Sonic 1 & 2 get native ports to both the PlayStation Vita & Nintendo Switch thanks to community efforts!

Earlier this month, Sonic CD got natively ported to the both the Nintendo Switch & PSVita thanks to dedication from numerous community members. Now, ports of Sonic 1 and 2 have landed to both consoles mostly thanks to the Rubberduckycooly‘s reverse engineering work together with some console-specific porting work!

Sonic 1 and 2 ported to the Nintendo Switch

Sonic 1 & 2 have now natively landed on the Switch following Sonic CD!

Unlike the Switch’s Sonic CD port, these Sonic 1 & 2 ports are based upon code reverse-engineered by Rubberduckycooly with the developer behind the port itself being ““. According to the port’s release page on GBATemp, there are no significant issues that detract from the gameplay experience but in its current state, there is no support for analogue stick controls although that is in the pipeline. As with Sonic CD, one needs to extract the “Data.rsdk” file from the Android or iOS versions of the games after installing the supplied NRO files but it is important to state that the iOS versions are free to download albeit a little more annoying to get.

You may grab the NRO file to install the Sonic 1 & 2 ports on your Switch by following the links below.

Sonic 1 and 2 find their way onto the Vita

Fancy some native Sonic 1 & 2 on your Vita and Switch? If so, the community’s got you covered! (Image Source)

Moving over to Sony’s latest handheld console that will be celebrating its 10th birthday this year, the PSVita also got ports of Sonic 1 & 2 thanks to developer “Xeeynamo” (Luciano Ciccariello). Similar to the Switch ports, the Vita’s are also based upon Rubberduckycooly’s reverse-engineered code and while they mostly function well, there are some important points to keep in mind:

  • The ports run at an internal resolution of 480×272 which allows them to fit properly on the Vita’s 16:9 960×544 screen
    • In some parts of the port such as the Title Screen, there might be some minor graphical glitches due to the port normally rendering at 416×240 but these do not greatly affect gameplay
  • Xeenyamo notes that special stages are slow and require your Vita to be overclocked for a better experience
    • Using a plugin like Electry’s PSVShell does the trick as it allows you to ramp up your Vita’s clock speed to 444MHz and even 494/500MHz
  • There might be some slowdowns in certain instances due to music changing or certain sound effects being played
  • Some hours ago, another version was released to fix some crashing issues with the initially released version

Similar to the Switch’s port, you need to grab the “Data.rsdk” file from the Android/iOS ports of the games in order to actually play them once installing the VPK files. Sonic 1 & 2 have also been ported to the Vita by SonicMastr, who was behind the console’s initial Sonic CD port, using the same reverse-engineered code base .

To obtain the VPK file in order to get Sonic 1 & 2 on your Vita, follow the links below.

Conclusion

As stated above, the download links for both ports of the games are found below. It is possible that both the Vita & Switch ports receive some updates in the near future seeing how Rubberduckycooly and others are updating the code reverse-engineered from the Sonic 1 & 2 games which is used as the ports’ base. PC ports have also been released using the reverse-engineered code.

Sonic 1 & 2 for the Switch GitHub release page (download link): https://github.com/heyjoeway/Sonic-1-2-2013-Decompilation/releases

Sonic 1 & 2 for the Switch GBATemp release thread (more info): https://gbatemp.net/threads/sonic-1-and-2-2013-for-the-nintendo-switch.581099/

Sonic 1 & 2 for the Vita GitHub release page (download link): https://github.com/Xeeynamo/Sonic-1-2-2013-Decompilation/releases

Sonic 1 & 2 for the Vita release tweet (more info): https://twitter.com/xeeynamo/status/1350982045594431488

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