Certainly a Thing: Knuckles' Chaotix (Sega 32X, 1995) Review

NOTE: This review is part 7 in a retrospective of the Sonic franchise. Feel free to read the other Sonic reviews I’ve done here - https://expithecat.blogspot.com/search/label/sonic%20retrospective

Well, guess I’m going back a bit here. I know I reviewed Sonic Adventure and chronologically the next game I would review should be Sonic Adventure 2, but I did say at the beginning of my Sonic Adventure review that I wanted to review Knuckles’ Chaotix and 3D Blast but didn’t feel I had enough to say. Plus another part of it was that I got a Sega Dreamcast of my own as well as a copy of the game so as a result I just kind of went with a playthrough of that. But then I posted that review on the r/SonictheHedgehog Discord and a certain… someone there was going to lynch me if I went back on what I said about reviewing Knuckles' Chaotix and 3D Blast in addition to a couple other games I mentioned, so… I guess here we are now. It’s not exactly as fresh in my mind now, but whatever.

Background and History

In 1994, Sega released the Sega 32X, an add-on for the Sega Genesis, largely intended to provide an alternative over full-on 32-bit hardware that was either available or coming out (i.e. the 3DO, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn and PlayStation) that “upgraded” the Sega Genesis to play games with newer, better graphics. To be perfectly honest, the more I think about the 32X, the more… pointless it becomes in my eyes. Like, Sega had the Saturn ready to launch within the next year - hell, it was already out in Japan when this system released worldwide, and yes while the 32X did provide a cheaper alternative, I feel like most people around this time were already planning to wait and buy a next-gen console, especially considering that the 32X at launch was retailing for $160 as it was.

But Knuckles’ Chaotix’s development began in 1994 as another game titled “Sonic Crackers” which sort of served as a test engine for some new experiments - mainly the “tethering” mechanic - but over time Knuckles would be replaced as the protagonist and development would shift over to the 32X because… well I mean they obviously needed some games for that thing. The game ultimately came out to mixed reception and due to the failure of the 32X suffered from poor sales.

Personal Experiences

Admittedly I don’t have much to say about my experiences with the game. I remember being somewhat interested in this game when I was first getting into the Sonic series and when I was getting into game collecting in general because it seemed like an odd, obscure game that I never really heard many people talk about. And it was a Sonic game so I was of course all over that. I had actually tried the game through emulation a few times but never actually bothered to play through it much. And after playing it through for the first time… well, let’s talk about that.

Story

According to the Sonic the Hedgehog Wikia, this game oddly enough has two different stories depending on whether you’re part of the American or Japanese audience. In Japan, this game takes place on a mysterious island that emerged sometime after the events of Sonic & Knuckles. Dr. Eggman discovered the island to find out about six “super” rings that held energy from the Master Emerald and of course he tries to take over the island. And now Knuckles and a bunch of other characters - Mighty, Vector, Charmy and Espio - have to work together to stop him.

Of course, any Sonic game with a story with a focus on rings scares me, so let’s look at the Western story. In the West on the other hand, this game takes place on “Carnival Island” which is about to open and Knuckles intends to look over the island in order to make sure nothing goes wrong. But of course, Egg- I mean, Robotnik shows up to find the Power Emerald and freezes Knuckles’ friends in his Combi Catcher. Knuckles stumbles across Robotnik trying to freeze Espio and… well, the rest of the game goes on from there. It’s not a super deep story or anything - keep in mind that this is still the classic era of Sonic so deep stories aren’t really a focus here, but I guess it works. You can’t really tell what’s going on unless you look at the manual or online so the story just kind of exists here. 

This game does bring back Mighty for the first time since SegaSonic the Hedgehog only for him to be forgotten all over again until being seen with Ray on “missing” posters in Sonic Generations as an easter egg in City Escape and finally being playable again in Sonic Mania Plus. But the game also introduces a few other Sonic characters - Vector, Espio and Charmy - who later became recurring characters in the series, in one particular case being part of “Team Chaotix” in Sonic Heroes.

Graphics

I’d probably say visually this is a step above the Genesis titles, which shouldn’t be too surprising considering that this game is on more powerful hardware. I don’t really have much to say here - the sprites definitely look good and feel more detailed (although Mighty is literally a Sonic recolor in this game) and the environments are colorful and vibrant. But the special stages of this game are definitely the most interesting part of the game to me when it comes to it’s visuals - it’s pretty much completely rendered with polygons and I’ve always found some charm in those kinds of graphics. I’m not really sure what it is but I guess there’s just something cool about early polygon graphics and just early 3D graphics in general, probably with it just being so impressive for the time in retrospect.

Music

I think this game’s soundtrack is pretty damn good. Not a surprise, this is a Sonic game after all, which are generally known for always having good music and this really isn’t an exception. The stage themes are all just really nice with my favorite being Marina Madness’ theme with honorable mentions towards Door Into Summer and Botanic Base’ theme.

