I think it's a good read, but the article's basis is off-point talking about game design like it can only be something. I understand this was inspired by a musician talk on incorrect songwriting, but I think creative things are broader than many often think.
He mentions Sonic doesn't teach anything, but this also isn't true. Look at the first zone of nearly any Sonic game and you'd be surprised how much they teach you rather quickly. Green Hill Zone Act 1 is the easiest example, before they give you any rings there's an enemy right in front of you, you will likely run into the enemy the first time and learn touch an enemy means death. You can then either jump or spin on the enemy or jump on the platform above to get rings, you will almost certainly get rings before the first bridge where a few enemies come you can be hit by to learn how the ring system in the game works, and the game right before this establishes that collecting rings is important to gameplay. The game doesn't teach you everything but it very quickly teaches you the basics so you pick up on it very quickly (it also helps older Sonic games literally only have four directions to move and one single button for jumping, and that's it, so they're simple enough to quickly grasp).
I love the horror game genre, I don't hide this. But so much about the horror game genre goes against what many who teach game design will pin as 'bad design', things being intentionally unintuitive at times, limited or even frustrating at specific points, or in some cases you can put yourself in a situation is play unwisely in certain games with scarce supplies to be in a situation where it's nigh impossible to progress if you've played especially poorly. What I listed is some of the worst things, but there's a lot more. Silent Hill 2 purposefully makes combat not fun, but that adds to the experience. Resident Evil penalizes the player for situations they couldn't have seen coming beforehand, but it's somewhat about the player reacting to the unknown which benefits it.
I think Game Design too often gets caught up in the mechanical aspects of it rather than strictly the artistry of flexibility of design. Game mechanics are important, but I think something Sonic has in common with horror games which is a less tangible thing that game mechanics is resonating a feeling within the player and working off of a reactionary game design motif. It's less explored because it's much harder to explore for game design talk, but I think following the tried and true formulas of game design isn't strictly "correct", it's just what's been easily identifiable at this point. I think there's a lot of forms of game design that's been far less explored than mechanical design. The mechanics in Sonic game's are important, but often the games are built in such a way they more explore players highs and lows in an interesting way that's both tied to the mechanics but also more reactory to the player's personal experience rather than strictly making sure every player is at the same skill level at the same time, learning how things work through experimentation rather than making sure you upfront understand them. Exploring the unknown in many ways. Also I'd argue Sonic is not simply about going as fast as you can, that is one aspect of it but there's a lot more to the games than that.
