We're going to be feeling the consequences of this game's success for a long while I think. Which is to say, this game perpetuates EVERY reductive stereotype this series faces. "Sonic inherently works better in 2D, Sonic peaked on the Genesis, Fans make better Sonic games than Sonic Team!" To me this is Sega giving up and caving in to decades of bad faith criticism. Like genuinely the game's fine, I understand why it's popular. It's literally EVERYTHING people have been begging for. Meaning it's just a shallow amalgamation of Green Hill and Chemical Plant type zones.
It's extremely common to hear from the average person that they play Sonic 1 and love Green Hill, only to immediately fall off afterwards. This is a problem for Sega though considering classic Sonic is the golden child many point to as "the only good Sonic". So, to cash in on that positive perception this series has so little of, they have to make a Genesis style game, but they can't make it actually resemble the Genesis games or else people will realize they hate those too. The designers hand is then forced to iron out any friction in the experience, any level design or boss fights that may slow Sonic down at all. Leading to a game that may be one of the few games in the series to achieve mass appeal, but one that had to gut everything I personally enjoyed about these games to begin with to do so.
Mania is missing the solid difficulty curve seen in 1 and 2. Missing the focus on earning your momentum especially Sonic 1 had. The ambition and world building of Sonic 3. The experimentation of CD or Knuckles Chaotix. Its claim to fame is merely "Finally, a Sonic game for people who hate most Sonic games!" Chemical plant is a fan favorite level so let's make almost every level just a chemical plant. Forgetting that level was made for a purpose. To give you a taste of just how fast Sonic can go. Leaves you wanting more. It's a quick level that exists to tease you into wanting to get better at other zones. But when every level is Chemical Plant act 1, you may as well be playing auto mario levels in Mario Maker.
There's a LOT of automated level design. Empty slopes, spring chains, rube goldberg machines that just speed Sonic up and it's just meant to be fun 'cuz Sonic go fast and that's apparently the only valid goal for a Sonic game to aim for. What baffles me is how criticized games like Sonic 4 or Forces were for this very same thing. People have historically been very critical of style over substance automated level design in Sonic games. To the point where I genuinely feel like if this game was called Sonic 4 Episode 3 and had graphics to match that, suddenly a LOT more people would have an issue with the level design present in this game. But because the style is 1 to 1 with what people associate with "good Sonic game" I get looked at like a madman for saying this game suffers from the exact same thing if not worse.
Whether that kind of design bothers you or not is of course personal preference, but I feel I'm being pretty objective in saying levels like Hydrocity act 2 rely on automation to an OBSCENE degree. How many times can you get picked up by a hand, revved up to full speed automatically, and shoved through empty tubes before you realize the game is playing itself? Chemical plant, Flying Battery, Studiopolis, even down to the final level Titanic Monarch heavily feature automated gameplay. And most levels that don't suffer from it quite as bad, are incredibly linear and mindless and get boring on repeat playthroughs anyway. No challenge at any point, very little actual platforming. Levels from sonic 3 generally don't feature interwoven alternate paths, but instead very isolated paths that don't meaningfully change how you play the level...in the rare moments more than 1 path exists. Alternate routes are more common in the automation filled stages, but the design of every path is merely more empty slopes anyway.
2D sonic level gimmicks are at their best when they interact with your momentum in some way. Like the ziplines in Green Hill act 2, or the spider bumper boss fight. But most of the level gimmicks are just shallow attempts to add variety and they don't play with the core gameplay very well. Chemical Plant act 2 for example has goo floors and touching the syringe makes the floors bouncy. Touching the syringe (That's almost always put in your direct path anyway) to reach the next part of the level isn't remotely interesting as a level gimmick. There's no substance there. As is the case with most of the game your first playthrough is going to look a LOT like your 20th no matter which character you're choosing to play even.
