Everything feels so right, for the most part, and only increases in quality – and difficulty – as you progress. As your character races across the landscape, your velocity will increase until you are speeding along at an incredible rate, shooting down tunnels and looping and sprinting all over the show, so long as you don’t hit an enemy or hazard. Rings – collected to act as pseudo-health or increase your life, shields, invincibility and numerous enemies, jumps, springs, loops and so-on. Successfully negotiating these challenges will then propel you further into the world and into even more of a challenge.Īlong the way, you’ll find everything that is typical with a Sonic game. Starting (as is typical) in the Green Hill Zone you have two acts to best in each world before facing off against Dr Eggman (Robotnik) in one of his boss-guises. You can play as the famous and eponymous hedgehog, as – or with – Tails or even with Knuckles the Echidna.
So, what is Sonic Mania? It’s a nostalgic journey into Sonic the Hedgehog history and comprises of twelve worlds, with a mixture of classic Sonic environments as well as some brand-new ones. Could that be about to change? Sonic Mania is the first of two new Sonic titles arriving this year, and has been developed by PadogaWest Games/Headcannon – led by Christian Whitehead, best known for his work on getting classic Sonic titles to phones and tablets and creating his own engine, Retro Engine for 2D based games, which is what Sonic Mania is built with. The loss of his parent company as a console business opened the door to multi-platform Sonic, but it’s fair to say that compared to Mario – where the core games have gone from strength-to-strength, Sonic titles arguably haven’t left their mark. And, for the most part, she loved Sonic Mania. Thankfully for you folks reading this, this review isn’t compiled by the thoughts of someone that favoured the other side – this writer’s wife was on the other side of that fence as a child. I was a Nintendo child, but I was inherently aware of the speedy blue mascot on the other side. When I was a lad – which my kids tell me was a very long time ago – you were SEGA or Nintendo. This makes for a lot of interesting combinations of characters and makes every level consistently feel fresh and constantly changing.What does Sonic use to knock on a door? His Knuckles… What’s interesting about this version is, while players choose one of the new characters to partner with Sonic from the start, every character is made available through item boxes in every level, and swapping between them also comes in the form of item boxes as well, albeit totally random.
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Earning huge points from me for beginning in a full version of Angel Island Zone from Sonic 3, players will rescue either Mighty or Ray and play through a remixed version of Sonic Mania.
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On top of the new characters comes “Encore Mode”-which acts as a sort of New Game Plus mode. Mighty has a powerful dive-bomb that can destroy nearby enemies as well as drop through certain terrain while Ray can fly through the air allowing him to easily reach high places and adding a lot to exploration.
Both characters have unique moves that add a lot to how each one of Sonic Mania’s massive levels are explored. The first major addition, as seen in the announcement trailer, are the inclusion of Mighty the Armadillo-who first appeared in the SegaSonic the Hedgehog arcade game, but is most well known for Knuckles’ Chaotix-and Ray the Flying Squirrel who hasn’t been playable since his first appearance in SegaSonic the Hedgehog. That having been said, Sonic Mania Plus is a glowing addition to the base game adding several new features to a game that’s replayability was already so high, it’s almost unfathomable to think how it could get any higher. Sonic Mania Plus – Review Image provided by Sega I bring this up as a question to why gamers act like Sonic Mania is “the best Sonic since the Genesis days,” or how it “heals the wounds of inflicted by its most disappointing predecessors,” that it’s “the Sonic game fans have been waiting for.” Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing game (just scroll down to the score and you’ll see), but I just challenge the idea that it’s some standalone example of a singularly good Sonic game, when fans have been getting good, albeit risky, Sonic games for years. Realistically, Sonic and the Black Knight and Sonic Boom have been the only genuine disasters two bad games in over a decade of solid Sonic games. Gamers act like Sonic hasn’t been good since Sonic ‘06, but Sonic and the Secret Rings was better than people give it credit for, Sonic Unleashed was at least half of a good game, Sonic Colors was spectacular, Sonic Generations was near perfect and Sonic Lost World is criminally underrated.
I have long maintained that the “downfall” of Sonic the Hedgehog has been grossly overstated.