A fun game and solid entry into the series. The combat is really fun and unique, and it's definitely really fun to blaze across the map at high-speed. Sonic's movement options are definitely fun as well, and I love the addition of the Drop Dash giving us the second 3D Sonic game to actually feature a Spin Dash since Sonic '06. The Open Zone format is an interesting experiment for the series, and while I generally prefer more linear gameplay in my platformers, I'm interested to see where Sonic Team goes with it. I do appreciate the inclusion of the Cyber Space stages to provide that more linear style, though. The bosses are also some of the best in the series, and I honestly can't remember a single Sonic game where I had THIS MUCH consistent fun with the boss fights across an entire game. Even my absolute favorite Sonic titles tend to skew "just okay" on average in terms of how much I enjoy the bosses.

The story has plenty of fun notes, though I feel some of Ian Flynn's writing here can be a tad TOO self-referential to other games in the series. While I appreciate a number of the callbacks, it definitely feels odd to hear the Black Arms or Dark Gaia get namedropped in a series that's typically avoided that sort of thing.

My biggest gripe has to be the art style, as it's just insanely generic and bland, which is kind of a bummer as the Sonic series usually excels at making interesting looking environments. Sonic Lost World and Sonic Forces both featured excellent art direction and visuals, but here it just feels severely lacking. Some of the enemy designs are pretty cool as well, but a lot of them unfortunately feel a tad same-y and they don't really stand out that much visually for the most part, with only a handful of exceptions. The fact that the last two islands are almost identical landscape-wise to the first one is also kind of a bummer.

Overall, it's a fun time and worthy addition to the series, and I'm excited to see what Sonic Team does next.