General Sonic is Terrible Thread

[Lemonray]

The fire/ice thing is such an obvious gimmick and from the looks of things, it's less like a gameplay mechanic and more like keys in disguise.

But...isn't that how abilities in games like Metroid and Castlevania work: platform a lot until you unlock this ability which - presto! you can now explode this series of blocks and explore the rest of the game while probably never using this ability for another 50 screens?

Pretty much. Though, in those games they're typically made better use of (Morph ball sections, more combat options, etc), not that they couldn't sometimes have been done better.

Speaking of Chris "Don't call anybody" Chandler, he's aware of Fire and Ice now.