Sonic Mania (2017)

With Sonic Mania under my belt (save for many more competition matches between my partner and I) it’s time to pick the next Sonic. So far I’ve played the following Sonic games:

• Sonic Mania
• Sonic Colors: Ultimate
• Sonic Forces
• Sonic The Hedghog 4 Part One
• Sonic The Hedghog 2 (many years ago and not to full completion)

I plan to buy Sonic Origins when a physical edition is released, so I’ll save the games in that collection for later. That said, which Sonic game do people recommend I tackle next? Platform isn’t really a concern, so I’m open to everything from fan favourites to weird esoteric entries in the franchise. I welcome everyone’s input, so feel free to let me know what you’d play next if you were me.

I love this game a lot but it’s not without its flaws, chief among them being the fact that, like Mario until late, it still relies on limited lives. Are we not beyond this utterly outdated concept? Every time I reach a new zone I usually die here and there as I learn the enemies and elements that are new. It feels punitive to send me all the way back to the beginning of act one if I lose my last life on the boss of act two. It also usually takes the wind out of my sails and I have to put the game down and return later. It feels like an archaic idea that really needs to die.

Also, positioning enemies perfectly so that during an initial pass of a level you’ll take damage because you can’t yet see what’s coming feels a bit cheap now and then. I understand the game needs to challenge the player but when the only reason I got hit is because I couldn’t have known that my trip along a loop-de-loop was going to run me smack into an enemy. Or placing a spring at the end of a run to send you flying back into an enemy, a spring you can only know to jump over the second time you run the level.

Enemies with colour schemes that match the game backgrounds are PITA! And no, I don’t mean chameleons, just regular old baddies that just happen to disappear because someone decided blue on blue background was a good idea.

I have many thoughts on the ring system and how it’s tied to lives, not many of them are flattering. Sonic Team, why are rings both Sonic’s Health and 1-up counter? This is another system that feels either poorly thought out, or intentionally punitive and tied to old ideas about how to pad the length of a game in the SNES/Genesis era.

Don’t take this as dislike for the game, these are just nitpicks I have that can probably be applied to Sonic across the board.

Ok, yeah, Sonic Mania is pretty great.

I’ll be honest, last time I played I got stuck in the chemical plant. It was late, I was tired and frustrated and kept being squished between two boxes underwater which leads to instant death. So I quit.

This time I’m not exhausted, that level was easy peasy and now I’m really into it. Studiopolis was fantastic. Love the music. Looking forward to playing more.