A decent game, but it's too short. It's the middle brother of the 5 main Game Gear titles Sonic's mug is on.
Gameplay - 7
There's only one thing you do in Blast: run to the end. Nothing else. That's something to respect. You also get to do this at high-speed and thankfully not much hinders the experience here. However, there's a few problems with this. For example, the camera is TOO close. I know it's a Game Gear game, but you are basically taking leaps of faith sometimes praying to the lord above that you land on a platform and not in a bottomless pit... If you just hit the pit, I have bad news for you. Game over.
Another main issue with the gameplay itself is that there's not enough of it. You can blaze through this game in a matter of a few hours. Heck, if I had a Game Gear (and didn't play this on Mega Collection (which by the way the only difference is I'm playing it on TV screen with no way to take it on the go)), I could probably go to a laundromat, plop down, and finish the game before all my clothes were done. But I have a DS and not a Game Gear so I'll never be able to test that. Ahem...
Aside from the shortness of the game and the close-up camera, I'm quite impressed with the way the game flows. The levels are simple enough that you're not running in circles to get to the end, but also not so empty that you can hold right and literally get to the end without looking. The occasional badnik is easil taken care of, and the obstacles are pretty refreshing. Only a few levels later on seem to hold some sort of frustration, and that's mostly the closed-in camera's fault. I was playing one later level and remember spending 5 minutes or so JUST trying to find out where the hell I'm supposed to go next.
But other than this, the platforming is more fun than it was in the 1st Game Gear title, on par with that of Chaos, and just under the entertainment value of the 2nd Game Gear title. It doesn't match up to Triple Trouble, and if you were to pick between TT and Blast to play, I'm point you over to Triple Trouble. And I'd even have the line to it paved with delicious candy. Mmm, candy...
Graphics - 9
I can wrap this game's graphics up in just a simple statement: It's exactly on level with the graphics of Tails Adventure. The graphics actually JUST BARELY manage to compare to early SNES game graphics, and seeing as how those two systems were out around the same time, that's quite impressive.
The evironments are in full color and have a nice level of detail to them. If it weren't for the fact that the camera was so close up to Sonic that I couldn't enjoy the scenery, I'd call the scenery eye-candy for the handheld it was released for. Again, that camera should have backed up JUST A BIT.
I noticed very few glitches, and the ones I DID notice are actually in your favor. If you make a jump and you're a tad too low to make it, your character actually ends up bumping up onto the top of the platform and you can keep on your merry way. However, there's also instances where you go to grab your rings and they don't get nabbed. This is one technical issue I was irritated with. Even if Sonic is touching the ring, it doesn't actually become obtained until you have literally made sure his midsection has touched that ring. Sorry if you thought the quils would magically make the rings cling to him like they do in other games, I guess the rings in this game just hate you.
Other than that, no technical issues were truly found, the game worked like it should have.
Sound - 7
Oh, how I love having to critic 8-bit music. I love how it all sounds the same in some aspect so that I can't truly make a solid judgement on it. Firstly, the sound quality is only so-so. After all, it's a Game Gear game. It came out after the Game Boy, and literally had about the same level of sound quality. The stage music has a sort of flow to it and the boss music is actually a little catchy (see also: it had a more of a beat to it and not much else).
The sound effects were low-quality, but at least on level with the rest of the game's sound abilities. At the same time, it wasn't particularly annoying, the sound effects, but when paired with circumstance like, say, getting hit by a badnik and losing your rings while you run JUST under rings and not manage to grab any of them, you'll easily find a hatred for a few sound effects. If not, a majority of them. But that's to be expected. You're playing a game on a dusty, almost 20-year-old system. You're not going to get very intricate with the sound.
Speed - 9
It's fast. Seriously fast. You're gonna blaze through a level faster than you finish that hot dog you bought from the clerk at the stand just... 30 seconds ago. Sonic and Knuckles both leave trails of fire behind them as you dash across the screen and hop from platform to platform. Okay, I'm exagerating a bit, but when you take into account how the camera (I keep bringing this up) just loves to come so close that you almost want to LET Sonic put a restraining order on it, the background around you almost becomes a blur. Again, I exaggerate.
However, the sense of speed in this game really is refreshing when compared to almost every other Sonic game I've ever played. You're a flurry of furry fury (oh, God, I've used an alliteration, and it almost sort of rhymed) flying across the screen. And when you ARE flying across the screen and not into that bottomless pit you fell down about 15 seconds ago and just meters back, you're gonna love the flying across the screen you are doing.
Overall - 7.8
With all that's been said here, I think it's fair to say that in the end Blast is just a fun game that if you need a quick Sonic fix and you've already played and literally beaten Emerald Hill twice to death and need something new, Blast will satisfy you up until the late game when more intricate jumps are needed and it just so happens you can't SEE the platform to MAKE the jump. It'll satisfy you until those sound effects go from poppy and upbeat to overly cheery and annoying.
Thankfully, the fact that this game is short just came to HELP you for once, and since it's short you won't have to grow frustrated to heights where the Game Gear (or PS2/Xbox/GameCube controller) becomes a boomerang that you're hoping will hit that window across the street just so you can laugh it off and say "that was worth the money I paid" (Shadow The Hedgehog and Sonic The Hedgehog 2006, I am talking to you!). Blast is that game where you'll play it, enjoy it to a certain point, the cab driver says you've reached your destination, and you turn the game off and get on with whatever it is you're doing.
In essence, it's not a sit-down game, really. Just play it when you are on the go and need something to do. That is, if you still have a Game Gear.