Sonia Mania Review
I grew up with Sonic 1–3, spending hours sitting, playing with my Grandad. Ever since the 90’s I’ve wanted a new, good, 2D Sonic game. A game worthy of holding the number ‘4’. Let’s be blunt. Sonic 4 was bad; Sega hasn’t had the best track record with Sonic. Until now. Where Sonic 4 failed, Sonic Mania Picks up the slack holding up to the standard of the 90's extremely well—however its dated approach sometimes falls short of modern expectations.
The zones, consist of a variety of old-remixed levels, or ‘acts’, from Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, as well as some new ones. Mania offers 12 zones in total, each containing 2 acts. The remakes are generally the stronger of the levels—in terms of both design and music. Act one, will feel very familiar to anyone who has played the older games. Vast parts, as far as I can recall, start the same—then there’s a slight change; a new platform or star post out of place. The further you venture through the levels the more they change. They’re great for bedding old players back in.
The second act of each zone is where Mania really branches off—even the music gets a bit of a remix. Generally, this approach works well. Take the Chemical Plant Zone for instance, the second act introduces a new deadly liquid, which becomes a super springy jelly when Sonic injects chemicals into it. The majority of these changes feel faithful, and almost as if they were in the originals. Even some of the new zones, like Steropolis, feel almost familiar consisting of multiple winding paths all leading to the acts boss and end post.
As with the zones, Mania has many items returning, like Sonic 3’s fire, aqua and thunder shields. They all behave as you’d expect when jump button is pressed twice in quick succession. Fire briefly turns Sonic into a fireball, and gives immunity to fire; aqua makes Sonic bounce, and breathe underwater; and thunder with give Sonic a double jump as well as attract nearby rings.
This time though, they both affect and are affected by the levels. For example, the thunder shield is drawn into the magnetised sections of the Flying Battery Zone, and fire shields, which weren’t in Sonic 2, ignite parts of the Oil Ocean Zone, with pixelated fire effects. The attention to detail in patches is great.
Some additions, however, aren’t so amazing. The second Act of the Oil Ocean Zone adds a mechanic similar to one form Sonic & Knuckles’ Sandopolis Zone. Finding and pulling switches to clear a build up of smoke becomes a chore. Where the mechanic in Sandopois slowly turns the lights down, it still allows good visibility – the smoke in Oil Ocean makes seeing anything nigh on impossible! Small mechanics like this ruin some levels.
The life system can also sour enjoyment. While lives are a staple of old Sonic games, their scarcity can be very punishing, especially as you can get close to 100 rings, to gain another life, and a crafty enemy sneaks up. Surprise! 99 rings explode across the screen—you die inside. At least they take a longer time to de-spawn now, meaning a higher chance of re-claiming some.
Running out of lives means it’s back to the beginning of the zone. This isn’t too much of an issue to start with, but unless you’re constantly accumulating lives (which can be hard) you’ll arrive at the second act’s boss, with just one life left. And die. Back to act one, sucker! This can feel overly punishing at times. At least it’s not back to the very first level; I’m looking at you Sonic 1.
Lives only really become an issue when you reach bosses though. A few of which felt overly unfair. I like a challenge; however, bosses become more of an annoyance when you’re killed by off-screen surprises — you couldn’t know would kill you — until you’d already died to them. I don’t ever remember the original bosses feeling that unfair at times. While some can be frustrating, it’s nice the majority of bosses are new and imaginative. Only a small handful are variants from previous games.
Most of these mechanics aren’t new to Sonic games. Sure. But they don’t gel well with today’s expectations. I know that down and ‘A’ will charge spin dash and hitting down, while moving, will turn Sonic into a ball. I, like many others, take this as common knowledge. New players won’t. Mania does nothing to teach Sonic’s base moves, meaning until new players figure them out, there will be a lot of frustration and rolling back down slopes.
Platforming is as consistent as the originals too—which is to say, not 100% accurate — so you need to be precise. Cue the old technique of stabilising jumps with repeated quick taps of ‘left’ and ‘right’. This wasn’t personally an issue, but again, newcomers should be aware.
Putting these niggles aside, Sonic Mania has been made with great care and attention. There are nods to Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, the old Sonic 3 “Get Blue Spheres” bonus stages and special stages based on what I think is Sonic R (I never played Sonic R, so I’m not sure). Sonic’s momentum feels good, it’s still fun to see him spin and dart around a cleverly designed maze of springs, loops and jumps, hearing ring audio sprites chime as you go.
While the majority of classic sounds and tracks return, there are a number of new themes for invincibility, Super Sonic, bosses and the new zones. While they’re okay, they don’t all feel as iconic and memorable. I bet the majority of people can recognise the Green Hill Zone theme. I can recall a huge number of old Sonic tracks, but ask me to hum the new ones — I can’t — maybe it’s just because I played the older games a lot when I was younger.
My favourite character was always Sonic, and Sonic Mania unsurprisingly gives the option to play as him, along with Tails, Knuckles or Sonic & Tails — yes, player 2 can take over Tails. Much like Sonic 3, once all levels are clear the option to start from any zone is available. There are also a number of unlockable bonuses, such as time attack and competition modes. For £16, Mania offers a lot and it’s easy to see past its 90’s approach — after all, it’s the type of game Sonic fans have been wishing for.
Sonic Mania is therefore a game that older fans of the series should play, making up for the countless bad Sonic games. I therefore can’t be too mad at it; I would have been ecstatic with Sonic Mania when I was younger. The sounds, music and platforming made me feel like I was a kid again back in the 90’s. I’m glad Sonic Mania exists. While this isn’t a bad for those that grew up playing Sonic, like me, it could — and probably will — turn off new players to the series. Sonic Mania is available now.
Developer: Headcannon and PagodaWest Games
Publisher: Sega
Available on: Nintendo Switch (reviewed), PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC (N.B. the PC version is always online)
Release Date: 15 August 2017
