I came into this with the lowest expectations possible. The online discourse around its release was palpable. I ended up picking it up anyway a few months after and to my joyous surprise, I actually really enjoyed it.
It is of course flawed in that the progression is completely fucked. I started out by trying to go to clearly late-game areas very early which was a blast! I then wondered how would the game deal with this: simple, it doesn't. I was then stuck with zero challenge for the 2nd half until the very end and even that was laughable. How the fuck did Geeta get her job she has a Gogoat?
For me this was all made up for by a few things. Screwed as it's progression is, it is finally an actual open world pokemon entry and the parts that work really work. Wild encounters feel great and the overworld is very well crafted if a bit graphically inferior to other switch titles.
What really made everything up to me though was it's soundtrack and characters. Pokémon soundtracks have always been great but this one is a different beast entirely. Team Star's boss music is one of Nintendo's all-time greatest compositions and instrumentations.
The main characters all have something incredibly compelling about them and they genuinely feel like childhood friends instead of faceless rivals. They're at their absolute best in the post-game chapter which I did not expect for a second to be as breath-taking as it was.
If Gamefreak takes one thing from this it's that they absolutely CAN make something reminiscent of BW. They just need to try a little bit harder.

For a first attempt by DIMPS, pretty solid.
There's a few things I outright hate: screen size is always going to be an issue. Bosses suck, so it's not just SEGA that can't make a decent sonic boss. I like the unique themes of every level a lot, but they are all varying degrees of frustration. Finally, the special stages are entirely broken and practically unbeatable. What's worse is if you fail, which you will, that's it. No retries until the next playthrough.
I will say this game's sprites look fantastic, Amy as a character is always a fun challenge, and I have no idea how they crammed some nice songs into the archaic GBA sound chip.
Frustrating. But a good sign of what's to come from DIMPS

I have one glaring criticism of this game that I want to get out of the way before I praise the shit out of it.
The worst boss fights of maybe any game I have played in recent memory. They are horrendously long with 8 hits and death means starting all over again. They are the only thing that stops me coming back to this game and completing 100%, which is a damn shame...

Anyway, Sonic Rush is fucking phenomenal. I've never quite understood how boosting is a problem in Sonic, as long as I'm going fast I'm having fun. The point is while you have the option of going at max speed all the time, you'll be met with death if you do it willy-nilly about 50% of the time. Once you realise that, it's infinitely more enjoyable. The soundtrack and every aspect of sound design make me feel as if I'm playing an arcade racing game of the early 2000s. It's so uniquely creative, thanks to its Jet Set Radio Composer, and it fits this game absolutely perfectly. Even the final boss is redeemed by its adrenaline-pumping beat and Blaze even gets remixed music for every stage. S ranking stages in this game is ludicrously challenging due to the trick system and going for them changes how you play the game entirely. It's about more than just going fast, now you have to go fast AND look cool!

If you can get past its woeful bosses (good luck with that) this is an exceptional sonic game. I'm going to go listen to the soundtrack for the millionth time.

Undeniably janky, but in all the best possible ways. Some of these Sonic stages (Emerald Coast, Windy Valley and, objectively, the best Speed Highway) are still unrivalled to this day in their speedrunner-friendly level design. I know stuff like the cutscenes/voice acting and the generally unstable nature of pretty much everything can put people off, but I love all that stuff! It's a certain humour of poorly made early 3d models that just can't exist anymore. Of course, there are the bad janky parts, but I often find myself either forgetting or just laughing at their stupidity.
The best-worst game ever made.

I really do not like this as much as the first one. First off, they lost the jank. The cutscenes are still pretty amusing, if not as wacky (tbf Sonic meeting the president is fucking hilarious). The story is more serious, which is both an improvement and to its detriment. And that's kind of my criticism of everything in this game: lots of "improvements" have been put in place. Some are great, like the lightspeed dash being instant or the Knuckles/Rouge stages being genuinely great this time. However;
Sonic/Shadow stages are more linear and strait line speed-focused, which may work for some but skipping vast parts of the level was something that made the original incredibly exciting. The Chao garden is far better integrated, but realising the keys and animals are the only worthwhile collectable in stages leads to my rapid decline in any interest of them once I get bored of Chaos.
Worst of all is the character change. I would be completely fine with the way in which you move from character to character per stage, I'd go as far as to say it IS an improvement from the previous games 6 character stories that are all just the same game again but varyingly worse than Sonic's. This is only in theory. In practice, Tails and Eggman exist. The mere presence of their stages in this game, just knowing once I beat a genuinely fun Sonic/Knuckles level, I'll be back to the horrendously slow prison of the mech...
Fuck Tails and Eggman for ruining this otherwise solid sequel.

This is the only game I have ever pre-ordered. I was on a high after USUM and thought the series was looking up, especially after being lead to believe we finally had an open-world entry. Imagine my surprise when I was met with this unfinished, soulless, ugly, easy, boring piece of shit that calls itself an entry to the series. It's as if it was made in unity in the space of a few months by someone who had never played a Pokémon game before. Even XY felt like a finished game and not a gaslight.
Go fuck yourself.

I haven't played Unleashed though it is absolutely on my wish list. Until that day comes, this is my absolute favourite 3D sonic game for one reason alone that should define every game in this franchise: speed. But above even that, it has everything you could ever want or need, not just from a Sonic game but from a 3D or 2D platformer in general. Methodical 2D precision sections, cool powerups (except the cube ofc, which may as well just be a switch you can press in the level), one of the franchise all time greatest soundtracks which is really saying something, and I even love the hyper speed automated segments. They're like a well-deserved reward. Currently replaying it for 100%, and while some of the red rings are stupidly placed (why on earth would you ever make me use the frenzy wisp for precision platforming), I get that they're totally optional.
Nostalgia is a powerful drug, and I am still very much addicted to this game.

Generally a massive improvement in difficulty and story than the last generation. If I was ranking my first playthrough I'd give it an extra 1 and a half stars. But a recent replay attempt at a hardcore nuzloke revealed its many flaws...
There are unskippable cutscenes everywhere. I stopped my attempt not out of difficulty but out of frustration with just how slow this game actually is. I enjoyed using the pool of available mons and overall challenging fights throughout but knowing that failure would lead to rewatching the same shit for the 3rd or 4th time was too much to handle.
Also, why does the "Ultra" version go out of its way to remove meaningful moments like the rainy cave talk with Lillie? It is a shame because in concept I love the story of this game. Lusamine is excellent as a villain and her motives make a great deal of sense, while also being an objectively bad parent which leads to two very well written characters. Hau is a bit bland if optimistic though, so its a shame Kukui was replaced by him in this version. Z moves are fairly less interesting than megas and their animations come off more as goofy than cool. Having megas in the same game detracts from the meta as well, knowing I could be 1 shot at any moment without warning is not fun.
I adore certain moments of this game but they are often not worth the preamble, especially on re-play.