It's painfully obvious that all you want to do is remake the old (actually good) levels that made Sonic great. Sonic Generations was off to a great start, even with the stupid plot, but why in the HELL would you only use ONE zone from EVERY game? I emphasize "every" because that's including the objectively awful Sonic 2006 and Sonic Unleashed. Because of this, literally only a QUARTER of the game is even in the same ballpark as "fun."
We start out 20ish years in the past, with the original Sonic (here on out referred to as "Classic Sonic") running around and doing...whatever the fuck else he did in his free time before he started battling gigantic eldritch abominations. Suddenly, Steampunk Haunter shows up and attacks him. You're probably wondering what exactly the hell just happened.
Fuck it! We're cutting 20 years ahead to Sonic's birthday party! (So obviously he survived the attack in the past or he wouldn't be here in the present, right?) Steampunk Haunter shows up and attacks again, with Sonic wondering what the hell it is. Shouldn't he know? He saw it when he was his past self helping his future self fight it, right? He should know how this whole story turns out because he was already present when it took place- WIBBLY WOBBLY TIMEY WIMEY THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T USE TIME TRAVEL AS A DEVICE FOR AN EXCUSE PLOT.
Steampunk Haunter sucks everyone into black holes and puts Modern Sonic and Classic Sonic in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber where they find a bunch of locations from their past adventures (or Classic Sonic's future adventures) all frozen in time and de-colorized. They discover that by running really fast through the zones, they can unfreeze them and rescue their friends who have been trapped inside.
So as I said, we get ONE zone from each major Sonic game, for a total of 9 levels with two acts each. This is where the bad design really sets in. You play act one of each zone as Classic Sonic, and it's the standard side-scrolling, spin dash "no homing attack" gameplay you know and love. Act two is played as Modern Sonic, and is in the 3D, gimmicky, stupid special attacks gameplay style. This means you will be playing 2D versions of designed-for-3D levels as Classic Sonic, and 3D versions of designed-for-2D levels as Modern Sonic and this DOES. NOT. WORK. It's the reason exactly FIVE of the EIGHTEEN total acts don't suck.
Everywhere SEGA has had to come up with original level designs, they fail horribly. If it's not 2D based on an originally 2D level, or 3D originally based on a 3D level, it's awful. And even then all the levels taken from the later games are crap across the board because THEY WERE CRAP TO BEGIN WITH. There's far too much reliance on precision jumping and the homing attack, ridiculous enemy placement, forcing the player to learn new special attacks as Modern Sonic, it's all just stupid! Seriously, HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW SONIC CAN FUCKING WALL-JUMP NOW? (To be fair, there is a warning and offer of a tutorial when these new mechanics pop up, but I made the mistake of assuming they would be obvious and easy for someone like me- who has literally grown up with Sonic games- to figure out.) On top of this, some of the last few acts are insanely long. You know how in the old, good Sonic games, you had 10 minutes to get through each act, and most of the time you wouldn't need more than 5 or 6? GOOD FUCKING LUCK BEATING PLANET WISP IN LESS THAN 15, AND THAT'S IF YOU CAN QUICKLY FIGURE OUT WHERE THE HELL TO EVEN GO.
And that's not all. "Oh thank goodness," you think. "I've finally gotten through those horribly designed levels and can move on to the boss fight! That should be fun at least!"
NOPE. YOU GOTTA DO SOME CHALLENGES IN THOSE HORRIBLY DESIGNED LEVELS BEFORE YOU CAN GO TO THE BOSSES.
"Oh...okay. So what, I gotta beat the act with a tough, but reasonable time limit now or something?"
NOPE. YOU'RE RACING A COPY OF YOURSELF WHO'S NOT BOUND BY THE LAWS OF REALITY. HE FOLLOWS A SET PATH AT A CONSTANT SPEED EVERY TIME NO MATTER WHAT, BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR MOVING PLATFORMS. AND IF YOU SCREW UP EVEN ONCE YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO CATCH UP IN TIME TO WIN.
"Oh...well that was tremendously unfair, but I managed to beat it. Can I fight the boss now?"
