Have you ever had to organize a birthday party for your best friend? The hope is always to make the best party possible, which must not only celebrate the celebrated at best but must also please all the participants. This is a bit ‘the essence of Sonic Mania, a game that pays tribute to the blue porcupine SEGA joining the old glories of the past belonging to Sonic The Hedgeohog, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic CD with extras specially created for the occasion.
The result is a fun and complete title, which is rooted in the base of the blue porcupine: to create the project were in fact a group of developers led by Christian Whitehead, a personality particularly active in the Sonic community, so as to be noticed and collaborate with SEGA on the mobile porting of the old chapters of the saga. Without forgetting the careful supervision of Sonic’s Sonic Team,
we can say that Sonic Mania is a game that is born “by fans for the fans” and we want to emphasize this aspect not only for the review but above all because the same Sonic Team has The work done with Mania is crucial for the future of the franchise.
EVERYTHING IS TRANSFORMED
Once you have chosen one of the three selectable heroes (Sonic, Tails or Knuckles) we will be ready to start our game and after a short introductory movie showing the new robo-villains of Dr. Eggman we will find ourselves where it all started, in Green Hill Zone. Including the first iconic level, the rest of the game follows through another eleven zones following the division between first and second act.
The gameplay is exactly the same as the old chapters for SEGA Mega Drive: the aim of the game is to complete the diagrams in the shortest time possible, collecting rings, saving the route taken at the check points and collecting seven Emeralds of Chaos through the bonus stage.
As in the past each character has his own special skill set available, so Knuckles plana climbing the walls, Tails flies and swims while Sonic, in addition to using all the skills provided by the shields, can use a quick spin dash.
The individual abilities of the protagonists will vary slightly the possibilities of the path leading us to explore from time to time different areas depending on the character chosen.Inside the levels are then spread the classic TV that will offer the player extra speed, invulnerability, rings, shields, lives and power-ups, essential considering the dense array of enemies present, who once annihilated will increase our score … and they will free the pet trapped inside.
This important part of the game is the only one left unchanged because everything else has seen heavy changes. One of the very first things that catches the eye during the game is the presence of all power ups in all levels, even outside their “temporal” context; for this reason in the levels belonging to the first and second chapter we will find, for example, bubble, electric and fire shields belonging to the following chapters.
Another important difference is visible in the two bonus stages that will provide the reward as a reward for Smeraldi del Caos and gold and silver coins; the first ones can be recovered by completing a bonus stage similar to that of Sonic CD,
where we will have to chase a small ship and access it through the giant rings scattered across the levels. Passing a check point with at least 25 rings we will have access to the Sonic Yhe Hedgehog 3 blue ball stage and based on our performance we can earn a silver or gold coin.
To close the bonus bracket it is essential to specify that the review was written by completing a game without collecting either the Chaos Emeralds or the 32 gold coins:we are sure that these collectibles unlock special contents, after all owning the Emeralds of Chaos in the past allowed the characters to become their “Super version”, but to date we can not tell you exactly what are the unlockable extras.
