Did you enjoy Mega Collection or Gems Collection more?

[Austroid]

Which Collection did you guys prefer and/or play the most?

For me I'd say Gems Collection. It was the first time I ever got to play Sonic CD, Sonic R and Sonic the Fighters; all of which I thoroughly enjoyed! The oddball yet charming Game Gear titles where a great bonus as well! Gems' overall layout of was just so mesmerizing with its original music for all the different menus. They all really stuck with me. The bonus section alone; with all the unlockable concept art and playable moments from other classic games, was such a joy to mill around in and gave off such a relaxing atmosphere.

I truly felt like I was in a virtual Sonic museum when playing Gems Collection! 

[JezMM]

Gems definitely had a weird novelty value to it, and finally getting to own and play Sonic CD properly was very special, but I think Mega Collection ultimately got more mileage out of me.  The games were better, and I also preferred the UI soundtrack of Mega overall and the bonus features felt more... substantial?

Like, Mega was just full of real mainstream Sonic content stuff, while Gems slightly felt like they were scraping up the leftovers of what Mega didn't cover and it was more of a struggle to make it feel like a cohesive product in itself as a result, all just a bit more padded out.  Vectorman feels less of a piece alongside Sonic games (while Ristar sits alongside Sonic swimmingly even though I was equally unfamiliar with both games going into these collections), and the main Sonic offerings in Gems consist of The Oddball mainstream Sonic platformer and two spin-off games - then a bunch of Game Gear games we already played in SADX - and not even all of them, just a seemingly random selection of 6.  Then you have the strange final boss demos of games from Mega Collection... AND missing Game Gear games from Gems Collection?  It's all just so strange.

 

So yeah, overall, even with CD missing from it, Mega Collection just felt so cohesive and pristine, so it gets my vote, while Gems felt like they were just constantly desparately trying to find random stuff to throw into it to increase the value of the disc, because they knew CD, Fighters and R were a tough sell by themselves compared to the value for money Mega Collection provided.

[Blue Blood]

I have both, but only bought them for the sake of collection purposes many years down the line. I've probably invested about an hour into both collections, tops. Back when these collections are new, I had more preferable means of playing all of the included games. Nowadays, if I had to pick just one then it would be Gems for the sake of Sonic R, as better and more practical versions of all of the other games exist elsewhere. 

The first time I actually used a compilation as my main way to play Sonic games would have been Classic Collection on the DS. Yes, it ran horribly on the original DS hardware (it was improved on DSi and 3DS however), had numerous bugs and literally just omitted rows of pixels to fit the games in the DS resolution, but it was practical and the game were still the same as the originals when it came to actually gameplay.

[juiceDpunk983]

Never had Mega collection, but I had Classic Collection on the DS which had 3& Knuckles together. I have gems collection which is good for Sonic R.

I also had Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection on the 360, which is better than the new collections they have on the ps5 and series X.

Out of all the collections though, I definitely prefer the Mega Drive Collection because of Sonic Spinball.

[Zaysho]

I lean toward Mega Collection, but Gems is fine too. Mega Collection has the better looking presentation and content; I really like the menus and music as well as all the gallery content, and it's especially nice seeing Archie stuff in there. Felt like a really nice introduction to the franchise as it was up to that point for newbies when Sega was introducing the series outside of their consoles while it was just a convenient way for people like me to replay the Genesis games and see all the extras.

Gems mostly feels like it got the scraps but overall serves as a good companion piece to Mega Collection. Presentation isn't as nice and it's a little weird seeing stuff like Knuckles' Chaotix art in the galleries when the game was omitted. Can't really argue with having Fighters in some form in my collection, and I like R more than most people, as well as the Game Gear games. Oh, and I guess CD is there too.

[sonicclaasic]

I have both collections back In the day when I use to have a PS2. I enjoyed both collections to be honest but I leaned to Sonic Gems Collection because of Sonic CD which I love that game.

[Ghelatlishol]

I only had the pleasure of owning the Mega Collection on PS2, but I really enjoyed it! At that point I had no idea Comix Zone and The Ooze ever existed before. I had heard of Ristar, though. 

The menu music was so effective too. The opening music got you excited and the menu music definitely invoked the feeling of nostalgia.

[StreetSonic2022]

I have both collections but I liked Gems more because a couple of reasons. The first one was, of course, Sonic the Fighters finally had a home release. Unfortunately, it was the time when Honey was discovered and they had to remove her data. Not cool, Sega. Second was I finally get to play Sonic R. I had the PC version and boy, back in the day, that game WILL NOT work on my Windows 98 PC.  Third, I played Sonic CD on a console, which I had on the PC, unlike R, that one work well but it was awkward playing on a keyboard.  I also love the gallery music, especially the remixes.

