Sonic Mania

I often imagine a scene in which a team of penguin-suited executives at Sega pace around a corporate office room racking their brains on how to reinvigorate Sonic the Hedgehog’s status in the public eye. When the sun rises to signal the dawn of a new day, the exhausted executives decide in their haggard, caffeinated state to stick with the maligned 3D format, adding a new gimmick to the next game to discern it from the previous blunder that spurred this stress-inducing meeting in the first place. After playing a fair selection of games from Nintendo’s former industry rival, I’ve come to conclude that Sega’s failure can be attributed to an insistence on flaunting a shallow, superfluous style that negates a substance that allowed Nintendo’s titles to remain relevant past their initial buzz. I criticize Nintendo vociferously for their stringent 3D mandate during the N64 era, but Sega has become a worse offender in prolonging this charade. Sega never seems to realize that their insistence on rendering Sonic in the third dimension has further contributed to the mockery of their once beloved blue mascot, and this is coming from someone who would take a bullet to defend both Sonic Adventure titles. It’s simply a bad business decision to ignore that Sonic’s zealous fans all clamor for the classic 2D era that launched Sonic into super stardom, especially since 2D gaming has resurfaced in popularity for the modern gaming zeitgeist. Their dimensional hybrid anniversary title Sonic Generations merely pussyfooted around the prospect of returning to Sonic’s roots, for 3D Sonic was still given more precedence over his older, quainter 2D counterpart instead of distributing an equal share of both eras. At this point, if Sega weren’t going to bless the deferred Sonic fans with another classic Sonic game, the solution was to make one themselves. Sonic Mania is the result of fans finally satiating their classic Sonic cravings, feeding themselves a nice home cooked meal after learning their mom’s old recipe instead of having food delivered to them.

To call Sonic Mania a long-awaited sequel to the classic Sonic titles is a bit of a misnomer. Instead of being a sequel in the traditional sense of the word, Sonic Mania is a remastered compilation of handpicked levels from the classic Sonic trilogy on the Genesis (plus Sonic CD, imprinting a mark the one Sega CD outlier has even deeper in the golden age of Sonic) with a fresh batch of original levels and composing them into a sequential narrative format that mirrors a concise Sonic title. Once the drooling mob of Sonic fans hear this, their panting anticipation may quickly shift to crestfallen disappointment. Sure, Sonic Mania is a loyal return to form, but to the extent where the game seems like a recycled mishmash of levels we’ve already played ad nauseam? What are Sega trying to pull here? Did they steal modded Sonic levels from the internet and hope their fans wouldn’t be the wiser to their acts of plagiarism? No, they didn’t. In fact, the Sonic origami that makes up Mania’s foundation is one of the most appealing aspects of the game. Christian Whitehead, the lead developer of Sonic Mania, is also notable for developing the mobile ports of the classic Sonic games, implementing the frills of gaming progress such as save features and multiple characters for a modern audience. Whitehead’s initiative wasn’t only to expose a younger audience to the Sonic games that the older generations praise to the high heavens, but to illustrate how simple it is to improve on these rusty relics just by adding the mechanisms these games were deprived of for a smoother experience. Once you research the main developer’s background and see his resume, one understands the mission of Sonic Mania. Perhaps instead of succeeding the classic Sonic games, Mr. Whitehead is tasked to remedy the shortcomings of the entire era of classic Sonic as a condensed package, the ultimate refurbishing to convince the Sonic skeptics such as myself of his greatness. None of the golden era entries, despite the clear evolution with every subsequent game, ever fully won me over and made me renounce every Nintendo system I’ve ever owned. With the perk of decades worth of progress, maybe Sonic Mania will be the one to do the trick.

