Not as professional as it seems to look like

When I saw this one, I thought this one would have a better engine than mine, would have a better level design, and would look a lot more professional. I guess I was wrong. :P
Well.. my first impression was that it LOOKS more professional than mine. But once I was playing the first zone I was a bit disappointed. The movements of Sonic aren't that bad, but there are no special moves like spindash and stuff. You can look up and down, but it hasn't any purpose. (Just like the manual told me.)

By the way, I read something very useful: if you are a learner, you can press "L" to start with 30 lives. But euhm... I'm totally NOT a learner since I'm playing Sonic games since I'm 6 years old. :P But I may not forget: this is not a Sonic game, but a Sonic fan game.
When I died for the first time, I had about 30 rings. Huh? You can die when you have rings? That shouldn't be possible in a Sonic game. Well, in this game it is possible, unfortunately. This flaw makes the rings quite useless, unless you read the manual or when you notice that you get an extra live when you collect 100 rings. I've never been able to collect 100 rings (because I thought they were useless) and I've read that part of the manual after I completed the game, damn it!! :P

So, you don't have any protection, unless you find a "sparkle tv" which makes you invincible for a while. There aren't a lot of these and if you find one, they are kind of useless. And the fact that you don't have any protection, makes the game quite frustrating, because the enemies are nasty.
There are enemies which moves from left to right. Doesn't sound too hard to avoid, right? Think again. They move very fast and they change direction whenever they want, what makes them very unpredictable. But the enemy I hate the most are those who are shooting energy balls every second. I HATE THEM!!! These things seem to have only one goal: annoying you. I saw the first one when the 2nd zone started and I hated that thing from the first moment it killed me. I guess these things are the only reason for not playing this game. Please, creator of this game, for the good of mankind, remove this enemy from your game!

Do you want some more bad stuff? Then keep on reading.
I guess you won't have the feeling anymore that you're going to play a Sonic game. But there is more... If you land on spikes, you should get hurt or die. Try it in the game and you'll notice that this is working without any problems. But if you walk against spikes which are pointed to the sky, you shouldn't get hurt. Please don't try it in the game, because I did it. Twice! And you WILL die!!
All these "flaws" make the game VERY challenging. Or should I say: frustrating. But actually the level layout isn't that interesting. The first one is even quite boring. No secret paths, no secret rooms (I guess), you'll just keep running to the right. And sometimes you'll see a huge gap. You might call this a challenge, but I think it's an unnecessary obstacle.
The bosses aren't great, but they are there. For all game developers: you may not forget that a boss doesn't want to give you the chance to defeat him. Of course, he WILL do this, but he may not know that. A boss wouldn't create 2 buttons to detonate something under his feet so he can be defeated. But the 2 bosses after zone 3 and 4 are quite good. :) I guess the 4th one is based on the one from the Spring Yard zone from Sonic 1. The only difference is that this one isn't that easy, despite the fact that he always follows the same pattern.
And one more thing: I don't like to run off the screen and die right after I reached the end of a zone.

And now the good part: the graphics. (Damn, this is probably the longest review I've ever written.. :o )
Even when the differend zones are not crowded with objects like trees, flowers, flashing lights and stuff like the original Sonic games, they look quite good. Especially the 3th one. I love that one! Even when it's not that detailled, it feels like a zone which has never been released. I hope I'll create zones which feels the same as this one.
You will also find some nice effects, like the little stars when you're collecting rings, the explosions when you hit an enemy and stuff... They are all there.
The music and the sound effects are just like they should be, but the music doesn't always fit with the level design. (I'm talking about the first and the last one.) But still, they do the job quite nicely.

Overall you might think this game sucks. Sonic can't perfom specal moves, the enemies are frustrating, the level layout is rather simple, there is no story by the way and the rings don't work like they should. But you know what? I've completed the game. Even when it's so hard and frustrating, I wanted to complete it.
Do you know why? I haven't said this before in my review, but Sonic Zone is addictive. :) Even with all his flaws. And that's why I gave it 4 stars.