Solister

Sourly missed opportunity to put Tails on the tails side of it

you got this, my man. from one depressio to another 👊

Good going. Knuckles has always been my favourite character, so I beat the game with him first as a child and tend to favour him for his slightly but significantly more difficult routes and bosses. It bugs me that Mania offers so much less incentive to use different characters. 3K is King.

I still haven't stopped to think if I like more Sonic, Tails or Knuckles. I'd probably say Tails because I like his gameplay style as well as a character. I have to admit I was (for some reason) expecting a game a little more different from Sonic or Tails. In the end it was like playing with a different skin and a few more abilities. But I admit I suffered a lot with difficulty in Sandopolis and Lava Reef.

I dislike Tails personally. He had very few unique routes to take advantage of, and his flight ability is so slow. Knuckles gives you a significantly different path to take in at least one act of every zone (apart from FBZ). His jump is only slightly weaker than the others', but it really negatively impacts his ability to deal with certain obstacles. And the tweaked bosses really do make a difference. Tails is just... Sonic without the highly useful insta-shield/shield abilities, and a vet clunky flight system. Knuckles gliding meshes much more with the core moveset, and his unique routes really encourage using it.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles is a great Sonic game, it's one of my favorites as well, though I havn't replayed it in a while. I'm not sure if I prefer this or Sonic 1... in recent times I discovered that Sonic 1 is very nice to replay because of its simplicity; compared to S3&K it does not have cutscenes and its special stages are more ability and less puzzle... it's clearly a much simpler game but it can be very fun. S3&K does have a lot of depth and content, it's great in every aspect, but I don't like Blue Sphere that much, and all the cutscenes and bonus stages I don't know, there are a lot of moments when you have to stop and wait, or do minigames before you can continue with the main quest (I know that the minigames are optional but they give you bonus stuff so it's convenient to do them). They are all good but for me they remove a bit of replay value... it's still an excellent game, and at the end I would probably say I like it more than Sonic 1, but they are very close for me; Sonic 1 is underrated.

It's just Sonic 2 that I dislike; excluding a few nice levels (Aquatic Ruins is my favorite) most of the game is a pain to play for me, especially if I want to get all the emeralds, those special stages 😠.

Since we are there, my classics chart is: 3&K>1>>Mania>>>CD>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>2 (but if we add the 8-bit games, Sonic 1 8-bit would be at least a tie with 3&K if not above it at all, I freaking love that game despite its flaws and hardware limitations).

A final comment: as I said, I haven't played it in a while, but I remember liking the Sonic 3 side more than the & Knuckles one. I should definitely replay it though.

Yeah, it still holds above Mania for me. There's more of a through line with cutscenes that give you a sense of how the zones are connected to each other. That's more palatable to me then Mania hand waving it with teleporting shenanigans.

Blue Sphere is easily my favorite Special Stage. There's no honest timeout scenario and that gives it some real potential as a sub game, and I do really enjoy games within games. So the mini games are a boon for me. 

I think I share a similar opinion to @Iko, except for the fact I blame S3&K "complexity" due to the advancements of the time, like no one ever has seen something like that before. I honestly, enjoyed a lot of playing Sonic 1 and definitely wasn't expecting to have that amount of fun. Perhaps S3&K is more polished and well done, while S1 is just more fun to play. I do agree Bonus Stages (S3&K) can be a pain in the ass and I got like, 3 unlucky streaks and exit with fewer rings than when I entered, so by mid to late game you just avoid bonus stages or "suicide" on them.

While Mania also have the polished and modern argument with it, I think I disliked it more than Sonic 1 and 3&K because when you play them back to back, it just feels more and more of the same. Also agree with @Cuz, the transitions seems way too forced. I may be wrong, but a few parts of the levels had the same structure and if not, the same Special Stage spots. Blue Spheres as Bonus Stages suck (In fact, even the last few Super Emerald SS in S3&K are annoying). The Encore version is pretty fine, ngl, but the fact they literally missed the opportunity to make a Casino Night bonus stage, it's almost an unforgiven thing.

I used to like Sonic 2, but then playing back to back my impression with it really lowered down. I sucked a lot in Oil Ocean/Metropolis/Wing Fortress and in the end I stressed myself more than had fun.

I haven't played much of the 8-bits that much (except for Chaos), but my rank would be something like:

S3&K >> SCD > S1 > SM >>> Chaos > S2

If only people were free to be honest on what their concerns are, and not forced to keep their employers in the dark to keep a good impression, all because our economy is too lazy to give themselves system the flexibity to provide employees postion they can be confortable with, and therefor better productive.

This secretive driven process is the same reason why so many corrupt and wicked people have made it so far up our society-- and thus so many get ratted out with alligations over social media. If these industries gave a rat's ass about learning what these people truely are, maybe this wouldn't be happening as much

And here I thought Knowledge was Power. But clearly to these creeps, Ignorance is Bliss.

It's harder to sell useless crap to happy people, so there's a perverse incentive to keep people anxious. The best examples of this are all the victim blaming self-help books and fad diets that insist you can achieve happiness if you do everything they say. If you don't achieve it, you just weren't trying hard enough. Git gud (and buy more of our stuff).

Personally, I'd like permission to be anxious. It's harder to solve problems if you have to pretend they don't exist.

I highly, highly doubt the Colors remake is the only game planned for the anniversary.

yes. one of my all time favs!

Yes we can.

This is also rad:

You're going through a terrible time dude, and 1 month isn't very long to get used to it all things considered. I hope that you don't find it patronising when  I say that that things will get better. Because they absolutely will. You're young, and life won't stop giving.

Are they? I thought it was just a coincidence.