Pretty much the beginning of Sonic being the only playable character and the continuous rehashing of Green Hill Zone. And although fans will not admit it, its entirely their fault that Sonic is the way it is today. This game was the start of Sega attempting to please everyone in the fanbase but obviously not living up to expectations and creating the dreaded Sonic Cycle.

As for the game itself, it fails to live up to both expectations and the games before it. Physics tries to be like the genesis games but completly fails at it. Bubble badniks are everywhere to say "hey stupid. use your homing attack here to reach a secret area that's not so secret because i'm telling you where it is", special stages are frustrating, and everything is just a remixed level of an existing level from Sonic 1 and Sonic 2. Same with the bosses.

This is probably the only Sonic game i refuse to replay. Even its second episode gets a bit more replayability than this one since it does something more original. This game also marks the horrid communication between Sega and the Sonic fans. Aiming to please, but hardly pleasing. As well as said fans never ever being satisfied.