Rendering Sonic on the 2D axis once again as seen in Sonic Generations made for a satisfactory emulation of his bygone gameplay, but the graphics in 2D Sonic’s levels still shared the same polygonal textures as the Sonic modeled for the 3D environment. 2D’s Sonic’s graphics verged on the boundaries of the uncanny valley, so Sega’s attempt to recreate those 2D sensibilities never resonated with the classic Sonic fan. Everyone knows that classic Sonic was a pixelated mesh of blue and flesh-colored sprites, and Sonic Mania would be remiss if they adulterated the blue blur’s character design. Sonic looks exactly as he did long ago, and he’s adopted his brow-furrowing determined expression as opposed to the smarmy one from Sonic 3. When he spin dashes, Sonic still revs up and creates friction with his steady inertia and when he reaches speeds that would make a velocity gun explode, his legs still oscillate wildly like he’s the Road Runner. The key difference in Sonia Mania is the heightened graphical sheen in the pixel art. Sonic, his friends, the levels, and the onscreen layouts such as the ring and life counters look so crisp that they make the player feel inclined to make that interjectional, “aah” sound of refreshment. Another minute point of visual refinement is making Sonic more expressive. On top of his typical resting face and his shocked death animation we all know, Sonic’s range of gesticulation makes him seem as well animated as a cartoon character. Sonic looks up with more curiosity, he signals the need for speed by mimicking a gesture like he’s going to dart off in his idle animation, and the cutscene where Sonic shakes off a drop of chemical ooze seems like someone motion-captured their dog. The familiar pixelated aesthetic matched with this unfamiliar extent of motion reminds me of the various flash cartoons from Newgrounds, albeit with a much higher budget and without using the animation to make Sonic do and say dirty things.

It’s not only Sonic that looks more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but his friends as well. One of the tenants of renovation Whitehead consistently utilized in porting the classic Sonic games is retroactively adding Tails and Knuckles as playable characters, even if they didn’t exist when those games were published. Instead of hastily causing a severe rift in the Sonic timeline with blatant anachronisms, the impetus behind including Sonic’s oldest buddies in the fray for every port was to diversify the gameplay to achieve a different outcome. Like always, Tails can helicopter himself upwards with his twin back appendages and Knuckles can glide and climb up walls along with other steep inclines. Tails can also regress back to his role as Sonic’s sycophantic sidekick that constantly drags behind him and mops up the bosses with invincible ease. Whether or not Sonic Mania features co-op and if they’ve granted the second player more of the spotlight with Tails has not been tested yet. On an individual basis, Sonic Mania designs each playable character’s campaign around their respective attributes instead of how the ports implemented them into levels designed for Sonic. Tails can still fly, but his rate of ascension has been reduced exponentially as not to break the game for the more meager Sonic players to exploit. Knuckles' campaign exhibits slight differences to illustrate the story in his unique perspective, similar to how it was conveyed in Sonic & Knuckles. Alongside Sonic’s best buddies are a litany of forgotten figures from classic Sonic whose presence serves as tokens of fan service. During the boss encounter at the end of the second act of Mirage Saloon, Sonic faces off against a posse of characters that we haven’t seen since Sonic the Fighters in 1996. Sonic Mania’s DLC includes the ability to play as Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel, two characters from a ‘90s Sonic arcade game so obscure that only the most seasoned of Sonic nerds will recognize them. One might argue that including too many characters compromises on the simplicity of classic Sonic, for adding too many friends to the guest list in Sonic’s later years became a bloated clusterfuck. I assert that if the characters predate the Dreamcast, their presence in a Sonic game that recalls his prime are welcome. This wouldn’t be the case if there was a fishing section with Big the Cat or Shadow showing up with a 16-bit scowl. As for Amy who debuted in Sonic CD, her absence here as the green bloused, bow-wearing classic form escapes me.

More importantly than anything else that has been overhauled in Sonic Mania are the returning levels. The batch that Whitehead & company have rebrewed for the game are an eclectic mix from the classic Sonic lineup, ranging from fan favorites like Green Hill and Chemical Plant to befuddling picks like Oil Ocean and Lava Reef. All of the classic games are represented here with a fair balance of equality, except for only Green Hill acting as the sole representative from Sonic’s debut. I’d argue that the levels from that game were in the most dire need of reevaluating, but perhaps they’re too misshapen to even humor an operation. Hydrocity Zone from Sonic 3 makes its return to represent Labyrinth Zone in spirit, a revitalized version of the original attempt to make a functioning underwater level after Labyrinth butchered it from Sonic’s start. The polished graphics make each level look splendid, but the developers decided to offer more than the same levels with better visual fidelity. The classic Sonic levels possess the same visuals, platforming tropes, and enemies as they always have, but their layouts have been reconstructed from the ground floor. Cheap deaths from the unyielding days of austere game design are eradicated entirely. That is, unless you factor the strict hitboxes whenever Sonic gets squished between two surfaces, which is still something to be cautious of. While playing the returning levels and reflecting on their original iterations, all of them feel consistently smoother and fitting for a game revolving around the element of speed. Their collective presence in one game has coalesced them all into the most agreeable design philosophy seen across classic Sonic no matter which game they originated from. Not only that, but the added level gimmicks like the buoyant chemicals in Chemical Plant and the plant platforms in Stardust Speedway fit into the preexisting levels splendidly, as if they were afterthoughts that Sega wished they would have reverted back and added since they were released.

