This is an incredibly weird game that came completely out of left field. It came out slightly after the period of gaming where Sonic was really crushing, along with a lot of other spinoffs like Sonic Labyrinth (awful) and Tails' Skypatrol (weird) and it surely couldn't have been what anyone was expecting. A 3D fighter that is most comparable to a watered down Virtua Fighter or Tekken game, it's design philosophy seems to be an accessible fighting game for anyone to enjoy. In that sense, I truly believe Sonic the Fighters delivers. In it's presentation, the game is very cartoonish and lively, with expressive characters and a lot of physical humor, such as a character repeatedly clapping their hands together smushing their opponents head flat, while rings fly everywhere. It's just so weird that in my opinion its hard to not enjoy it. I think the models and stages look great and the music sounds really fantastic as well, as they are short pieces that can play throughout a match without getting tedious. In terms of mechanics, the game is very simple, with one awkward exception. The games only buttons are Punch, Kick and Block, while you also have 2 buttons that allow you to move side-to-side to dodge attacks. Every character also has a dash and back step as well as a "Slip-Around" that allows you to perform a quick move to end directly behind your opponent. Blocking in this game uses barriers, with each player starting with a supply of 5 for the whole match. The barriers can actually break if hit enough or if you are targeted with a grab, and if you run out, you can no longer block. It makes the game rely quite a lot on dodging more than blocking, as some characters such as Bark can easily destroy multiple barriers with strong but slow moves. Some characters like Fang struggle to break barriers however in exchange for having weaker but more quick moves as well as projectiles. The confusing mechanic is the weird "Hyper Mode" this game has that allows you to consume some barriers in exchange for all around buffs and access to different moves. The mechanic seems straight up unnecessary and in my opinion genuinely adds nothing to the experience of the game. Strategic use of barriers is actually a more interesting aspect than you might think, but it's incredibly punishing, as being left without barriers is nearly a death sentence, as many moves in this game are hard to punish unless you successfully block them.
In terms of the games roster, the characters are really fantastic. Besides being extremely cool classic Sonic characters, the roster offers a good selection of diversity despite being relatively small, even being able to include a couple gimmick characters, Fang and Bean, that are very different from the rest of the cast due to their unique projectile gameplay. A criticism of the character design is some characters sharing simple moves, something that was relatively common in early 3D fighters. For example, just about every character can do the same kick combo by mashing the kick button. It can make some matches look a bit boring than other fighting games, but for the most part the characters have pretty different movesets. The games arcade mode is also pretty fun, despite it being linear in the sense that you fight opponents in the same order every time. It culminates in a pretty challenging battle with Metal Sonic and finally Eggman in a robot, which you get to just demolish while powered up with the Chaos Emeralds you collected. The movelist for this game is not easily accessible in-game at all which is pretty bad, depending on your platform you may not even have one. Playing this game on the Gems Collection lets you look at the manual and see the movelist, which is what I did. The movelists are relatively simple as most characters have combos for mashing one button, but all characters have some directional inputs for special moves, but nothing too overwhelming. If you play this with friends, its honestly perfectly fine with no experience just because of how goofy it is, you really don't even need to open a movelist to experience some pretty fun gameplay. Overall, I think this game gets a bit too much flack. I think that bundling in the Gems collection with some of Sonic's best games makes it seem like more of a joke, but I'm glad it was made really available with ports on the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well. I recommend you try it if you haven't, I had a lot of fun playing through the game as Knuckles in front of my friends on Discord, and I enjoy going back to it from time to time.
In terms of the games roster, the characters are really fantastic. Besides being extremely cool classic Sonic characters, the roster offers a good selection of diversity despite being relatively small, even being able to include a couple gimmick characters, Fang and Bean, that are very different from the rest of the cast due to their unique projectile gameplay. A criticism of the character design is some characters sharing simple moves, something that was relatively common in early 3D fighters. For example, just about every character can do the same kick combo by mashing the kick button. It can make some matches look a bit boring than other fighting games, but for the most part the characters have pretty different movesets. The games arcade mode is also pretty fun, despite it being linear in the sense that you fight opponents in the same order every time. It culminates in a pretty challenging battle with Metal Sonic and finally Eggman in a robot, which you get to just demolish while powered up with the Chaos Emeralds you collected. The movelist for this game is not easily accessible in-game at all which is pretty bad, depending on your platform you may not even have one. Playing this game on the Gems Collection lets you look at the manual and see the movelist, which is what I did. The movelists are relatively simple as most characters have combos for mashing one button, but all characters have some directional inputs for special moves, but nothing too overwhelming. If you play this with friends, its honestly perfectly fine with no experience just because of how goofy it is, you really don't even need to open a movelist to experience some pretty fun gameplay. Overall, I think this game gets a bit too much flack. I think that bundling in the Gems collection with some of Sonic's best games makes it seem like more of a joke, but I'm glad it was made really available with ports on the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well. I recommend you try it if you haven't, I had a lot of fun playing through the game as Knuckles in front of my friends on Discord, and I enjoy going back to it from time to time.