Sonic Mania

Please excuse me if I gush a bit about this game in my opening post, I am a huge fan of Sonic and this is both the best 2D Sonic and one of the best 2017 games we've had so far, especially now that it's out on PC; even without concerning the Denuvo nonsense. Since I go into a lot of full detail here (I've played to 90% of the end-game), please be warned: SPOILERS.

Spoiler

The first thing, I wanna say: the amount of detail and just pure work that went into the game's animation and sprites completely blows most of the 16-bit era games out of the water. In fact, it makes a lot of similar or other deliberately-retro games not look very nice as a result. The animations have so much detail to them and look so fluid and smooth. Even the presentation in general for Sonic Mania is really clean, polished and amazingly high quality and well done. Like, look at the main menu...that is a sexily sleek yet simply great example of nice clean great graphical design.

There is something about this game that the devs got right in terms of the feel, physics, etc. In a long time ever, this is the first time I've seriously enjoyed playing through a game, whether at my own pace or streaming it. The developers even captured the spirit of the classic games, it makes me feel like I'm playing a secret Genesis Sonic game that got canceled. The game is a blast to play through, from start to finish. On that last point: The physics feel so close to the classic games, to the point it makes me question the cleanliness of the original games' physics or even the really positively received fan remakes/games. The physics are a bit tighter too, sweetspot wise, like, Sonic jumps a bit higher and goes a bit faster.

They've also captured a feeling I've loved with the older Genesis games: Like the Sonic 3 levels, nearly all of the levels in Sonic Mania are these giant labyrinthic worlds with so many alternating paths, allowing for tons of fun replayability, even just for exploratory curiosity or time-attack speedruns. The game even rewards you for such exploration, either netting you small item-box goodies, alternate paths (of course) or even special-stage portal rings. In relation to that, besides a particular blemish or two, the level design and gimmicks are really good.

This game has some of the best level design I've seen in a game in years, on par of stuff like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. The gimmicks are pretty nice and besides the occasional blemish or gimmick I disliked, a lot of them are fun or super well designed and not annoying. My favorite zones/acts are Chemical Plant Zone Act 2 (the focus on forward momentum + the bouncy slime) and Mirage Saloon Zone Act 2 (some fun gimmicks + really nice looking atmosphere and scenery). Press Garden Zone's Act 2 (so pretty) comes really close though and so do both acts of Studiopolis Zone, which is pretty much this game's Casino Night Zone.

Tee Lopes did a smashing job on the game's entire soundtrack and his usage of modern instrument samples really helps to the quality and niceness of the OST. A lot of the music is great, even for the crazily remixed act two themes. He even captured that vibe of the mini-boss themes pretty awesomely, you know, like the oldschool Genesis miniboss theme that had Michael's signature vocal shouts. I can't decide which are my favorite tracks, his OST is that good but for example; he made a superb final zone level (holy crud, does Titanic Monarch's music capture the intensity, monstrosity and final 'oh shit, the fate of the world rests on a blue speedy hedgehog now' feel of the zone)

Now, the blemishes...this can't all be positive. Both acts of Metallic Madness Zone stand out as some of the worst stuff in this game. The enemies are counter-productive and garbage and the enemy placement + crummy level design doesn't help, where the level design is so poorly done and unchanged from the Sonic CD version...there's just something about both acts that says "is this really good level design? is it? really? no" and additionally, I see Oil Ocean Zone's Act 2 as another problem-spot/blemish here. It's a really strange difficulty spike (as much as I just may be bad at playing, haha) and it's garbage boss doesn't help either. While the option's menu is a lot better than most of what you see in the game, it's still somewhat...lacking for me or even that Whitehead stupidly has us customize resolution via the config file. :/