If it wasn't for all the problems with this game it could have been one of the good Sonic games.
Gameplay, 4. When you're playing the game you're actually using three characters at the same time. The three types are Speed, Fly, and Power. Speed characters play like Sonic and Shadow did on Sonic Adventure 2. They play like a platformer, use the homing attack and other moves, and are really fast. Fly characters can fly over distances and elevations while having the other two characters hang on to them. They can also use the other two to as weapons against robots by throwing them at them. Power characters can destroy breakable objects. They are also the best fighters and can destroy bigger enemies. In the Story mode there are four different teams to play as: Team Sonic, Team Dark, Team Rose, and Team Chaotix. Team Sonic is made up of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. Kind of like in Sonic Adventure 2. Team Dark is made up of Shadow, Rouge, and E-123 Omega. Team Rose is made up of Amy, Cream and her pet Chao Cheese, and Big. Team Chaotix is made up of Espio, Charmy, and Vector.
Once you beat a stage with whatver team you can play it again as that same team. There are many other missions to do with each team on each stage after you beat it on Story.
You can also play with a friend on the 2-player mode. There are several different modes to play on together.
This game has some problems. Unless you're playing as the easiest team you're likely to get screwed a lot after stage 6. There will sometimes be collision errors and that will end with you falling to your death. During some parts of the game you will touch the joy stick when you don't have to and end up falling to your death. There are many other unfair ways to die in this game. In short the game gets pretty cheap. This trail and error stuff doesn't belong here, at least not this much. Especially in this game's case sense they give you a letter ranking based on how many points you got and if you die you lose all your points. So with that and the amount of cheap deaths expect a lot of E ranks your first time playing.
The 2-player mode isn't so bad. If you both like this game then you shouldn't have too hard of a time enjoying the 2-player mode together.
Graphics, 7. The graphics are all right. Some of the characters look a little blocky at times and in 2004 that's not really something to be proud of. Usually only during cutscenes will you actually get a close look at the characters and up close is the only time you're ever going to see the polygons stick out so it's not so bad. There are many good looking moves however to look at that aren't in-game. The different stages look pretty good though. Lots of detail stuck into this game's stages.
Sound, 7. The sound isn't half bad either. The sound tracks in the game's stages aren't anything special. The voice acting isn't that good. The one things that does stick out is the theme songs for the different teams, which are pretty good.
Value, 8. There are 4 different teams to beat the game as, each one having 14 stages. This adds up to 56 stages in all. After you beat the game you have to get all 7 Chaos Emeralds (yes those are back as usual) in the bonus rounds in order to go to the final story which you have to find the key for in each level that has a Chaos Emerald to get and if you get hit by an enemy you lose the key so that can take a while to do. There are also five missions to beat for each of the different teams on each stage. Which I think adds up to 280 missions in all counting the ones you have to do on the Story mode. You can also play the 2-player mode which isn't half-bad.
Difficulty, Hard. The difficulty for each team is different. Team Sonic is the medum team for those who have at least some experience with Sonic games. Team Dark is the hard team for those who are good at this game and probably shouldn't be played untill you have beaten the game with one of the other teams first. Their levels are the same size as the Team Sonic stages but have more and toughter enemies. Team Rose is the easy team for those with little or no experience at Sonic games. Their stages are by far the shortest and have the easiest and least number of enemies in them. Team Chaotix is sort of wierd. You have to do a different variety of missions with them. I wouldn't recommend doing anything with them untill you have at least beaten the game with Team Rose. That way you'll have some experience with the game. Unless you're playing as Team Rose the game gets pretty hard. That is because gets unfair to you and starts killing you for almost no reason eventually like if you move the joy stick a little bit while in the air or don't know exactly what they want you to do.
Tilt, 7. I'm a Sonic fan (or at least I was untill I beat Sonic Unleashed) so I generally like the speediness of this game. If you're a Sonic fan and are looking for one to play then you'll probably enjoy this game. However, if you want a more exceptional platformer, then look else where because with this game's unforgiving difficulty and cheap deaths unless you're a Sonic fan you're probably not going to be able to forgive the game for its gameplay faults.