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Sonic Origins

Sonic Origins

Sonic Team · released Jun 22, 2022

ActionAdventureCasual

Experience the collected adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog in Sonic Origins Plus! With 16 legendary Sonic titles including 12 Game Gear games, new playable characters, modes, challenges, behind the scenes content, and more, this is the definitive way to play these classic games!

73
VGC Score
Stablehigh confidence +10 since launch

launched at 63, updates lifted it to 73

63%
At launch
77%
Steam all-time
76%
Press
75%
Player sentiment
89%
Recent sentiment

Screenshots & trailers

Review sentiment over time

Weekly positive-review rate (green) and review volume (bars). Dashed lines mark significant patches; the amber line is the start of the current scoring window. Hover the dots to see what drove a dip or a jump.

How this score was computed

The VGC Score is a weighted blend on a press-comparable 0-100 quality scale. Steam approval rates are first calibrated (95% positive on Steam ≈ 89.5 quality, since Steam approval skews high). Press and tracked creator reviews each count ~2x a player review and share one cap against player evidence (creator buy/skip calls pool into an approval rate, calibrated like Steam approval); all-time sentiment is capped and halved (it's context, not verdict); reviews of the current build carry the most weight when a fresh patch anchors the window; and a 'typical game' prior keeps small samples from pegging the scale. Because press reviews and Metacritic user aggregates describe the launch build, their weight decays as the game ages (3-year half-life after a 1-year grace). That's how a game that launched rough can outgrow its old reception once updates win players over. Reviews under 2h playtime (the refund window), non-Steam activations, and free copies are downweighted.

ComponentPositiveQuality (0-100)Weight (pseudo-reviews)
Press reviews (OpenCritic)7689
Creator reviews (3 tracked)853
All-time Steam reviews77%721000
Metacritic user ratings0
Post-patch Steam reviews (trust-weighted)89%8350
Calibration prior (typical game)7250

Scoring window: last 30 days (no significant patch detected) · 142 reviews sampled · 132 total reviews in window · weighted 91.6 up / 10.8 down · computed 2h ago · full methodology →

Press & Creators reviews (89)

Individual verdicts from outlets we track: scored reviews first, most trusted outlets first among them. The small badge is each outlet's trust score: how well its scoring history aligns with players.

  • 85
    trust 80Jul 4, 2022

    Overpriced DLC and the odd omission aside, the fact is that the five games in this collection are stone-cold classics, and they've never played better. Those without nostalgia may understandably wait for a sale and a further bit of polish. But Sonic Origins will be a great trip down memory lane if you were a Genesis supporter back in the day of the 16-bit schoolyard debates. They are infinitely replayable.

    read full review ↗
  • 75
    trust 79Jul 4, 2022

    Sonic Origins packages together some absolutely solid classics with some nice upgrades, but is itself lacking in content and introduces some strange new issues not present in the original games.

    read full review ↗
  • 80
    trust 78Jun 24, 2022

    "Almost back to full speed."

    read full review ↗
  • 70
    trust 76Jul 7, 2022

    Sonic Origins is a comprehensive collection of the first four games featuring the blue hedgehog, offering new fans a great entry point into this expansive universe. Together with the new content, it provides over 15 hours of entertainment, depending on how much you want to explore and try out. The high-quality animations that tie all four games into a single storyline also do their job well. On the other hand, it is precisely the long-time fans who will notice the unpolished and flawed technical state, especially in the third game. There are also several complaints about the excessive price tag along with the incomprehensible DLC policy. Sonic Origins is thus another rushed project from Sega that certainly deserved more care and love.

    read full review ↗
  • 80
    trust 76Jun 24, 2022

    Sonic Origins is simply more of the same, which is both its greatest strength and weakness. On one hand, it's a near-definitive way to experience four stone-cold classics that represent some of the highest peaks of Sonic's career. On the other, most of these games are already readily available and there aren't many new features or additions to justify buying them yet again. If you don't already have a reliable or convenient way of playing these games now, or this is genuinely your first time playing through them, then we'd say that Sonic Origins is the go-to way to experience Sonic's 2D heyday. Otherwise, we'd encourage you to either wait for this to go on sale or just pass on it.

    read full review ↗
  • 70
    trust 72Jul 3, 2022

    Messy as it is, Sonic Origins is still a collection of the best 2D entries the franchise has to offer. It may not be as dense in content in comparison to prior compilations like Sonic Mega Collection or Sonic Gems Collection, but it does just enough to not get in the way of what made these games system sellers in their heyday. While I was hoping for an easy touchdown, this ended up being a fumble recovery instead. Hefty price tag be damned, new players deserve to see why people like me keep going back to what many consider the reason people loved Sonic in the first place.

    read full review ↗
  • 70
    trust 71Jun 23, 2022

    Long story short: if you're not an avid collector of the Blue Blur, Sonic Origins is a good place as any to start with the best Sonic games available. [...]As for the rest who has seen a lot that's offered by Sega back in the day up to now? You could do worse.

    read full review ↗
  • 50
    trust 70Aug 7, 2022

    A conflicting compilation of Sonic games that does plenty right in remastering some of the blue hedgehog's classic Mega Drive hits, but lets everyone down with unnecessary money-grabbing DLC, while not offering anywhere near the amount of content that really should be here in terms of the Sonic series' vast history. Still with bugs to fix, time will tell if Sonic Origins becomes a respectable overall package, but it will suffice for the more casual fan after a bigger price drop.

    read full review ↗
  • 60
    trust 70Jul 26, 2022

    Sonic Origins banks too much on nostalgia. The games are functional and are enjoyable as always but the glitches introduced to Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles with regards to Tails are annoying. Sonic 3’s soundtrack being changed so drastically feels incredibly disappointing too.

    read full review ↗
  • 70
    trust 70Jun 25, 2022

    If you can make peace with a few missing options and don't mind the paid DLC aspect you'll still have a great time here, and if you're coming to these games fresh you're in for an almighty treat, it's just a shame that SEGA has chosen to sully the endeavour with unnecessary greed and a few glaring functional omissions that could so easily have been included. So there you have it, Sonic Origins has got it where it counts but a little more TLC would have seen our score bumped up by a few points. Maybe next time, SEGA.

    read full review ↗
  • 80
    trust 70Jun 21, 2022

    If you want an easy way to play the first few Sonic games on your TV and have a good experience, Sonic Origins is exactly that, with some cool extras to sweeten the deal.

    read full review ↗
  • 80
    trust 69Jun 21, 2022

    Sonic Origins is a fantastic dive into the beginning of the iconic blue hedgehog that offers plenty of content for your money. Despite this, new fans may grow tired of how similar these classic games are. Longtime fans will probably welcome how much classic retro Sonic content there is and spends hours exploring all the different modes and challenges.

    read full review ↗

…and 77 more tracked reviews.

Patch history

  1. Sonic Origins Plus – Patch Notes
    Aug 24, 2023significant · resets scoring window