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Overall Sonic 2 was leaps and bounds over Sonic 1 and zones like Chemical Plant are why. Though I also loved Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles, for me there will always be a special place in my heart for the Chemical Plant Zone. ~J.A. Laraque

Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Chemical Plant Zone

I have to be honest, long before I played with five and a quarter disks or searched for an Amiga computer, I was a console gamer. I started with the Sears version of the Atari 2600 and throughout the years have played them all. I like to look back on those days when console gaming was unique and in a completely separate world than PC gaming. Thought I have a lot of fond memories of Atari and the early Nintendo and Sega consoles it was Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that really made me a fan of the series and of video game music.

One of my favorite zones was The Chemical Plant Zone. This zone had it all for me, the industrial look, the various tubes and pipes and the music, it just stuck in my mind and I could play it over and over.

It was one of the fastest zones in the game, even from the start you were racing down ramps being blasted by fans, blazing through loops, this zone had it all. With the cityscape in the background and the blue chemical liquid oozing out of everywhere, it just set the scene perfectly.

This zone had break away floors, spring bumpers and chemical hazards, but strangely enough, not many enemies. Truthfully it did not need them as the zone itself was a challenge, one that you wanted to come back to again and again.

I also believe this zone had one of the easiest Robotnik bosses. On his stage Robotnik had you between two rotating platforms. He sucks up the chemicals from the pool below you and tries to dump them on you. The trick was to hit him while he was refilling his chemical tank. What many did not know at the time was if you had a second controller plugged in you could control tails. All you had to do is send tails after him while he filled up for an easy win.

The music of the zone is one of my all time favorites. It has that mix of classic 16-bit gaming and an industrial computer music flow. Like almost all of the classic 8 and 16 bit games the music is very catchy even though it is repetitive. It has been remixed countless times, but I find the original fantastic in its own right.

Overall Sonic 2 was leaps and bounds over Sonic 1 and zones like Chemical Plant are why. Though I also loved Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles, for me there will always be a special place in my heart for the Chemical Plant Zone.

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