Having played the game some more, I don't hate Classic Sonic, though I do find him a lot less enjoyable than his modern counterpart. Those Red Rings are actually a lot of fun to find this time around. This is the first Sonic game I've ever really felt motivated to keep playing after beating, and it's all thanks to the glory of Modern Sonic's levels. The levels have so many different pathways to go through, and it feels amazing to quickly pull off a jump and boost to reach a path you'd noticed before but couldn't get on, only for that path to take you to an entirely new part of the level you'd never seen before. I'd played Sonic UnWiished and Sonic Colors before, but this felt like my first real experience with the boost formula (boosting in UnWiished worked a lot differently, and Sonic Colors is. But the Modern Sonic stages I found super enjoyable despite me not being so good at them, enough for me to hop right back into one right after finishing it a couple times.

Sure, Classic Sonic's stages were just flat out frustrating and unenjoyable for me most of the time, with enemies seemingly placed specifically for you to get blindsided, and much more waiting for moving platforms than I expected for a game about speed. But I don't think that conclusion's quite right this time, though (it's like. 9h 17m PlayedMuch like Sonic Mania, after playing through this game for the first time, I came to the conclusion that it was mostly only fun if you were good at it.

Sonic generations model port