Out of the whole level list I only really like Press Garden, act 1 of Oil Ocean, Stardust Speedway act 2, and Act 1 of Metallic Madness. Green Hill's fine, feels more like an emerald hill rather than a Green Hill considering dying was actually possible in Green Hill originally...But as a level 1 it's fine. A Sonic game with a good green hill is the absolute bare minimum one could ask for and not remotely a big selling point for me. (Love those ziplines in act 2 tho)
And yeah there's only 4 totally original zones, the other 8 are nostalgia bait retreads. Because apparently the best we can hope for out of this series now is just being a worse version of something they already made. It's not a novel celebration and total reimagining of classic stages like Generations was. You're not getting some cool walk down the series history showing what iconic levels look like in the modern era in a totally new dimension. It's "Hey, wanna play an even lamer version of Hydrocity? What if we did Sky Chase from Sonic 2 but instead of being a bittersweet, ominous buildup to the final level it's buildup to a literal 10 second long train level instead? Would have loved the entire level to take place on a moving train, sick idea for a 2D sonic act. But that's not on the low effort nostalgia pandering agenda, so we're gonna drop the Final Boss from Sonic 2 on you as just another average boss you can kill by mindlessly jumping at it for 8 seconds instead!"
Speaking of, most bosses in the game all you do is take damage on purpose and use the I-frames to kill it in seconds. Total waste of time, just lame. When they take stuff like Sonic 2's oil ocean boss and expand it to be a more fully realized, objectively better fight I'm a happy camper. But rarely do they give old ideas a glow-up like that. More often there's ones like Studiopolis act 2's that's just a dreadfully long auto scroller who telegraphs its attacks like ten seconds in advance and it's impossible to speed up the fight at all. Also not a fan of how they hide special stages, I much prefer taking 50 rings to the end of the level, just a carryover from Sonic 3 I never cared for. Feels more in place with a mario-ish platformer not Sonic to say the least, already went into this in my Sonic 3 review. I love the 3D special stages in this game though, funnest part of the game imo. If you're going for 100% completion, the stupid amount of blue sphere you have to do combined with getting all the chaos emeralds, the pacing is hurt pretty hard. I like blue sphere well enough but we did not need so much blue sphere.
I understand Whitehead's team is full of long time genuine fans of the series and that's great. And I think they did what they HAD to do to make a Sonic game able to get mass appeal. But in the process to me it just feels like they're parading around Classic Sonic, desecrating all of it with a tinge of malice. Everything brought over done so with the explicit purpose of "fixing" something that was "wrong" with Sonic as a franchise. Not to say the creators have malice towards the series, but like I said their hand was forced. Sonic is MORE than green hill and chemical plant. But now that this game popped off all people are gonna be thinking, is EVERYTHING they've ever thought about this series was right. And as a seemingly rare genuine fan of almost all of it down to the depths of Labyrinth Zone and Eggmanland, it makes me sad. This is a good game but I outgrew its level design before it even came out.
Audiences have been saying this is what we need more of. But REALLY? Is ANOTHER low budget nostalgia bait release reliant almost entirely on decades old content really what this series needs MORE of? They've been doing almost nothing but that for over a decade itself now! I'm begging them to stop making Sonic games like this! The worst part is no other game they do this very same thing with gets an ounce of the praise, because despite this very hot take that Mania's very mid, seemingly almost everyone's on my side about this topic. No one was thrilled about some short, shallow renditions of chemical plant appearing in Forces, or the (Actually better than this game's) sky chase reference level in Sonic 4 Episode 2. This game did one thing that the others failed to do, and that's get the look and controls down. That's it, the level design is generally speaking no better than any other pitiful attempt to recapture the spirit of old Sonic games. If Superstars so much as looked like Mania I guarantee suddenly we'd be seeing way more attention and praise thrown its way. That game's actually decent boss fights and level design that's okay with punishing you might throw some people off, but first kneejerk reactions are everything with this series it seems.
To me this is just Sonic 4 Episode 3 and it's not even the best episode. Nevermind how this was when Sega realized they could nickle and dime fans. Waiting til' they get the digital sales they want to release a physical version, desperately hoping people double dip so they can recoup some money after they blew hundreds of millions on Sonic Boom. Which reminds me the PLUS dlc succ too.
