Sonic's Schoolhouse and Sonic the Hedgehog The Screen Saver

(ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ・ザ・スクリーンセーバー)

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Hello. We’re going to review another educational game before the children leave school for the summer. It’s Sonic’s Schoolhouse! Released in 1996 for the PC, it was developed by BAP Interactive (now closed) and Orion Interactive and published by Sega Entertainment. Sonic's Schoolhouse is aimed at children aged five to nine and takes place in a 3D environment viewed from a first-person perspective. The gameplay has been likened to the more-violent-demon-blaster Doom (released in 1993 for the DOS by id Software), but the primary difference is that players must solve spelling, math, and reading questions in several difficulty levels based on age group. Sonic is not playable, acting instead as a guide.

Meg Inglima, the only voice actress to voice Sonic in this game, did not last. He was replaced with Ryan Drummond starting from Sonic Adventure (which we previously reviewed). The sprites used for Sonic come from the canceled Sonic X-Treme. I sadly never owned the game, and the game sadly doesn’t work on modern PCs unless you have an older PC or a laptop shipped with Windows 95/98 or Windows Me. The game’s production credits can be found on Sega Retro (where most of the images about Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega Saturn and the Sega Dreamcast games came from, including Sonic Retro in this newsletter). Sonic’s Schoolhouse did not have a release in Japan.

We also have Sonic the Hedgehog The Screen Saver, too, which I didn’t own. The software does include exclusive images, most of which are from Mega Drive/Genesis-era Sonic games, which are not featured in Sonic Jam. The program is bundled with the North American and European copies of Sonic & Knuckles Collection and sold as a stand-alone product in Japan. As these software programs are 16-bit programs that can be installed on Windows 3.1/95/98, these Sonic PC software programs are not supported by 64-bit versions of Windows.

Hey kids, I hope you enjoy your summer vacation when you leave school. Unlike many others, I had to be put into a special school and stay in summer school until early August each year, since my mom thinks that I don’t want to be lazy or she has a fear of me gaining weight, and she also thinks that I’m too smart for regular schools. If I were to go back to a regular school and be taken out of special education permanently, then life would be much easier. In the end, I hope you enjoy your summer break.