YMMV / Sonic Jam

• Awesome Music:
  • Sonic World's theme is a bouncy little number that is surprisingly catchy for what is basically just a hub area for the game's Museum features. Evidently it caught on, seeing use as the first level theme in Sonic Pocket Adventure, then as the main menu theme in the DS Sonic Classics Collection and finally getting a modern-day remix for 2022's Sonic Origins, again as the main menu theme. The theme was also briefly used at the beginning of Sonic Superstars' original announcement trailer.
  • The game's Museum theme for when viewing artwork is a slow-paced remix of the Sonic 3 file select theme that works greatly for unwinding after a fun day's platforming.
• Cult Classic: The game can be rather expensive due to its rarity, but it has a following mainly due to Sonic World.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The collection likely would have fallen into obscurity alongside the Sonic 3D Blast Saturn version if it wasn't for the 3D Sonic World, which is a big draw for both Sonic fans and Saturn fans who were disappointed by the cancellation of Sonic X-Treme and wanted a taste of what a 3D Sonic game on the Saturn could have been like.
• Polished Port: Along with the aforementioned 3D hub world and museum, the versions of the Genesis games themselves have extra difficulty options with revised level layouts, Time Attack and Special Stage modes, and occasional extra polish like the option to use Spin Dash in Sonic 1 and smoother 2 Player VS mode in Sonic 2. There are occasional defects from being early re-creations, like some compressed recorded sound and moments of slowdown not in the original (Blue Sphere also lacks an Original mode, nerfing the speed and difficulty), but most of them don't significantly bog down the experience and the extra goodies outweigh them.
• Porting Disaster: The In Name Only Game.com version is perhaps one of the greatest cases of "Why bother?" in video game history. Sonic's fast speed combined with the horrible Game.com screen turned most of the action into a monochrome, blurry, laggy mess. Each of the "games" included only feature three bastardised levels of their respective console equivalents and the soundtrack is turned into mind-numbing beeps and bloops. It is undoubtedly the worst Sonic game ever. Sega didn't make it; Tiger did, but it wasn't the best idea to let them. To add insult to injury, it was the very first game Sonic game Sega allowed to be made for a non-Sega handheld console, although their second and third attempts at that turned out significantly better.
• Spiritual Successor: The Compilation Re-release Sonic Origins is basically a modern day take on this game, though it does lack the difficulty settings and the ability to play either Sonic 3 or & Knuckles standalone. Both games also feature an extensive 3D interface (compare "Sonic World" in Jam and the Origins 3D South/Westside/Angel Island recreations) though "Sonic World" is a side option compared to Origins' islands being the main menu overall, as well as unique movies; albeit different in nature (Jam has standalone humorous movies as well as a collection of commercials, while Origins features newly animated cutscenes that ties its games further together).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Sonic World's 3D engine could've been made into a nice game for the Saturn, huh? Even more visible as the Sonic World's 3D engine was to be used in the Saturn incarnation of Sonic Adventure, as detailed in its What Could Have Been page.

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