An okay compilation of some classic games, even if they are some of the most widely available games ever - but this is the first time Sonic 3 has been available in at least a decade. Plus it's one of the very rare times Sonic 3 & Knuckles has been in a bundle as a full game.
The new additions are nice bonuses, but don't go far. Widescreen is great (I don't keep up with all the billion releases so I'm not sure if this is even the first widescreen release of these games), and mission mode is fun, but you can breeze through it in an hour or so. Boss rush is probably the best addition, even if the decision of which bosses to give you rings or not for can be baffling. It's also short, but it's the kind of thing that makes you want to keep going for the best time.
Speaking of which, the leaderboards on Playstation seem bugged to crash the game whenever you try to view them. I won't take that into my rating since it seems exclusive to the PS version and may be a hardware problem that isn't the games fault.
But the game does have bugs. A lot of them according to some people. I personally didn't experience that many though, with the only truly horrible one being when playing Sonic 2, Tails will get stuck in the stage and his constant jump sound effects make it an earsore. Other than that, the game crashed twice in the exact same mission, but never again (other than as mentioned in the PS-specific leaderboard bug).
You've got your museum content which is nice I guess. But I can't imagine anyone who is opening up an entire video game so they can listen to a playlist of music. The art and movies are nice at least, even if I probably spent less than 30 minutes total looking at them.
The animated cutscenes are super short, all less than a minute each, but they look pretty great.
Story mode is one of the weirdest things about this game. It's literally just the 4 games in a row. Zero, and I mean zero effort was made into making it feel like a real story mode. No making it all one visual style or anything. Even those new cutscenes aren't exclusive to it, as they play when you play the games solo. Even the freaking credits for each individual game will play. What's the point of a "story mode" when you still have to sit through the credits at 4 different points of the "story". I can't see a single reason to play story mode over just playing the games normally since this mode doesn't even give you a choice of characters, it's always just Sonic, or Sonic & Tails in the last 2 games. May as well have just called it marathon mode or something.
You can't customise the features in the game either. If you want widescreen but keep the lives system and no drop dash, you're out of luck. Also the "classic" version of Sonic 1 still has spin dash....why? You can't play the actual original Sonic 1.
I won't say anything about the games themselves since I have reviews for them all.
So basically it's a a bunch of classic games, which vary in quality but I find them all at least fun to play, but has a bug that basically ruins the default way to play Sonic 2. It's also a good modern way to get your hands on the elusive 3&K. But for what it promises, it feels underdelivered. It'd honestly have been better as just a straight up basic bundle (with the widescreen), but cheaper.
Oh and the Hidden Palace Zone bonus for Sonic 2, from the 2013 mobile version is included, which is great.
The new additions are nice bonuses, but don't go far. Widescreen is great (I don't keep up with all the billion releases so I'm not sure if this is even the first widescreen release of these games), and mission mode is fun, but you can breeze through it in an hour or so. Boss rush is probably the best addition, even if the decision of which bosses to give you rings or not for can be baffling. It's also short, but it's the kind of thing that makes you want to keep going for the best time.
Speaking of which, the leaderboards on Playstation seem bugged to crash the game whenever you try to view them. I won't take that into my rating since it seems exclusive to the PS version and may be a hardware problem that isn't the games fault.
But the game does have bugs. A lot of them according to some people. I personally didn't experience that many though, with the only truly horrible one being when playing Sonic 2, Tails will get stuck in the stage and his constant jump sound effects make it an earsore. Other than that, the game crashed twice in the exact same mission, but never again (other than as mentioned in the PS-specific leaderboard bug).
You've got your museum content which is nice I guess. But I can't imagine anyone who is opening up an entire video game so they can listen to a playlist of music. The art and movies are nice at least, even if I probably spent less than 30 minutes total looking at them.
The animated cutscenes are super short, all less than a minute each, but they look pretty great.
Story mode is one of the weirdest things about this game. It's literally just the 4 games in a row. Zero, and I mean zero effort was made into making it feel like a real story mode. No making it all one visual style or anything. Even those new cutscenes aren't exclusive to it, as they play when you play the games solo. Even the freaking credits for each individual game will play. What's the point of a "story mode" when you still have to sit through the credits at 4 different points of the "story". I can't see a single reason to play story mode over just playing the games normally since this mode doesn't even give you a choice of characters, it's always just Sonic, or Sonic & Tails in the last 2 games. May as well have just called it marathon mode or something.
You can't customise the features in the game either. If you want widescreen but keep the lives system and no drop dash, you're out of luck. Also the "classic" version of Sonic 1 still has spin dash....why? You can't play the actual original Sonic 1.
I won't say anything about the games themselves since I have reviews for them all.
So basically it's a a bunch of classic games, which vary in quality but I find them all at least fun to play, but has a bug that basically ruins the default way to play Sonic 2. It's also a good modern way to get your hands on the elusive 3&K. But for what it promises, it feels underdelivered. It'd honestly have been better as just a straight up basic bundle (with the widescreen), but cheaper.
Oh and the Hidden Palace Zone bonus for Sonic 2, from the 2013 mobile version is included, which is great.