MotW: Sonic 3D Flickies Island in 2D

MeleeMonk - Fixing SA2 would practically mean an entire new game, since only Sonic's/Shadow's levels are fun, and even those are too linear and with too many bottomless pits. I understand that many fans love it, but I thought it was a letdown coming from SA1.

SA1, on the other hand, is a very fun game and has many bright spots. I agree that fixing it would mean heavily modifying Big's levels and the City hub, or even replacing them with something else. Besides that, I can see how improved controls and camera would make the game almost perfect, as far as gameplay goes. I think the story and cutscenes are the real problem here - maybe trimming down the story and making the characters mute like in the Genesis games would solve it?

MeleeMonk - Everyone tends to misremember how rare bottomless pits are in classic Sonic. In Sonic 1, I think we only start seeing them by the penultimate level, Starlight Zone. Looking at a few maps right now, I can't see any in Green Hill, Marble, Spring Yard or Labyrinth zones: there are probably some, but they are very rare. EDIT: there are two, almost hidden, respectively in GH 2 and 3, and then another one at the very end of Labyrinth 3, lower path. The idea is that everytime you fall, you just land on a lower and harder part of the level: in Green Hill, for example, the lowest part has some beds of spikes. Sonic 2 follows that: it may have more pits, but they are also rare. Besides Chemical Zone, I think they are only a common occurrence once you get to Metropolis Zone. As far as I remember, that also goes for Sonic 3&K. Among the 3d games, I think SA1 had a good balance and Generations was pretty much perfect, with pits being well telegraphed and appearing in particularly dangerous parts of a level (Unleashed was terrible about it).

It's weird how much opinion vary between SA1 and 2, it's really down to preference. About the hodgepodge of styles in SA1, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles all have similar controls; Amy differs a bit, but her levels are still platformers. The most different are the robot (though his levels are so short that's not an issue) and Big's awful fishing levels, so most of the game is really a platformer/exploration romp (in SA2, platforming/shooter/searching are equally divided). The shooter sections became slower, longer and a much bigger part in SA2, and the emerald searching levels added a time limit and an annoying mechanic in which you have to find the emeralds in a specific order (the radar won't show any other fragments until you find the one it's pointing to), besides the Knuckles/Rouge levels being harder to navigate. Because of that, I thought 2/3s of the game just became an annoyance. As I also preferred the controls in SA1 (especially the spin dash) and the much more open levels, I just couldn't get into SA2, even if it did have obvious improvements, like the better camera, story and no "wandering around looking for the next level".

I do think wandering around the hubs in SA1 is part of it's charm, though. It was badly implemented and sometimes aimless and confusing, but I still enjoyed having an open area to freely explore and discover secrets between levels. It may finally be implemented well in Sonic Frontiers if it turns out to be a good game, I'm cautiously optimistic on the one.