To begin: Angel Island Revisited is a fantastic remaster, with quality-of-life changes and improvements that I can never imagine playing Sonic 3 without ever again. From the subtle visual improvements, sheer customizability, remastered audio, the Drop Dash! - Sonic 3 AIR is easily the definitive version of this game, and will always be, especially now that it has mod support.
But I think AIR is also the definitive version of a game that's slightly obsoleted by Mania in almost every aspect.
Take the starting Angel Island, for example: secret items like the ring and speed monitors near the start of Act 1 or the rings and invincibility under the pushable rock feel too disconnected from the flow of the level design in ways that Green Hill - both in its Sonic 1 and Mania renditions - never suffered from.
Big Ring distribution is also weighted in a way that I feel is unbalanced: Angel Island and Hydrocity have about seven in total if you look closely for them; Marble Garden and Carnival Night hand them out like candy; and starting from Ice Cap and into the rest of the game are too sparse - while Green Hill and Chemical Plant in Mania also total about seven or eight in Mania as well, the Big Rings are distributed more evenly across the game and placed in less obtuse ways that I found myself still finding Big Rings all the way into Metallic Madness.
Special Stages and Bonus Stages are also unquestionably better in Mania in my opinion: while I think the Special Stages need no explanation, I've found the three bonus stages of Sonic 3 too pace-breaking, especially considering that two of them let players potentially get any shield, and the other has the potential to draw rings from the player instead.
Maybe this is my bias towards pinball, but I enjoy how Trap Tower is paced, letting players just play the crane game once and leave if they choose, or letting them stay literally as long as they want in a minigame that's amazing in its own right.
The one thing I might say Sonic 3 still has over Mania is its sense of storytelling and narrative consistency... but it's not enough to tip the scales over for me when Mania has much more expressive animation, much more consistent level design; as well as better setpieces and moments like the Heavy Magician fight, Eggman's battles involving gachapon and Puyo of all things, and the entirety of the impossible-to-dislike Studiopolis Zone.
It stands in stark contrast to my actual favorite Genesis-era Sonic game: Sonic CD. Sure, it might be a bit janky compared to Sonic 3, and its mechanics and level design may not be for everyone, but it sets out to accomplish things that no other game in the series even attempted ever again - even Mania only implements these things on a purely cosmetic level, its two CD levels being almost completely reconstructed using the level gimmicks as a baseline.
I think Sonic 3 is still a very good game, all things considered - but it's a game I'd much rather replay Mania than revisit. Angel Island Revisited at least brings it up to the same level of polish that it could be up to a matter of personal preference...
But Mania has captured my heart in a way I think Sonic 3 never has in any form.
But I think AIR is also the definitive version of a game that's slightly obsoleted by Mania in almost every aspect.
Take the starting Angel Island, for example: secret items like the ring and speed monitors near the start of Act 1 or the rings and invincibility under the pushable rock feel too disconnected from the flow of the level design in ways that Green Hill - both in its Sonic 1 and Mania renditions - never suffered from.
Big Ring distribution is also weighted in a way that I feel is unbalanced: Angel Island and Hydrocity have about seven in total if you look closely for them; Marble Garden and Carnival Night hand them out like candy; and starting from Ice Cap and into the rest of the game are too sparse - while Green Hill and Chemical Plant in Mania also total about seven or eight in Mania as well, the Big Rings are distributed more evenly across the game and placed in less obtuse ways that I found myself still finding Big Rings all the way into Metallic Madness.
Special Stages and Bonus Stages are also unquestionably better in Mania in my opinion: while I think the Special Stages need no explanation, I've found the three bonus stages of Sonic 3 too pace-breaking, especially considering that two of them let players potentially get any shield, and the other has the potential to draw rings from the player instead.
Maybe this is my bias towards pinball, but I enjoy how Trap Tower is paced, letting players just play the crane game once and leave if they choose, or letting them stay literally as long as they want in a minigame that's amazing in its own right.
The one thing I might say Sonic 3 still has over Mania is its sense of storytelling and narrative consistency... but it's not enough to tip the scales over for me when Mania has much more expressive animation, much more consistent level design; as well as better setpieces and moments like the Heavy Magician fight, Eggman's battles involving gachapon and Puyo of all things, and the entirety of the impossible-to-dislike Studiopolis Zone.
It stands in stark contrast to my actual favorite Genesis-era Sonic game: Sonic CD. Sure, it might be a bit janky compared to Sonic 3, and its mechanics and level design may not be for everyone, but it sets out to accomplish things that no other game in the series even attempted ever again - even Mania only implements these things on a purely cosmetic level, its two CD levels being almost completely reconstructed using the level gimmicks as a baseline.
I think Sonic 3 is still a very good game, all things considered - but it's a game I'd much rather replay Mania than revisit. Angel Island Revisited at least brings it up to the same level of polish that it could be up to a matter of personal preference...
But Mania has captured my heart in a way I think Sonic 3 never has in any form.
Reviewed on Dec 31, 2020