A favorite game of mine from my childhood. I have fond memories of a sleepover in 5th grade on New Year's Eve at my friend's house where we played this well into the night, struggling to get through Sky Deck. Back then we didn't care about how MAD janky and buggy the game was (especially the PC port, holy...), we were just having a blast and losing our hair over that segment with the air blowing you off the ship and then the platforms falling.
I've replayed this many times throughout the years but this time I gave the 100% a go and for the most part, I had a lot of fun. The only real struggles were Big's rank As cause the 2000g fishes struggle and swim away from you like hell, and mission #54 cause snowboarding physics and flag hitboxes (I had to resort to cheesing with rapid pausing, but I feel no shame about it) I knew this and #53 were infamous, but thankfully I didn't struggle with the latter.
As much fun as I had with the game, I know realistically it's because there's a huge nostalgia-factor in it, and this applies to a lot of other early Sonic 3D-era fans, cause the game is objectively trash, at least the physics. Collision is awful, the game randomly decides where you get stuck or clip through hard surfaces (which I mean at least is fun to watch when speedrunners beat an entire stage in a minute cause they just drop below the ground and fly through a grey void lol), and a lot of the game is fun for us because we veterans have already figured out how to get around certain jank, but newbies will get caught off guard by it and end up with a lot of frustration lol.
Anyways I probably wouldn't recommend it to people for whom it would be an entirely new experience unless they feel experimental, or regularly play other 3D retro games and are used to glitches. There are GREAT things about this game, don't get me wrong. It has unironically one of the best soundtracks, like the music is so groovy it's crazy, and even the shortest, smallest segments have their own music (also: Open Your Heart > Live and Learn, I said what I said). There's some memorable cinematic scenes which are sort of cheesy but cool at the same time, such as getting sucked into a tornado, running down the side of a skyscraper, or chasing a huge air ship and getting blasted with its giant laser cannon. Raising Chao is very addictive and surprisingly complex for those who enjoy these sorts of games, and I'll never be able to wrap my head around why they never brought it back after SA2 (or released a mobile game around it, they could be making BANK with a Chao Garden gacha)
But be warned, that if you really do want to play this, and the PC version at that, install mods, cause the port is so bad the difference is night and day with a few fixes. The biggest fixes are camera and widescreen support (and being able to map keys if you're a psychopath like me and play a platformer with a keyboard...). Get those at the very least. Also I recommend looking up some fishing guides for Big the Cat's story because it's not nearly as difficult as people make it out to be (at least the rank C required for the story), the game just doesn't explain the controls at all.
P.S.: Sega, I swear to god, rerelease Sonic Heroes! I know I know, Renderware and all, idc just make it run on modern systems, emulate it, if the engine is that big of a problem, we'll mod the heck out of it anyways. Sincerely, a jank-lover.
