Sonic 2 Expanded v0.9
Developer: Ages Team
Publisher: @Wolfi-Girl128
Director: Leo
Series: N/A
Platform(s): Scratch
Release: October 25th, 2021
Genre(s): Platform
Link: https://turbowarp.org/551717535?interpolate&clones=Infinity&limitless&hqpen
Sonic 2 Expanded v0.9 (or S2E for short) is a 2021 video game developed by Ages Team and published by Wolfi-Girl128 (a.k.a. Daisy). It is an unofficial remake of the 1992 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 video game and serves as a fan revival of the original Sonic 2 Expanded games on Scratch. The game follows the similar story plot as Sonic 2 Expanded and features numerous changes and new features from the original. It follows Sonic and Tails, attempting to stop Dr. Ivo Robotnik from conquering Emerald Hill Zone with his robotic animals and machines.
After Kevin & Friends - Video Game 3 (or K&F VG 3 for short) was cancelled, an Ages Team member, Leo, came up the idea of recreating Sonic 2 Expanded. Most of S2E's engine were influenced by the object-placement experimentations from K&F VG 3. Leo claims to have the game the most ambitious and heart-charming game Ages Team can come up to get the S2E community happy again. As for Kevin himself, he agrees with moving on from K&F VG and helps with the S2E development.
The game's reception was mixed. It was praised for its graphics, its soundtrack choices, and the team's overall commitment to revive S2E to a nearly full-fledged project. However, it was heavily criticized for its controls engine and the HP system.
Gameplay
Sonic 2 Expanded v0.9 is a side-scrolling platform game, just like the original Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The player controls either Sonic or Tails, but not both in duo, as one of them needs to defeat Dr. Robotnik from conquering Emerald Hill Zone.
In the game, players control a character using the arrow keys for navigation and the 'A' key for jumping. However, some players have criticized the choice of the 'A' key over the 'Z' key, finding it "uncomfortable" or "weird." Additionally, the game employs the "HogBounce" engine, a basic platforming engine adapted and modified by Ages Team, which has notably downgraded the quality of Sonic's movements. The physics of slopes and loop-de-loops were also absent, and players can now bounce upward off walls.
The game includes Emerald Hill Zone as its sole playable level, but it introduces Act 3 as an extra stage within this level.
The HP system was introduced to twist up Sonic's health form as the team behind the project stated, "we wanted to change up Sonic's health system instead of using the same traditional ring system over and over again". Both the HP system and the Ring System have a slight connection in between; if the player takes damage, they will lose all of their rings they have collected and some of the health points. Taking damage with 0 rings will not kill the player, but the health depletion will double. If the all the player's hearts were lost, regardless how many rings the player possesses, the player will be killed and will be sent back to the last checkpoint they reached. Depending on the difficulty level the player chooses, the HP system will set their health depletion to the following levels:
Normal difficulty: Normal Health Depletion.
Hard difficulty: Double Health Depletion.
The difficulty level, Maniac Mode, was also introduced in S2E, targeted towards challengers. In this mode, the player's health is disabled, and the player must run through the entire game without taking any damage whatsoever. If the player takes any damage while in this mode, the player will instantly be killed.
Development
Following the cancellation of "Kevin & Friends - Video Game 3," Leo proposed the team of creating their own S2E project, recognizing the team's quick skill improvement after the release of "Kevin & Friends - Video Game 2." He believed that they could extend their capabilities a bit further with the S2E v0.9 project. The team, who quit the third K&F game due to of its redundancy and repetitiveness, consented to start on the new S2E project, and the idea was also accepted by Kevin, who had firm confidence in the team's potential to succeed.
Most of the S2E v0.9 project development was influenced by the experimentations tested on K&F VG 3, including the object placement codes, which was recently discovered at the time, Leo was very impressed of its results.
Daisy posted the title screen animation intro project on Scratch, which garnered over a thousand views within a month. With the project's return announced, the reveal project has excited many, and even some original S2E Team members expressed interest in its development.
The majority of the assets were sourced from the original S2E, with the team addressing most of the design and coloration issues. Several artworks and assets were completely new, and some were created by individuals not part of the S2E Team. Additionally, a new credits screen was developed to acknowledge both the original S2E Team and the Ages Team, while all other contributors and supporters were credited in the Staff Roll displayed upon the completion of the game.
Upon the conclusion of the S2E v0.9 development, a trailer was revealed on YouTube, published by Papichi05, and people immediately started playing the game.
In the earlier demo builds, Sonic was the only playable character, until version 0.9.0.7.0.5 was released on August 10th, 2022. The Sonic and Tails duo option was not available in the game as the Ages Team has indicated that it causes significant lag and instability in the game. Knuckles was not included in the demo version, either.
Reception
The game received mixed reviews. It was praised for its graphics, its soundtrack choices, and the team's overall commitment to revive S2E to a nearly full-fledged project. However, it was heavily criticized for its controls engine, character designs changes, and the HP system.
As of today, the game is still performing well on Scratch, and as the final update has released, Ages Team accounted that they are no longer working on the game and considers the game as "finished".