Okay. So, I've had a bit more time with Sonic mania and I'm ready to hit you with a full blown lowdown of how I feel about this game. Key word being 'I' ya'll.
First thing's first. Sonic mania is a good game. After having so many Sonic titles from SEGA which seem to have no respect for the series' origins, it's nice to have a game which does. Sonic mania feels like a love letter to the original Sonic the hedgehog titles (i.e 1, 2, 3, CD and Sonic & Knuckles). Sonic mania references each of these games through zones, gameplay mechanics, animation and bosses.
The graphics in the game are gorgeous and look as though it's running on a souped up Mega Drive or a Sega Saturn. I know some will hate and say that the Saturn was nothing but an overpriced souped up Mega Drive which played CDs. No bitch. That would be the Mega CD. (Rest in pieces). Everything is bold and colourful. Despite Sonic going through his millennial phase of having extra long limbs, wearing bandages and kissing human hoes - Sonic has never has as much character as he does in this game. The same goes for Tails, Knuckles and Dr. Robotnik; all of whom feel nuanced in their own ways. The guys did a great job of not just staying true to the roots of the original Sonic games, but also true to the personalities of the characters as we originally remembered them. Not what they ended up becoming over the course of SEGA's mission to ruin the franchise.
But as great as Sonic mania feels, looks and sounds from the offset. There be some problems.
Sonic mania is a game which is all about the past. So the majority of zones in this game are oldies from the Mega Drive era of Sonic games (i.e the only Sonic games that truly matter). Sonic mania does a great job of re-imagining the classic zones, much more so than Sonic generations. However, the scales of old and new are tipped too heavily toward the old. The throwbacks are a little too much. I feel if there's one thing that many may knock the game for, it's gonna be this.
I have no problem with classic zones making a return. The good Lord, his disciples and all of us know that Super Mario games often re-hash and re-introduce classic worlds and areas. The issue here is that we've seen so many of these classic zones before. Green hill zone, Chemical plant zone and Stardust highway all featured in Sonic generations. Sure, that game is 6 years old now. But did we really need these zones again? Could we not have had Sonic CD's Palmtree panic instead of Green hill? Or Sonic 1's Star light zone instead of Stardust highway? Whilst I also get that Sonic mania is a homage to the original lineage of Sonic games, it also would have been nice to have had zones from the more obscure Sonic titles, such as the Game Gear and Master system releases and even Chaotix. Given the success and wide spread love for Mania, perhaps this is something for a sequel. But even with Sonic 1, 2, 3, Knuckles and CD being the pool of reference, I felt we could have had a more rounded and varied selection of zones.
The new zones in Sonic mania (of which there are few) are incredibly inconsistent. Studiopolis zone and Mirage saloon zone are well designed and memorable with a clear theme. But Press garden zone and Titanic monarch zone are messes. Press garden's theme is a newspaper press mill...in a garden. Strange, but okay. We'll go with it. But the theme doesn't play much into the zone itself, save for the prints running in the background (which took my slow ass a while to realise what they actually were) and a couple of minor sections where you use typewriter hammers as platforms. By the second act, this press / newspaper theme is completely eradicated, as everything turns into this Japanese-esque style winter garden. Titanic monarch feels like a cross between a church, a factory and the phantom zone from Superman. Not as cool as it sounds. Also, we had Flying battery zone, Metallic madness and a whole bunch of mech shit going on in Oil ocean zone. Did we need yet ANOTHER metal mech style themed zone?
The zones do not feel distinct enough when they're lined up together. The only zone which stands out is Green hill zone, because there is no other zone in the game which looks like it. Every other zone has another zone it can be compared to stylistically and thematically. Another part of the problem is that you hit a point in the game where the zones play the same way and they just don't feel fun. You stick at Sonic mania in the hopes of seeing what the next zone will be and if it will really wow you as the opening of the game does. But these moments never come. This is the one thing I feared in my first impressions of this game and its realised fully now I've played through it: Sonic mania peaks too early and runs out of steam half-way through. It drags on for about 3 zones too many.
The order of the zones also doesn't help, as it's back ended with zones which all meld together thematically. You end up doing three heat / fire themed zones back to back (Mirage saloon zone, Oil ocean zone, Lava reef zone) and then two metal, robot factory type zones back to back (Metallic madness and Titanic monarch). More contrasting and variety between zones would have been nice. Because from zone 8 onwards, I began losing interest.
