This is the Master System version rather than the Mega Drive one. I’d never really played it before, but had heard comments that it is better than the 16bit version. I did enjoy it quite a lot, but I don’t believe that to be the case at all.
There are a few things that make this game harder than the Mega Drive version. For instance, when you are hit and lose your rings they are gone, you cannot re-collect them. This is likely because the Master System doesn’t have the power to draw all the rings bouncing around. In fact, there is a significant amount of slowdown whenever enemies are on screen. Also, there are no rings or shields in the boss levels meaning that you die on the first hit. Most are so easy that it doesn’t matter, but I found the boss for the jungle zone to be quite frustrating. The collision detection isn’t great either, there were several times where I died without visually connecting with anything.
The second jungle level is a real headache, it is vertical and will only scroll up. Since you die if you touch the bottom of the screen, and the screen is pulled up when you jump it’s possible to jump to some platforms and die because the screen moved. Finishing the level is more about controlling the screen than learning the platforms.
Since the Master System is not capable of the speed of the Mega Drive CPU the game ends up playing a lot slower. This makes it quite a different experience, and involves more careful platforming. I found some of these areas really enjoyable.