So... I finally got around to playing this, having kinda spoiled the good ending.
First off, the soundtrack is AMAZING, as is the programming related to it. I was just dumbstruck when I hit the fuzzies (who doesn't), and head the music go nuts right along with the Mushroom Samba on screen. And then, in Lost Levels 2, when the music changed seamlessly... I knew the game was a pure winner in this department. If I had to find one thing to suggest here, it would be to redo the cutscenes with the original soundtrack instead of the previous version's ripped music.
Gameplay, even with the known limitations of the program used for it, could stand to be better, though. Sonic felt... rather 'fat', as he felt as if he had more inertia than normal.
I also felt a bit cheated at times, as I'd drop an item box to where I know ground would be under it (though off-screen), and when I went back to get it, the object would be deleted instead of being there waiting for me. Conversely, enemy projectiles would seem to pause when going off the screen, even if their spawner was destroyed (enemies in the 'star collection' area come to mind right off the bat here). In an 'official' Sonic game, this would be reversed.
In general, the challenge was fair, but a few areas stick out as being horrendously dickish. First off, Perilous Paradise. Those cannons hidden in the walls. Bad move. Getting hit by an enemy you can barely see, let alone get to is the definition of cheap. Don't do that. Titanic Tower 3 has you jumping from small platform to small platform, with some having spikes, and if you fall, you're all the way back to the start of the section, and likely without any rings. Also bad layout. You also want to find some way to allow the player to get out of being iced, or just stop their horizontal movement entirely. Being forced to 'let go', and likely falling down before getting 'hurt' is also unfair. You don't even really get an opportunity to know you did anything wrong until you're out of range of those freezers. Batbrains were already used as regular enemies already. Don't change the rules on people and make them indestructible bombs. Those hits are uncalled for. Finally, there should be more rings available in Arcane Altitude. It got to the point where you only rarely saw groups, and some sections felt like lame endurance tests, making those difficulty spikes feel unnatural and lazy.
Boss difficulty was also mostly fair, except for having 'Advance 2 Syndrome' (all bosses being fought while running). That's okay if it's done sparingly (Mushroom Hill's boss was unique in that aspect, but when it happened in Advance 2 for [u]every[u] last boss, it got tiring), and ironically, Tails's first two bosses, and Sonic's final boss stood out for being in stationary fields.
Graphics... well, it's a mixed bag. Anyone who's played the 16-bit titles enough can recognize all recycled elements, and all of the original enemies clashed with the Genesis art style, some more so than others (the water guns). I'm not a fan of the Advance-style sprite rotation, but I'm not enough of an asshole to count that against anything either. I did like some of the smaller touches, such as the 'MagiMantis' sweating bullets when you get behind it, and transitions between major areas, like seen in Hilltop Heights or Lost Levels 3 are handled very well.
New background art, on the other hand, worked very well. Whoever did the new BG art, keep them around for future games.
Bugs, however, are more frequent than they should be. I had my own brush with unbreatheable bubbles in Perilous Paradise (a generator in the pipe with a hole in the corner. Tried to swim into it, and nothing), and managed to glitch the True Final Boss twice after defeat, the first time sticking the game on a white screen and causing me to die (results never came up), and then right after, I got stuck in a 'hurt' loop when defeating it, though this time, the results screen did appear, just causing the 'pierce' sound effect to play repeatedly. The other major bug was that invincibility refused to play by established rules, leaving me to wonder why it's even in there.
Lastly, maybe this 'Time Points' stat at the end needs explained. Whatever they were, my playthough had 214 at the end. If that's really good, I don't know.
And of course, since it's almost expected.. the X-of-10 rating...
Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 9/10
Controls: 7/10
Challenge: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
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