Mega Man - The Hedgehog Trap crosses Mega Man with Sonic. Two great video game franchises, couldn’t go wrong, right? Unfortunately, it does go wrong and it isn’t evident until you start playing. The game is extremely unbalanced where one level is too easy, where the next is too hard.

The eight robot master stages are from the first three Sonic games. One of the main issues I had with this game is that the sprite placement can be way too unforgiving. For instance, the game flickers a lot in some places because of there being too many sprites. Moreover, the mercy invincibility has been shortened, resulting in you getting hit a lot more often than normal.

One stage I would like to get through is Scrap Brain, which is Metal Man’s stage, suffers from very poor level design. Instant death saws are everywhere, and sometimes you have to slide under them. It feels the slide distance was shortened slightly, resulting in cheap deaths because of it. Then Metal Man comes by and is arguably the most difficult boss in the entire hack because it turns into a luck-based mission of where you either get hit or don’t.

The Doc Robot stages are even worse because in some sections there’s more platforming being demanded. it is also possible to get stuck in the second Marble Zone level in the lava.

The Robotnik-I mean, Wily stages are a mess. The palettes are harsh on one’s eyes, particularly the sprites. Yellow Devil mk. 2 can glitch out when he’s supposed to use his second attack pattern, forcing you to lose a life.

Overall, this hack is a great idea, but not executed well.