#49: Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega, Mega Drive, 1991)

Part III: Cope (Spring Yard Zone)

The Spring Yard Zone is a bit of an odd duck. Unlike the rest of the game, it really doesn’t have a particularly coherent setting; it’s… some kind of industrial park? Full of springs? It’s clearly the precursor to zones in future games like the Casino Night Zone, the Carnival Night Zone and the entirety of the game Sonic Spinball, but unlike those, it doesn’t quite fully embrace the idea of mashing up a platforming game with pinball, and instead it’s just kind of an unusually bouncy platform game level.

But let’s stop a moment and think about what a spectacularly odd concept that actually is. Platforming games are, by nature, all about precision in movement, about exercising control over a system, while pinball, broadly speaking, stands in direct opposition to this; the player has absolutely no control most of the time, and must rely on fast reflexes in those brief moments when they are able to exert any influence amidst the chaos. Is it any wonder that Sega couldn’t quite pull this hybrid off on their first attempt?

The most interesting part of the Spring Yard Zone, though, is the message offered by the game at its commencement. It’s not quite as foreboding as “abandon hope, all ye who enter here” but it perhaps takes a similarly bleak outlook on what it prefigures. Spelled out in bright neon lights, just after you hit the first spring that fires you into the true chaos of the level, one word. ‘COPE’. Nothing more. Just ‘COPE’. It is, I think, a fantastically bold and direct piece of advice to the player, tinged with a heaping helping of arrogance on the part of the creators. “Whatever lies ahead,” it seems to say, “deal with it.”

Cope. At some time in our lives, it’s a lesson we all need. And, with what lies ahead, we’re definitely going to need it now.