Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble Review
1994 was a prolific year for Sonic. It was the midst of a time in which Sega was almost if not equally as ingrained in popular culture as the big N, and as the console wars grew in size, so did the games themselves. For every Star Fox, Sega had a Virtua Racing to combat it. For every Final Fantasy, Sega had a Shining Force, for every Donkey Kong Country, a Vectorman, and for every Mortal Kombat, Sega had… also Mortal Kombat! (but with properly colored blood!) This isn’t to mention that 1994 would also mark the release of both Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles, which, while both system-selling juggernauts in their own right, combine to form what’s widely regarded as the best 2D Sonic game to date, Sonic 3 and Knuckles.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Sonic Triple Trouble, a Game Gear-exclusive companion release to S3&K which has more or less faded into obscurity, even amongst fans of the franchise. While it’s not perfect, Triple Trouble delivers a perfectly serviceable, if not underrated Sonic experience that deserves a second look from fans both old and new.
The seventh entry in the long-heralded Sonic the Hedgehog video game epic, Triple Trouble represents a dark and deeply provocative paradigm shift for the series’s lore. This game will make you question everything you once knew about the franchise, including, but not limited to: “Is this small blue man actually the fastest thing alive when the obese mustachioed man is able to outrun him?”, “How did Knuckles believe Robotnik’s lies THREE TIMES?”, and “Wait, how many chaos emeralds are there again?” That is to say, there is no paradigm shift. Save for a few nuggets of info sprinkled into the game’s very brief cutscenes, this entry fails to offer much in the story department, but that’s perfectly acceptable for a game gear game. All the player really needs to know is “Sonic good, Robotnik bad. Now go fast!”
Aside from Robotnik, Sonic does actually face a varied slue of foes throughout the game, the most notable of which being the aforementioned Knuckles, who, despite the events of S3&K, is still tricked by Robotnik into believing that Sonic is the true chaos emerald thief, and treasure hunter Nack the Weasel, a newcomer to the emerald race purely motivated by financial gain. Knuckles plays a similar role to the genesis games, seldom appearing at the end of levels to activate traps and arm badniks, while Nack appears almost exclusively in the special stages which now come in the form of 2D platforming challenges and sometimes 3D flying sections. They’re definitely some of the better-designed special stages up to this point, as they’re quite possible to finish on the first attempt, but still provide enough challenge to leave you on the edge of your seat.
The bulk of the game revolves around the linear momentum-based platforming Sonic is known for, which like the story, is incredibly run-of-the-mill. Playing as either Sonic or Tails, you dash through six zones with three acts each, the last of which featuring a boss battle. Like the Genesis games, each zone is complete with branching paths, powerups, and a wealth of secrets to find.
They’re quite easy to navigate in part due to the game’s controls being nicely optimized for the game gear’s more limited hardware, though the same can’t be said for the level design as a whole. The game starts out incredibly promising with Green Hill *cough* I mean Great Turquoise Zone’s signature springs, loops and speed boosts, and the next few zones continue to be just as solid. However, things start to take a turn for the worse at the game’s halfway point, where in order to add to the difficulty curve, the levels begin to feature elements Sonic is almost universally better off without.
All the common offenders, from unfairly placed enemies and bottomless pits to the 8-bit game’s strange insistence on tube mazes are present, and while it’s far from the worst it’s been on Game Gear, it was still disappointing to see considering the promise of the first few zones.
The final zone left behind a particularly bad impression, as I found myself lost in a tube maze for so long that I actually had to consult a youtube guide in order to complete my first playthrough. For a franchise all about speed, Sonic’s early devs sure had a strange affinity for grinding the games’ pacing to below even Mario speeds.
The bosses weren’t exactly one of the game’s strengths, either. While the designs were all quite inviting (or as inviting as a bomb-spitting mecha-penguin can be, anyway), the actual fights left a lot to be desired. The difficulty ranged from comically easy to infuriatingly difficult with very little in-between, and the fights that were in the latter group were only difficult due to either luck or other cheap design choices.
For example, the second zone boss’s tactics begin with an autoscrolling section that’s just long enough to numb the brain before startling the player with cannon shots so fast that first-timers will more than likely lose a few lives without even knowing what they’re supposed to hit! Fortunately, the bosses aren’t always designed like this, but fights like it and the Meta Junglira Zone boss were certainly low points of the adventure.
On the flip side, Triple Trouble offers bar-none the most charming presentation I’ve seen on Sega’s chunky Gameboy competitor. The game makes the absolute most of the fact that it’s a Game Gear exclusive as opposed to a port from Sega’s then-eight-year-old Master System, resulting in much more vibrant colors all around than its predecessor Sonic Chaos, as well as level and sprite designs which are much more well-tailored to the Game Gear’s low screen resolution. Sure, the viewing area is smaller than the Master System entries, but since the level design is mostly crafted with this in mind, it only proves beneficial to the experience.
Everything from the character and enemy sprites to the level assets is filled to the brim with detail and really helps give the Game Gear the identity it desperately needed to stand out against Nintendo’s soon-to-be money-printing Pokemon machine.
The soundtrack, while not as striking as the visuals, is also decent. My impression is that the composer looked to capture the mood of each zone’s environment with a more film-like soundtrack, but the Game Gear’s archaic bloops and beeps simply couldn’t do it justice. Great Turquoise Zone’s track, for instance, makes use of static, nonfunctional harmony and a melody built over an ascending hemiola which should build up feelings of anticipation for the grandiosity of the journey that’s to follow (think “Welcome to Jurassic Park” but Sonic), but instead falls flat as another grating, forgettable Game Gear track. A more catchy, pop-influenced soundtrack a la the first 8-bit Sonic the Hedgehog would have been more appropriate to continue the trend of working within the hardware’s limitations.
Upon bashing Robotnik into the void of space, it may seem that the game has little else to offer than a fairly average, 2D Sonic experience, but players who put the game down after this would be ignoring perhaps the game’s greatest strength: replayability.
This isn’t to say the game is exactly overflowing with unlockable content– far from it, in fact. Rather, like most action platformers of this era, Triple Trouble can easily be beaten in around an hour. This makes the game not only perfect for the notoriously battery-hungry Game Gear (or in my case the 3DS), but also for running through ad nauseam to see if you can beat that boss just a little bit faster or collect just one more chaos emerald than last time. Sometimes a run-through with Tails’ flight abilities can lead to discovering new routes, songs become catchier when you hear them more, and tube mazes are no longer a problem when you know which way to go!
In fact, showing those tubes who’s boss was probably the single most rewarding part of the game for me, and will most likely boost my final rating by a point all by itself. Essentially, while it doesn’t erase the flaws the game does contain, replaying does boost its merit tremendously, particularly above most of the other 8-bit titles, which can be far less forgiving in nature.
The Takeaway
Sonic Triple Trouble provides a solid 2D experience for fans of the Genesis titles looking for something a bit different from what they’re used to. It’s the most polished entry of the Sonic Game Gear lineup, and while it stays mostly safe in its design, it adds enough new ideas to establish an identity all on its own. It isn’t without its low points, but many can be easily glossed over with multiple playthroughs.
★★★★★★★