Sonic mania is a challenge, due to the length of the game as a whole and how completely hidden away many of the power-ups, extra lives and the bonus stages are. There are an abundance of rings for you to rack up 100 and nab an extra life, but there are also a million and one ways for you to lose every single one of them. So stacking lives becomes difficult. Even with me trying really damn hard, I don't think I managed to stack more than 5. The acts and zones don't just increase in difficulty as you progress, they become longer too. So if you're taking your sweet time with a boss and your 10 minutes are almost up, TIME UP. Game over bitch. The save feature is not your friend here. Because if it's Game over at the end of the second act where you'd struggled with a boss battle, then right back to the start of zone 1 you go. This hurts. I almost threw my controller. Especially in the second half of the game, where zones truly test you and are not a great deal of fun to do. So in every instance where it was Game over for me, I'd just turn the shit off and think 'Fuck that shit. I'll deal with it another time' because I did not have it in me to go through 2 acts of bullshit again.
Sonic mania also presents you with a boss at the end of every act. These bosses range from piss easy to fucking difficult. There is no gradual ascent in the difficulty. It just spikes randomly. Some of the boss battles are ingenious, such as Chemical plant's second act boss which see's you square off against Robotnik in a game of mean bean machine. Others are plain fun. But there are a fair amount of frustratingly difficult bosses, with erratic attack patterns which are difficult to dodge and the method to beating them not being clear. There's a lot of trial and error with these bosses and the stakes feel high when you've got 1 life left and 2 rings.
Now let's talk about the music. It's good yo'. Real good. Tee Lopes did a fine job of remixing the classic themes (something he gained notoriety for before he booked this gig) and the original compositions capture that classic Sonic vibe of being tight, downright funky and nicely layered. The style of the soundtrack is very much in the style of the Japanese Sonic CD soundtrack, which I'm all for, as I adore it. Lopes' remixes of old zones are extremely faithful to the originals with few if any changes. The second act of each zone however features a remix or variation of the theme in the first act, which is where Lopes' gets to take artistic liberties with the classic themes which had no act 2 variant originally, and in each instance his second act variant comes out on top. My only dig at the soundtrack is that so few original zones means that I don't get to hear as many original themes as I'd like; because Lopes' original themes are all great, if not that memorable melodically. However, I'm going to chalk this up to the design of the zones themselves. I do not think it's a coincidence that the two original zones which are the strongest thematically (Studiopolis and Mirage saloon) also have the best themes. Sonic mania's soundtrack as a whole is great. I just wish that the new zones were better designed and had stronger themes to influence Lopes' compositions. But that said, the new zones do feature great pieces of music that get you bopping your head the whole time you're playing them.
Sonic mania has its fair share of great moments where it thinks outside the box. The inclusion of Robotnik's mean bean machine as a boss battle, Sonic transporting into the good future of Stardust highway for its second act and the numerous routes you can take through a zone are all touches of genius. It's just a shame these moments are so far and between and that the game hits a point where it feels that everything has been exhausted and its just going through motions. I can't stress how much the second half of this game contrasts to the first. It's like all steam has officially run out.
I want to say that Sonic mania is what Sonic the hedgehog 4 should have been. But what's preventing me from making this claim is that Sonic mania clings far too much to the past. The old zones overpower the new zones, of which I wish there were more of. But in actuality, half of the new zones aren't really that good. So there's this strange imbalance which occurs and this is what Sonic mania feels like as a whole. Imbalanced.
I would love for SEGA to keep the Mania series going and to give Christian Whitehead and PagodaWest games more reign in terms of giving us more in the way of newness. I commend SEGA for once again acknowledging that the past of the Sonic franchise holds the key to it having a fruitful future. But the instance on including so many classic zones here throttles Mania at times. SEGA need to get out of thinking that resurrecting classic zones is the only way a Sonic game can viably exist as being good.
Sonic mania as a game features as many dips, highs and lows as the zone layouts do. But overall it does more right than wrong, and Sonic mania sets a better foundation for future Sonic games than any of the Sonic titles released over the past 15 years.
Sonic mania is not the perfect Sonic game. But it's a restoration of faith in a series that I didn't think would ever find its way back from the brink. And whilst it took a heck of a long time for us to get a better-than-good Sonic game, the fact it's here is a bit of a blessing. Showing not only tenacity, but that there is a group of people in existence who can do the franchise justice and that SEGA is willing to give them the chance to do just that.
As imperfect, annoying and frustrating as Sonic mania can be, the love and effort that went into this game shines right through it. Which is why I hope that there will be a Sonic mania 2, full of new zones and new promise that Sonic is truly back and on the right path, after skidding in shit for so many years.
Verdict: Not rubbish
If you liked the classic Sonic games, you'll like this.
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