I was gaslit into thinking this was terrible until sat down and actually appreciated all the finer details

It’s clunky, Sonic really didn’t transition well into 3D, it’s true, your often running into walls or confused on what direction you should be holding the thumb stick. The iconic lock-on dash jump was introduced in this game and like every game after it, you sometimes just launch off the side of a cliff because that’s where Sonic wanted to go. All the characters that don’t have a focus on going fast play the best.

What I think makes this game shine is everything else about it, the vision it had and what it was able to pull off with such fine detail. The music in levels plays motifs of the characters theme songs which have lyrics that address the themes of the plots they go through in each of their stories. And the stories are actually mostly interesting (sorry Big the Cat) Some of the plots connect in some impactful ways that when playing as the alternate character give a whole new perspective.

The biggest flaw of it that I think get people to not take it serious is the voice acting: it’s awful. The emotions some characters are trying to convey don’t match the situation or even match the previous sentence, it’s fumbled so hard that I think it ruined a lot people’s ability to even attempt to take the plot seriously and call the game bad because all they are judging it on is the dogshit gameplay. The direction of it does have its positives with a lot of dialogue changing between playthroughs to give a “point of view” for each character: Eggman is a mustache twiddling goofy villain to Sonic, but to Tails, he’s a scary threat and sounds a lot more menacing.

You’ll play it a first time and probably get frustrated by the controls and the silly voices, but if you play it again and actually study what’s going on, you’ll find it to be a way more enjoyable piece of art.