New levels in Sonic Mania are the minority with a mere four, for rekindling the older levels naturally took higher precedence in a game that harkens back to Sonic’s heyday. If Sonic Mania ever has a direct sequel, I want the developers to fill it to the brim with their own creations because the few here are excellent. Each of the four are beaming with style and encompass Sonic’s design philosophy wonderfully. Studiopolis may have been crafted in the 21st century, but it’s flashy, paparazzi pizzazz screams Sega Genesis. Press Garden is my favorite of the newcomers for its gorgeous, zen forest background setting that looks like a pixelated Jidaigeki film. The oddly named Mirage Saloon is themed after the desert plains of the wild west and all of the culture associated with it. Steam trains, ale barrels, ragtime piano keys, and a pistol that shoots Sonic across the map after it rotates like a duel all make up the foreground of this arid canyon of cacti. Mirage Saloon’s first act even features Tails soaring through the sky on his red biplane with Sonic seated on the helm. Instead of having the player contend with a reimagining of one of the original game’s final levels, the developers inflict their own creation, Titanic Monarch, on the player as the game’s climatic climb. Normally, I’d lambaste this level for its extensive length, precision-based platforming, and obtuse, borderline surreal design in the second act. However, all of this being unique to the game’s final level is a perfect peak for the game’s difficulty curve. If I didn’t know better, I probably couldn’t distinguish the new levels with the old ones because the new ones exude the same amount of care and polish as the returnees, impressively so for their first outings.

Bosses have never been Sonic’s strong suit, and not even the most ardent Sonic fans will argue against this point. Robotnik attempts to destroy Sonic with a roulette of untested gimmicks that all literally blow up in his face. Sonic Mania’s bosses are no different on the Robotnik spectrum, except for that neat little nod to Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine at the end of Chemical Plant. What interests me more than the bouts with the flying egg are the level-ending encounters with his robotic minions, for they are richer in variety. A cutscene in Green Hill Zone displays Sonic witnessing a meeting between Robotnik and his motley crew of colored robots, and each of these stocky androids serves as the mini bosses in the first act of a level before Robotnik’s umpteenth attempt in the second act. One features Sonic running on a blue track at a consistent mach speed blowing back blue rockets at him while avoiding the red ones. Another is a samurai duel in the frosty woods of Press Garden, and the magician robot veils himself as the aforementioned characters from Sonic’s past. The game also includes many creative boss fights that are not explicitly goons of Robotnik such as the trash compactor and spring spider in Flying Battery as well as the leaping sand worm in Mirage Saloon. Some bosses are cheeky callbacks to classic Sonic bosses such as the return of Metal Sonic and the Robotnik drill car and wrecking ball scaled down as toys for Chibi Sonic. My only complaint is that with the game’s more lenient ring collecting after being hit, the player can easily tank the damage that the bosses dish out.

That being said, I’m not complaining that the game is too easy. I’ve suffered through so much unfairness in classic Sonic to do an ungrateful 180. A save feature is present as well as limitless continues, signifying that the Sega genie has granted all of my wishes for a less taxing, excruciating Sonic experience. The player doesn’t even need to partake in the special stages to earn extra lives and use Super Sonic as their inexhaustible, juggernaut aid, or at least not in the traditional sense. The developers have evidently borrowed a bit from the tropes of modern gaming as collecting all seven chaos emeralds will unlock the game’s final boss, the Egg Reverie. This revelatory completionist task incentivizes the player better than any classic Sonic game has and even more surprisingly, the special stages are a joyous time. Finding the large golden rings in the levels will transport Sonic to a special stage that uses the UFO catching template from Sonic CD and shifts it to a race. Sonic amplifies his speed with the blue orbs on the track and extends the time with rings. Not only are they fun, but they are the easiest to accomplish. I was prideful enough when the blue sphere stages netted me one Chaos Emerald in Sonic 3, but I am overjoyed to tell you that I collected all seven Chaos Emeralds in Sonic Mania. It’s an accomplishment that I’ll print out and put next to my college degree.

