Sonic's series had been in a downward spiral for a long time, and it just got steeper.
To sort this whole mess out, I'll continue with the story line. The whole game has you side-tracking and doing odd tasks that are completely irrelevant to the main plot. For example, sonic has to go through a mission where he cannot break any jars, or he has to break 5 jars. There's even one where he has to put eggs in a nest. The really stupid ones are where you have to collect 100 rings. Absolutely no relevance whatsoever. Not only that, but when the story line IS followed, it's unbelievably short. This is just nuts. We don't get any explanation of what the rings are, who the Erazor is, why we got hrought he pointless missions, etc. The story is shallow and off-topic, and the side missions are a pain.
Now, the gameplay. The missions are easy, the level-up system is ridiculous, and the 'skill' system is also the same way. Why can't sonic just be like he used to be? Not to mention the controls. Ugh... automatic movement makes it harder to avoid contact with enemies, an unresponsive jumping motion makes it even more difficult, and slippery side-to-side movements can mean your doom. It's beyond hard to play. I remember spending over an hour trying to get trough one mission because I couldn't get sonic to jump at the right time. It just gets so annoying, it's unbearable!
I just can't operate sonic with a sideways wii remote.
Now, the music, not bad but could use a little less repetitiveness. I'm not a fan of rock either, and this is pure rock. In the other sonic games it was bearable because it fit the background and it sounded right for the mission's atmosphere. Here it sounds like a desperate attempt to fill the levels with music without spending much time composing. The voice acting wasn't bad though.
On top of all that, the characters aren't really satisfying. There's no Tails sidekick, Eggman is now an innocent King (just what we need), Knuckles is some guy named Sinbad, and we're followed around by a genie that can't do anything for you except get a bunch of tissues for sonic's cold. Sonic is also portrayed as more of a boasting character as well. He goes on and on about his incredible speed and how he'll whoop Erazor's hide and that he'll save the place in not time 'cause he's 'Sonic the Hedgehog'. And he doesn't look good in the story's 'pages', or in other words the cut scenes that look like it's pictures from a book.
The game did have a relatively well done party mode, but you require multiple controllers and there is no wi-fi. The graphics were good but were often confusing, especially int he Foundry course. Sometimes I couldn't tell what was what. The customization for the rings sonic can wear was also a nice added feature, but even so, I think he should just be able to perform them all without needing to add them onto his fingers. I liked him better as a regular hedgehog with speed.
Although it was a well-rated game, I think that it's highly overrated and people need to take a second look at sega's crashing games. I really hope they do better int he future, but this was not a game that could have given them an advantage. Overall the game was very poorly made and awkward to play and look at. Sega needs to focus on the good-old Eggman plots and keep it simple. These intricate plots and designs and characters they're coming up with is damaging them more than helping.