Sonic Adventure isn't "badly aged"; it was always fun despite the flaws

Back in 1999 we already had Crash 2 and Mario 64, which were and still are some of the best platformers out there. Crash is not aged by definition, because culture is what defines what is aged; the N. Sanity Collection was well loved by audiences.

Those games always had better camera, better physics and far less glitches than SA1. I played SA1 a few years late when I was 11 and I could already tell the camera was messy and the glitches were hilarious. But I still loved the game as did audiences for the longest time. Why?

It's charming and fun, being a true passion project full of little things the devs added based on their personal experiences and tastes. It might not be as good mechanically but it offers the same sort of honest sense of Sonic Team fun as games like NiGHTS and Sonic CD (or for an around equally mechanically flawed equivalent, Burning Rangers) and it being the only Adventure game Ohshima was closely involved with (he directed the other 3 games I listed) is probably a part of that.

It also in terms of mechanics offers something not necessarily unique but not as well executed as its predecessors. SA2, Heroes & 06 all had that type of fast platforming but it simply did not execute it nearly as well; SA2 had bland level design with little variety or inventive & fun to experience set pieces, Heroes had the stupid fighting bullshit and 06 is 06, a game that experienced practically zero bug testing.

I dind't mention "Unleashed Daytime Style" because those are are so different as to belong to their own genre. Racing platformer?

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>It also in terms of mechanics offers something not necessarily unique but not as well executed as its predecessors
Fuck me I meant follow-ups, not predecessors. The 2D Sonics are definitely stronger games, but I'd argue they're also too different to compare. SA1 was about fast platforming with physics playing little role; 2D Sonics were practically all about the pinball physics.

Sonic Adventure hasn't aged badly, it was already dated when it came out. 3D platformers with tight controls existed in 1999.

As for the 2D Sonics those can also be hugely flawed. Sonic 1 just controls very oddly; it's slow and not immediate enough to be inherently fun. The lack of a spin-dash truly dates it even more to anyone but the most dedicated "muh momentum based gameplay, spindash was horrible at planted the seed for the boost" types whose tastes are more niche than someone who plays PC-98 porn games like Night Slave for the gameplay.

Sonic 2 was a massive improvement but the special stages are pure dog shit and make the full experience hard to bother with and makes you want to just speedrun the levels; I've only bothered unlocking Super Sonic once in that and I don't want to do it again.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles is one of the really really good ones. Extremely cohesive world making the game feel like a big adventure, perfect controls, good special stages and (holy shit thank you) a level select that allows you infinite chances to get both sets of emeralds. The characters with different routes & gameplay. It's practically perfect.

I thought I was the only person who loved Night Slave. Damn, that's an obscure reference.

It wasn't "dated", it was flawed. It was trying something very different compared to Mario
64 and Crash.

Is there *any* game that has the same style of gameplay and did a better job? No other platformer I can think of attempted those mechanics and the actually-similar follows ups don't come close.

I do like the 90% of the porn scenes because they're mostly yuri but It could've been a shitting dick nipples game and I still would've enjoyed it cuz Assault Suits-inspired heavy mech games are cool.

I had no idea what was going on in the porn scenes, but the fact that the options menu let you skip them tells me that it's just a formality. The gameplay is top tier, I love the gradius-style powerups too.

the music in this fucking game is great

As for Sonic CD? The level design can be a bit "why would you do that" at times, but then so can the level design in 3. One glaring mistake though is not giving you multiple chances at time travel. It's very satisfying to frolic about in the good future but you don't get to do it much in the later stages outside of the final boss zones. Another glaring flaw is the few levels where the game locks you into the goal ring area and you can't go back, so you have to memorize the levels that do that; a flaw very similar to NiGHTS having those boosts that throw you into the exit prematurely. The large levels are fun to run and jump through and the enemy lay-outs let you satisfyingly smash into one robot to the next. The boss battles can be very, very inventive.

The modern remake in that one Chris Whatever fangame engine (on Steam at least, never tried the console one) is fantastic. Controls great, allows you to retry bonus stages, all it needs is to have global rankings for speed instead of score because score means nothing in Sonic CD.

It's not as good as 3 but I'd say it's the second best of the classic console Sonics. The presentation is arguably better than 3K being the most psychedelic and stylish Ohshima-like Sonic game, very similar to NiGHTS & Burning Rangers.
I actually don't like Gradius much (Darius is better) but I like the idea of the weapon system, it's cool that they used it here.

