I bought this game twice within a year's span from each other and refunded it both times. This review is only going to be about my experience playing the game on launch day of 2022. Strap in, I have a lot to say.
Pre-Origins Plus, all this game had was a sound test menu (with many incorrectly labelled tracks), an art gallery you had to unlock with coins by playing the games, three downgraded ports of mobile remakes for the first 3 Classic games, and then a remake of Sonic 3&K made for the collection that was very clearly rushed. I encountered numerous bugs in the time that I spent playing Origins on launch day. Completely disregarding Denuvo-related errors like constant crashing and black screens at launch that ate up at least 25% of my playtime, Blue Spheres music did not speed up with the stage speed, the casino bonus stage didn't fade to black fast enough and I could see the level abruptly stop spinning. I vaguely recall touching water with an Electric Shield causing the water to rapidly blink when it's only supposed to happen once on contact. The crumbling and shaking effects from Marble Garden Zone persisted through the entire level when they aren't supposed to.
Speaking of Sonic 3, it's impossible to mention Origins' version of it without addressing the elephant in the room: the replaced soundtrack. Thanks to lots of miscommunication from SEGA pre-launch, people ended up blaming Jun Senoue for how bad the prototype tracks sounded, but there's plenty of evidence to suggest he only wrote ONE new song (the Super theme using the same KORG Triton synths as Sonic 4). Carnival Night, Ice Cap, and Launch Base sound that bad because they're sourced from an older prototype than the November 1993 prototype that was leaked in 2019. It was a necessary evil for the game to be allowed to release, considering Cirocco Jones and Bobby Brooks' legal fight with SEGA surrounding compensation for their musical contributions. Me personally, I prefer the prototype music, but these specific arrangements are SO much worse than what we can hear in the more recent November prototype. It's such an insignificant thing to complain about, I know, and it's the least of this game's problems. But it's little details like not checking if what they had (or even what the internet had) was the most up-to-date arrangement of the songs they were replacing that just screams "we didn't have enough time to make this game". Even after the immediate fan outcry, they still haven't changed the music at all.
What mainly makes or breaks a rerelease collection for me is the answer to the question: "What does this collection offer me that I can't get from playing the copies of the game I already own?" To start, I was very charmed by the added intro and outro cutscenes animated by the same folks who did Mania's intro and outro. They're both adorable homages to Studio Junio's work on CD, and they very succinctly explain the essentials of each game's story to the player by realizing the plot expressed in the Japanese manuals of the original games. I was disappointed that some scenes from those Japanese manual stories were not portrayed in Origins (such as Tails investigating Sonic's plane to foreshadow his interest in being a mechanic and pilot for Sonic's plane that has remained relevant for decades since, or how they retconned the Death Egg landing at Hidden Palace Zone rather than at the lake that ends up becoming the reason why there's so much water present in Launch Base Act 2). At the same time, I really can't say it's a negative to the collection just because I'm a lore nerd. If anything, it is technically a positive because if the cutscenes were any longer than they are currently, it would feel intrusive for people who just want to play the video game they paid for.
The quality and quantity of concept art and illustrations isn't as great as Mega Collection Plus or Jam, but what is new here was really cool for it to be publicly released. One in particular that I'm grateful for is how I was really pleasantly surprised to find out Vector was made as a reference to the Blues Brothers, which is why the Chaotix manual jokes that he was "looking for God". That joke makes way more sense with that context. All of Mania Adventures is archived in Origins as well. So in the off chance that you don't have internet access or don't know that YouTube exists, Origins allows you to watch them that way.
Unfortunately, that's really all I have that's positive to say about vanilla Origins. You're best off just buying the remakes on the App Store of your mobile phone for $2 a piece, because Origins also removes lots of features, like multiple save files. The game has "Anniversary mode", with 16:9 and lives replaced with coin monitors for retrying Special Stages or unlocking the aforementioned concept art, or "Classic Mode" with 4:3 and lives... the issue with this is that there's no way to play the game in widescreen with lives if you want that challenge, and Classic Mode isn't the original game at all. It's just the mobile remake cropped to 4:3. All the imperfections and problems of the versions present in Origins (meaning, yes, there are glitches present in these versions that the mobile versions did not previous have) are going to be carried with you into Classic Mode.
I'll make a second review detailing if I believe the "Plus" expansion improves the collection at all (it doesn't). But as it stands, this collection is only good if you don't know any better. I don't even know how much of the game has been patched since launch to say if it's good enough for a casual fan wanting to play these games again.
