It has been a while, but it is time to review the third volume of the Sonic Archives. The first two were pretty fun and nothing beats the classics right? This collection brings us closer to the current days, but not by a noticeable amount. We are still in the classic era of Sonic foiling Eggman’s plans with ease.

There are 4 issues in this collection and each one has a main plot as well as a short story. One of the notable stories involves the first Mecha/Metal Sonic. He looks just like the real deal except he is chubbier and doesn’t possess any real super speed. It is a rough first draft for Eggman, but it is cool to see that plotline. Another fun story has Sonic go to a parallel universe where he meets up with an evil version of himself. It’s interesting to see an evil Sonic and it’s another classic storyline that will be fun to see again as the stories go into the modern days.

The art is pretty good as you would expect from Sonic. A lot of effort is put into Sonic’s facial expressions since he makes so many of them. It is easy to follow what is happening. We get a few action scenes and it is fun to see Sonic engage in a speed fight at last. The art isn’t amazing, but it is certainly pretty good. This was back during the days where the robot Sonics had to look fake for the viewers so you can instantly tell that the Mecha Sonic is not the real deal. He’s a little fatter and his facial expressions are pretty fierce.

Sonic looks pretty great as you would expect since this took place during a great period for his character development. This is the confident hedgehog that we have come to respect and admire. Tails is still in his early days where he wasn’t much of a fighter, but he still shows some potential once in a while. His static electricity attack was pretty effective. The other characters are mostly forgettable or just there for comic relief, but one character in particular did not look very good.

Sally looked really bad in this comic. Sonic ends up saving a poor animal who is having a pretty rough time, but Sally doesn’t want to risk the animal being a robot sent by Eggman. That’s a pretty cruel decision since the creature wouldn’t stand a chance on its own. It was hard not to lose respect for Sally after she pulled a stunt like that. It went way too far and I’m glad that Sonic still went ahead and made the right decision. He’s a true hero through and through and I would expect nothing less from him.

Overall, This was another solid installment in the Archives series. This volume is not quite as entertaining as the first two, but that is a risk in having so many stand alone issues. The adventures are still fun, but they just couldn’t top the previous ones. We also got less crazy speed feats from Sonic, which definitely did not help. The characters go a long way in helping the series stay afloat and they continue to do a good job of that here. I don’t think that the comic series would be half as good without Sonic. It may not be quite as good as the last two volumes, but you’ll still get everything that you could hope for from the series. Some nice humor and a decent amount of action. It’s very well written as well and there are no cringe worthy moments. (Aside from Sally acting like a villain) I definitely recommend this volume to all Sonic fans, but you may want to go back and check out the first volume….first!

Overall 7/10