Made a thread for these types of games

The Adventure games are fine and aged just as much as Mario 64 or the original Crash trilogy did, people who try to make them look like these unspeakable Bubsy 3D-tier trainwrecks are being silly.

Adventure wasn't awful, but it was such a huge mistep in the wrong direction for Sonic that it dragged the quality of every future Sonic title into the mud.

The worst offenders were the speed boosts and linear paths in 3D. Cancer incarnate.

Sonic 2 had boosts though and I don't think they're a bad thing, it's just a different kind of gameplay. It doesn't work in heavily physics-based games like the classic style but for gameplay like that of Sonic Adventure, Rush and the day time Unleashed style used by many games now it fits like a glove.

The classic physics based style has not gone away; look at Mania. I just wish it wasn't such a nostalgia wank fest & had original levels only cuz otherwise it looks great, but as-is I'll wait for the winter sale.

Oh and as for linearity? Sonic 1 was much worse about that, often locking you into a slow moving rollercoaster (the worst kind of rollercoaster) of slow platforming that you often can't even skip through a different route. People shit on Marble Garden Zone but I'm not sure why; it's far more fun than Marble Zone.

Sonic Adventure 1's platforming never grinded you to a halt. It's impossible to rush through without using glitches, meanwhile SA1's platforming lets you do this: youtube.com/watch?v=I48Skm_Z3Ic

Okay I'll be honest, I exaggerated a bit here. But 1 does have instances of bad level design and is definitely more linear than the other games at times.

I think it's mostly people too young who didn't actually bother looking into the history of platform games or really thinking about it. Maybe I'm wrong but from what I recall there used to be more varied opinions on Sup Forums about Adventure, both games, around 2006 when I ventured outside Sup Forums. I recall the first thread that universally loathed the game and anyone trying to defend it even slightly was shit on was the one about some gay ass Egoraptor video.

>Crash
>Good

Stopped reading there. Surely no one actually believes that, right?

Compared to the Nintendo equivalent, Donkey Kong Country, Crash was ALWAYS an unpolished mess with ugly character designs, bland environments, and sub-par gameplay. Not mediocre... Sub-par.

I used to be critical of Sonic for having aged badly, but as I played through the original games in preparation for Mania I found that there were things I liked about them. There was NO SUCH REALIZATION with Crash. In fact, the recent release has just made me realize how much I fucking hate these games.

Sonic Adventure, in spite of all it's problems, still has a unique sense of style and atmosphere that fans adore to this day. Crash, in comparison, has nothing besides the blind nostalgia of Playstation fanboys who have never played a truly great platforming game.

> that fans adore to this day
Yeah as a "guilty pleasure, an objectively irredeemable game that I like because of nostalgia alone" because all the epic internet funny men say they need to feel guilty.

Where did "Crash is DKC" stuff start? This is the second time I've seen it. I'd like to hear you elaborate though; they are similar in some ways but also quite different in others.

Oh also I'd like you to elaborate on why you find Crash does it so much worse.

Crash was literally the first 3D platformer to incorporate sidescrolling sections, you dip.

Sonic Adventure was never good.

To elaborate on why I disagree, while they're similar in some ways, I think Crash is more about doing precision platforming as effectively as you can with some light exploration while Donkey Kong is more about forward momentum. There's no running in Crash and the spin doesn't have the same "GO GO GO" feeling as the roll in DKC except in 1 where it just controlled badly.

Sonic adventure was always flawed. Most likely people just overlooked its faults when it launched on the Dreamcast due to its graphics, and sonic's first 3D adventure. Plus sonic was still popular and generally well liked.

Now that the sonic brand has been tarnished by a steady release of garbage for over a decade the rose tinted glasses are off and the brand is associated with shit, people go into the games much more critically and without high expectations leaving the flaws much more apparent.

Agreed.

Essentially the problem with Crash can be broken down into two facts. It is not a great 2D platforming game, and it is not a true 3D platformer.

Games like Donkey Kong Country and Yoshi's Island utilized 2D level design much better than Crash ever did, while games like Mario 64 pushed the genre into 3D with great success. I make the comparison to DKC specifically because of similar the games are, both aesthetically and gameplay wise. You have a side attack and the ability to jump on enemies, and the setting is somewhat similar.