By jove, I think they’ve done it. I am in love with a classic Sonic game after the series has left me skeptical of its legacy. Am I now going to declare my newfound love for Sonic by sketching childish fanart of him and my own original hedgehog character, as well as sculpting plastic medallions of his visage? No, but now I can still appreciate and admire the depth and fluidity of classic Sonic’s level design more than I ever did. I now have some understanding of what all of the slightly older crowd, mostly my cousin, loved about classic Sonic, and those same people facilitated their love for it with this bundled tribute to the blue blur. With some love and polish, Sonic Mania has recreated what fans see behind their rose-tinted nostalgia glasses, validating their views and changing mine in the process.

Most people hated Sonic Forces because it wasn't anything new. Just another bad 3D Sonic game. Yet another example why Sonic can't and never will work in 3D. I was a high school student who had an unhealthy obsession with the 2D>3D argument at the time and where you had Sonic Forces on one hand, you had Sonic Mania on the other. With that being said, it wouldn't be hard for you to guess that I'm not very fond of this game. Now, it's not because I think it's bad. I actually don't think it's much worse than Sonic CD. I spite this game primarily because it's close release to Sonic Forces leading to easy comparisons all but proving the tired 3D>2D theorem law. Spite further tuned into malice over the course of the five year wait for Sonic Frontiers, when I finally got to play a few of those 3D games only to learn that the 2D>3D law was in fact true.

In the time since Sonic Frontiers released, a lot of that spite has dissipated. I tried giving Sonic Mania another shot a couple weeks ago and I even reached the false ending. Throughout the entire duration of my playthrough, I couldn't stop thinking that I'd be having a much better time if I were just playing any of the other 2D games in the series. I could've been playing any of the classics and get the exact same format of gameplay in four or five different phases with none of the personal baggage. I could play any of the Dimps games for fresh new mechanics and tough yet satisfying challenges. The 8-bit games, actually I at least like Mania more than those.

If I were to look past my bias however, I'd say my least favorite part about Mania as a game is actually my least favorite part of Sonic CD too. The levels feel overdeveloped. Sonic CD's levels throw as many obstacles in the player's way as possible making the game a tedious experience. Sonic Mania does the opposite by showing as much spectacle as it can get away with. The levels feel cluttered with gimmicks, references and automated sequences to the point where the moments of admittedly substantial platforming don't leave any impact on me. The game constantly moves at a stable yet stagnant pace of what feels like a desperate attempt to be perfect. The levels feel too fluid like they are designed so the player never has to break their flow. The gameplay never peaks, nor does it dip. Challenge rises but never spikes. The game is never bad but it never feels as good as it should. To me Sonic Mania is a nice looking moving picture. There's plenty of polish, passion and effort. The game is a competent product but fails to leave any real impression on me.

7.5

Sonic Mania is excellent and as a tribute and callback game it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. It takes the best of the series and distills it into an enjoyable and often exhilarating 2d platformer. The trouble is it doesn’t have enough identity of its own for me to put it above the classics. It retreads themes, levels and boss ideas with a barely there context that leaves me loving it in the moment and in spurts, but not when it leaves the senses if that makes any sense at all…. It also follows more of a Sonic 3 template and I love the perfect balance in Sonic 2. Still it’s a trip down memory lane and it’s a wonderful trip at that. I will buy a sequel day one if they can manage to put together a fully original game.

Sonic games are very flawed. Mania takes all good elements from the first two games and provides simple solid fun.

If you wanted to try a sonic game, I would suggest trying this one out and then Sonic & Knuckles. The rest of the games are frustrating experiences.

Sonic Mania is quite possibly one of the greatest Sonic games in recent history. It's definitely the best 2D Sonic game and I can't recommend it enough

Sonic was going through a very tough time for the past few years before Sonic Mania. After the success of Sonic Generations, SEGA just couldn't seem to figure out where to bring the series. Games like Sonic Lost World and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric showed this. The games lacked a lot of attention and care the series was known for in the past. But then... SEGA looked back at the Genesis games and why people loved them so much. As a result, we got something beautiful.

The Development for this game is insane and I love it. In 2015, Australian Programmer, Christian Whitehead, a pioneer in the Sonic Fangame community was working on yet another fangame for a couple of months at the time. SEGA in the past have contacted Christian Whitehead to develop remastered ports for Sonic The Hedgehog (1991), Sonic The Hedgehog 2, and Sonic The Hedgehog CD for mobile phones. Whitehead showed off his prototype which was known as Sonic Discovery. SEGA greenlit the project and allowed Christian Whitehead and other prominent members in the Sonic Fangame community such as Simon Thomely to work on the project which would feature re-imagined zones and new zones. Sonic Mania was born.

