The company paid tribute to the series’ biggest hits, even rereleasing Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy on Nintendo Switch. That kind of industry curation was on full display when Nintendo celebrated Mario’s 35th anniversary last year. The more time goes on, the more we tend to lose curiosities like that as gaming “canon” is boiled down to its key points. That includes hidden gems like Sonic Triple Trouble and the somewhat disastrous Sonic Blast, Sega’s final first-party Game Gear release.
None of Sonic’s Game Gear titles are easily available in 2022. It’s not just Tails Adventure that’s been trimmed out of Sega’s carefully pruned historical records. You can’t get a full picture of video game history without taking the good with the bad. Games like Tails Adventure serve as some of the earliest indications that Sega was struggling to expand on the tried-and-true Sonic formula, an issue that would turn into a central narrative for the series in the 2000s. It’s an odd relic from an era where Sega was starting to experiment with the Sonic IP. That’s exactly what makes it special too.
If anything, it’s more of an internet curiosity for future Sonic fans to discover. It’s not a particularly memorable platformer and it didn’t give birth to a successful Tails series. On one hand, it’s perfectly reasonable that Sega wouldn’t be enthusiastic about keeping it available on modern devices. However, with that digital marketplace coming to a close soon, there won’t be a legal way to buy it anytime soon. Most recently, the game was available to purchase through the Nintendo 3DS eShop. The full game could be unlocked in Sonic Adventure DX and was included in 2005’s Sonic Gems Collection, which featured other rarities. He can even control a remote drone that fits into tight spaces, not unlike Samus’ morph ball ability.įor those who didn’t own a Game Gear, there have been three other chances to own it since then. Taking cues from Metroid, the fox gets a series of tools that open up paths in its stages. Rather than building on the hedgehog’s speedy formula, the more slow-paced platformer plays with Tails’ role as a tinkerer. The 1995 platformer was Sega’s only real stab at turning Sonic’s sidekick into a solo hero. If you’re a Sonic fan and have never heard of Tails Adventure, I don’t blame you. It’s a reminder that video game history is often selectively curated, leaving fascinating pieces of the past buried. In researching Tails Adventure, I suddenly rediscovered a swath of Sonic games that haven’t gotten the same treatment as the classics.
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