Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a step backwards from its predecessor in seemingly minor but surprisingly damaging ways. The introduction of the spindash heavily downplays the significance of the terrain as an obstacle for the player to overcome now that an instant burst of speed is in their back pocket at all times. While the spindash's power is offset by the need to stop and charge it, the existence of a means of gaining speed without having to think about it and engage with the core platforming mechanics can easily create a mindset in players of thinking brute-forcing their way through everything is the best solution. And in Sonic 2's case, it sometimes is. The other problem, which in part facilitates the bad habits enabled by the spindash is the structure of individual level layouts. Sonic 1's stages rarely had one single fastest path to the end, rather, requiring the player to connect different routes together to find which segment of different parts of routes could be combined together to get the best results. In Sonic 2, sticking to the top route all the time is rewarded in approximately 64% of levels. When the player recognises this habit across the game, almost all of the work put into other routes by the designers becomes meaningless as players lose any reason to bother exploring anywhere in the levels that doesn't take them up, resulting in a lot of wasted effort on the developers' part on massive swaths of game designed to be neglected as opposed to puzzled through as in the first game. It does not help that in quite a few cases the best results can be found by taking the path of least resistance through levels, which is a shame. This is not a consistent problem though. Far more often, while much simpler than its predecessor, the game still provides plenty of challenge to a player who wants to attain a clean, fluid rush across Westside Island.

In short, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a much shallower game than its predecessor. Sonic is known for having over time become a flanderisation of its former self; so caught up in its own marketing around the idea of speed that it forgets to be an engaging platformer. Sonic 2, while not egregiously offensive in and of itself, is noteworthy as the first misstep in that regard.