Collecting sun and moon medals from around the world opens up more levels, but once again you're given no clue as to which ones have opened. You have no idea which these characters will be, so each time you enter a new area you have to go around triggering mindless speech bubbles in search of the one that you need. Conversing with these brings up pointless banter, except for the handful of characters you must talk to in order to advance the story.
Take, for example, the non-player characters. Rather than focusing on what works, SEGA has once again smothered the character in reams of extraneous clutter and gameplay ideas that do nothing to enhance the series' best features. It's the same thing, of course, that's been going wrong with Sonic for years. The fact that SEGA's seen fit to turn Sonic into a melee fighter for half the game should give you a good idea of what's gone wrong.
You're far more likely to lose your lives to an infuriating camera angle or hard-to-judge leap than to any of the dumb enemies standing in your way. Sonic is slippery, all but impossible to control at top speed and inevitably prone to zooming to his death at a moment's notice, while the werehog stages are sluggish and gluey, plagued by repetitive combat and horrifically frustrating platform sections. Regardless of which sections you're playing, control is a constant issue.
