Amazing improvement on the Game-Gear game, it more fully realizes the aspects of the original that tried to do ambitious things for its 8-bit hardware. This remake keeps much of the original's level design, but smooths over the rough edges of the original with some Sonic 3 & Knuckles influence. Speaking of the Sonic 3 influence, all levels seamlessly transition to the next via a nice cutscene. The special stages are found in the same way as in Sonic 3 where there are big rings hidden in the levels, and the special levels themselves are unique and really fun. I love how if you fail a special level you can spend a life to retry them, the special stages are also not too difficult overall which I appreciate. I love the ability to swap between Sonic and Tails at any time, this makes exploration really fun, as you can swap to Tails and fly around to look for things like special stages. Overall, this remake blows the original out of the water and you should honestly just skip the original and play this instead, it's a joy to play.