What happens when you throw Sonic into a big ass open world with lots of things that throw you into random linear segments, including reused stages from almost all 3D Sonic games as "bonus stages" while having very little variation in how the linear segments in the open zone are executed with some of the best boss fights in the entire series?
The answer may surprise you:
A very fun but flawed game held back by a lack of budget and manpower, which is insanely noticeable by the time Chaos Island comes to an end.

Also fuck the true final boss whoever made that fuck you