i don't really care what your excuse might be for ranking this lower, controls or what, but this is one of the best character mods on the mb purely bc of how authentic to the source material it is. modern sonic feels like he's come straight out of generations, with colors, unleashed, rush and other influences creeping their way in.
absolutely everything about this mod is just nailed to a T. the boost feels good, not too overpowered for it to be unusable, but fast enough that it's difficult, but can be mastered, and it's absolutely satisfying to maneuver a drift through a tight space without losing speed. the stomp and slide, while things that i wouldn't think to use often, are great means of changing paths, and allow for every kind of path to be navigated as modern, changing the way you play the stage every single time.
the double jump and homing attack are great additions too. i vastly prefer the double jump to the air dash-homing attack combo, and the momentum conserving homing attack makes not only going fast, but also stringing combos together much easier to pull off.
props to the trick system as well, i must say. i wouldn't call it as satisfying as rush's was back on the ds, but the way it was adapted was probably the best it could've been with srb2's gameplay. absolutely loved the references in the trick poses too.
this mod is flashiness over function, except if you took the function and suddenly buffed it so much that it became so more prominent than the flashiness. this will always be my favourite 2.2 character mod, and i haven't even talked about everything it has to offer. just play it, please.