One of my all time favorite platformers, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, is now fully remastered and available for download on iOS and Google Play. This release comes with the long hidden/scrapped level, the Hidden Palace Zone.

The Hidden Palace Zone was originally planned as a bonus level to show off Sonic transforming into Super Sonic, after he collected all seven of the Chaos Emeralds across the entire game. Sonic Team decided to scrap the level halfway through the game’s development, but it was quickly noticed after people put the game up as a ROM download.

The mobile version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was originally ported over by Sonic Retro, made up of only two developers, Simon Thomley and Christian Whitehead. They created the Retro Engine, which made the Sonic CD port possible across XBLA, PSN, and PC back in 2011. Whitehead is known to throw missing content into later releases, just like he did with the mobile port for the original Sonic the Hedgehog, which saw the debug mode enabled, giving players access to items removed from the finished game.

Notable inclusions to the remastered port of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 are widescreen graphics, 60 FPS gameplay, and an all new boss attack mode, which lets you fight Dr. Robotnik’s inventions back to back.

If you bought the original release of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on iOS or Google Play, this giant update is free of charge, or $2.99 if you’re just buying it now.