It’s time for our Sonic Mania review! «Blue streak speeds by, sonic the hedgehog». He’s back, he’s blue and he’s got an attitude. For those who grew up with the robot fighting fluff balls, this is a true blast of the past. Which for once is a good thing.
Telling a story without a voice is quite an impressive feat, even if it is a bit bare bone, but no dialogue which is good. As usual, it is about the rotten egg master himself Robotnik, and his hard-boiled chaos crystal schemes.
Gameplay is very simple true and tested, left movement, right movement, and jump. The rest is either character specific or tied to a shied. Since knuckles can glide and climb by holding down the button, while tails can fly by spamming it. He really needs a canceled flight key. Like pressing down. The most noteworthy feature though, is that going super is a separate key. Not all is good though, the special stages suck hard. The stages take place on a horizontal track where the goal is to catch a ufo. The problem with this is twofold. The 3d models look like low polygon glitch fest, complete with horrible character controls and physics straight out of Sonic CD. On the flip side, it highlights the problem with doing sonic in three dimensions. Much like a drunk man on the ice.
The Sonic Mania music score is fantastically fabulous. With remixes of old songs and a slew of new ones. A music test mode is also included. But no polar icecap zone it seems-_-. At this point in time several features would be awesome. Such as having the level music play while going super mode and turning down the pick-up blue sphere volume. It is very loud and intrusive. Should be mentioned when all 50 of them are done, a replay them mode opens up.
Note-worthy features include unlockable content which takes some effort to acquire. Such as & Knuckles mode. Where he can tag along as the secondary character. A slew of stream achievements. Time trial mode and a versus multiplayer mode.
All in all a solid Sonic experience for people who enjoyed the good old 2d sonic gameplay and fun for the whole family. Not recommended for people who like to grind achievements. Always online DRM or not, which is pure bull crap and will piss off so many people, included.
Njål Sand is a Norwegian Cosplayer with opinions on video games, and a passionate for creating content on YouTube about living in Norway, and gaming!