SATAm fans like myself just wanted more of the TV series lmao. Also, SatAM was from a different time and more of a "what if" scenario, where Robotnik actually won (which is more or less what Eggman wants, when you realise all his evil plans).

Back in the day I knew a Sonic RPG was never going to work, because it would have gotten in the way of Sonic's main gig; his speed.

This is just Sega being indecisive yet again. They cannot decide to stick to a one track path of what Sonic should be, which is why they've let fans do work for them on OG Sonic, while they spin the wheel on 3D sonic and throw a dart at the sticky notes. 

Hell, Capcom's had more consistency than Sega at this point, especially with how their Resi REmakes are going (notice them also using the same font since Resi 7?).

An open world gives Sonic the ability to live up to his name without the fear of cheap hits and deaths at every turn but I can't help but be stricken by the utter lack of activity here, and what is shown is not impressive or imaginative so far.

Like pretty much everyone else I think graphically it looks quite nice... but bland, gameplay seems dull.

In my opinion, most of the best Sonic games are like colourful rollercoasters, this is like your running aimlessly around on the ground the coaster should be built on (wondering how to get to it).

Fingers crossed there's more traditional gameplay to come, but games like 06, Black Knight, Forces etc make me think otherwise.

I am quite torn about this.

The traversal gameplay I liked, but the combat gameplay looks a bit more unpolished and some of the baddies seem to take too many hits to kill.

The overall concept is interesting to me, but I feel like maybe they should delay it. Granted, it has 5 months or so still in the oven, but I'm not sure that's enough time to sand down all the rough edges.

There's a lot of potential here I feel, the execution just needs improvement.

I'm generally someone who doesn't cope well with delays (they piss me off as they feel like a betrayal on the promise of the original date) but in this case, I'd say this should be a 2023 game. I hope they take the highly mixed reception to heart and take it back in the shed for some serious retooling.

I actually like the world, the traversal, the look, but some of the combat stuff just looked unfinished.

I don't think a delay will help things much tbh. I think the fundamental issue is conceptual. With a character whose whole thing is running really fast, I'm not sure why they decided a sandbox style is the right way to go. It works for Link or Mario, but I'm not sure it makes sense in this context. Maybe something will show up to show why this makes sense, but I haven't seen it yet.

You didn't like Odyssey?

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but based on either sales or critic scores, you're fighting a losing battle. 

I interpreted not a good fit to mean a bad fit. If thats what you mean, fine. No point arguing over semantics.

I don't feel like there's anything unfixably wrong with this personally, just rejig the combat to be less spongy and polish things like animations, collision, LODs, framerate, etc and it'd be something I'd buy.
This is the first Sonic game I've been interested in since Generations tbh, it just needs more time in the oven.