I recently found out that this game was intended to be a mobile game called Sonic the Portable that was quickly ported to consoles and renamed to Sonic 4 with the sole intent of boosting sales. With that in mind, it explains so much about this game. Had it remained as Sonic the Portable, I honestly would've given this a slightly higher score because it is perfectly serviceable. But the title "Sonic 4" comes with certain expectations that were unfortunately not met.