However what makes DKC leaps and bounds a better game than Crash is the stellar gameplay. DKC, unlike Crash, is fun to play. There are lots of really technical things going on in that game, such as taking advantage of the way the different characters handle or learning how to jump in mid-air. Crash has nothing like that.

It's amazing how I've been playing DKC regularly for twenty years and never get tired of it, while the very people shilling the Crash remaster freely admit that they have not touched a Crash game since the 90's.

I played Sonic Adventure for the first time recently, and in spite of all of it's very apparent flaws, I still liked it because there a good games at it's core.

No, that was Bug!

That's your opinion m8, I'm talking about the idea of it being "dated". "Datedness" is defined by what audiences as a whole consider obsolete, not single opinions. SA1 was considered great when it came out and it was just as "obsolete" then as it is now in terms of flaws. The thing is it did a specific type of platforming mechanics that no other game tried & succeeded better. The N. Sane Trilogy arguably plays worse than Crash 2 and 3 because of the worse hit box and other small things and modern audiences are eating it up.

This about face doesn't really make much sense given the public and critical reaction at the time and the fact that the game was equally flawed and obviously so when compared to more 3D polished platformers of the 90s. So I suspect it's mainly about vocal & influential minorities convincing a lot of young of a broken idea of the industry.

I saw someone today claim "I used to like a lot of objectively horrible games, like Enter the Dragonfly and Sonic Adventure". The huge difference is Enter the Dragonfly was always considered a crock of shit.

FUUUUUUCK OFF!

Stop trying to take away Sonic mania's spotlight.
Miserable baby 3d fan.

Look, I agree, I do like that era of gaming, it felt really cosy and was full of optimism, but could you stop posting for at least a few weeks?

We only want to talk about 2d Sonic here.

I understand acknowledging the flaws, I'm talking about the idea that it's an inherently broken disaster that was fun then but is now impossible to enjoy by "modern standards". 3D platformers did not evolve that much for something like that to make any sense.

The technical graphical quality was not that impressive. Plenty of games at the time more technical spectacle. The art direction is what made it look great.

If it was a "broken" game like gay youtubers say people would not have been able to look past it being "Sonic's first 3D adventure!!!"

It's not wrong to analyze it but it's silly to completely dismiss it with "datedness" being the reason.

>FUUUUUUCK OFF!

>Stop trying to take away Sonic mania's spotlight.
>Miserable baby 3d fan.

>Look, I agree, I do like that era of gaming, it felt really cosy and was full of optimism, but could you stop posting for at least a few weeks?

>We only want to talk about 2d Sonic here.

I agree the handling in DKC is more mechanically interesting and I pointed out the more momentum focused and elaborate movement controls myself. I just don't think Crash is bad because it's linear. I don't think platformers have to be either 3D collectathons or 2D.

The glitches weren't that bad in SA. Maybe in the awful DX port, but the real game was not that bad, especially for the time.

To add to this S3K was my first Sonic game.

Mania looks good mechanically & stylistically, the 2D animations are the most charming they've been since Sonic CD. The new zones look nice, not nearly as exhilaratingly atmospheric as CD (which I think is the style they were aping) but cool. Too bad there's barely any of them. Green Hill Zone was remade, what, a dozen times now? Chemical Plant Zone was remade in Sonic Pocket Adventure AND Generations. Anyone who's paid attention to the rom hack scene at all must've played them even more. We've all played these zones already a million times.

I want the great graphics of Mania but used to make new levels. I don't even know if I want to buy it; what message will that give to Sega? That they can keep rehashing stuff, or that people like early to mid 90s Sonic and they should make a NEW game in that style? I'd fucking love that.

What are the main differences? Stuff that often happens in SA but not DX.

SA is far more stable, has better models for the characters, better textures (that don't warp), and a better camera.

Did you know that you can enjoy both 2D and 3D Sonic?

>SA is far more stable
In what way?

Less glitches, most noticeably on loops, or any wall/floor really.

He can but this thread is ruining his idea of community cohesion: that Adventure is "comfy" but objectively bad and a guilty pleasure to like and 2D Sonic is sacred even though it took 3 games to perfect

I'll... really have to try emulating the Dreamcast one then. If you're right then this is a very important point to make.

