That's the thing we miss the most about the adventure era. The trick system encouraged us to explore for points and chasing high scores was always so much fun. Even Heroes and 06 had these hidden point caches (like when you find a secret extra life in Sonic 06, and in Heroes even, the characters would exclaim "WOW, never knew this was here!" which is extremely rewarding. Reminds me of the classic games where a "secret" you'd read about in manuals is "If you jump into this wall in Marble zone, you'll find a hidden passage with 5 extra lives! Neat!" and it just felt so good to find those.
It's bittersweet to remember Sonic 06 was the LAST Sonic game where score attacking was about creativity and exploration, not just getting to the end as quickly as possible.
This randomly showed up on my feed but my god I don’t regret clicking. I played through SA2 ever since I was young. It was the first video game my brother introduced me too and I’ve been hooked ever since. Watching you blast through final rush gave me that *rush* of nostalgia and damn.. I’m speechless. Great work!!
It forever bugs me when the highest ranking in any game is "A rank". just doesn't feel good enough compared to the more elusive "S rank" introduced ironically in Sonic 06.