Okay so I picked up the 3DS version, and I've played the first section of the game, so here's a summary of my experience so far:
Green Hill is a really short stage, unfortunately, both versions of Sonic can clear their stage regularly in under a minute. As stated before, Modern Sonic plays in 2D like CIassic does, which makes it confusing since you might pull what I did and start sliding as Modern trying to do a Spin Dash. Also, CIassic Sonic as previously stated does gain a homing attack, immediately following the Big Arm boss.
On that note, each Boss Gate contains both its rival battle and the core boss, so you play them back to back rather than find on the hubworld, which is entirely menu-based and not explorable at all. Like in the HD version you when you unlock zones you can choose to play their acts in whatever order you choose, and upon clearing the entire zone, you unlock its Special Stage (there's no in-level ring requirement or anything like that, you just clear the zone), which plays exactly like Heroes'. Truth be told I'm not a big Heroes fan, but the Special Stage so far is one of my favorite moments of the game, it's just a blast. Now, it presents itself in 3D, however Sonic is automatically running so you only need to steer him left and right like in Sonic 2's Special Stage.
Level design I have mixed reactions for, and so far it's one of the biggest deciding factors in how I will be rating this one. CIassic Sonic's iterations of Green Hill, Casino Night, and Mushroom Hill are carbon copies of their original forms from the Genesis games. This is a double-edged sword for me personally because it means Dimps was lazy and decided to let nostalgia do their work for them. And sadly enough, these visually refreshed versions of the stages just aren't as exciting as they were back on the Genesis. Still fun, though.
Now, Modern Sonic, in the HD version I couldn't help but praise his gameplay, and here it's still good, but I have a hard time enjoying him as much as I'd like, the level design especially for Casino Night and Mushroom Hill just is flatout quirky, it's almost like Dimps was trying to shoehorn the idea that Sonic 4's level design was awesome into this game, and I'm still as turned off but some of the setpiece decisions. Casino Night in particular was a pain and while parts of it were enjoyable, other parts just screamed bad level design. To top that all off, Modern Sonic's acts feel a little lifeless, they just don't feel as full of activity like the Sonic Rush series did. Now, I think this is more a fault of the absolute focus on the boost function, because while it was there in the Rush series, it was balanced with great platforming. Here it's just BOOST BOOST BOOST BOOST BOOST and then jump here and there and that's about it.
Overall, the entirety of the gameplay is fun, but not exciting, I was expecting more out of the premier development team behind Sonic's portable adventures. But hopefully my opinion of the game will improve by the time the game is done.
On the note of music and graphics, music is great, and I definitely think it's one of the better aspects of the game, and visually it is quite pleasing. I like how Modern Sonic will oftentimes pull a Donkey Kong Country Returns and jump to the background for the next part of the level, it's a pretty nice addition.
Anyway, expect a full review of the 3DS version probably this weekend. I wanna finish this game up and I have work Thursday and Friday, so I'm not entirely sure I'll have time to get the review done, I know I'll have the game done though. If you guys have questions on anything else in the game, like how cutscenes play out, missions, all that fun stuff, please do ask, I'll definitely answer them for you as soon as I see them.
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