it's awkward and stupid and doesn't make sense

here's how I beat the final boss of triple trouble:

sometimes he would fly up and down some tubes on the sides and you have to catch him and hit him once as he pipes by

instead I just sat in one and jumped repeatedly

and got hit constantly

but I had one ring so I'd just grab it and keep jumping

this is why in the Archie-sonic based TV show, they only ever got one ring, because one was all you neeeded.

I don't agree because it was always intended to make things easier.

well it also makes things awkwardly and inconsistently difficult

Smart counterbalances didn't come until later in the franchise though. The Rush games made it so that rings fly further if you don't pick up any new ones

if you're doing any battle that makes it hard to catch rings

or if you end up at a checkpoint and there's something between you and the next ring

it's an inelegant system

and getting hit once means you'll never get super sonic for the rest of the stage

you should start with more than one HP and keeping your aliveness up should be something of a more coherent difficulty instead of varying wildly by random factors

one hedgehog, one ring. ban hedgehog divorce

Hmm. I don't think "start with more than one HP" is a perfectly fair argument. Up until very recently, Mario always started small and didn't always have a safe path to his first power up either

Most of the Genesis games (and handheld games from GBA onwards) were much nicer about giving you rings safely close to a checkpoint, the Game Gear games were just uniquely mean about that.

And alas, only Genesis, Mania, and Superstars let you be Super freely after snagging the emeralds.

well

I don't agree

I think that mario doing something doesn't mean that it's best for everything

specifically because of how in sonic, you can run into something from off screen insanely easily

that's what makes the rings mechanic better than just hit points though. if you run into something offscreen you can pick your rings back up and get going again, without worrying that now the boss is going to be that much harder

super sonic is meant to be a reward for being good at the game, so if you get hit and lose too many rings, losing the option for super is supposed to happen

there's nothing that super sonic must be used for

I'm attached to rings as a series tradition, but notably many of the newer games only have you lose a PORTION of rings on hit, which makes it much more palatable.