Trust me I've tried a lot with this game. It started out Ok but the more I play it the more its level design bores me to tears. Just going through the motions and nothing more. Even speedrunning it puts me to sleep. It's best for my sanity and this game's endlessly dropping score that I never touch it again. Which isn't something I've said for just about any other Sonic game. I love replaying Sonic, even ones I criticize there's usually stuff I like about them. But I straight up wish this one didn't exist. Perhaps not a bad place to start if other 2D sonic games put you off but for me personally it's not designed for me at all.
It's extremely common to hear from the average person that they play Sonic 1 and love Green Hill, only to immediately fall off afterwards. This is a problem for Sega though considering classic Sonic is the golden child many point to as "the only good Sonic". So, to cash in on that positive perception this series has so little of, they have to make a Genesis style game, but they can't make it actually resemble the Genesis games or else people will realize they hate those too. The designers hand is then forced to iron out any friction in the experience, any level design or boss fights that may slow Sonic down at all. Leading to a game that may be one of the few games in the series to achieve mass appeal, but one that had to gut everything I personally enjoyed about these games to begin with to do so.
Mania is missing the solid difficulty curve seen in 1 and 2. Missing the focus on earning your momentum especially Sonic 1 had. The ambition and world building of Sonic 3. The experimentation of CD or Knuckles Chaotix. Its claim to fame is merely "Finally, a Sonic game for people who hate most Sonic games!" Chemical plant is a fan favorite level so let's make almost every level just a chemical plant. Forgetting that level was made for a purpose. To give you a taste of just how fast Sonic can go. Leaves you wanting more. It's a quick level that exists to tease you into wanting to get better at other zones. But when every level is Chemical Plant act 1, you may as well be playing auto mario levels in Mario Maker.
There's a LOT of automated level design. Empty slopes, spring chains, rube goldberg machines that just speed Sonic up and it's just meant to be fun 'cuz Sonic go fast and that's apparently the only valid goal for a Sonic game to aim for. What baffles me is how criticized games like Sonic 4 or Forces were for this very same thing. People have historically been very critical of style over substance automated level design in Sonic games. To the point where I genuinely feel like if this game was called Sonic 4 Episode 3 and had graphics to match that, suddenly a LOT more people would have an issue with the level design present in this game. But because the style is 1 to 1 with what people associate with "good Sonic game" I get looked at like a madman for saying this game suffers from the exact same thing if not worse.
Whether that kind of design bothers you or not is of course personal preference, but I feel I'm being pretty objective in saying levels like Hydrocity act 2 rely on automation to an OBSCENE degree. How many times can you get picked up by a hand, revved up to full speed automatically, and shoved through empty tubes before you realize the game is playing itself? Chemical plant, Flying Battery, Studiopolis, even down to the final level Titanic Monarch heavily feature automated gameplay. And most levels that don't suffer from it quite as bad, are incredibly linear and mindless and get boring on repeat playthroughs anyway. No challenge at any point, very little actual platforming. Levels from sonic 3 generally don't feature interwoven alternate paths, but instead very isolated paths that don't meaningfully change how you play the level...in the rare moments more than 1 path exists. Alternate routes are more common in the automation filled stages, but the design of every path is merely more empty slopes anyway.
2D sonic level gimmicks are at their best when they interact with your momentum in some way. Like the ziplines in Green Hill act 2, or the spider bumper boss fight. But most of the level gimmicks are just shallow attempts to add variety and they don't play with the core gameplay very well. Chemical Plant act 2 for example has goo floors and touching the syringe makes the floors bouncy. Touching the syringe (That's almost always put in your direct path anyway) to reach the next part of the level isn't remotely interesting as a level gimmick. There's no substance there. As is the case with most of the game your first playthrough is going to look a LOT like your 20th no matter which character you're choosing to play even.
