My most favorite aspect of the Sonic Community definitely has to be the hacking scene. As someone who is an active member of the Sonic hacking scene, without Megamix and Sonic Retro I would have never even discovered this part of the community way back in 2008. I think lots of Sonic fans can agree that Sonic Megamix is amazing. Did you know that Stealth, better known as Simon Thomley was once in charge of Team Megamix? Anyways Sonic Megamix was first released way back in 2005, and was one of the first Sonic 1 hacks that was made using a split disassembly. It's since be ported over to the Sega CD, but unfortunately the project has been canceled. What makes Sonic Megamix so amazing? I'll go over why I think it's amazing.
First off the fact that these talented hackers were able to port the game from the Genesis to the Sega CD is great! This allowed them to be able to add a redbook audio soundtrack, and able to have longer levels since they would have more space to add new data to the game. Megamix is a complete overhaul of the original title on the Genesis/Mega Drive that adds multiple characters to play as, complete with their own movesets. Sonic has all his newer abilities such as the homing attack, light dash, and he even has his super peel out from Sonic CD. Tails has is usual moveset, such as flight and spin dashing and Knuckles has his typical moveset as well. (Which is gliding and climbing walls.) This hack also includes Shadow, and Mighty the Armadillo. Mighty gets all of Sonic's shield abilities from Sonic 3, whereas Shadow gets a double jump or homing attack if he's near enemies, a speed boost but it does cost you five rings. Even the characters have different abilities in super mode too, for example Shadow can use Chaos Control, and the other characters have their same super/hyper abilities from Sonic 3 and Knuckles. There's just so many different ways to play this game, it's amazing! It's just a shame that this hack never was finished. There were new audio tracks being made by people in the community, so it was going to have an original soundtrack. Plus new objects were being programmed as well too.
Do I recommend playing Sonic Megamix? Oh definitely, if you're a fan of the classic style of games then you'll enjoy this hack! I do recommend playing the Genesis/Mega Drive version over the Sega CD version, just because the Sega CD version is unstable and you can't finish the game with any other character other than Sonic. I do hope that this hack does get a more stable release at some point, but that would involve adding new team members to Team Megamix, since I don't think Simon has the time to work on Megamix. Check out this playthrough of Sonic Megamix, version 4.0 by Razor and Zenon if you wish to see footage. Let me know bellow if you like Sonic Megamix, and if you haven't played it yet go play it!