One of my big takeaways is how good the sprites and graphics are in all of them. I rarely see Sonic brought up in discussions about the best looking 16 bit era games, but I think it's in the top tier. The scrolling backgrounds in particular are a work of art. I'm fortunate enough to be playing these on a CRT TV using original hardware, and it looks so great on that. And not just the mythical "crt makes sprites look good", but also just how smooth and ghosting-free all the scrolling looks. It makes it kind of annoying to go back to playing Sonic Mania on my regular LCD TV, because everything looks so smeared when going fast!

My opinions about each game don't deviate too much from the conventional wisdom. Sonic 1 is definitely the weakest entry, with way too conservative level design. I don't really fault the design team here, as I'm sure they were in the mindset that "this is a platformer, and so we need to follow the design paradigm of other platformers". Sonic 2 is a way better overall game, embracing more crazy fast level design. I also thought it was a lot easier, I was able to get all the way to Metropolis Zone on my first playthrough (which surprised me, but I think Sonic 1 just really honed my skill). I'm currently playing Sonic 3 + Knuckles, and I'm using the Sonic 3 Complete rom to do that. Sonic 3 is a way more ambitious game, with a lot more crazy level gimmicks, and I love the variety in backgrounds and the miniboss transitions. It's definitely my favorite so far, and the one I'm going slowest on to explore and find secrets. My romcart isn't properly saving the game, so I'm just doing it old-skool and leaving my Genesis turned on for days at a time so I can pick up where I left off.

I'm also doing another play-through of Sonic Mania as Knuckles, and I'm appreciating it more than ever. It is the perfect modernization of the classic Sonic series.

(Also goofing around with Sonic CD on my phone. That one has a rad soundtrack, and I do actually like the very abstract and psychedelic artwork).