Sonic Mania

Ever since I heard of this game being advertised I was hopeful. It promised a return to the bliss of early 2D sonic games. It also brings the style of those games and brings it into the present day with a mixture of revamped classic stages and new original stages as well. The game design is 2D platforming brilliance with a perfect difficulty spike and an incredible soundtrack.

The graphics are crisp and vibrant with tight controls. It everything I ever wanted from a 2D Sonic game and I'll be playing it for a very long time. Thanks Christian Whitehead for making 2D Sonic awesome again!

I will start of by saying I am not a fan of sonic the hedgehog. The series has always had a lot of misses for me which is why I never got into it like many other people did. But I won't say the series as a whole is bad far from it. There are games In the series I really like such as Sonic 2, 3&Knuckles, Generations, Mania (which is what I reviewing right now), Rush, Unleashed, All stars racing Transformed, Sonic CD, Colors, Advance 1, Pocket adventure and sonic Riders which is a guilty pleasure of mine. This is one of the best games in the series that's not even made by Sonic Team. The people who made this did a fantastic job with it's soundtrack, visuals, controls, Content, level design, gameplay, and everything that makes an excellent 2D platformer. It's also full of refences to other games in the series which is great for long time fans and even to non sonic fans like myself. It has the save system from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, The ability to play as five characters if you download the DLC which is worth it by the way. The games bonus stages are fun as hell and the levels themselves are fast and well designed. It's basically like 3 & Knuckles but with more expanded on it. It's also one of the more challenging games in the series as well as having fun boss fights and some of them are creative. I may not be into sonic like a lot of other people are but I won't lie in saying that this game is amazing and is worth any gamers time/money.

Get this game, it is truly one of the very best, in the entire series and in the platform genre itself.

While this game is great for the nostalgia, the main game is over way too soon, which all the extra 'modes' just replaying the same game over again which different attributes of extra characters. I was very disappointed to not see the ability to play the original games (Sonic 1, 2, 3) or even a full iteration of the Mean Bean Machine. Being able to play through all the original games, not just this remake of a few chosen levels (No Marble Garden Zone?!?) would have added a lot of replayability and kept me playing for weeks, not for days. Great idea for a PS4 release, just not enough content.

Ok, I'm just gonna say this right now, I played only 4 sonic games... and they are all 2d ones.... I strongly want to play the 3d titles and sonic 3, but Sonic Mania is still my favorite game of all time, the sprite quality is beautiful, the music is amazing, the balance between platforming and speed is perfect, the new levels are just a blast to play and while it is kinda disappointing that there are more old levels, they are remixed and feel fresh again. the main mode is so fun and so are all the others, expect for one, encore mode, it is the reason I give sonic mania a 9/10 but even with that I cant help but play this game over and over again.



so I give sonic mania (plus) a 9/10