This game is Sonic on autopilot. It’s got “new” zones (all of them are just renamed classic zones except like Golden Capital?) , they’re not bad, in fact I really like some, Lagoon City Act 1 is probably one of my favorite sonic acts ever. But many of them don’t leave an impression besides “yep, that’s sonic!”. And I like sonic! He controls well here, as do all of his friends, and the new emerald powers are AWESOME, specifically the Fireball and Avatar ones, and each character controls like the genesis games. They also look good, the style of this game is kinda cheap looking at times, but the character models look very very good. I wish they had gone for the hand drawn style though. Trip, the new character here, is like a combo of everyone but slightly worse in every aspect. She’s fine, I like her design, love her super form (I’m a sucker for when they ACTUALLY fully transform) and she’s harmless, but I have no clue what she did in the plot. Speaking of the plot, what happened here. Like genuinely what went on. The Main story is pretty straightforward, the Trip’s Story happens and I’m confused as to where this takes place? And how she’s convinced to work with Eggman? Yes, I watched Trio of Trouble, it didn’t clear and of that up. Then randomly they put in a Last Story because I guess they felt like they had to, and unless you watched that short or went on the optimum path in Egg Fortress, you won’t have the slightest idea where it came from. Hell, I did those both and still don’t totally get it. The boss is ass by the way. People are saying all the bosses are, but it’s just this one to me, that fight sucked. Like I said, it felt like they did it because they thought they had to. This game feels like that overall. Oh, all sonic games have to have these certain level themes! Oh, all sonic games have to have a cool monster as a final boss! Oh, the sonic games now should reference the older stuff, let’s bring back Fang (though I really like how in the marketing they explained his different names as being pseudonyms from different crimes. Very cute Sega.) Oh, all classic sonic games have to have genesis soundfont music (NO THEY DONT, do not let Jun Senoue near a mixer again please). That’s not to say it’s all bad, I still overall had fun and plan to play it again with the other 3 characters. The skins in the game are fucking hilarious, Lego sonic made my week when I saw him in action and playing as Feels the Rabbit was very cathartic in a way. But it wasn’t special. Like I said it feels like it’s on autopilot. It’s middle of the road classic sonic. My ranking now is:

3&K> Mania>> CD>> Superstars> 2>>>> 1

ALSO YALL ARE FUCKING BITCHES THAT TRIP FINAL BOSS WAS EASY GET GOOD AT THE GAME.

I heard some nice things about this game about it being a arena/traditional fighter hybrid but that neither group of players was satisfied with it. With the Ultra Rumble brainrot still in effect and a nice discount i decided to give it a chance and it was better than i was expecting. It's 100% a kusoge, but it's a lot of fun to play. It's not super deep but the combo system is good enough for it to not become a button masher, it feels good to control and the characters are fun.
My favorite so far is Mr. Compress, he has some cool meterless combos and and interesting kit.

My only issue is that meter builds up too slowly, supers don't seem to be worth it most of the time over dash cancels.

The game modes are... fine.
Story mode is really lame, i only played it to get some Compress masks and unlock 2 characters.

Mission mode is a grindfest but not terrible.
Why can't i use my custom outfits in this mode?

Arcade i find it to be enjoyable most of the time, i like the little interactions you get after the fight. It's only annoying when you get one of those CPU that counter everything you do frame 1.

Character customization could be better, there are lots of pieces but most of them are recolors and pieces of other characters, it's hard to make something look good.

Overall, it's fun. I like to pick it up when i don't have to much time to play, pick a random character, lab some combos and beat their arcade mode.