Sometimes manages to outshine its predecessor but oftentimes not. The presentation is a step up but I think the levels themselves rely too much on gimmicks and linearity that ends up hindering the experience. Sonic and co. have had their controls tuned, they feel slightly less floaty now which I'm not personally a big fan of but it's not a big deal and I'm probably the only person in the world who cares anyway.

The mech sections are okay. Most of the time they're over with pretty quickly and are fun enough. I sadly can't say the same for the emerald hunting sections. It's beyond beating a dead horse by now but seriously... only allowing one emerald piece to be detected at a time? It's such an awful way to pad, especially in the later levels where you could end up in the same area for 10+ minutes. I also remembered while writing this that there are also 2 (two) vehicle sections in the game which I found genuinely fun, if a bit too easy.

The Sonic/Shadow sections are good for the most part. I really enjoyed Final Rush and it's probably my favourite level of the game, just pure fun from start to end. I think Shadow's stages as a whole aren't as good, but Sky Rail was a highlight for me.

Also a lot less PC-specific shenanigans this time around which is nice. I've read many people having framerate problems thanks to the game not respecting their refresh rate, but luckily I had no such issue.

An incredibly jank game that still somehow manages to be fun and charming. I love the way Sonic controls in this game, and even the other characters are fun to play as (except Big, I'm all for fishing minigames but... not like this). I did kinda forget how unnecessary and pace breaking the hub area sections were. I understand why they're there, I just wish they would've been implemented in a less intrusive way.

The PC port is also terrible (no widescreen support??). Thankfully, fan patches address the majority of issues you might come across. If you're reading this and are thinking of playing this game on PC, for the love of god please get 'SADX Mod Installer', it'll do most of the fixing work for you.

They really don't make them like this anymore...

The aesthetics, the tone, the music, the iconic sound of that BMW M3 GTR engine, it's all extremely mid-2000s and very charming. While the game does start to drag towards the tail end of the Blacklist, the police chases keep me coming back with how absolutely chaotic they can get.

The game definitely shows its age in certain areas (egregious AI rubberbanding no matter what car you or your opponents are in), but it's still a classic title and one of the last greats from the Need for Speed series.