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Tag: Sonic the Hedgehog 3

  • Here’s Some Stuff I Bought: All of 2024 (and half of 2025) edition.

    Here’s Some Stuff I Bought: All of 2024 (and half of 2025) edition.

    So back in October 2024, after covering the stuff I got at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, I had teased I was gonna write a “Some Stuff I Bought” at the end of the year to cover the stuff I got outside of that con. But then I forgot to. With good reason, though.

    Since it is the middle of 2025, and I have bought more things since. So let’s do a bit of catch-up, shall we?

    For the uninitiated: I check thrift stores and other shops of interest for things I think that are neat: Music CDs, video games, DVDs/Blu-rays of movies, that kind of thing. Inspired by places like LGR Thrifts, Oddity Archive’s Archive Thrifting and other similar online content creators, I often do this type of article 2-3 times a year: One around June-July, One in December, and then any separate ones for any conventions I go to – which has been only the Portland Retro Gaming Expo so far, but I won’t rule out opportunities to check out other cons in the future if time and budget allows for it.

    I will be honest with you. My mental health wasn’t in the best of places last year. Current events notwithstanding, it was just really really tough for me to get the motivation to go places and do things that I find enjoyment in doing. I was able to get a bit of thrifting done, just with very, very wide gaps between each thrifting.

    Such as my first trip in March 2024. A small pilgrimage to one of the local Goodwill stores got me these small, yet still interesting grabs.

    Chicago XVII on audiocassette (99 cents)

    Ah yes, the 80s soft-rock gloop classic that brought us “You’re the Inspiration.” The last major album featuring Peter Cetera on lead vocals before he decided to branch off into a solo career that was even more cheesier than when he was with Chicago. I’m more partial to their hard rock stuff like “25 or 6 to 4,” but I don’t hate their more lighter work – “If You Leave Me Now” is cheesy but I have a soft spot for it. This was my first cassette purchase in a while, and at a store that was slowly phasing out stuff like cassettes and 8 tracks.

    You might also know “You’re the Inspiration” from being featured in Elite Beat Agents, with a really touching level attached to it and a damn touching cover to boot. (Hey Nintendo, put out the studio masters of the songs from the Ouendan series and Elite Beat Agents on your Nintendo Music service already!! I know they’re all licensed tracks, but I wanna hear these in their original quality and not through a tinny Nintendo DS speaker.)

    Karaoke Revolution Vol. 2 – PlayStation 2 ($3.99)

    For the longest time I didn’t know Harmonix did music games besides Frequency, Amplitude, Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Turns out Karaoke Revolution was also one of their big successes, and it’s probably why vocals in Rock Band games were so darn good.

    I basically got this to complete my Harmonix game collection, but also to hear how they handled the songs, which are all covers much like the early Guitar Hero and Rock Band games were, even produced by the same company as those games, Wavegroup Sound.

    Now I just need to get over my fear of singing in games like these…

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  • Sonic & Knuckles Collection: Back when Sega published PC games.

    Sonic & Knuckles Collection: Back when Sega published PC games.

    Back in the mid ’90s, when Sega slowly was losing its competitive edge against veteran Nintendo and newcomer Sony, they were also publishing a fair share of their games on Windows PCs. This isn’t as well known as their other stuff, considering most of them were ports of existing Genesis and Saturn games now running on the Windows 95 PCs of the era.

    Most of the ports were of somewhat lesser-known stuff like Comix Zone and Tomcat Alley. Eventually they started releasing more iconic games, some even in compilations. But then a certain blue hedgehog burst onto the PC scene, and for real this time, rather than fan games made by Sonic diehards in Klik’n’Play.

    Featuring The Best Sonic Game. Anyone who says Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the best Sonic game is a liar.

    Sonic & Knuckles Collection was released in late 1997 for Windows 1995, and was the second major Sonic game to reach PC, the first being two different ports of Sonic CD. Though the Hedgehog was branching out to other ventures, including the educational Sonic’s Schoolhouse, this was probably one of the biggest gets for PC gamers who didn’t really dabble much in the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive library.

    I was strictly a Nintendo kid pretty much until the late ’90s, when I got my first PC. A Windows 3.11 Packard Bell machine. While I did own other platforms, including a Genesis, I never really got to really experience the platform’s greatest stuff until many years later, thus I never got to play Sonic 3 & Knuckles until this PC release.

    Well, that infamous platform jumping section through rising water in Sonic 2‘s Chemical Plant Act 2 traumatized me pretty bad when I was younger. I ended up getting Sonic 3 not long after it came out in 1994, but when I got to Hydrocity Zone and realizing it was involve a lot of water, I got so scared that I shut off the Genesis and asked to return the game. While it doesn’t bother me nearly as much these days, I can still get a bit of a twinge whenever I hear that damn drowning music when playing a Sonic game. Damn you Yukifumi Makino, making a 10 second ditty that haunted kids for generations!

    Nooo don’t send me down there

    Over the years I have procured one, not two, but three copies of this dang game. The first one I got was part of a Jack in the Box promotion in 1999, which was part of a kid’s meal promotion the restaurant had around that time. had a few other Sega PC games such as Sonic 3D Blast, Bug! and the original Ecco the Dolphin. The others were a complete-in-box copy I found at in the bargain section at an office supply store, and a CD jewel case copy that was part of a Sonic three pack with Sonic CD and Sonic R.

    They do say that you can never have enough of a game, but I think three copies is a tad much. But hey, it’s kinda hard to get rid of stuff like this, y’know?

    The menu where you choose what game you want to play. I like the fairly random “2-PLAY OK” on the side.
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