@applejack @matana sonic utopia's level design is drastically different from anything else in the franchise and actually has a good physics engine, unlike anything else in the franchise (which usually relies on predetermined paths or just has really clunky feeling physics). the level design is SUPER open, enemies are very easily avoidable, and it focuses way more on movement/traversal than it does anything else. that's kinda' what i'm getting at, sonic needs to be a game that just has a constant flow of quick movement instead of getting stuck on stuff or dying because the physics disagreed with you. or, god forbid, walking a dog around a city.

where i get into "sonic as a concept doesn't work very well as a game" though, is that even in sonic utopia, he still kind of goes a little too slow most of the time. it works for the game, definitely, because if you made him any faster in it you'd have a hard time controlling things accurately enough. there's not as much a sense of speed as there is freedom, which of course some people will value more but i think for a guy who is supposed to run the speed of sound there just needs to be a shift in how fast the gameplay actually is, one way or another.

there are always moments of sonic games that have that super fast speed, but it usually gets halted pretty quickly by something. the racing games, being racing games, very rarely have that issue unless your skill is what is getting in the way.