Pre-Origins Plus, all this game had was a sound test menu (with many incorrectly labelled tracks), an art gallery you had to unlock with coins by playing the games, three downgraded ports of mobile remakes for the first 3 Classic games, and then a remake of Sonic 3&K made for the collection that was very clearly rushed. I encountered numerous bugs in the time that I spent playing Origins on launch day. Completely disregarding Denuvo-related errors like constant crashing and black screens at launch that ate up at least 25% of my playtime, Blue Spheres music did not speed up with the stage speed, the casino bonus stage didn't fade to black fast enough and I could see the level abruptly stop spinning. I vaguely recall touching water with an Electric Shield causing the water to rapidly blink when it's only supposed to happen once on contact. The crumbling and shaking effects from Marble Garden Zone persisted through the entire level when they aren't supposed to.
Speaking of Sonic 3, it's impossible to mention Origins' version of it without addressing the elephant in the room: the replaced soundtrack. Thanks to lots of miscommunication from SEGA pre-launch, people ended up blaming Jun Senoue for how bad the prototype tracks sounded, but there's plenty of evidence to suggest he only wrote ONE new song (the Super theme using the same KORG Triton synths as Sonic 4). Carnival Night, Ice Cap, and Launch Base sound that bad because they're sourced from an older prototype than the November 1993 prototype that was leaked in 2019. It was a necessary evil for the game to be allowed to release, considering Cirocco Jones and Bobby Brooks' legal fight with SEGA surrounding compensation for their musical contributions. Me personally, I prefer the prototype music, but these specific arrangements are SO much worse than what we can hear in the more recent November prototype. It's such an insignificant thing to complain about, I know, and it's the least of this game's problems. But it's little details like not checking if what they had (or even what the internet had) was the most up-to-date arrangement of the songs they were replacing that just screams "we didn't have enough time to make this game". Even after the immediate fan outcry, they still haven't changed the music at all.
What mainly makes or breaks a rerelease collection for me is the answer to the question: "What does this collection offer me that I can't get from playing the copies of the game I already own?" To start, I was very charmed by the added intro and outro cutscenes animated by the same folks who did Mania's intro and outro. They're both adorable homages to Studio Junio's work on CD, and they very succinctly explain the essentials of each game's story to the player by realizing the plot expressed in the Japanese manuals of the original games. I was disappointed that some scenes from those Japanese manual stories were not portrayed in Origins (such as Tails investigating Sonic's plane to foreshadow his interest in being a mechanic and pilot for Sonic's plane that has remained relevant for decades since, or how they retconned the Death Egg landing at Hidden Palace Zone rather than at the lake that ends up becoming the reason why there's so much water present in Launch Base Act 2). At the same time, I really can't say it's a negative to the collection just because I'm a lore nerd. If anything, it is technically a positive because if the cutscenes were any longer than they are currently, it would feel intrusive for people who just want to play the video game they paid for.
The quality and quantity of concept art and illustrations isn't as great as Mega Collection Plus or Jam, but what is new here was really cool for it to be publicly released. One in particular that I'm grateful for is how I was really pleasantly surprised to find out Vector was made as a reference to the Blues Brothers, which is why the Chaotix manual jokes that he was "looking for God". That joke makes way more sense with that context. All of Mania Adventures is archived in Origins as well. So in the off chance that you don't have internet access or don't know that YouTube exists, Origins allows you to watch them that way.
Unfortunately, that's really all I have that's positive to say about vanilla Origins. You're best off just buying the remakes on the App Store of your mobile phone for $2 a piece, because Origins also removes lots of features, like multiple save files. The game has "Anniversary mode", with 16:9 and lives replaced with coin monitors for retrying Special Stages or unlocking the aforementioned concept art, or "Classic Mode" with 4:3 and lives... the issue with this is that there's no way to play the game in widescreen with lives if you want that challenge, and Classic Mode isn't the original game at all. It's just the mobile remake cropped to 4:3. All the imperfections and problems of the versions present in Origins (meaning, yes, there are glitches present in these versions that the mobile versions did not previous have) are going to be carried with you into Classic Mode.
I'll make a second review detailing if I believe the "Plus" expansion improves the collection at all (it doesn't). But as it stands, this collection is only good if you don't know any better. I don't even know how much of the game has been patched since launch to say if it's good enough for a casual fan wanting to play these games again.