Story

Sonic lays resting in his favourite place. He is suddenly awaken to see a Chaos Emerald close by acting rather erratically and spinning furiously. The emerald promptly shatters and disperses itself about the island. Dr Eggman’s villainous laugher can be heard and promptly attempts to take out Sonic with his laser beam. The blast before had struck the emerald inadvertently.

Before heading off, Knuckles volunteers his assistance and the two undergo the mission of locating the lost shards of the shattered emerald.

Eggman is out to use the 5 pieces of the emerald to enhance his newest aerial base, the Silver Castle.

Gameplay

Simply put, G Sonic is pretty awful. Visually the games graphics are murky no doubt as a result of trying to squeeze rendered graphics into a much less powerful system akin to the concept of full motion video projects on the Mega-CD.

Controls are of equal quality. Both Sonic and Knuckles suffer from severe responsiveness problems resulting in a irritating stiffness. Both these factors result in probably the least fun Sonic game there is. Just forget this game exists and consider Sonic Triple Trouble/Sonic and Tails 2 the last 8-bit title.

As with any Sonic game, you move from left to right, collecting rings and items, destroying robotic critters. Usual Sonic-Formula rules apply.

Sonic and Knuckles are both playable characters in the game. Sonic has the Spin Dash and double jump at his disposal whereas Knuckles has gliding, wall climbing and also the Spin Dash.

Each act will contain the usual array of power-ups with obstacles and dangers such as spikes and robots. Eggman's robotics critters are mostly taken from other games in the series. Destruction of each will earn you 100 points.

Power-Ups

10 Rings - rewards you 10 rings

Shield - protects you from a single hit

Speed Up Boots - provides a temporary increase in speed

Invincibility - nothing can harm you for a short time

1-Up Extra Life Sonic / 1-Up Extra Life Knuckles - an extra life for your character

Marker / Restart Post - Will set the point of your return upon death

? Boxes - Will contain one of the above given to you at random

Eggman Boxes - seems to have no ability

Special Rings - transport you into the Special Stage

The end of an act is signified by the signature spinning sign. Run past it to activate and receive a reward and bonus points for every second remaining on the clock.

Special Stages

Special Rings are found in Acts 1 and 2 of each zone. A special stage is a 3D obstacle course (appearing similar to Sonic 3's Special Stage). You are required to collect 50 rings before the goal. Failure means ejection back to the last marker of the act you are playing.

In order to reduce the chances of getting all 5 emerald pieces, they can only be collected on Act 2 special stages. Act 1's will only get you a 1-Up.

Special Stage

Items inside are:

Ring - You will need 50 of these

Rebound - makes your character rebound and walk backwards for a second or so.

Dash Panel - thrust forwards at speed when walked upon

Spring - Your character will be propelled upwards when walked on.

1 Up - Extra Life

Chaos Emerald (Fragment)

Having all 5 pieces of the Chaos Emerald in your possession will unlock the final secret boss after completing Silver Castle Zone.

You begin the game with 3 lives. Extra continues are acquired only by returning a Chaos Emerald on the spinning sign at the end of an act. This is a random occurrence.

The game consists of just 5 zones, each of which is made up of 3 Acts. Acts 1 and 2 will be the majority of gameplay for that zone whereas Act 3 will be a boss encounter before a short and somewhat tricky area which needs to be played through first. A boss fight will be easy to complete as their attacks are primitive to say the least. A 1000 points is earned upon their destruction.

Green Hill Zone

Yellow Desert Zone

Red Volcano Zone

Blue Marine

Silver Castle

Secret Final Boss

The Zones | Screenshots

Sonic Blast Screenshots
Green Hill Zone Yellow Desert Zone Red Volcano Zone Blue Marine Zone Silver Castle Zone Secret Final Boss

Emulator Compatibility

This game is best played with the KEGA Fusion emulator which you can download from the SEGA Game Gear Emulators page. When using DEGA, the game fails to play beyond the starting line.

Misc Info

The game was renamed from G Sonic to Sonic Blast for the European and US releases to correspond with Sonic 3D Blast (Sonic 3D Flickies Island). The game is identical apart from the title screens.
Sonic Blast was also included in Sonic Adventure DX as an unlockable and Sonic Mega Collection Plus.
There exists a Master System port for this game provided by Tec Toy. This was primarily a Latin American release since the Master System was somewhat popular in 1997 (when the rest of us were playing our Saturn’s). This version suffers from the reduced colour palette the system offers in comparison to the Game Gear.

Master System

Game Gear
This was the last commercial Game Gear title released in Japan.
A TV controller variant was released by Techno Source in 2005 containing the Game Gear version. It requires x3 AA batteries to operate and connects via composite video and a single (mono) RCA connectors.