So I actually played through the GG Sonic titles over the last two weeks and can summarize them as such:
Sonic 1: Actually a pretty decent title and one of my personal favorites in the Sonic series. Sure, there's hardly any real moments to go fast and it feels more like a standard platformer of the time, but it's alright. The OST is also pretty solid and was composed by the Streets of Rage guy. (It makes Bridge Zone Act 2 more tolerable while listening to the music).
I also like how there's a grander finale compared to the 16-bit version with chasing Eggman onto a fortified blimp to beat him for the final time and a better incentive to collecting the Chaos Emeralds to remove the smog left behind on the island by Eggman's base.
Sonic 2: I hated this game when I played it on SA1DX's GG collection long ago and couldn't get past the first boss back then, but with renewed vigor and better skills, could beat it in a single afternoon. Will say that past the first boss the game does get a little more lenient but Green Hills Act 3 and Scrambled Egg Acts 1 and 2 are life-drainers for how trial and error-based they are with death spikes and traps all over the place.
in Sonic 2 specifically they are in places where no one would EVER think to look for them (i.e. the fucking clouds at the very top of the screen).
Yeah this is pretty bullshit. Sky High's requires you to bounce off of clouds that visually look no distinct from each other with which ones you can bounce from and which ones are just background scenery, and Gimmick Mt.'s requires you to pass through a fake wall. How would anyone know this unless they stumble across this per chance back in the day?
Either way yeah, game has a good couple of sour notes but is decent otherwise. Best advice is to collect a bunch of lives from rings and remembering 1-up locations to make the trial and error-parts less harrowing.
Why are you playing the game gear version while the easier and superior Master System version is right there?
The MS version does make the 1st boss a lot easier because of more screenwidth to work with plus the balls all bounce in one fixed pattern as opposed to randomly generated, but Green Hills Act 3 is still bullshit since you can't see where the spikes or safe spots are whilst in the air.
Chaos: Decent enough, if very short and easy. Maybe SEGA knew how difficult 2 was and toned it down severely because you can actually gain rings in the boss stages and recollect some when hit. Chaos Emeralds are found in the special stages but only with Sonic and accessed through collecting 100 rings whilst Tails just gets an extra life and the counter resets. The music is nice and the special stages are unique, but not a whole lot to it in terms of replayability.
Triple Trouble: A pretty good title by GG standards and whilst still a bit on the easy side, there's at least more meat to it now. The most interesting thing about special stages is that now they're accessed by hitting an Emerald monitor in the stage while holding 50 rings (sort of like Sonic 2, and this time Tails can also access them) to get a shot at it, and there's 2 kind of special stages you play back to back: One being a platforming maze where you can potentially fall off or run out of time but can collect time clocks to extend your time, and the other being a segment where you fly around with the Tornado and collect a certain amount of rings which is quite lenient, but it will always end up with a boss fight against Fang which isn't anything to really write home about but it's nice seeing him fuck up repeatedly.
The last stage is also quite the boss gauntlet. One against Metal Sonic followed up by a 3-part fight against Eggman.
Labyrinth: Quite frankly never understood the hate for this. Sure it doesn't play like typical Sonic and it's really damn short sitting at only 16 stages of which 4 of them are boss fights, but in terms of controls it's not that hard to get used to actually moving around with the spindash since it cycles through a set of arrows indicating the speed when you hold it before releasing, and you press the button again to brake. That's all there is to it.
The only other noteworthy thing is that the good ending (or lack thereof) requirements is so weird. You got to power the switch to the bonus room in a specific level by holding a combination of buttons as you're launched from the cannon to it, and you don't even need to get everything in the room itself, just enter it qualifies. Meh game, but far from actual garbage.
Spinball: Now this is actually pretty bad. I never liked Spinball's 16-bit version either because pinball games ain't my taste, but at least that thing doesn't lag like hell. And the spin dash physics and momentum, dear god. In the main stages itself you barely have to put up with it since it's just a rare means to get up, but this is what you have to rely on in the bonus stages and it's so janky I usually just try to exit it ASAP or let the timer run out because it's mostly just score increase.
To the GG port's slight credit, it's actually fairly easy & short at only 4 stages in total and it's very rare to actually fall in a death pit or between the flippers, but when the game struggles to keep up framerate-wise, yeah it's a no-seller for me. Beat it once and never again.
Drift 1: Really easy. Sure it might seem like a pain to keep your car on the course whilst taking sharp turns at first but once you get the hang of holding the acceleration and brake buttons as you turn corners you stay on the track with no speed loss, and it's best to just tap-mash the brake button so you don't spin out from steering too sharply. Once you master that, the game is a snoozefest since the AI barely does anything to oppose you and the tracks hardly feel any real different. At least there's effort with all 4 characters having a charming ending animation at the tail end. No wonder this never left Japan originally.
Drift 2: There's more effort put into the sequel with both track variety and AI improvements, but much like Mario Kart SNES the computer cheat like bitches with rubberbanding and will use their items whenever they feel like it without being restricted by ring cost. Another mechanic is that a racer can spin out if it bumps into an opponent in front at high speed, which is insufferable if it happens to you, and a boon to try and exploit against the rubber-banding AI trying to catch up to you. (Just don't pick Sonic or Metal Sonic as your opponents because if they get ahead of you they'll just keep boosting out of sight) Decent sequel but still not a whole lot to it.
Blast: The last actual Sonic platformer on the handheld system is a weird one. It's a basic 2D platformer but the pre-rendered spritework animations feel rather messy and stilted, yet charming in it's own weird way. Still, it's decent and not too difficult barring the small screen size relative to how big your character's sprite is that it warrants a playthrough and at least Sonic has a double jump to set him apart from Knuckles in this game, but Blue Marine is one of the most annoying water theme stages in Sonic history because you have currents pushing you around and forcing you to redo segments if your platforming isn't on point. You also only get 1 shot at the Chaos Emerald in the special stage of each world's 2nd Act accessed by a big ring hidden in the stage akin to Sonic 3, so if you're looking to reach the true final boss, gotta be sharp.
Mean Bean Machine: A decent 8-bit port of the 16-bit western reskin of Puyo 1. Sure it lacks some of the banger tunes and especially instrumentation given the inferior hardware, but the devs still did a good job on it. And exclusive to this is a mission mode so there's that. Didn't play it a whole lot since I suck at Puyo but I give credit where credit's due.
Tails' Skypatrol: Decent enough of a rail shooter game that's incredibly short with only 5 stages and infinite continues but I like the spritework for it and it's fun mastering the ring throwing and latching-mechanics in my opinion. Just okay and a pretty servicable spinoff.
Tails Adventures: The most worthwhile and interesting game on the system in my opinion. Decent exploration-based platformer where you unlock new weapons, Chaos Emeralds for health/flight gauge extensions and items to progress through the stages with but only 4 inventory slots and having to backtrack to Tails' house if you lack the proper item equipped sucks, but thankfully stages aren't too large and it rarely occurs when you need to backtrack out of a stage, as long as you always keep the Remote Robot on hand since it's essential for a large chunk of the whole game, and keep the manual detonation bomb as a side-grade to the stock bomb.
