An absolutely disgraceful collection but I did not expect anything more since it was made "internally at SEGA"

CONS:

Most important - NO integer scaling, meaning all 4 games look just as blurry as Sonic CD 2011. What was the point of finally releasing the 2013 remasters on consoles if they look worse than when they did on mobile?

Mission Mode is comprised of bite-sized, generically-designed levels that would make the most amateur platformers blush. I could tell it was made by Sonic Team cuz the mode features grey X-blocks like Forces and they're EVERYWHERE with no slopes in sight

Knuckles isn't playable in CD (a primarily exploration-based game). Don't get me started on Amy - a character that's been promoted since the Archie Mega Drive days as part of Team Sonic. Then in Mania Adventures, then in IDW comics, and now here. So you'd think they would finally make her playable? Lol, you want them to make a NEW sprite-sheet (which they did back in CD 2011 for Tails)? You're asking for too much

No customizations. After all these years, after fan projects like S1 Forever, S2 Absolute, S3 Complete, S3 A.I.R., OR EVEN Sonic Mania, our boys at SEGA couldn't be bothered to add the most BASIC options between all 4 games like fans do. No peel-out in S3, elemental shields in S1/CD/2, max control, Jam difficulties, can't disable the Drop Dash, no option to use lives/timeouts in Anniversary Mode or collect Tokens in Classic Mode, etc.

Island Tour DLC just allows you to zoom-in on each island, not even rotate them. Money well spent. And that "animated characters on island" DLC? All of them are ripped from Gens/Forces

Super Sonic isn't in S1. Now you might say "What are you talking about, obviously he isn't". Yeah, umm... except some Japanese promo images showed him in Scrap Brain. So I thought "Oh, so he, alongside a 7th Special Stage are in Anniversary Mode, nice bonus". And he isn't. You can only access him using cheats, just like on mobile. Is this a nitpick? Yeah, but maybe they shouldn't have blatantly lie to consumers, then

The "Drop Dash" is a pure lie. What do I mean? It's actually a disguised Spin Dash animation that happens for a split-second? Doesn't sound bad, except the AGES version of S1/S2 natively added it to their ROMs. Oh! And in Origins it BARELY moves you after you execute it. Best part? S1/S2 have a fixed jump arc, so if you try to do this move in those games and jump, you won't be able to control yourself mid-air (think Castlevania)

The Museum... god, remember those so-called "never-before seen concept arts" they promised? Well I'm here to tell you there are like 6 of them, everything else are Harmony covers and character sheets. The Video section has none of those cool 90s ads, promo videos or even documentaries, just a few pieces of the Sonic Symphony they threw in at the last hour, Origins' cutscenes and every episode of Mania Adventures (and their respective animatics). Both Normal and Premium sections offer very little content, especially if you pre-ordered the game which gives you a 100 Token bonus, you can literally unlock everything in under 2 hours. Not to mention it's complete silence, no remix of History or anything like that, no feeling of nostalgia. Just cynical, corporate silence as you browse what little they offer. Only ""new"" track here is a remix of Sonic World from Jam that plays everywhere except the Museum. Classy

S1/2/CD are straight mobile versions, so they haven't been touched up at all. Meaning the missing rolling SFX in CD hasn't been fixed, and the extended camera is still absent

Horrible audio quality. Believe it or not, they REMOVED the remastered OSTs for S1, CD and S2 from mobile. Why? No clue. As for S3&K, y'know... the only new thing here, it isn't given the same treatment so its OST is really muffled, and ON TOP OF THAT, CD's 2 OSTs are super quiet and also in bad quality. How did they screw it up? idk, but it is hilarious

Your Score in S3&K resets to 0 if you click the Restart button. This doesn't happen in other games

The music DLC (Chaotix, 3D Blast and Spinball) misnamed countless tracks. For example; Chaotix's bad ending theme (Destructive Power) is Door to Summer, while 3D Blast's Invincibility theme is the Menu theme. Incompetent? Very much. Funny? Absolutely

No Chaotix island. You might notice how Origins' gallery features stuff from Chaotix, 3D Blast and Spinball, the OSTs from those games they repackaged as DLC at the last minute, as well as the islands from Spinball and 3D Blast in the hub menu and... wait a second... where's the Island of Miracles from Chaotix? You telling me, the island from a game that is the closest to Sonic's gameplay of that era isn't here... but islands from 2 US-made games, one of which is a pinball spin-off made to promote a show that never aired in Japan, are here? Not only is this sorta insulting, I'm like 1000% sure it was supposed to be here as an Options island, they just didn't make a model of it in time, and plastered Options in the Museum of all places

Screwed up physics. Due to S3&K here clearly being made on Mania's engine, it had a lot of ramifications on the game's internal logic. Some stuff is cool like all elemental shields function how they did in Mania, making the bubble shield fun to use. Others... because the game now controls exactly like Mania, there are a LOT of collision/physics bugs that weren't present in the OG game