>love Mario 64
>love Crash and Spyro
>love Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, wish they'd refine these two games and really give it a go with talented developers

Feels good not being a stupid fucking hater like most people on this board Sonic Adventure 2 in particular rewards skill. Yea its a 6/10 game but if you're good at the game it feels amazing to play and go for completion.

this. Anyone actually alive during SA's era remembers it was received really well and considered a must-play on the Dreamcast.

These games aren't really as awful as people make them out to be, they just aren't as good as genesis Sonic. I don't see the big deal here, but apparently far too many people can't play these games without sperging out.

I thought it was common knowledge that the DX port was shoddy compared to the original.

WAIT, HOLD THE FUCK UP, WHY THE FUCK IS THAT PIC OF SONIC SO FUCKING UNNERVING?!

Because you can't appreciate the best Sonic artist

those pixels on the end of the head spines of the far right sonic bother me

DKC and Crash are both tons of fun to play
stop presenting your opinion as though it's fact

Sonic Adventure games were always shit, they're too easy to break

Ohshima advising the artist is why the art for SA1 was better than 2 too.

Then when he left the art got a lot stiffer even though it was the same artist

So don't play like an autistic tool assisted speedrunner

>SA1's platforming
I remember not using the snake in the ruins level with sonic. You were able to jump on the pillars to move around the area to press the buttons to open the door.

sonic adventure list of grievances

-sonic and co should never talk
-the people who were ok with the stages after the first 2 be shot
-big the cat should not be in this game. Put him somewhere else, not in a fucking sonic game
-basically everything you do inbewteen playing the stages is pointless fluff that could be removed but they can't do that if you dramatically cut playtime (which is made up of fluff, go figure.)
-animation should not be this fucking atrocious in 1999, (refer to point 1 seeing as this is where The animation is at its worst)
-overall, I really hope you had good childhood memories but if I had to replay this not Mario 64, I'm going with Mario. Fuck outta here

>-basically everything you do inbewteen playing the stages is pointless fluff that could be removed but they can't do that if you dramatically cut playtime (which is made up of fluff, go figure.)
>-animation should not be this fucking atrocious in 1999, (refer to point 1 seeing as this is where The animation is at its worst)
Fine points, everything else is mostly silly. I disagree with the first however, I think they add to the adventurous feeling & add cohesion to the world.

The cutscene animations are impossible to defend but they're not the game. I think they were intentionally that way but I think the animators just didn't know how to pull it off. It was meant to be cartoony and exaggerated akin to that face NiGHTS pulls off in the intro but it didn't go for full cartoony animation so it did not work.

Big should've been a minigame, but he absolutely should have been in the game. He's one of the most charming parts.

The game having dialogue is completely fine, I think SA1's narrative aspect worked because it was more serious than past games without going full edge; it's the type of tween appeal that works. And the dub voice acting is charmingly bad, which is what people mistakenly think of the Sonic OVA dub (the voice acting there is unironically good)

You know what really made Adventure 2 a better game? The Chao Garden.

It compliments the Action Stages perfectly: You get to replay and master the fun Sonic and Shadow Stages, making sure to gather Chao Power-ups, and then you go to the Chao Garden, which provides a much better lasting appeal and turns what is a pretty mediocre action game into a breeding game with a very fun resource-gathering stages.

To this day, the one thing that makes me come back to this game is the Chao Garden.

I liked the Chao Garden but Chao Garden fags like you always weirded me out. I prefer the SA1 one simply because it had better music. Ever notice it's the same sound as Spring Valley from NiGHTS? So great. youtube.com/watch?v=BGDs5NkJiiU

borb > wiener

I've not thought about getting S ranks and whatnot and never tried; based on casual runs I hugely prefer 1 though.

well I used to be like you until I decided to go for A ranks in 2. Some stages are bullshit like Rouge's space stage but for the most part, the meat of the game in SA2 is going for the best scores/times/ranks and 100% completion even if the Green Hill stage reward is a bit meh.

Again the game is still not the best thing ever, but people really overstate how bad SA1 and SA2 are. Plus, as others have said the Chao Garden is pretty much the best built-in side attraction in any platformer ever.

It never aged poorly, it was just always painfully mediocre.
Absolutely no part of Sonic adventure could be considered above mediocre.
It wasn't that fun either, I found it to be a fucking slog.