Seen as an ultimate passion project for Whitehead and the other members of the community who wished to present the ultimate tribute for the Genesis Sonic games that they grew up playing, Sonic Mania is the ultimate showcase of what made the Genesis Sonic games so good.

Sonic Mania was released in 2017 and was met with praise on every level. Looked as one of the most successful Sonic games in years. The game reached heights we haven't seen since Sonic Adventure 2. And it deserves it.

Sonic Mania is essentially what the awful Sonic The Hedgehog 4 was supposed to be. Think of Sonic Mania like Sonic Generations but exclusively for the 2D titles. All the gameplay that the 2D games had are back and better than ever.

The story is pretty weird (And sadly the worst part of the game). It's a simple story like every 2D Sonic game and is told effectively. But it's just really messy. Dr. Robotnik and his creations known as the Hard-Boiled Heavies have discovered the Phantom Ruby. A mystical gem capable of creating illusions and messing with dimensions. It's up to Sonic and his friends to stop them. The Phantom Ruby is used mostly as an excuse to bring Sonic and his friends to new and old stages that aren't connected to each other. I'm fine with this. I just wish it wasn't used so much. It connects to Sonic Forces which is a possible reason for the flaws.

The gameplay feels fantastic. Sonic plays like he always has in 2D Sonic. It's about gaining momentum with platforming to get to the end of a level as quickly as possible. All the moves previously established in 2D Sonic are all present and accounted for. However, Sonic was given a new ability. The Drop-Dash. Essentially a Spin-Dash that begins midair, it is the perfect way to gain lost speed. Tails is playable and is the easy mode once again. While Knuckles has his own unique stages and bosses while also being the hard mode.

The Zones are great. You got classic zones such as Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant Zone, Stardust Speedway Zone, Flying Battery Zone and many more. But the new Zones are heaven. Studiopolis Zone, Press Garden Zone, Mirage Saloon Zone, and Titanic Monarch Zone are easily the best zones in the game because of being made from the ground up. Essentially the zones are split into faithful recreations for the first act, drastically overhauled levels for the second act, and the new zones entirely. My only issue with the level selection is that it doesn't have enough new Zones. Let's hope that if they make a Sonic Mania 2, we get entirely new zones.

Blue Spheres are also back as well as a new Bonus Stage where you chase a UFO. Doing these nets you a Chaos Emerald and collecting all 7 allows you to turn into Super Sonic and get the true ending.

I can't talk about this game without mentioning the soundtrack. Tee Lopes did an incredible job. The music for the old zones doesn't feel brand new. Which is a good thing. It keeps the game faithful to its past and only modernizes it. The music is still fantastic. Especially the new music. By far, the greatest Sonic ost in the whole franchise no questions asked. Insanely good.

You think that they would stop there. But no... They added DLC for this game and brought a new mode and two forgotten characters we thought we would never see again. Sonic Mania Plus as its called introduced a mode called Encore Mode. Taking place right after the events of Sonic Forces (Which I'll review next), Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and some new friends must stop Eggman from bouncing back after his previous defeat.

The new characters added aren't new... (I never mentioned them as they only appeared in a 2D Sonic Spin-off). They were fan-favorite characters that SEGA never mentioned again. We thought they fell into the land of obscurity. Never to be seen or heard from again. But they are back. Making their return are Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel. Mighty is essentially another version of easy mode. He has a stomp attack and is invulnerable to most attacks while in a ball. Ray is basically Tails and Knuckles combined as he can glide. But it's harder to figure out. Ironically enough, Ray is a Speedrun Demon as he can clear levels faster than any character with his gliding ability.

Sonic Mania may be a fangame at heart. But it doesn't feel like one. It is living proof that ambition and passion pays off and is a game I've played over 7 times and never got bored of. Sonic Mania is a home-run on every level and is the ultimate tribute to past and future.

Funny how it was the love letter to old Sonic games that got me interested in the series at all rather than any of those older games that spawned such a love letter. That said, I feel like a lot of that has to do with the fact that this game, rather than trying to completely reinvent the wheel with the franchise again, instead went back, looked at what was good, and improved it tenfold. The main way you can see this is the way the designers handled the core thought process and idea behind Sonic's gameplay, momentum. More than any other game, the stages are built in such a way to regularly allow you to be able to maintain a lot of your speed once you learn it enough, but also immediately clue the player into the fact that they probably could have gone faster through there if they knew what was ahead and practised a bit more.

