Time for Bubsy apologist mode again:
The first Bubsy game understood Sonic A LOT better than other Sonic clones, both from the time and today. That doesn't make it better necessarily, but the way Bubsy builds up speed is almost 1 to 1 with Sonic 1. There's still the cheap deaths and terrible level design holding it back, but Berlyn clearly did to an extent understand Sonic. I'd say the issue was Berlyn's history in text adventures, which are by design unpredictable and unfair, which works for an immersive experience like a text adventure but not for a Sonic clone.
The first Bubsy game understood Sonic A LOT better than other Sonic clones, both from the time and today. That doesn't make it better necessarily, but the way Bubsy builds up speed is almost 1 to 1 with Sonic 1. There's still the cheap deaths and terrible level design holding it back, but Berlyn clearly did to an extent understand Sonic. I'd say the issue was Berlyn's history in text adventures, which are by design unpredictable and unfair, which works for an immersive experience like a text adventure but not for a Sonic clone.