Sonic Origins Plus Review (grant)
This DLC is not that bad but $10 is too expensive for what you get and a lot of what's here should've just been in the base game. Here's a brief rundown of what's included:
Amy - I think the least controversial part of this pack. I don't think she's particularly interesting to play as, certainly not as interesting as Ray from Mania Plus, but the variety is appreciated and she is clearly the big ticket item from this DLC.
The hard missions and mirror mode from the Premium Fun Pack - These are a nice diversion but they are a very minor inclusion and I would wager most players will skip them entirely anyway. Inoffensive but not exciting.
12 Game Gear games - These are the same Sonic GG titles that get released every time Sega puts out a Sonic collection, and I have the same problems with them I've always had: many of these games have superior Mastersystem releases, the emulation is bad, and the better versions of these games with better emulators are freely available all over the internet. Worthless.
Screen borders and menu animations from the Premium Fun Pack - This is where we start getting to the absurd inclusions. I hate playing 4:3 games with borders so I would leave those off, but it doesn't even matter because unless you're playing in classic mode, the games are already in widescreen. Are there any players out there that both prefer to play classic mode and prefer to play with borders? I would be shocked if that includes even a single person, especially with how broken classic mode is in this game. The menu animations are even more egregious. Did Sega really think people would want to pay more money to have more characters on the main menu? This has to be the most absurd and insulting DLC inclusion ever devised. If it wasn't bundled with the other DLC I would never in a million years pay for it, even if it costed a penny. It's also an insane marketing tactic to make players pay money for the main menu to look less bad. Wouldn't they want the main menu to look as good as possible so that the GAME looks as good as possible? Baffling and anger-inducing.
Classic Music Pack - This one is crazy. First of all, Sega has repeatedly touted the music in this pack as "remastered." It is not. It's unmodified recordings of genesis music. Second, you can't do anything with them. They don't play in the missions. You can't play them in the levels. They're there for you to listen to I guess? Why would I do that? I'm not going to download Sonic Origins on my work laptop to listen to Sonic Spinball music. This DLC was like $4 standalone when the game came out too. Insane.
Knuckles in Sonic CD - This one makes me so mad. Why wasn't he in there from the start? Why do you have to pay for this? He's in every other game in the collection! It's so ridiculous to lock this behind DLC and I truly can't wrap my mind around it. It's a nominal amount of effort to port the character to another game in the same engine. This made Sega look so lazy and foolish.
The real content that this DLC provides - Amy, Knuckles in CD, hard missions, and mirror mode - are fine and worth having. The rest of this DLC is either useless or maddening. I got it for $5 on sale and I think that's not unreasonable for what's on offer. I will say though, Sega needs to learn the right lessons from this DLC and cut this stuff out in the future. Release a finished and complete game and add some fun extras in DLC. You know, like Sonic Mania?