I opted out of Vis and Weatherby's race because I hadn't played this once before and I was feeling lazy. I did get around to it shortly after though and I do think their frustration is pretty warranted.

This game is purely built around inconvenience. From the massive mazelike levels, to the weird inconsistent physics, to the awful special stages, to the joke characters. If you look at the tech demo that was made before this (titled Sonic Crackers for some reason) you can see there wasn't even much refining done to the core mechanics. It's all just so awkward and frustrating. Not really worth a go, but it's admittedly pretty funny to watch a friend suffer through it.

At least the bad ending is kinda amusing in how blunt and outlandish it is. If you don't get through those shitty special stages Metal Sonic WILL proceed to destroy the city and Kill Thousands