CD's ending animation. While the restoration team did really well with remastering the original opening, I... have no idea what happened with the ending. It looks like one of those interpolated anime clips. Worst part? It's sped up by 3x and there are no SFXs in the beginning, so it instantly plays the credits theme. The Gallery also plays it off-sync and it doesn't feature the bad ending version. Actually a joke

Even though I'm not one of those people that plays S3 and S&K separately, it's kinda absurd how they initially advertised this collection with those 2 games in mind. Final release? You can't play them separately. Oh well

The new S3&K tracks. I don't know what sound chip Jun Senoue (same guy who composed S4EI) used but it sure wasn't a Mega Drive one. Tracks sound muffled, quiet and overall don't fit the game. It's especially insulting to CNZ Act 2, its prototype track is EASILY one of my favorite Sonic tunes... and Jun completely butchered it. They should've asked Yuzo Koshiro to recompose them. But you wanna know THE coolest part? Origins is made on Criware, meaning the audio is encrypted, meaning it'll be really hard to mod music in. Just a neat thing, y'know :)

Denuvo. No need to explain, you already know the game runs poorly. Countless stuttering too

PROS:

Cutscenes look great, but what did you expect from Tyson Hesse and Powerhouse, you knew they'd pull it off with flying colors. However they haven't animated any of the bad endings, meaning if you get one in any of the games, it would still play said game's true ending

The restoration group they hired to scan various pieces for the Museum and clean up the CD opening (not the ending) did a really good job

The S3&K remaster, despite the collection's flaws, is alright. Nowhere near the level of AIR, which is odd cuz I know Stealth and his crew can do WAY better than this. At least it wasn't done by SEGA

Classic games on PC, so your usual "Hope modders will fix it" mentality will continue yet again! You expect SEGA to do all the work? Pfftt, yeah right

Notice how all the collection's positives I listed were outsourced to 3rd parties and not done by SEGA? That should tell you how much they care. In the end you're left with:

Sonic 1 (the Spin Dash is still present in the so-called Classic mode)
Sonic 2 (with a horrible, downright game-breaking Tails AI)
Sonic CD (they use leftover UI from the mobile version I kid you not)
and Sonic 3&K (with its muffled, MJ-free OST)