Out of the whole level list I only really like Press Garden, act 1 of Oil Ocean, Stardust Speedway act 2, and Act 1 of Metallic Madness. Green Hill's fine, feels more like an emerald hill rather than a Green Hill considering dying was actually possible in Green Hill originally...But as a level 1 it's fine. A Sonic game with a good green hill is the absolute bare minimum one could ask for and not remotely a big selling point for me. (Love those ziplines in act 2 tho)
And yeah there's only 4 totally original zones, the other 8 are nostalgia bait retreads. Because apparently the best we can hope for out of this series now is just being a worse version of something they already made. It's not a novel celebration and total reimagining of classic stages like Generations was. You're not getting some cool walk down the series history showing what iconic levels look like in the modern era in a totally new dimension. It's "Hey, wanna play an even lamer version of Hydrocity? What if we did Sky Chase from Sonic 2 but instead of being a bittersweet, ominous buildup to the final level it's buildup to a literal 10 second long train level instead? Would have loved the entire level to take place on a moving train, sick idea for a 2D sonic act. But that's not on the low effort nostalgia pandering agenda, so we're gonna drop the Final Boss from Sonic 2 on you as just another average boss you can kill by mindlessly jumping at it for 8 seconds instead!"
Speaking of, most bosses in the game all you do is take damage on purpose and use the I-frames to kill it in seconds. Total waste of time, just lame. When they take stuff like Sonic 2's oil ocean boss and expand it to be a more fully realized, objectively better fight I'm a happy camper. But rarely do they give old ideas a glow-up like that. More often there's ones like Studiopolis act 2's that's just a dreadfully long auto scroller who telegraphs its attacks like ten seconds in advance and it's impossible to speed up the fight at all. Also not a fan of how they hide special stages, I much prefer taking 50 rings to the end of the level, just a carryover from Sonic 3 I never cared for. Feels more in place with a mario-ish platformer not Sonic to say the least, already went into this in my Sonic 3 review. I love the 3D special stages in this game though, funnest part of the game imo. If you're going for 100% completion, the stupid amount of blue sphere you have to do combined with getting all the chaos emeralds, the pacing is hurt pretty hard. I like blue sphere well enough but we did not need so much blue sphere.
I understand Whitehead's team is full of long time genuine fans of the series and that's great. And I think they did what they HAD to do to make a Sonic game able to get mass appeal. But in the process to me it just feels like they're parading around Classic Sonic, desecrating all of it with a tinge of malice. Everything brought over done so with the explicit purpose of "fixing" something that was "wrong" with Sonic as a franchise. Not to say the creators have malice towards the series, but like I said their hand was forced. Sonic is MORE than green hill and chemical plant. But now that this game popped off all people are gonna be thinking, is EVERYTHING they've ever thought about this series was right. And as a seemingly rare genuine fan of almost all of it down to the depths of Labyrinth Zone and Eggmanland, it makes me sad. This is a good game but I outgrew its level design before it even came out.
Audiences have been saying this is what we need more of. But REALLY? Is ANOTHER low budget nostalgia bait release reliant almost entirely on decades old content really what this series needs MORE of? They've been doing almost nothing but that for over a decade itself now! I'm begging them to stop making Sonic games like this! The worst part is no other game they do this very same thing with gets an ounce of the praise, because despite this very hot take that Mania's very mid, seemingly almost everyone's on my side about this topic. No one was thrilled about some short, shallow renditions of chemical plant appearing in Forces, or the (Actually better than this game's) sky chase reference level in Sonic 4 Episode 2. This game did one thing that the others failed to do, and that's get the look and controls down. That's it, the level design is generally speaking no better than any other pitiful attempt to recapture the spirit of old Sonic games. If Superstars so much as looked like Mania I guarantee suddenly we'd be seeing way more attention and praise thrown its way. That game's actually decent boss fights and level design that's okay with punishing you might throw some people off, but first kneejerk reactions are everything with this series it seems.
To me this is just Sonic 4 Episode 3 and it's not even the best episode. Nevermind how this was when Sega realized they could nickle and dime fans. Waiting til' they get the digital sales they want to release a physical version, desperately hoping people double dip so they can recoup some money after they blew hundreds of millions on Sonic Boom. Which reminds me the PLUS dlc succ too.
Trust me I've tried a lot with this game. It started out Ok but the more I play it the more its level design bores me to tears. Just going through the motions and nothing more. Even speedrunning it puts me to sleep. It's best for my sanity and this game's endlessly dropping score that I never touch it again. Which isn't something I've said for just about any other Sonic game. I love replaying Sonic, even ones I criticize there's usually stuff I like about them. But I straight up wish this one didn't exist. Perhaps not a bad place to start if other 2D sonic games put you off but for me personally it's not designed for me at all.