I've seen enough "2D Sonic is all about speed!!!" posts in the Sonic Unleashed thread to make me frustrated enough to start my own.
Obviously speed played quite a fair part in classic Sonic games. After all, a big reason why Sonic became popular in the first place was his being a lot faster than Mario. But if you think that speed and speed alone "made" classic Sonic, you are greatly mistaken.
First of all, ignore the first couple levels in each game. While they aren't super-linear by any means, their main purpose is to showcase Sonic's speed. However, when you move forward in each game, something becomes apparent: speed isn't too much of a factor anymore.
The major gameplay mechanic that made classic Sonic games classic was the non-linearity... the fact that you could take multiple paths to the same finishing point was actually pretty fresh idea at the time, at least for platformers. Also, a lot of your time in later levels was spent backtracking, jumping vertically, and solving puzzles on the fly. I'm wondering how many people who think 2D Sonic was just "hold right and jump" got far enough in Sonic 2 to see the Metropolis Zone. All the backtracking, stopping, and vertical platforming you do in that level would surely make you gouge your eyes out.
If only Sega would understand that 2D Sonic was about much more than just constant speed... the Sonic franchise wouldn't be going through a famine right now, I can tell you that much.