I still really enjoy it.

Interesting observation really, I never thought of it that way. Might replay both & make a video on this subject, I need something simple to link that summarizes my thoughts and isn't a tl;dr Sup Forums thread.

Lots of people clearly enjoyed it.

The reason it gets so much flack is the camera and poor gameplay styles. If it had only Sonic and Tails and a better camera people would say Sonic jumped to 3D really well.

It's just my opinion. Yeah, most of the criticisms people have still have weight. Janky camera, retarded plot, and a misunderstanding of what made 2D Sonic great, you've likely heard it all before. I'd be interested in that video.

People here are talking about things it does right though, which is pretty refreshing.

When you put it that way, would it be fair to claim that Sonic Team was stupid and was far too ambitious?

>and a misunderstanding of what made 2D Sonic great
I don't think it's a misunderstanding at all though, they just made a different game. It couldn't get as technical as you found it if they had no idea what they were doing.

Don't get me wrong every youtuber has a video about why SA1 is an abomination. If I were to make a video I'd be defending it like I did with the Sonic OVA. Fantastic 2-episode adaptation of the classic games with top notch atmosphere, an underrated english dub that's unironically better acted than most "objectively good" dubs and the weird voice choices only help it (or you can watch the japanese one if you want typical anime VAs). Above all else fucking awesome atmosphere that nails the Ohshima feel of Sonic CD, the only big flaw was the attempt at a serious Metal Sonic subplot being rushed & bad. The rest was comedy & action driven & not plot driven so it was good.

No, they just made a game people found fun. The "crippling flaws" are only so crippling in a gay revisionist modern internet or to people who don't like the gameplay that much to begin with.

Also I don't think the other characters were that bad. Amy, E-102 & Knuckles were ok, Big should have been a minigame.

SA2 went full retard much, much more with the alternate characters.

>I don't think it's a misunderstanding at all though, they just made a different game. It couldn't get as technical as you found it if they had no idea what they were doing.
Yeah I think I see what you and are getting at. Sonic Team were unfocused.

I truly believe that if they got good people together and really took a stab at SA3, it could work. Just focus on Sonic/Tails and look at what SA1, SA2, Heroes, and 2006 did wrong very closely.

If these games were truly abominations I really wouldn't be able to find any enjoyment in them. I don't find any enjoyment in 2006, though.

Oh also Tails' Adventure Tails' turned tech freak character into gameplay mechanics much better than just sticking him in a mech. Really gotta play that.

THUNDAH

I really think it's too late depressingly enough. After the Game Grumps videos Sonic Adventure is dead in the public's eyes, people would hate it on principle even if it was executed great. Daytime Unleashed is the only approved 3D Sonic.

I don't mind the mech stages since they still involved platforming, I just wish the combat was better for those games.

fake news

I recently replayed SA1 and the worst parts are by far Amy's. Big's can be over in like 20min. Amy's are a complete bore.

RAIN AND LIGHTNING!

See I think the final Chaos fight is the kind of tween/teen pandering that works for Sonic. Not too edgy, more like a cool DBZ scene than a loony dark and emotional fanfic. After all Sonic was always inspired by Dragonball with Super Sonic and whatnot.

>Daytime Unleashed is the only approved 3D Sonic

I don't even understand why. You just boost. Yea, its fun and all, but its not what I personally want.

One issue I had is that the non lock on shooting was super boring-feeling. Sonic Team kept trying to incorporate Panzer Dragoon gameplay into Sonic and honestly E-102 is the only one where I had fun with.

Because trying to make a more polished Adventure is now forever tainted because SA1 is seen as inherently a disaster, platformers should just not be that way blahblah. The players & critics who liked it either outgrew online video game discussion or feel like they have to hate it or only like it as a 'guilty pleasure' etc.

I think the only thing that could work is if a fan dev who understands the flaws but is also attentive enough to game design to appreciate the good parts made a demo of sorts to show that it could work and Sega picked it up. Otherwise if Sega announced a new Adventure it would be dead on arrival the same way Ghostbusters was.

