I'll put this bluntly: If you were a fan of the Sonic franchise before it lost all sense of speed, overall production quality, and respect for its players' skills, then you will absolutely love Freedom Planet.

Not only does it emulate what made classic Sonic games good, it surpasses them; Combat is more fun and complex than just jumping on things (or using cheap homing attacks like the modern games), Bosses are BRUTALLY challenging (and you beat them through SKILL, not cheapness) and the levels are masterfully crafted, with tons of secrets and achievements to hunt for.

All of this is available in either a Story mode, where you'll be treated to fully voice-acted in-engine cutscenes between every level, or a Classic mode if you don't care for the voicework or just want to keep the action flowing. Additionally, there are THREE characters with very separate and unique sets of gameplay mechanics (two available in Story mode, the third only in classic). I've played through the entire game with all three, and I can say that even when visiting the exact same level or fighting the exact same boss (some levels/bosses are unique to certain characters, but most are shared) it became a different experience just from these characters' unique abilities. For example, Sash Lilac can periodically rocket herself in any primary or diagonal direction (and be temporarily invulnerable while doing so) while Carol Tea has wall-jumping, rolling and claw-strike attacks, and a truly awesome motorcycle. The third character, Milla, has very little health but can reflect most projectiles, and pick up powerups or generate blocks out of thin air to throw, while traversing verticle space with a klonoa-style limited flight.

If I had to nitpick anything about the game, it's a lack of multiplayer, and the voicework (while I personally enjoyed it) was for certain characters done with recording hardware of noticeably lower quality. Neither of these small details made the game overall any less spectacular.