A fun old style Sonic game.
The game features 4 characters,Sonic,Tails,Knuckles and Amy.To be honest,Sonic feels a bit redundant in this game compared to Tails who can hover to safely to the platforms.I found Knuckles the most fun character to play as though,because he can punch enemies.
The levels consist the typical colorful/tropical environments with open space for Sonic to run fast,casino theme levels where you'll to bounce of flippers and other objects and nagivate past certain objects that make Sonic bounce off them quite a distance,as well as under-water levels where you'll need to find air bubbles or surface occasionally for air(which means sometimes you'll need to time your platform jumps well for the platforms which take you above the surface of the water)and there's levels with beautiful ancient style buildings high in the sky with theirs own way of allowing you to progress through them in a fast manner,and factory levels with lots of hazzards.
The game has a bit of trial by error because often,enemies are directly in the path of where many springs are that will make you bounce into them,and it's the same for spikes that can be easy to collide into when you're running at fast speed(which forces you to pay close attention and react quickly when you play this game)or when you bounce off springs you can easily land on spikes in some places,but there isn't much chance of dying because as long as you hold 1 ring,you cannot die,unless you drown,fall into a pitfall or are crushed.Some of the platforms require delicate timing when you bounce off springs/jump onto them and some enemies require you to time your jumping attack on them because they can shield themselves with a hard outer coating that will count as a hit against your character.Many enemies can shoot projectiles or will pop out of the ground in front of you(which makes it easy for you to collide into them and it counts as a hit against you).
The boss battles will put your character against more of Eggman's contraptions and there was enough variety in their designs to make the boss battles feel fun.Sometimes Eggman used his contraptions to try and crush you,or he will drop giant spikey objects at you and tried to fly his vehicle straight at you(for one boss battle,you had to use the spikey objects he drops at you as platforms to get high enough to hit Eggman,and the fact you're under-water means you can afford to miss the platforms too much,but you don't want to rush too much and get hit by the spikey part of the platform or he would try to grab you with giant claws and you had to get to the other side of the screen and time the jump over it perfectly and if the claw grabbed you,it would count as a hit and could easily cause you to lose your last remaining ring because you had to stay near the edge of the screen to dodge it.Some of Eggman's boss machines will shoot lazer beams at you,swing giant balls at you,the drilling machine from Sonic 2 returns for one of the boss battles and there's even a battle against a robot version of Knuckles who can attack you with jumping/spinning attacks,he can glide towards you and he can shoot missles at you.
Even though some of the contraptions Eggman attack with similar styles/weapons,the patterns of attacks they use and the timing for defeating them is very different from one another.
The graphics were decent for their time,Sonic had been nicely redrawn and the style of the graphics are not as colorful as the GENESIS Sonic games but they go for a more realistic look.There's still a nice variety of tropical,casino,industrial environments that are typical of Sonic games.The tropical environment has beach sand,palm trees,bright green grass,sea shore etc.The Casino is nicely lite,the ancient style stuctures/buildings look great and blend with the high in the sky atmosphere brilliantly.
To be honest,the music wasn't very good,but there was some enjoyable boss music.
Overall a very fun,old style Sonic game.