>tfw we are cursed to forever have boost sanic
please make it stop

Well we'll have Genesis style too after Mania's success but for 3D yeah it's just the racing type games. Which is sad to me cuz I think there's a lot of potential there.

people have got to get bored of it eventually right

I have no connection to the Sonic games and just played through them all when I heard that Mania was good. Sonic Adventure is a piece of shit and I still can't fucking understand what people see in the game. Music's great, locales are fun, but god fucking damn are those controls awful, ESPECIALLY given the year it came out.

Never had an issue with them, just the camera & glitches; if anything I take more issue with Sonic 1's controls. I played the apparently inferior DX version too.

I played Shadow for the first time a few days ago
Literally only complaint I have is that you accelerate too fast
Some of you faggots were making it out to be boderline 06 tier

its nowhere near as bad as 2006 but its still bad

t. someone that actually 100%'d the game like a fucking retard

Oh they will which is why I don't think Forces will be a success. When I saw the stupid "classic sonic & new sonic together" bullshit again I thought "lol not this shit again".

I don't like the idea of classic Sonic being a different character because he isn't. They listened to the retarded fan meme that classic Sonic was a pure innocent baby. He was in the initial development stages as Ohshima envisioned him but SoA quickly asked to turn him into a cocky teen. But Ohshima handled the "stylish and cool, not cute and cuddly" atmosphere so well in CD I don't regret it at all.

The Sonic OVA also had a great vision of classic Sonic. He's kind of a dick and kind of annoying but does the right thing in the end. Exactly how you read a character who gets impatient, jumps off the screen and gives you a game over if you spend too much time away from the controller, or one that smugly wags his finger at you in the title screen.

>Where did "Crash is DKC" stuff start?
You know Naughty Dog openly admitted that Crash was just DKC except the camera faces the animal mascot's ass, right?

Well 100% it seems like a fucking chore, but I thought this shit was going to be horrible

They literally called the work in process "Sonic's Ass"

They called it Sonic's ass and not Donkey Kong's ass because Sonic was the main mascot for Sega, but Donkey Kong wasn't the main mascot for Nintendo (Mario was). They wanted Crash to be the main (unofficial) mascot for Sony. That particular label was to do with marketing, not saying that Crash plays like Sonic, because it doesn't.

It's very obvious that Crash plays like DKC (albeit in a limited form of 3D), and anybody that has even the most basic mastery of either game series knows it.

I want a spiritual successor to the Advance games.

Not really, no. The motion is very different, one favors forward momentum and the other favors precision.

It had some cool ideas as far as bringing the feel of a 2D platform game to 3D goes, co-creator Dave Siller did the same with Maximo on PS2 which was great (the first game, fuck Kurt Kalata for saying "skip the first game" & making me play & get bored by the second)

>one favors forward momentum and the other favors precision.
They have elements of both. It's practically tautological for a platformer.

The reason Crash is like DKC is because both games have fairly simplistic mechanics but get a reasonable amount of depth from in level design, levels that rely on specific gimmicks or themes, fairly linear levels, a similar collectible system for 100% competition, secrets are hidden in levels in a similar way, a very limited number of collectibles other than "collect 100 x to get a life", and a predominant focus on presentation (graphics and audio).

I mean DKC has the rolls & a run button. You get to gain and lose momentum of your movement speed but in Crash it's more basic & precise.

I suppose so. The roll has more momentum in DKC as you say. But that reminds me. The control of the characters is fairly similar too. They both involve killing enemies either by jumping on top of them or using a special move while knocking into them.

>I want the great graphics of Mania but used to make new levels. I don't even know if I want to buy it; what message will that give to Sega? That they can keep rehashing stuff, or that people like early to mid 90s Sonic and they should make a NEW game in that style? I'd fucking love that.

Buy Mania on anything you own, avoid Forces. Support the artists and developers on their work and give vocal support of original content to Sonic/SEGA social media. Give them enough clout that they can reliably say to SEGA of Japan "this was a big hit, this is how we should continue" and then kind of... cross your fingers and hope SEGA of Japan doesn't get insanely jealous of the Mania team's work paying off, I guess?

Yeah, I never understood why people enjoy the games and overlook the floaty controls, I simply cannot have fun with a game this broken.

It's literally just because they want to like it. If it was any other random ass character the game would be forgotten as a broken mess from a past era, but since it's sonic it is a "flawed gem that hasn't aged at all".

Fuck off, SA1 and 2 are the DEFINITION of badly aging vidya.