Sonic Mega Collection. I admire it more from a sentimental viewpoint than a nostalgia or gameplay collection viewpoint.
The only Sonic game I previously had any exposure to and liked was Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Then I watched all of Sonic SatAM, which convinced me that it blew the Super Mario World cartoon out of the water and most any other cartoon I've ever seen. And Sega had just announced that it dropped out of the console race and Sonic games were coming to a Nintendo system. A sigh of relief, the Nintendo vs. Sega wars were over, now I could drop my grudge and finally see what I was missing. I rented Sonic Adventure DX, but I experienced the dreaded Disc Read Error. Which is probably for the best, I think people said that game was terrible. On a whim I snatched up Sonic Mega Collection when I saw it, figuring it was now or never to get my fill of Sonic.
And when I saw the presentation... wow. Personally, this is the best presentation I've ever seen for a game. Everything's so sharp and clean. The scrolling text at the bottom and the subtle angles to each screen gave it a sort of authoritative, professional look. The Extras section is what impressed me most. To this day I'm amazed at those high-res scans of manuals, letting you CLEARLY see every page. Seeing this same thing with 100 Sonic comic covers plus a bazillion other scans and a few movies told me where most of the space on this disc must have gone. The Sonic Archie Comics "Firsts" issue seemed like a great crash course on the world of Sonic comics, and because the characters of Sonic SatAM came from the Archie comics, it felt like familiar territory. Some people might not care to know who Sally or Antoine or Lupe is, but I loved them. Seeing the covers were awesome too... until I saw the steady style change from cartoony to anime-influenced.
And the music... oh! The music for the Extras/Options menu is heavenly.
So, Sonic Mega Collection because it really went the extra mile beyond the games. I mean, the games themselves weren't upgraded (except for increasing the resolution for split-screen play), so the effort had to go elsewhere.
Other favorites:
- Super Mario All-Stars: While I'm not quite big enough of a Mario nut to have this game entertain me for years on end, it was an excellent collection, and the upgraded graphics and sound added a lot towards my enjoyment. I did notice Mario seemed "heavier" in SMB (Nintendo said in their magazine that the physics for SMB were different, but I don't remember what they said about it... at least it didn't make the game impossible to beat though), but that wasn't a detractor. Kind of ticked off that the level structures didn't remain the same as before though, made me think they were making the game easier on purpose.
- Game & Watch Gallery 2. It's hard to pick a specific entry from the series, but G&WG2 had some great games in it (as opposed to G&WG1 where there was Fire and that was pretty much it. Manhole's a piece of cake once you get the move order burned into your brain. Octopus kicks my butt every time I play it. And Oil Panic's just too much thinking for me). Let's see, G&WG2 had Parachute which is my second-favorite G&W game of all time (first favorite is Mario Bros. from G&W3, partly because I nailed 1000 easily and partly because of the two-side dynamic), Helmet was okay, Vermin's fun, Chef is good except for Classic mode, Donkey Kong is just terrible, and Ball is great fun when it's the Modern version with Yoshi. What can I say, those reflex games are addictive.
