Comparisons

An example of a comparison. Sonic the Hedgehog Triple Trouble was released as Sonic & Tails 2 in Japan, and in addition saw changes to the title screen graphics and animations.

Many video games are not always the same - they can differ wildly across different versions, be it regionally, across different formats, or through later releases where a game has received some changes from an earlier release. Sonic Retro aims to compare differences between multiple versions of a game where applicable, categorising the types of comparisons into the following sections:

• Version comparisons: Differences across the same game released for multiple platforms (e.g. Master System vs. Mega Drive).
• Localisation comparisons: Differences across regional releases (e.g. Japanese vs. Western), as games can be subject to many changes in localisation such as to add/remove cultural references.
• Revision comparisons: Changes may be made to a game that is rereleased in a later print run and/or under a budget label (e.g. Rev 00 vs 01).
• Game comparisons: These are usually the case for games that are either a rebranding of another game (e.g. Puyo Puyo vs. Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine), the game combines content from other games (e.g. Fighters Megamix) or, in the case of unlicensed games, stolen assets from official games (e.g. Sonic 3D Blast 5).

In the case of prototype builds, the purpose of comparison sub-pages is to compare the prototypes to the final builds, showing what may have been added, removed or changed during a game's development.