[Felix]

completely agree with Broco, though I remember playing a lot of SMB3 on the All-Stars cart and that being pretty near the best of both worlds.

[Felix]

yeah, in a sense that's just another way in which they hadn't really figured out what they wanted to do in terms of saving / non-linearity / world map stuff in SMB3, even if the game is otherwise better in nearly every respect

[Felix]

forget Sonic 4, Generations is the best thing they've done since Sonic 2

interestingly, and somewhat related to this topic (and the discussion of selectively retro revivals), generations manages to skirt the New SMB-esque feeling of hewing too close to the original installment for perceived nostalgic value at the expense of some of the mechanical/design improvements introduced in the immediate sequels which established them as superior then as now, but it does so just barely. "classic" sonic (i.e. The 2D levels) has the slightly heavier physics of the first game, but he also has the spindash; he doesn't have special shields or tails tagging along, but he does have various hanging platforms and skateboards. it's really remarkably smartly done, particularly given that consistency was never Sonic's strong suit.