A horrible abomination to an excellent game.
The game is basically a remake of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Sega Genesis, with one major difference: It's completely littered with bugs! You remember how in the original game how when you got hit with a lot of rings the game would slown down for a few seconds. Picture that throughout the entire game. It's that slow at points. The controls are also just loose as hell. You can no longer slow down by skidding, will just start falling as soon as you let go of the jump button, and start sliding uncontrollably when you jump down from even the smallest of heights(which becomes a major problem when jumping on narrow platforms or near objects that can crush you). On top of that , you find glitches literally everywhere in the game. You'll have a hard time finding somebody who will play the game once, let alone replay the f*cking thing.
As for the graphics, they look just about the exact same as the Genesis version. That's the only good thing about them however. Because of the screen size of the GBA, the distance you can see in around you has been severely cut down, meaning that enemies and hazards will often appear on the screen before you're given a chance to react, and platforms you need to land on won't be on screen, forcing you to rely on luck and knowledge of the area you're in.
The music in them original version of the game was just excellent, so you just know that they're going to f*ck that up somehow too. The music tracks in this game are basically a bunch of midi versions of the tunes in the classic. Although the music doesn't sound too bad on first glance, it will quickly start to get on your nerves. As for the sound, everything is basically a generic sound effect such as a bounce, pop or ring sound. That's about it.
Perhaps the worst thing about this game is that fact that it's a re-release of the original game might lead newcomers into believing that this is the same thing as the original game, which is why I'm ending this review on this note: this is not even close to the original game. There have already been countless versions of the original game released in a number of different ways, the Sonic Jam version of which also happens to be able to save and spindash(which is the only thing this game has going for it).
Good Job Sega. You’ve just done what no other development team has. You've taken a 15 year old game that was already excellent to begin with and manage to make it practically unplayable. Congratulations!