For most of my life, I have not "gotten" Sonic 2 as a game. As a kid, I was just scared of the water in Chemical Plant and felt betrayed that the following level was ALSO a water level. A bit older, it was cool to hate on Sonic, so I begruged him for not having Mario or Donkey Kong or Crash's sort of physics and level design philosophies, finding stages labyrinthine. After playing Sonic Mania and enjoying it, I still didn't latch onto Sonic 2, as I felt the level structure and spectacle of Mania was much better suited for a platforming experience, while Sonic 2 felt very much like a hodgepodge of different set pieces flung together in a playground with no regard for how they work next to each other. And also those crabs in Metropolis were the worst. But never, through any of these playthroughs, did I beat Sonic 2, just sort of ditching it at different points, getting further each time, or bouncing around to different levels in the stage select to sample pieces.
I have now actually beaten Sonic 2. And after doing that... my opinion didn't change much. As a single playthrough, Sonic 2 feels like a trial and error marathon, figuring out when a cheap trap is gonna happen or how the timing of this piece of floor works so you don't fall to your death. It starts as early as Chemical Plant and the game is strewn full of little examples. As someone who likes taking in as much of a level as I can, delving into little secrets, during a first playthrough, Sonic 2 thoroughly tested my patience as eventually I would get over these little annoyances and go "that's enough". The final stretch of the game was absolutely full of this, a linear shot through various obstacles that aren't at all tricky once you know their timing, but they LOVE to get ya with little things like exploding starfish on elevators, or the spikes on Mecha Sonic's head, or the positioning of the arms on the Death Egg Robot. Even the bonus stages follow this philosophy to a ridiculous degree, miserable halfpipes of trial and error if you're going Sonic & Tails and just regular halfpipes of trial and error if you're Sonic, only they take all your rings and make you move onto the next one if you screw up.
But, mastery is always the better part of Sonic. So I played the game a second time upon beating it. I used the knowledge from my previous playthrough, remembered the various traps, avoided them deftly and felt some joy unlocking secret routes, unlocked Super Sonic and he is an absolute BLAST to play through from increased jump height alone, and first-try cleared the final boss gauntlet as it is the exact same pattern every time and it's not really that threatening. Heck, I even thought Metropolis Zone was FUN! Sonic 2 is a game where you are rewarded for loving it, where a single playthrough could never be enough to express what makes the game good, where the feeling of Sonic outrunning the screen in Chemical Plant Zone gets to spread across the whole game as you know what you're doing. It's a freeform dismantling of platformer conventions by giving you a character who's too fast for his own good at times, but refuses to be constrained by the same limits as his contemporaries. It is the philosophy of platforming mastery taken to the highest peak possible.
... I just don't think it's for me. I'm not in love with how Sonic feels, I like interplay with enemies more than Sonic is willing to offer, I like feeling the ebb and flow of different parts of a level that Sonic is happier to let you blaze past. The more structured ending section that people hate with all the 'gotchas' ends up being my favorite part of the game, and Hill Top Zone for similar reasons with its more deliberate setpieces. I am the wrong person to enjoy classic Sonic. But I'm glad I bashed my head against the wall until I got to feel what he wanted out of me.
I have now actually beaten Sonic 2. And after doing that... my opinion didn't change much. As a single playthrough, Sonic 2 feels like a trial and error marathon, figuring out when a cheap trap is gonna happen or how the timing of this piece of floor works so you don't fall to your death. It starts as early as Chemical Plant and the game is strewn full of little examples. As someone who likes taking in as much of a level as I can, delving into little secrets, during a first playthrough, Sonic 2 thoroughly tested my patience as eventually I would get over these little annoyances and go "that's enough". The final stretch of the game was absolutely full of this, a linear shot through various obstacles that aren't at all tricky once you know their timing, but they LOVE to get ya with little things like exploding starfish on elevators, or the spikes on Mecha Sonic's head, or the positioning of the arms on the Death Egg Robot. Even the bonus stages follow this philosophy to a ridiculous degree, miserable halfpipes of trial and error if you're going Sonic & Tails and just regular halfpipes of trial and error if you're Sonic, only they take all your rings and make you move onto the next one if you screw up.
But, mastery is always the better part of Sonic. So I played the game a second time upon beating it. I used the knowledge from my previous playthrough, remembered the various traps, avoided them deftly and felt some joy unlocking secret routes, unlocked Super Sonic and he is an absolute BLAST to play through from increased jump height alone, and first-try cleared the final boss gauntlet as it is the exact same pattern every time and it's not really that threatening. Heck, I even thought Metropolis Zone was FUN! Sonic 2 is a game where you are rewarded for loving it, where a single playthrough could never be enough to express what makes the game good, where the feeling of Sonic outrunning the screen in Chemical Plant Zone gets to spread across the whole game as you know what you're doing. It's a freeform dismantling of platformer conventions by giving you a character who's too fast for his own good at times, but refuses to be constrained by the same limits as his contemporaries. It is the philosophy of platforming mastery taken to the highest peak possible.
... I just don't think it's for me. I'm not in love with how Sonic feels, I like interplay with enemies more than Sonic is willing to offer, I like feeling the ebb and flow of different parts of a level that Sonic is happier to let you blaze past. The more structured ending section that people hate with all the 'gotchas' ends up being my favorite part of the game, and Hill Top Zone for similar reasons with its more deliberate setpieces. I am the wrong person to enjoy classic Sonic. But I'm glad I bashed my head against the wall until I got to feel what he wanted out of me.