I'll just put my own review of the game here as well.
Back in the early 90’s, there were a lot of games that could be beaten in a couple of hours, but were considered good. There were also games that took a very long time to beat such as Final Fantasy II, or A Link to the Past. In my opinion, the longer games stood head and shoulders over the shorter games. Sonic was a short game, and so were the sequels. I would still recommend Sonic and Sonic 2 to any gamer these days. But only in the sense that I would still recommend Megaman 2, or Contra 3.
Sonic Mania comes along and fixes one of the main problems with the old Genesis games. It’s easily twice as long with way more replay value, than its predecessors. Part of this is because there are double the zones as oldschool Sonic games. But it’s mostly due to the fact that every level is huge.
You can play with either Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles. Different characters can get to areas that the others can’t. Each level has multiple branching paths. The stages in Sonic Mania aren’t just a collection of the same old springs, and loop de loops. The developers have gone out of their way to bring fresh new mechanics to traditional Sonic levels. Some levels, for example, will have Sonic jumping into the background. Others will shrink Sonic down to half his normal size. Sonic Mania lets you select any previous level once you’ve finished the game, making it much easier to explore the game.
Every boss has an interesting unexpected twist, and there are as many bosses as there are stages. The developers could have gone the safe route, and had Dr. Robotnik hover over you shooting fireballs in a predictable pattern. Instead they keep coming up with the most zany boss battles in a 2D platformer ever. Some of these encounters don’t even have you stick to a single area as you fight, opting for a high speed chase of sorts instead.
Hidden in every level is the usual giant gold ring from Sonic 3 that will teleport you to a Chaos Emerald stage. These hidden stages offer a 3D race with a UFO opponent. Collecting rings adds seconds to your time limit, and collecting blue power balls speed you up. If you catch the UFO you get a Chaos Emerald, and if you run out of time the level is over. In addition to this there is a hidden blue ball bonus level inside every checkpoint. It plays exactly the same as the ones from Sonic 3. If you complete them all you get hidden unlockables. These two variants of bonus levels expertly capture the look and feel of the old challenge zones from the Genesis games, without being overly ugly.
It took me about 6 hours to beat Sonic Mania. Including replays with Tails, and Knuckles this is easily an 18+ hour long game. Sonic Mania isn’t just a good tribute to the Genesis Classics. It absolutely blows those games out of the water.
9/10
