In 2013, SEGA published mobile versions of Sonic the Hedgehog, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. These were remakes from the ground up of the Mega Drive/Genesis titles by esteemed Sonic hacking community members Christian "Taxman" Whitehead and Simon "Stealth" Thomley, using the Taxman's custom 'Retro Engine'. They could play in a wider screen resolution, and came with extras such as added abilities not seen in the original titles, and even a secret level. These was ported to devices like the Amazon Fire Stick, but by 2021 they had never seen an official PC or console release.
 
However, in January 2021, RubberDuckyCooly and stxticOVFL, a pair of talented programmers interested in the Retro Engine's inner workings, released a full decompilation of the engine version these releases were built on. This allowed people to play the games natively on PC, provided you had a copy of the relevant game's data file. RubberDuckyCooly then decompiled the bytecode of the games, allowing modders to change the script to add their own custom features.
 
Sonic the Hedgehog Forever and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Absolute are built on this foundation. We've sought to make the classic Sonic the Hedgehog games easier to access on PC, and have included bug fixes, extra options and abilities that are new to even the mobile ports. The downloads come with setup scripts and a relevant tool to unpack the apps automatically, allowing a new player to play the games on PC with very little work.
 
We hope that the work we're doing*, on top of the work others have done to make it possible, lets you experience these unforgettable games in the best way possible.
 
*Because we're not finished just yet!