So Sonic Mania has finally landed, and it's every bit as good as we hoped it would be. The last time I bought a Sonic game for a contemporary console was probably when I got Sonic Adventure 2 for the Dreamcast way back when, and since then I've pretty much given the franchise a bit of a wide berth; the negative press subsequent releases have garnered always putting me off investigating them.
For some weird reason, the post-Adventure 3D games (with the exception of Sonic Generations and - reportedly - Sonic Colours) have been...
misguided in their attempts to keep the spiky blue one in the public eye. Or rather, they've kept him in the public eye for all the wrong reasons. But this most definitely isn't a review; and it isn't meant to be one of those 'Sonic is crap' think pieces usually written by games journalists too young to even remember Sonic's first game on the Mega Drive. No, these are my random and meandering thoughts on the awesomeness of Sonic Mania and why it is such an important release for Sega's flagship series.
I remember when Sonic 2 came out and my brother asked for it for his birthday. As we're twins, it was my birthday too. That would have been March 1993, so my 11th birthday. Do you know what I asked for? A toy coach. A fucking
coach. A die cast toy coach with luggage compartments that opened and a door that opened and little rubber tires that you could peel off the metal wheels. I still have no idea why I asked for - and got - a toy coach. Meanwhile, my brother had Sonic 2. One of the greatest platform games of all time.
The reason I bring this up is that I vividly remember the differing levels of enjoyment we gleaned from our respective gifts. My coach was all but redundant after a few minutes pushing it around the carpet and smashing it against a wall simulating an horrific road traffic accident. Sonic 2 though...well that cartridge stayed firmly implanted in our Mega Drive for weeks (in between sessions of European Club Soccer), and I still hold the game in the highest regard now, 20-odd years later. Why? because it's a masterclass in platforming and added just enough to the original Sonic template to be considered a completely new, yet wholly familiar experience.
That's kind of how I feel about Sonic Mania. The familiar levels and visual style, and the outrageously good music that harks back to the original 2D side scrollers. It all just reeks of old-skool Sonic yet somehow manages to be brand new, shoehorning in new visual effects and graphics techniques that wouldn't have been possible on the 16-bit system the Sonic series was born on. If you haven't already, I recommend watching
Digital Foundry's video on Sonic Mania because it goes into detail on how the game came about and the tricks employed in the visuals that you probably wouldn't notice unless they were pointed out.
