The Mania subtitle is fitting as it takes everything that Sonic is beloved for and takes it to the extreme. Not only does it recreate the thrill of the past games but it improves upon them in meaningful ways. Overall, Sonic Mania is a joyous celebration of Sonic’s history. The base game has tons of replay value already with it’s 3 ways to play it’s campaign, but add in the multiple unlockable modes and secrets and you have a package that offers a significant bang for your buck. In terms of replay value this game has a litany of unlockables, from & Knuckles mode that allows you to play the entire game with knuckles as your sidekick to a fully un-lockable version of Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. One of the small delights in this game is hearing the iconic zone music get remixed in the second acts. There were numerous times where I was nodding my head in rhythm to the ever so funky soundtrack. The sound design is classic Sonic and it has a killer soundtrack to boot.
Part of the beauty of Sonic Mania isn’t just in how faithfully it recreates the old Sonic formula but also in how it both improves and adds upon it.
Sonic now has the ability to do a drop dash that allows him to regain back lost momentum.
It also introduces a neat power-up that allows your rings to bunch up into a couple of bigger rings, making it easier to recollect them if hit by an enemy or obstacle. In fact, it’s 60 fps frame-rate makes everything feel buttery smooth. Platforming feels far smoother than it ever has in a Sonic game. They do add some neat quality of life improvements to the core gameplay though. Now there are parts that feel cheap, there’s still that old Sonic gripe of going hella fast only for an off screen enemy or spike strip to kill your momentum and jack your rings. Levels are filled with secret stages, both the blue sphere stages accessed by the checkpoints and stages where you have to chase a ufo for a chaos emerald, accessed by hidden giant rings in each stage. There are certain parts of each stage that can only be accessed by the appropriate character, further adding to the replay value. The level design on display here is phenomenal with so many different paths and options that make replays almost necessary. Act 1 tends to be a relatively faithful recreation of the past only for Act 2 to be a remix on the old classics. The game is filled with both new and old Zones and even the old Zones aren’t quite the way the you remember them. The sense of speed is exhilarating, firing up Green Hill Zone sends an instant wave of nostalgia. The gameplay is pure, unadulterated Sonic. Robotnik and his robo-heavies get there first and send Sonic and friends back in time, requiring them to journey to new and old locations in an effort to thwart Eggman. The plot is fairly simple, after the events of Sonic 3, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles head to Angel Island to investigate and energy reading. I’m happy to say that not only is Sonic Mania the game Sonic 4 should’ve been, it’s in my humble opinion, the best Sonic game ever made. Needless to say, the 23 years since Sonic & Knuckles have been rough, with more misses than hits. See, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was the first video game I can distinctly remember playing and I instantly fell in love with the speedy blue hedgehog and his dual tailed friend. What we got, was, well, I don’t really know what the fuck it was but it wasn’t a Sonic game. That game was supposed to be the return the form for the Sonic series, giving us the 2D style gameplay we’d been asking for.
I remember being so hype for Sonic the Hedgehog 4 when it was announced.