Sonic 3: Angel Island Revisited

I think I'm coming to the realisation that I just don't vibe with Classic Sonic game design.

To start, I want to say that the port itself that I played on here was actually a treat to use and not the issue, however I do wish they made it clearer which options more closely resemble the original experience.

This game has wonderful music and graphics which I've come to expect from a Sonic game, but playing the game really falls flat for me.

For a franchise that always advertises the main character as "fast", it is ridiculous how the most optimal strategy almost all the time is to go slow. If you go too fast you'll have no time to react to what's oncoming meaning a very high chance to die or get hit. A thing I hear Sonic fans commend these classic games on is how with every playthrough they are able to skip things and take new routes and improve their gameplay so they can go faster for longer. And honestly, having to go slow isn't a bad thing in itself, but Sonic is so built for momentum it doesn't feel good to be slow, making you want to go faster, and then you do go faster, then some spring pushes you back and into something else with no time to react and you feel cheated. If you want me as the player to take multiple playthroughs and feel that sense of improvement, I actually need to have fun on the first playthrough to warrant it, and I just really didn't. Sonic 3&K had a couple issues with unclear level design, included many strange gameplay moments and even a couple bugs too? (Again this definitely wasn't the port itself I'm pretty sure the Genesis version just has that bad of a collision detection system sometimes)

If you're willing to get down to S3&K's level, you'll probably learn to enjoy it, but I am just not the type to be replaying games for no reason anymore, and S3&K didn't give me a good reason to return anytime soon.

Review taken from my Backloggd page.