This is absolutely the best of these handheld Sonic games, in a way that very much impressed me. The art design and presentation is top notch for a system like this, with impressive animations and cutscenes, and the set pieces on certain levels (such as the train segment in Sunset Park Zone) demonstrate a mastery of development on this hardware that the previous games did not. The level design may not be outstanding, but the unique and varied special stages were a pleasant surprise. It still struggles with framerate issues and screen crunch, but overall this is a truly great game, especially for the hardware.