The game is takes place on Little Planet, which is being turned into a Fortress for Dr. Robotnik, so Sonic, of course, has to save Little Planet from Robotnik.
The gameplay is different from other 2D Sonic games. While Sonic controls mostly the same, he has a new move called the Super-Peel Out, in which it is like the spin dash, except you have to look up then press A, and you do not roll into a ball. The spin dash is also changed (unless you are playing the 2011 remake, in which you can change it to be like other sonic games) so when you do it, instead of repeatedly charging it up, you only charge it once and you then go.
The level design is not really good, and I think the reason is because you have to explore these levels to find machines you break. How it works is you hit a sign that says PAST, and then you run at high speeds for a short period of time, and then you time travel. You then have to explore the level to find machines to break. Breaking these machines gets you a good future. In Sonic CD, there are three time periods. The present, past, and future. There are also two types of futures. The good future and bad future. You want to get good futures (clearly). You can get a good ending by either breaking all machines in the past, or getting things called time stones (the chaos emeralds of this game). There are 7 time stones total, and getting all of them automatically grant you good futures for every level in the game, even the ones you originally got a bad future on.
To get a time stone, you have to make it to the end of a act (I know they are called zones in this game, but I like calling them acts like the other Sonic games do) with 50 rings, which can be painful. You then jump into a giant ring and you will then go into the special stage. You have to attack 6 UFOs within a time limit to get your time stone, and if you touch water your timer drops by 10 seconds. You have purple UFOs, which give rings for your score, and blue UFOs, which temporarily increase your speed. When 20 seconds or less are left, a blue UFO with red stripes with come up, and you hit it to gain more time. I personally like these special stages, and a kinda similar special stage will be in Sonic Mania. Speaking of Mania, the games sixth stage, Stardust Speedway (which is my favorite zone in the game) is also returning in Mania. There was going to be a new final boss for the 2011 remake if you got all the time stones in which the stage was called Final Fever, but was scrapped to make the port closer to the original. I am kind of sad it was scrapped, because the actual Final boss is not that good. Heck, most of the bosses in CD aren't great. There was also a desert level called Desert Dazzle, that was based off Dust Hill, a scrapped stage from Sonic 2, which got scrapped for the same reason as Final Fever. However, Sonic Mania based a level of Dust Hill and Desert Dazzle, which is called Mirage Saloon. Here are pictures of these scrapped zones.
There is only one more thing I would like to talk about. A hidden sound test in the game. Not only can you listen to music and sound effects here, but you can put certain codes in to see secret screens. There is also a secret special stage hidden in the sound test.
Here are pictures of these hidden images.
Here is a picture of Sonic with the text above him saying "You are cool!" Drawn by Masahiro Sanpei, landscape and animation director for CD. |
Here is a picture of a Batman Sonic. I don't have anything else to say about this picture, except that it was drawn by Takumi Miyake, who is a landscape and visual designer for Sonic CD. |