NOW YOU HAVE TO USE CHARMY TO GET THROUGH THIS JUMPING PUZZLE!
"Who? Oh, the annoying bee guy...I see. That was painfully frustrating, but I finally got it. Boss time now?"
MORE PUZZLES! BUTTONS AND LASER WALLS!
"Okay, I see you're trying to extend the gameplay experience, but this is getting a bit ridiculous. Can I just fight the b-"
NO! PLAY MUSICAL TENNIS WITH VECTOR!
"Musica- What!? I don't- That doesn't even- Know what? Fuck you! I'm playing Sonic Spinball."
Okay. So let's say you complete the necessary challenges without putting a controller through a TV screen and make it to the bosses. Well, to sum it up: The first 2 are way too easy, and the last 2 are way too hard. Death Egg Robot and Perfect Chaos? Both immensely difficult final bosses in their respective debut games? Pushovers. You don't even go Super Sonic against Chaos. Also, his modernized design looks stupid. Why the hell does he have armor now? There was a high-definition version of him in Sonic Adventure's opening! Make him look like that!
And I don't know what the hell the Egg Dragoon came from (Sonic Unleashed, apparently) but FUCK THAT THING TO HELL AND BACK TWICE. It's a running boss fight with Sonic going constantly at full speed, so you have to boost to catch up. Unfortunately, while doing this he steers like a goddamn semi truck, making it effectively IMPOSSIBLE to get to Robotnik and damage him until the fight shifts into side-scroller mode and has you jumping over ice bombs. Because of the element of randomness to it, this fight can TAKE FUCKING FOREVER, only for you to fuck up when it's time to deliver the final hit and have to do the WHOLE THING OVER AGAIN.
Oh, but that's nothing compared to the final boss fight with Steampunk Haunter. It shouldn't come as any surprise that both Sonics use the Chaos Emeralds to turn into their super forms for this fight, and as per tradition, you need to keep collecting rings throughout the battle in order to stay super. This would not normally be much of a problem, except...
HOW THE HELL ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO SEE THE RINGS WITH A BACKGROUND THAT FLASHY AND BUSY? YOU'VE GOT HYPERSPACE RAYS GOING THIS WAY, GEARS AND SHIT GOING THAT WAY, AND IT'S ZOOMED SO FAR OUT YOU CAN'T EVEN TELL WHERE YOU ARE HALF THE TIME. It doesn't even TELL you what you're supposed to do! Like at all! There is NO mention that all you have to do is catch up to the boss and keep boosting into his little orb thingy to damage him.
The Sonic-switching mechanic is confusing and leaves you clueless as to what you're supposed to do even though the characters all told you a hundred times to use it. You spend 90% of the time trying to catch up to the boss only for it to go into side-scrolling mode, and the other 10% trying to get some goddamn rings so you can stay alive long enough to keep doing that! There is no point in switching whatsoever!
Also, do you know what a homing shot looks like? Don't worry. The extra characters will let you know. All of them. Every. Fucking. Time. It. Happens.
"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"
"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"
"IT'S LIKE THAT SHOT CHASES YOU!"
"THAT'S A HOMING SHOT!"
"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"
"IT'S LIKE THAT SHOT CHASES YOU!"
"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"
There is simply not enough good in this game to counteract all the bad. The early levels are enjoyable to play, and they're obviously all visually impressive, but the story is stupid, the gameplay shifts so rapidly between fun/nostalgic and tedious/infuriating, the voice acting is annoying as fuck, all the required extra challenges are such obvious padding, and the classic bosses are so dumbed down it's downright insulting.
If you want Classic Sonic gameplay, PLAY A FUCKING CLASSIC SONIC GAME because SEGA apparently has no idea how to do a remake anything even remotely resembling justice.
4/10
And no, I'm not touching Sonic 4 Part 2 unless it goes on sale for a fucking buck because SEGA still hasn't figured out that homing attack is NOT A GODDAMN 2-D MECHANIC. I don't care if it's a level-for-level, platform-for-platform remake of EVERY Genesis Sonic game.
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