There’s never a consistent throughline to the levels’ challenges. In Mario for example you’ll jump over a pit, then jump over a pit while avoiding an enemy, then jump over a pit while landing on a tiny platform - Sonic 06’s levels don’t do anything like that. The geometry of the track Sonic has to run on feels like it was designed at random, and the challenges are almost all a complete flatline. The major thing impeding your progress always feels like bullshit, and when you take away the buggy bullshit of the original release you’re left with the bullshit of how ever single level has a section where you suddenly get up to a high speed while flanked on either side by instant death pits. This is all issues with the level design, and as long as P06 is committed to recreating the game and not remaking it, it will continue to inherit those problems.

Even in Project 06 I get to the end of every level not really feeling like I beat it, but like it finally ended. It’s hard to quantify that feeling but I don’t have it in, say, Sonic Adventure, Heroes, Colors, Generations, or even Forces (which imo isn’t terrible so much as it is painfully mediocre).