This game is more a traditional platformer than its 16-bit counterpart, however it still brings a feeling of speed to the table unlike many other 8-bit games. The controls are a bit wonky especially when jumping around but for the most part the platforming is understanding of this. The level design is pretty good, the levels are short sweet romps that allow you to rather easily breeze through them, although the weird jump often prevents me from having the balls to try much. Although why they decided adding AUTOSCROLLING levels to a SONIC GAME was a good idea, I will never understand.
The bosses in this game are quite poor, unlike the 16 bit version, these bosses are promoted from an end of level challenge to take away your rings, to a full on level within themselves. So, how do we design around this? As the original boss design was made to be quick and simple if you forfeit your rings or time, but here there is no prior level to build up rings nor time. Well, they decided to keep the boss design the same, but to remove all rings to mandate that you play carefully, masterfully, or die. This change rules out your ability to forfeit your rings to blast through the boss, which some may praise as now the boss is "harder" but it simultaneously makes it so for the most part I'm not even going to try to do anything cool or satisfying, im just going to slowly make sure I cautiously get each hit in as to not die, especially considering wonky hitboxes and jump controls. In theory if you learn the boss you can approach them the same as in any other sonic game, but the immense punishment is to much, and this is not a spectacular solution to the issue they were presented with in the desire to draw out the bosses. Conveniently however most of the bosses are complete pushovers anyway, I assume due to the fact that they were aware how frustrating this new design philosophy would be with a boss that took any amount of brain power, but again while being A solution to the problem created, its not exactly a great one as now the bosses are either annoying (because you die at the touch) or boring (because theyre mind numbingly easy), and even with the mind numbingly easy bosses, they still end up taking awhile, because Im too much of a pussy to actually go full ham on them incase one misinput is gonna kill me and mandate I start this easy and boring boss from the start.
The music is brilliant, I love how we got a wholly unique soundtrack rather than simply a worse version of the 16 bit tracks. The graphics are also stunning for the hardware, dare I say some levels may even stylistically look BETTER than there 8 bit counterparts? Specifically Labyrinth Zone.
The bosses in this game are quite poor, unlike the 16 bit version, these bosses are promoted from an end of level challenge to take away your rings, to a full on level within themselves. So, how do we design around this? As the original boss design was made to be quick and simple if you forfeit your rings or time, but here there is no prior level to build up rings nor time. Well, they decided to keep the boss design the same, but to remove all rings to mandate that you play carefully, masterfully, or die. This change rules out your ability to forfeit your rings to blast through the boss, which some may praise as now the boss is "harder" but it simultaneously makes it so for the most part I'm not even going to try to do anything cool or satisfying, im just going to slowly make sure I cautiously get each hit in as to not die, especially considering wonky hitboxes and jump controls. In theory if you learn the boss you can approach them the same as in any other sonic game, but the immense punishment is to much, and this is not a spectacular solution to the issue they were presented with in the desire to draw out the bosses. Conveniently however most of the bosses are complete pushovers anyway, I assume due to the fact that they were aware how frustrating this new design philosophy would be with a boss that took any amount of brain power, but again while being A solution to the problem created, its not exactly a great one as now the bosses are either annoying (because you die at the touch) or boring (because theyre mind numbingly easy), and even with the mind numbingly easy bosses, they still end up taking awhile, because Im too much of a pussy to actually go full ham on them incase one misinput is gonna kill me and mandate I start this easy and boring boss from the start.
The music is brilliant, I love how we got a wholly unique soundtrack rather than simply a worse version of the 16 bit tracks. The graphics are also stunning for the hardware, dare I say some levels may even stylistically look BETTER than there 8 bit counterparts? Specifically Labyrinth Zone.