large body of water and it only touches the platform you are on for a split second. And if you don’t jump correctly onto the quick moving platform or slide onto it at the right time, you’ll fall into the water where you have to scurry back up the moving platforms and risk drowning. It’s absolutely the worst and most annoying part of Sonic The Hedgehog 2—I still have nightmares about it.
So while Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is a game I love to sit down and play for a bit, just like any other game from that time, it has a number of annoying bits that are very hard to swallow.
