I am concerned with the state of the human race for this game having mostly positive reviews. This game was abhorrent. Some of the worst level design in a 2D space honestly. The game looks visually appealing, but underneath all the pretty graphics is a pile of trash with design that blindsides you so often, and boss fights that involve SO MUCH waiting around. Sonic Superstars got all of its bad design choices from this game right here.

It's a shame this is attached to Sonic 4 episode I. Pretty decent game, would've been nice to get more sequels and eventually evolve into a spiritual successor to Sonic Advance 3.

Music and graphics are fine. Levels are okay once you don't have to worry about the stupid 50 ring requirements for special stages. That should've stayed in Sonic 1 and Sonic 2. Sonic 3 & Knuckles had the right idea for special stage entrances.

I originally played this in multiplayer on PS3, the last special stage absolutely sucks with just one person. They should've accounted for this by lowering requirements if playing alone, the CPU doesn't count.

Admittedly the game mostly gets by on not being an utter disaster like episode 1, but its a bit like most of the Game Gear games. What I mean is it's not essential, but still a competent enough romp and has enough unique lil quirks to make it worth coming back to every now and again (easy to do since the game's only an hour or two long). Wish the music was better.

Listening to others and knowing this is a better game than Episode 1, but only a marginal improvement. It's not that. It's a massive improvement! There's not a single thing Episode 1 does better.

The physics, the main issue from Episode 1, sadly only saw a minor improvement. You don't slow down while rolling now but you also don't gain speed which still sucks, but it's definitely a bit better feeling. That aspect could see more work done on it. So the worst part of Episode 1 is still the worst part of Episode 2.

But there's so much better about it. The visuals bumped from borderline hideous to actually pretty good! The colors are fantastic, the models are well done and expressive, but also there's a lot more environmental variety in it than 1 (the Christmas wonderland stage is pretty much my most desired Sonic stage theme, and it's one of the rare 2D Sonics that doesn't start with Green Hill/a Green Hill inspired stage, instead inspired by Aquatic Ruins). The music, while still suffering from the fake Genesis sounds (midi drums and such), is much better composed and a bunch of tracks are genuine bangers (love the track for the first act of the snow stage, the original metal sonic song and final boss song). The level design is much better, with multiple notable paths accommodating to three new platforming/attacking skills you get through interacting with Tails a-la-Sonic Advance 3.

The bosses can be genuinely fun to fight against, but some of them are really not good so I'm more mixed on that about it. The Tornado plane section is...a Tornado plane Sky Chase like thing you don't want to deal with it. There's also an abundance of bottomless pits in some stages, yay.

This one had genuine sparks of love and care! The first one felt like a mobile game, this one feels like a console game. While flawed, it's really fun and a joy to go through and I wish people approached it more positively. Sadly, this meant an episode 3 based on Sonic 3 was unlikely to happen, but it'd be welcome regardless. Onwards to other Sonic games.