Sonic Gems Collection (GameCube)

Sonic Gems Collection is a compilation of Sonic CD, Sonic R, Sonic the Fighters, and six Game Gear games (Sonic 2, Sonic Spinball, Sonic Triple Trouble, Sonic Drift 2, Tails' Sky Patrol, and Tails Adventures).

Inexplicably, Gems was a console exclusive in the US while Japan and Europe also got it for the PlayStation 2. Also inexplicably, some of the game's gallery is devoted to art from Knuckles' Chaotix.

Regional Differences
While Vectorman, Vectorman 2, Bonanza Bros, and all three Bare Knuckle (aka Streets of Rage) games are bonuses in the Japanese version, the US one only has the Vectorman games. The others were removed to get an E rating, but they can still be enabled in the US menu with cheat codes.

The US version also changed the Genesis and Sega CD icons, for whatever reason.

Cancelled Games
Action Replay code on the US version replaces an entry on the menu with other games that aren't actually present (the game crashes if they're picked), but logo pictures are shown. Replace "XXXX" with one of the following:


 * 3132 - Bonanza Bros
 * 3133 - Streets of Rage
 * 3134 - Streets of Rage 2
 * 3135 - Streets of Rage 3
 * 3136 - Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair (blue MD icon)
 * 3137 - Wonder Boy in Monster World (blue MD icon)
 * 3138 - Monster World IV (orange MD icon)
 * 3139 - Sonic Eraser (orange MD icon)

Most of these are Mega Drive entries, including some of the Monster World/Wonder Boy games. The most intriguing part is the presence of Sonic Eraser, a very obscure Japan-only game with a very small connection to Sonic.

Eraser and Monster World IV use an orange MD icon rather than the normal blue one, and as both of them were Japan-only titles at this point, they might have been planned to be included untranslated in the US version.

Porting Oddities

 * Sonic CD is a port of the PC version, although there are some inaccuracies and differences. One change is the soundtrack, which changes depending on the region detected despite the fact that the PC version only had the US soundtrack and the game was not optimized to use the Japanese counterparts (for example, racing Metal Sonic in the Good Future will always play Stardust Speedway "G" Mix). In the PlayStation 2 version, both soundtrack files are actually still in the game and play the Japanese soundtrack if it detects the system settings as Japanese, even though there is no in-game option for unspecified reasons. The only remnants of the Japanese soundtrack in the American and European versions (and vice versa) are alternate FMV animations which play music from the other soundtrack. This can be activated with an Action Replay code.


 * Sonic the Fighters adds in-game options, button mapping, and deleted certain unused models such as Honey. Trying to access said unused elements will crash the game.


 * Sonic R is a port of the music-enabled PC version, with minor differences. The PlayStation 2 version reduces the number of players from four to two.


 * The other games are more or less straightforward emulations.