One of the worst games I've ever played by far. Green Hill Zone was fun, but then it was all downhill from there, as if they made the first zone and then had no idea what to do with the rest of the game.

It feels like there's a conflict of interest in how exactly one is meant to play the game. This was my first real venture into the Sonic series, and I thought it was all about speed, but found that going fast was an awful idea due to the hazards off screen that you could never see coming, thus it seemed that it wanted you to go incredibly slow.

In general, just very frustrating level design. I'm all for a hard game if I feel most of the mistakes are on me, the player, but this simply felt like the game gave you Green Hill Zone, and then abandoned any attempt of teaching the player how to get used to the game. Seriously, who in the right mind thought that Marble Zone should be the 2nd one? With its difficulty, it should have been one of the last ones!

Also, the bosses range from alright to atrocious. Egg Crusher was just terrible, whilst Egg Stinger I beat on my first try...but, as I had no idea that the platforms weren't coming back, even after I beat the boss, I had to fight it a 2nd time. Just terrible.

With a first entry like this, it's a wonder how Sonic ever managed to compete with Mario.