I'd rather play this than Sonic 1 16-bit by the sole fact that it doesn't contain marble zone, which, for whatever reason, lives at the top of the hierarchy in the section of my mind pertaining to all things 2D Sonic.

It's not offensively bad, though people might tell you it is. Though co-op can be rough with the camera trying to average distance between players, I had a good time playing it that way. The emerald powers are also a nice experiment, too, even though they weren't crazy useful.

Just don't buy it at full price, and I don't see why you couldn't have fun.

I played this because I'd never, EVER met someone who actually knew anything about the series before Uprising, and it's a perfectly serviceable NES game, marred mostly by 1-3 being the hardest level in the game (by no small margin).

It fits nicely with some other NES games in the category of being a snippet of gaming history that manages to still be more playable than not in the modern day.