Sonic Prime: Season Two Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Sonic Prime: Season Two Blu-ray Movie Review

Time to get collectin'...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown January 12, 2025

I'm first generation hedgehog. Setting aside the series and movies for a moment, let's go all the way back to another Christmas not so long ago... Christmas, 1991. The Sega Genesis had taken America by surprise two years prior, but to a little kid bound by blood oath to Nintendo and a certain jovial, brick-bustin', coin-nabbin' plumber dressed in red, the siren song of a new videogame system was just background noise. Until those commercials. God, those ungodly, heavenly commercials. They spoke to an entire generation. "Genesis does what Nintendon't" they triumphantly declared. And then that growling, cracking, screech of a voice... SEGA! I can hear it even now, pitch-perfect, as if it were yesterday. And so the Genesis found its way under my tree one fateful December and the rest is personal history. The heavy thunk of those blocky black cartridges snapping into place. The hum of the system as a good ol' CRT crackled to life. A sudden chorus singing Saay-gaaah in two gloriously separated syllables. Then four quick synth-snare strikes and one of the best videogame music themes on the planet. What followed? Dazzling colors. Dizzying speed. Rings exploding out of an injured hero. More and more and more speed. It was revolutionary, and it burned Sega's then-silent hedgehog into our insatiable brains.

Soon after it was Sonic the Hedgehog 2, then almost yearly sequels. Later it was Sonic CD, which I remember leaving me slack- jawed after its opening animated sequence and eruption of CD-quality music justified every dollar I saved to buy a Sega CD add-on. Oh, there were rocky years we, the faithful, had to endure, particularly when Sonic stumbled into 3D on the Dreamcast. But my affection... no, our collective affection for that indelible rebel speedster wouldn't die. I was one of the angry mob in 2020 who was shocked at the sight of the blue CGI monstrosity that looked so terribly unfamiliar. I cheered when the poor little guy was redesigned properly for the big screen. Opening weekend: can I get an amen? Flaws and all, bumps in the road and dips in the valley, I'm a diehard to the end. Which brings us up to speed. My son grew up to be a twenty-something gamer who adores Sonic. Now my granddaughter, a sickeningly cute bolt of fresh toddler energy, running around Casa de Brown in her own red sneakers, is quickly developing her own affection for the lightning-fast ball of blue fur. And wouldn't you know it, her first encounter with the spry hedgehog and his friends was Netflix's 2022 animated series, whose second season is now available on Blu-ray. That's right, Sonic Prime: Season Two, the latest animated Sonic adventure to storm our household's multigenerational battlements.

In Season Two, Sonic (voiced by Deven Mack) races against time, space and super-powered emeralds to survive multiple realities and his fiercest foe, Dr. Eggman (Brian Drummond), a mad scientist who's teamed up with alternate versions of himself to wreak havoc on the blue boy and his friends. Fortunately, Sonic isn't alone. With the help of best bud Miles "Tails" Prower (Ashleigh Ball), Tail's New Yoke City counterpart Nine (Ball), proverbial muscle Knuckles the Echidna (Adam Nurada), hammer-wielding pink pal Amy Rose (Shannon Chan-Kent), reconnaissance expert Rouge the Bat (Kazumi Evans), Chaos-slinging lookalike Shadow (Ian Hanlin), beefy giant Big the Cat (also Hanlin) and little neighbor Birdie, Sonic sets out to reunite the multiverse and put things back the way they once were. Which... might be easier if the shattering of the Paradox Prism hadn't stranded Shadow in a void, only able to access the Shatterspace of Ghost Hill, only able to contact Sonic when he uses his powers. Shadow believes reassembling the Prism fragments will fix things for good. The two can't agree on the best way forward, though, much less who should go collect the shards to begin with, so both set out to accomplish the same task in very different ways. Who will be faster? Who will save the multiverse? Who will right old wrongs and pull off the impossible?

Sonic Prime doesn't break the cartoon mold in its second season, nor does it do a whole lot that might engage older fans of the hedgehog and his friends. This isn't Pixar, and aside from a few jokes here and there that will sail over kids' heads, the series is decidedly for junior. But it is a heckuva lot of fun, with enough color, splashy speed powers, slapstick scientists and robots, alternate versions of our heroes, and worlds familiar to anyone who's played the games to keep children (of all ages) entertained throughout its eight blink-and-you'll-miss-em episodes. The voice talent is well cast too, even if the characters tend to sound a little cutesy if they aren't named Sonic, Knuckles or Shadow. There also isn't a whole lot of action, with battles and showdowns occurring quickly and infrequently to leave plenty of room for banter. Dr. Eggman and his variants are particularly chatty, which grows old fast, but it thankfully is never too long before we get back to Sonic nabbing crystal fragments and keeping the series on plot and on point.

Sonic Prime: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sonic Prime: Season Two features another bold and vibrant 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation. The series' animation is razor sharp, with crisp, clean edges, beautiful swaths of bright primary hues unhindered by any issues (there's surprisingly little banding and zero macroblocking), a few nicely resolved textures and, can't state this enough, tons and tons of color. It's almost too colorful, enough to give the sensitive folks in the room a migraine if your display is big and a poor kid gets so excited that they keep forgetting to blink. The only issue I encountered is the slightest of slight aliasing, which is intermittent at worst and barely there through all eight episodes at best. You can spot it along the glove's edge in screenshot #8, but only where the vivid crystal energy meets the rough leather of the hand. And good luck spotting that in motion.

Sonic Prime: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sonic's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is a tad front-heavy, particularly when the animals are doing little more than standing around talking. But there's enough of a soundscape on tap to keep every speaker busy from episode to episode. LFE output isn't nuanced but it is aggressive, with plenty of weight lent to Sonic's more active misadventures. Environmental ambience is present too, though again less-than-subtle, while action scenes crank up the, well, action of the rear channels, sending shrapnel and lasers every which way with directional precision. Voices are clean and clear too, without anything that might undermine their place at the front-center of the soundfield.

Sonic Prime: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No extras are included in this barebones, single-disc Blu-ray release.

Sonic Prime: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Sonic Prime isn't going to win over many new adult fans in its second wacky season, but it will entertain the kiddies, and entertain them plenty. Its Blu-ray release is full of more color and action than even its first season, brought to your family with a terrific video presentation and solid lossless audio experience. No extras, but I'm sure your kids would rather spend that extra time playing the games after getting worked up by the show.