We play the first playable demo of this promising amateur project, with two fully playable phases with the 5 protagonists that make up the roster of this promising project.
Unlike a certain company in Kyoto, always so draconian with its intellectual property, Sega has always been characterized by a certain laissez faire with its licenses, especially with Sonic, who brings together a very passionate and creative fandom (sometimes too creative) that the company has not hesitated to celebrate and encourage from official sources. This has allowed a brilliant community of fans to flourish around the creation of Sonic fangames, dedicated to the cause of recreating, restoring, remixing or creating new content around the blue porcupine (the team that so brilliantly made Sonic Mania was born precisely from that community). The last and brilliant sample of this community is this Sonic Galactic, a new 2D title of which we can already play a fragment and that seeks to recreate what a Sonic would have been in Saturn, had it continued the line marked by the classics of Mega Drive.
The project, which has been in development for three years, has been created with an engine designed to emulate the sensations, physics and control of the classics, although with some novelties and new tricks. The animations are familiar, but have been suitably enriched to give them an extra personality and the level design is somewhat more expansive than the 16-bit levels, with more depth and paths.
A very promising demo
One of the details that stands out is the selection of characters. The two acts that make up this playable phase can be played with any of the five protagonists of this adventure: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Fang (who first appeared as a villain in the Game Gear game Triple Trouble) and a new character: Tunnel the Mole. Each one has unique abilities, which allow them to explore the mapping and fight enemies in different ways. In this we also highlight the intermediate boss between acts, a great mechanical creature in a combat with permanent scroll, which always gives a lot of dynamism to a series of games characterized by its speed. The final boss is a more conventional showdown with Doctor Robotnik, a nice nod to the classics but less exciting.
Perhaps one of the most successful aspects is the warmth it gives off. The same intro screen already puts a smile on our lips, with the entire squad scrolling in a holiday stamp, with a visually striking options menu system, and if they wanted more than one professional game. The classic Sonic “flair” and attention to detail are noticeable from the first second with this demo.
The demo can be downloaded for free here, it is only necessary to download the files, unzip them in a folder and use the executable. In our case, it detected the pad perfectly and we didn’t have to do any kind of intermediate configuration (with F4 we can switch to full screen mode). Certainly, we are left wanting more and to see this project move forward in the times to come.