I do, however, have gripes with Gems. Disappointed that the US only got the GameCube version and not the PS2 version, big mistake on Sega's part. Then we lost out on the Street of Rage series because of the rating system. I didn't even own the series at the time, so it would've been nice to play that series, including the popular Streets of Rage 2 on console but then I would've had to deal with the huge differences and difficulty spike from 3. I felt the Vectorman games were ok, but I didn't care about them. Then we had Knuckles Chaotix stuff but the game wasn't included because the developers didn't know how to emulate the game, despite the fact that there were people managed to emulate the game good (Kega Fusion).  Those final boss demos of the games that were on Mega Collection weren't even necessary. I would've prefer more concept art from other Sonic games or another Game Gear games outside of Sonic (like Virtua Fighter Animation/Mini for kicks, not going to happen because that would've also brought the rating up, but I'm just using it as an example). 

Mega Collection and Plus version were ok but there weren't accurate. It's only saving grace was the Archie Sonic covers from the art gallery and its music.

[retroverlord]

I'd have to say Gems collection. It has it's own kind of charm. 

Sure, the main game selection may be lacking, I wouldn't mind having Chaotix or Pocket Adventure on there, but CD, fighters and R still make for a good combo. I especially love how you unlock images and such by completing certain challenges in each game.

My favourite collection though will always be mega collection plus. I love the somber atmosphere of it, kinda reminds me of the Dreamcast.

[Sonicka]

Sonic Mega Collection for me.

It had the mainlines which separated Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles, and combined them so you could do your preferred play through, included Sonic 3D: Flickies Island, and had my boy Ristar thrown in as a very sweet bonus. The unlocks and galleries were very neat and the Game Gear inclusions were fine... but as I already "owned" most of these on my actual GG, or via Sonic Adventure DX these additions wasn't that valuable to me. 

Sonic Gems Collection I was very excited about initially but ultimately came away disappointed - I put this largely down to Sonic CD and the lack of other spinoffs.

Sonic CD was the game I'd heard the most hype about and the only classic title I had not previously played, but I genuinely did not enjoy my time beyond the cutscenes and music, and I still don't entirely understand the cult hype behind this one. It took the mobile Christian Whitehead version to win me over some more, but even now I find the experience to be exhausting because of the unintuitive level design which was just not suited to what the game was trying to accomplish with the time travel mechanics and exploration aspects. Everything was at odds with each other. So that sort of soured me on the package since it was the game I was most invested in buying this for.

That being said, Sonic R was a wonderful inclusion - but I already had this on PC and had played that to death. Sonic the Fighters was a bit of a niche inclusion and only served to make me wonder where the arcade game I actually wanted to play (SegaSonic the Hedgehog) was, and of course there was no Knuckles Chaotix. This left the remaining GG games which did nothing to sway me... and considering some of these inclusions were lesser quality doubles of the Mega Drive versions I was curious that they didn't put Sonic 3D from the Saturn on here to pair up with Sonic R.

I did enjoy the very random unlocks of Vectorman 1 & 2 and the Streets of Rage Trilogy though. 

I did own Sonic Classic collection too on DS which worked surprisingly well despite some dodgy screen squashing and cropping, at the time that was an excellent way to play the classics portably. 

I least we have Origins - but even that is sort of a halfway house experience. We now has the best versions of these games available to play (on console) that aren't emulated like these collections... but it still comes up short because of the omission of other classic titles. Hopefully Sega will get this right one day. 

[King of Fanta]

For me, it was Gems Collection. Getting to finally play Sonic the Fighters was such a huge event at the time! I'd read about in C+VG and the Official Sega Saturn magazine over the years, but never seen it in any arcades (not knowing at the time just how limited the UK release was) and never seeing the Saturn version that was announced, and then cancelled. I no longer had my Mega-CD setup so it was nice to play Sonic CD again, but annoying to be stuck wiith a different soundtrack to what I had played originally with. For Sonic R I still had my Saturn setup, which also meant I still had access to Sonic Jam which is probably why Mega Collection had less of an impact with me, despite it having the better games.

And was Sonic the Fighters worth the wait? Yes! It may never be seen as a deep fighter, but it lived up to what I'd seen in those screenshots, with a great soundtrack as well! and thanks to being included in Lost Judgment, its playable on current gen systems too.

 

[emmysama]

Considering Mega Collection got me into the franchise, I gotta go with that. On top of the more games you got in it, you also had (if I remember correctly) more extras in the Mega Collection than in Gems. And I watched that Sonic Adventure 2 trailer so much and would make up the whole story to it. Which was funny cause I think SA2 Battle was out for a few months already, but I didnt know that, or have an income, I was a child.

Anyway, the Gems Collection was cool, but lets be honest, the selection is 10x better in Mega Collection. And that's coming from someone who loves Sonic R. And also, the 2 Vectorman games just ain't worth it. 

Also, Mega Collection has Flicky