This review contains spoilers
Hey, nostalgia is making a lot of money! Let’s throw in an excessive amount of cynical nostalgia callbacks and hire fans to make it seem good with little originality to it!
And that’s the story of how Sonic Mania happened.
Lack of original zones aside, the level design is just horrifically unfocused, as if it’s constantly pushing you back and forth with forced level gimmicks, combined with retaining dated aspects from Sonic 3 that really should’ve been left out at this point, particularly the save system forcing you to play the entire 2 act zone instead of letting you stop inbetween.
On top of that, Mania does almost NOTHING to push the series forward in any meaningful way, nor does it feel like a proper follow-up to 3. The only new thing it gives us is Sonic’s drop-dash move, which is admittedly very useful, but that’s it really. Mania is not a true Sonic 4 at all, it’s a poor imitation of Sonic 3 in the same way Wrath of Cortex is a poor imitation of Warped.
And no, I don’t think the music is all that great either, at least not the remixed tracks. The new stuff is good enough, but the remixes sound very tacky and most of them end up sounding the same from each other, especially the brass instruments. I know it’s all from the same composer, but come on, at least try to spice them up some more. The original tracks all sound significantly distinct from each other and have their own flair, so what happened with the remixes?
The original content is obviously the highlight of the game. The special stages make for an excellent challenge, and the four new zones we ended up getting are actually pretty okay. They still don’t hold a candle to Sonic 3’s zones, but it’s better than nothing. Mighty and Ray, who were added in the Encore DLC, are pretty good characters to play as too. Mighty’s shell makes him immune to some attacks, and Ray can glide in the air with rhythmic taps to the D-pad. As for that Encore mode, it’s just a glorified harder version of the normal mode. Instead of a lives system, you have to hold on to all 5 of your characters. Dying doesn’t take you back to a checkpoint, but instead it automatically brings out the next character in line. However, game overs still punish you by taking you all the way back to the first act of the Zone, so no, the DLC does nothing to fix the dated save system unfortunately. Lastly, Encore mode has no ending when you get the emeralds. I took the time to complete Encore mode, and yet the game doesn’t even let me fight the Egg Reverie fight? Instead, it just ends after the Titanic Monarch boss. So in short, I spent all that extra time on a harder game mode, and not only do I get nothing to show for it, I get less than what I got in the normal mode! Yeah, don’t waste your time with Encore mode, it’s not worth it.
Sonic Mania is a cheap nostalgia-bait cash grab that has the style of a classic Sonic game, but none of the substance that made those games so good in the first place. To be honest, I think Sonic 4: Episode II does a far better job at evolving the classic formula than this game.
And that’s the story of how Sonic Mania happened.
Lack of original zones aside, the level design is just horrifically unfocused, as if it’s constantly pushing you back and forth with forced level gimmicks, combined with retaining dated aspects from Sonic 3 that really should’ve been left out at this point, particularly the save system forcing you to play the entire 2 act zone instead of letting you stop inbetween.
On top of that, Mania does almost NOTHING to push the series forward in any meaningful way, nor does it feel like a proper follow-up to 3. The only new thing it gives us is Sonic’s drop-dash move, which is admittedly very useful, but that’s it really. Mania is not a true Sonic 4 at all, it’s a poor imitation of Sonic 3 in the same way Wrath of Cortex is a poor imitation of Warped.
And no, I don’t think the music is all that great either, at least not the remixed tracks. The new stuff is good enough, but the remixes sound very tacky and most of them end up sounding the same from each other, especially the brass instruments. I know it’s all from the same composer, but come on, at least try to spice them up some more. The original tracks all sound significantly distinct from each other and have their own flair, so what happened with the remixes?
The original content is obviously the highlight of the game. The special stages make for an excellent challenge, and the four new zones we ended up getting are actually pretty okay. They still don’t hold a candle to Sonic 3’s zones, but it’s better than nothing. Mighty and Ray, who were added in the Encore DLC, are pretty good characters to play as too. Mighty’s shell makes him immune to some attacks, and Ray can glide in the air with rhythmic taps to the D-pad. As for that Encore mode, it’s just a glorified harder version of the normal mode. Instead of a lives system, you have to hold on to all 5 of your characters. Dying doesn’t take you back to a checkpoint, but instead it automatically brings out the next character in line. However, game overs still punish you by taking you all the way back to the first act of the Zone, so no, the DLC does nothing to fix the dated save system unfortunately. Lastly, Encore mode has no ending when you get the emeralds. I took the time to complete Encore mode, and yet the game doesn’t even let me fight the Egg Reverie fight? Instead, it just ends after the Titanic Monarch boss. So in short, I spent all that extra time on a harder game mode, and not only do I get nothing to show for it, I get less than what I got in the normal mode! Yeah, don’t waste your time with Encore mode, it’s not worth it.
Sonic Mania is a cheap nostalgia-bait cash grab that has the style of a classic Sonic game, but none of the substance that made those games so good in the first place. To be honest, I think Sonic 4: Episode II does a far better job at evolving the classic formula than this game.