It's an interesting game, in that its one of the only games in the franchise that really blurs the line of "Classic Sonic" and "Modern Sonic", this game was basically Sonic Mania before Sonic Mania, taking elements of all the original trilogy and mashing them all up. Its pretty good, better than the Game Gear titles I would say, but worse than the Advance trilogy. Its lack of originality takes it down a peg in my opinion. It really is just that perfect bridge of what 2D Sonic handheld titles would be, the culmination of what the Game Gear / Master System titles had been building up to, and the first steps of the Advance series, transitioning to modern designs halfway through. It has much better jump physics than most handheld equivalents of the era, that's something they always tend to mess up in my opinion, Sonic on the Game Gear and the Mario Land series just have really floaty jumps, ruining the game feel when compared to its console counterparts, but this game does a better job at translating fluid jump physics to a weaker device, a better job, not a perfect one however mind you, since the physics in Sonic games are so intricate it's a hard thing to nail exactly, but its more than adequate. This game is also infamously the game that got a perfect 10/10 from IGN in its review, not sure I'd go that far, but, hey it's pretty great.