Happy 31st Anniversary, Sonic. I can't believe I'm still a fan of your franchise

An absolutely disgraceful collection but I did not expect anything more since it was made "internally at SEGA" CONS: Most important - NO integer scaling, meaning all 4 games look just as blurry as Sonic CD 2011. What was the point of finally releasing the 2013 remasters on consoles if they look worse than when they did on mobile? Mission Mode is comprised of bite-sized, generically-designed levels that would make the most amateur platformers blush. I could tell it was made by Sonic Team cuz the mode features grey X-blocks like Forces and they're EVERYWHERE with no slopes in sight Knuckles isn't playable in CD (a primarily exploration-based game). Don't get me started on Amy - a character that's been promoted since the Archie Mega Drive days as part of Team Sonic. Then in Mania Adventures, then in IDW comics, and now here. So you'd think they would finally make her playable? Lol, you want them to make a NEW sprite-sheet (which they did back in CD 2011 for Tails)? You're asking for too much No customizations. After all these years, after fan projects like S1 Forever, S2 Absolute, S3 Complete, S3 A.I.R., OR EVEN Sonic Mania, our boys at SEGA couldn't be bothered to add the most BASIC options between all 4 games like fans do. No peel-out in S3, elemental shields in S1/CD/2, max control, Jam difficulties, can't disable the Drop Dash, no option to use lives/timeouts in Anniversary Mode or collect Tokens in Classic Mode, etc. Island Tour DLC just allows you to zoom-in on each island, not even rotate them. Money well spent. And that "animated characters on island" DLC? All of them are ripped from Gens/Forces Super Sonic isn't in S1. Now you might say "What are you talking about, obviously he isn't". Yeah, umm... except some Japanese promo images showed him in Scrap Brain. So I thought "Oh, so he, alongside a 7th Special Stage are in Anniversary Mode, nice bonus". And he isn't. You can only access him using cheats, just like on mobile. Is this a nitpick? Yeah, but maybe they shouldn't have blatantly lie to consumers, then The "Drop Dash" is a pure lie. What do I mean? It's actually a disguised Spin Dash animation that happens for a split-second? Doesn't sound bad, except the AGES version of S1/S2 natively added it to their ROMs. Oh! And in Origins it BARELY moves you after you execute it. Best part? S1/S2 have a fixed jump arc, so if you try to do this move in those games and jump, you won't be able to control yourself mid-air (think Castlevania) The Museum... god, remember those so-called "never-before seen concept arts" they promised? Well I'm here to tell you there are like 6 of them, everything else are Harmony covers and character sheets. The Video section has none of those cool 90s ads, promo videos or even documentaries, just a few pieces of the Sonic Symphony they threw in at the last hour, Origins' cutscenes and every episode of Mania Adventures (and their respective animatics). Both Normal and Premium sections offer very little content, especially if you pre-ordered the game which gives you a 100 Token bonus, you can literally unlock everything in under 2 hours. Not to mention it's complete silence, no remix of History or anything like that, no feeling of nostalgia. Just cynical, corporate silence as you browse what little they offer. Only ""new"" track here is a remix of Sonic World from Jam that plays everywhere except the Museum. Classy S1/2/CD are straight mobile versions, so they haven't been touched up at all. Meaning the missing rolling SFX in CD hasn't been fixed, and the extended camera is still absent Horrible audio quality. Believe it or not, they REMOVED the remastered OSTs for S1, CD and S2 from mobile. Why? No clue. As for S3&K, y'know... the only new thing here, it isn't given the same treatment so its OST is really muffled, and ON TOP OF THAT, CD's 2 OSTs are super quiet and also in bad quality. How did they screw it up? idk, but it is hilarious Your Score in S3&K resets to 0 if you click the Restart button. This doesn't happen in other games The music DLC (Chaotix, 3D Blast and Spinball) misnamed countless tracks. For example; Chaotix's bad ending theme (Destructive Power) is Door to Summer, while 3D Blast's Invincibility theme is the Menu theme. Incompetent? Very much. Funny? Absolutely No Chaotix island. You might notice how Origins' gallery features stuff from Chaotix, 3D Blast and Spinball, the OSTs from those games they repackaged as DLC at the last minute, as well as the islands from Spinball and 3D Blast in the hub menu and... wait a second... where's the Island of Miracles from Chaotix? You telling me, the island from a game that is the closest to Sonic's gameplay of that era isn't here... but islands from 2 US-made games, one of which is a pinball spin-off made to promote a show that never aired in Japan, are here? Not only is this sorta insulting, I'm like 1000% sure it was supposed to be here as an Options island, they just didn't make a model of it in time, and plastered Options in the Museum of all places Screwed up physics. Due to S3&K here clearly being made on Mania's engine, it had a lot of ramifications on the game's internal logic. Some stuff is cool like all elemental shields function how they did in Mania, making the bubble shield fun to use. Others... because the game now controls exactly like Mania, there are a LOT of collision/physics bugs that weren't present in the OG game CD's ending animation. While the restoration team did really well with remastering the original opening, I... have no idea what happened with the ending. It looks like one of those interpolated anime clips. Worst part? It's sped up by 3x and there are no SFXs in the beginning, so it instantly plays the credits theme. The Gallery also plays it off-sync and it doesn't feature the bad ending version. Actually a joke Even though I'm not one of those people that plays S3 and S&K separately, it's kinda absurd how they initially advertised this collection with those 2 games in mind. Final release? You can't play them separately. Oh well The new S3&K tracks. I don't know what sound chip Jun Senoue (same guy who composed S4EI) used but it sure wasn't a Mega Drive one. Tracks sound muffled, quiet and overall don't fit the game. It's especially insulting to CNZ Act 2, its prototype track is EASILY one of my favorite Sonic tunes... and Jun completely butchered it. They should've asked Yuzo Koshiro to recompose them. But you wanna know THE coolest part? Origins is made on Criware, meaning the audio is encrypted, meaning it'll be really hard to mod music in. Just a neat thing, y'know :) Denuvo. No need to explain, you already know the game runs poorly. Countless stuttering too PROS: Cutscenes look great, but what did you expect from Tyson Hesse and Powerhouse, you knew they'd pull it off with flying colors. However they haven't animated any of the bad endings, meaning if you get one in any of the games, it would still play said game's true ending The restoration group they hired to scan various pieces for the Museum and clean up the CD opening (not the ending) did a really good job The S3&K remaster, despite the collection's flaws, is alright. Nowhere near the level of AIR, which is odd cuz I know Stealth and his crew can do WAY better than this. At least it wasn't done by SEGA Classic games on PC, so your usual "Hope modders will fix it" mentality will continue yet again! You expect SEGA to do all the work? Pfftt, yeah right Notice how all the collection's positives I listed were outsourced to 3rd parties and not done by SEGA? That should tell you how much they care. In the end you're left with: Sonic 1 (the Spin Dash is still present in the so-called Classic mode) Sonic 2 (with a horrible, downright game-breaking Tails AI) Sonic CD (they use leftover UI from the mobile version I kid you not) and Sonic 3&K (with its muffled, MJ-free OST) Happy 31st Anniversary, Sonic. I can't believe I'm still a fan of your franchise