Gameplay

As I mentioned with the game's development, this game has a pretty major feature that separates this from the other classic titles. That being, of course, the tethering mechanic. As you play the game, you choose between two different characters who are always connected by a force called “Ring Power.” It more or less can be simply described as a rubber band between the two characters and throughout the game you’re constantly attached to either an AI or second player through this mechanic, and sometimes (and I really mean “sometimes” here) you need both characters to stand on a button to open a door, or in other cases have the other character “hold” so you can gain a bit of extra speed up a ramp or whatever. And as mentioned, you choose between playing with an AI or a second player for “co-op.”

Sega of course at least used to be pretty well known for experimenting - for better or worse - and so a mechanic like this just comes off as another piece in their series of experiments. Unfortunately, the mechanic isn’t… great. At best, I feel like it’s under-utilized. Like I said, there are a few moments where you have to stand on two buttons to open a door, but I only really remember that sort of thing in the first level and it doesn’t really come up often in the game. The other part I mentioned about gaining extra speed by having your second character stand in place is what I used the mechanic for more often, or in some cases, using the second character to get a boost up onto a higher ledge. But even with the latter it felt few and far in-between, not as much as the “button pressing” mechanic, but still felt like something that could have just been avoided altogether and even with the other aspect of using your second character for speed, which to be fair was far more often, kind of just felt something that could’ve also been solved by a bit higher speed or not having the other character hang off of me causing me to lose my momentum in some cases. 

And that’s where I get to the worst of the “tethering” mechanic - sometimes it outright gets in the way of the gameplay itself. More often than not, I felt like the mechanic slowed me down in a lot of ways rather than providing any extra depth to the gameplay. In my play through, there were times where I felt like the AI was just kind of doing it’s own thing and it ended up slowing down the overall pace of the game. There were times where I would try to go up one of those sideways half-pipe things only for my partner to slow me down and feel like a complete anchor to my movement. I really feel like this mechanic clashes with the core design elements of the classic Sonic games and as a result, it can get annoying to work with. Sometimes there were even moments where my two characters with the tether would just spaz out and cause me to just float in the middle of the air for a few seconds, leading me to believe that this mechanic wasn’t exactly finished.

And the level design is… uninteresting. The levels in this game generally tend to be “big,” but the content within levels feels sparse. I can’t even really remember that much about this game’s levels, and in general they just felt… empty in this game. The visuals are different, but other than that there’s really not much in the way of setpieces or even hazards or enemies within the game’s levels. In a way, this game’s levels feel like they’re trying to be as big as an ocean but end up being as shallow as a kiddie pool due to their lack of interesting setpieces or anything to make them fun to play through and stand out among each other. The only thing I remember about any level was with Amazing Arena requiring you to find a switch to turn on the lights to beat the stage, and even this gets repetitive when you have to for all five acts of this particular zone. And even when there are elements of classic Sonic level design that I do like, it’s kind of hampered by the tethering mechanic getting in the way.

As for the other characters, well, I don’t have much to say about them. When you’re playing with AI they really don’t make a difference. But they do have their own abilities when you actually play as them. Vector and Espio are particularly similar to Knuckles in terms of moveset - both allowing you to climb up walls, although Vector also has an air dash. Charmy Bee is OP as fuck due to being able to fly anywhere without tiring out as well as having a dash ability. Also there’s Heavy and Bomb. They certainly exist and I don’t exactly know why.

I also felt that the special stages, while probably impressive for the time, kind of felt disorienting to me. I can’t really put my finger on it, but going over different angles and whatnot with the stage moving around the character as you move kind of made me feel dizzy when playing this game for the first time and it honestly dissuaded me from wanting to gather all the Chaos Rings. Doesn’t really help that the only reward you get for doing so is a slightly different ending so I don’t find much of a point regardless.

Conclusion

So yeah, that’s Knuckles’ Chaotix. It certainly exists. I don’t really have much to say about it, but you can probably tell that I didn’t have a great experience with it. There’s things I do like about it - visuals are still pretty good and the soundtrack slaps - but when it comes to gameplay, this definitely felt like kind of a step down coming off of the other classic Sonic games. The “tethering” mechanic is a neat idea, but in this game it comes off as an annoyance that slows down the pace of the actual gameplay and the levels of this game just didn’t really feel like anything I would want to go back to with how empty they feel overall. In all fairness, this wasn’t the worst Sonic game I’ve played, nor was a “terrible” game in general, but it’s certainly not one I would find myself going back to.

I guess if you do want to try this game, I’d say go ahead and make your own opinions about it, you may end up liking it more than I did. Or even less than I did. Or about the same. But getting this game legally is kind of a challenge of it’s own nowadays. Oddly enough, the game hasn’t been re-released outside of being available on some obscure and now defunct online service called “GameTap,” so really the only option to play this legally is to get a Sega Genesis, a 32X and a copy of the game. But that’s not really something I would recommend - 32X systems can be pretty expensive nowadays going for around $100 and even the game itself can go for upwards of that same price. Frankly, this is definitely a case where I would just suggest sticking with emulation - maybe go for an original release if you’re a dedicated collector or something but if you just want to play the game, then yeah, an emulator is probably your only real bet. This isn’t really a game I’d particularly recommend regardless, but if you really want to try it, then just go with emulation.