Did you have fun? That’s all that ever counts
Don’t let anyone tell you what counts and doesn’t. If you believe it did then it did.
I haven’t played that game and I have no idea what you’re talking about but I stand by my advice.
Why wouldn’t it count?
It’s like a side quest anyway. I do t think I ever got them all as a kid. But I still consider the game finished.
Do you really need someone else’s approval on this?
You don’t get anything except a very small and effectively insignificant change to the ending if you get all the emeralds in Sonic 1 (you don’t even get 7 emeralds) so I’d say it counts. Sonic 2 and 3/Knuckles actually give a meaningful reward for getting all the emeralds so it’s worth it to go for them, even if going for them in Sonic 2 is a real pain in the butt (and the one real bad thing about Sonic 2).
Congratulations!
But like Dr. Robotnik said after credits as he juggles the Chaos Emeralds: “Try Again”
Sonic 1, sure. Those special stages suck anyways. Beating 3 with no emeralds is robbing yourself of some of the most fun parts imo, and the coins make it so easy, but you do you.
Now CD, that shit is hard, like, past, future, past, present, chaos emeralds, what were they thinking, is it really even a kids game?
