Few games embody the 'easy to play, hard to master' mentality quite like 'Alien Soldier' does. There are only two difficulties: Supereasy and Superhard. This doesn't affect difficulty, rather it's a limit to how many continues you can use. It's easy enough to slam yourself into the wall until the problem solves itself but I promise you, speedruns make the game look infinitely easier than it is. The game is deceptively complex and every time you're about to start playing, the game brings you to a small training area where you can practice all the different moves you have at your disposal, something I thing more games should implement.

The problem is that only 10% of the story remains intact, resulting in an extended text wall intro explaining a backstory that goes nowhere. A planet blows up halfway through and it literally affects nothing because there's no context. I understand that this game was rushed towards the end of development but realistically, Treasure should have cut the story out entirely at that point and implemented more of the gameplay aspects they wanted to add instead. This weird attempt to salvage the story is the only thing holding the game back from being the best run 'n' gun on the Genesis.

You can move Sonic around even when he's in pinball mode so the physics never feel as tight as they should. The pinball nature of the game also adds an element of random chance to everything, making some areas harder to access than necessary and turns other areas into death traps just waiting to swallow your remaining lives whole. The soundtrack is pretty good though and each level's aesthetic helps it pop out from the others. The options menu theme isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be, it's just loud.