This design philosophy of making the player constantly feel as if they could have reasonably better without too much crazy execution required feeds into a cycle of making the player more interested in replaying levels and makes deaths less of a setback, feeling like another opportunity to refine your skills, rather than being forced to monotonously perform the same actions leading up to where you died last time. This replayability from the stage design is further improved by the massive, sprawling stage layouts themselves. Each of these stages, while having all paths end up feeding into one another to a singular finishing point, having a crazy amount of branching paths that go in all directions, where if you manage to get on a different elevation to before, going backwards down this new path could lead to a whole other path to take you somewhere else, rather than simply not making any new progress. In so many cases, any new path you take will end up leading down another set of different paths depending on where you decide to go from there. When going through for the first time, it feels as if these stages are insurmountable massive, but this also feeds back into the replayability of them. This is due to the fact that depending on the paths you take, you can have an almost entirely different experience going through again without it feeling shallow in the process. I feel like it's especially obvious that these paths actually are meaningfully different once you realise that you can theoretically almost completely bypass a lot of stage gimmicks just by simple routing decisions.

From a visual and audio standpoint, the game succeeds to an even greater extent and is easily the reason why it ends up being quite as striking as it is. The artwork in this game is absolutely stunning, seeing the melding of nature and machine to provide a series of industrial landscapes to traverse that feel extremely vast and distinct, with the stages each having their own very distinct aesthetic and colour palette to make every zone a new visual treat. The visuals manage to be so nicely distinct and interesting that it even has the effect of making some of the same basic mechanics and actions in the game feel fresh once you've reached a new area, even if on a fundamental level you're doing the same thing as before, which is a real testament to how good the art direction really is. The soundtrack complements this rather well too, with the combination of original tracks mixed with the series mainstays, all being suitably upbeat, catchy and contributing to the immersive atmosphere of many of these areas.

The melding of classic Sonic tropes and new ideas is also handled very well and is conducive to a lot of very creative ideas. This is something that leads to creating a really interesting feeling of progression through the stages, with the first half of a zone playing a lot like a classic Sonic game, with the 2nd half then throwing in the new gimmicks that often completely change how it can feel, complete with a new track that's a reworked version of the one from the first half. The boss fights are the other area that feel very interesting, most of them being rather easy, but playing with some very fun concepts that make for interesting fights regardless of low difficulty. One big example of this is a fight in a trash compactor, where as it slowly closes in on either side, the ground beneath you is then heightened slightly, eventually allowing you to attack the enemy, which ends up being a simple, but entertaining fight.

With all said and done, there are still a few flaws with the game that stop it from quite reaching masterpiece status, the biggest one being how quite a few of the later stages begin to feel less as if they're designed around Sonic's momentum. As obstacles gradually become more dense and complex, it subsequently leads to a more stuttered pace, with sections taking full advantage of this followed by unsatisfying, precise platforming that can often feel far less interesting. This is exacerbated by the fact that these final few stages are considerably longer, with the sprawling nature of them beginning to work as a detriment. In regards to pacing, the bonus stages also end up being a genuinely problematic part of the game, often feeling monotonous, but also completely tanking the more fast-paced excitement that the main stages provided, especially the earlier ones. Stopping every couple of minutes to partake in a subpar minigame if you want to get 100% is a truly unfortunate design decision, probably the weakest part of the game in fact. The one other issue I have with the game is also related to the completion of it, that being the issues with actually finding the secret rings is quite tedious, with the design of the stages working against having to take one specific path to actually properly complete the game. The widely branching paths of the stages felt clearly utilised as a way to make it feel like a different, fresh experience to run through each time with minor pathing changes, but this no longer translates to having to find one particular secret, and ends up making hunting for these feel quite monotonous as you exhaustively comb through each stage, unsure whether or not you've missed a path or if there's even anything there in a specific stage. This issue is ultimately what stopped me from trying to fully complete the game, even though I loved my casual playthrough.

On the whole, this is a very good game that embodies all of the best aspects of Sonic, the attention to keeping momentum for the most part, the gorgeous visuals and soundtrack that's just as great, the charm, the creativity, it really just has it all. This feels like the developers took the existing formula of those classic, beloved Sonic games, added some new concepts that perfectly fit this, and then fine-tuned the core systems and designs to an extremely high standard. Despite a couple of issues I have, particularly with trying to fully complete it, this is a game I'd highly recommend to fans of 2D platformers, because there's a ton of great stuff this has and has been good enough to get me interested in Sonic for the first time ever.