Sonic and Tails might take on a different variant to a boss than Knuckles or Ray. Plus depending on the character you choose, some of the levels and boss fights are unique. I was always kept on my toes when encountering new obstacles or finding new secret areas. They all offered new and exciting ways to interact with the game that kept Sonic Mania engaging all through its 12 different zones. It’s an amazing progression that follows the trajectory of classic Sonic while also managing to carve out an interesting path forward.Īll the zones have their own unique platforming mechanics like teleporters in the Titanic Monarch Zone or huge guns that launch your characters in the Mirage Saloon Zone. All the older zones perfectly capture the spirit of those classic games while introducing new paths to follow to make them new again. As you progress, you find yourself in reimaginings of zones from Sonic 1, 2, 3, and Sonic & Knuckles before running through completely new zones made for Sonic Mania. You start out in the familiar Green Hill Zone and it feels like a remake for a split second before you start to notice little differences. That idea pays off here as, unlike missteps like 2010’s Sonic the Hedgehog 4, Sonic Mania mixes just enough old and new to bridge the gap between the early 90s and today. If you didn’t catch Sonic Mania when it first launched in 2017 though, it is Sega’s attempt at revitalizing 2D Sonic by joining with popular members of the Sonic community known for making faithful recreations of classic Sonic. It’s an impressive attention to detail in a game that is founded on those details. Green Hill Zone loses the blue skies and takes on an orange hue of dusk. PrismXR Puppis S1 Wireless VR Extender review - Making PCVR possible for Meta Quest 2 and 3Īside from those changes, the Encore mode makes subtle changes to the color schemes in the level, changing things just enough to make them feel different without having to actually change the level layout. Racing against a friend through a zone did offer a neat way to see just how large and varied the levels could get though. You can now play the competitive mode with up to four players, which adds a fun extra challenge, but the mode was never a real draw for me. There were some other minor changes to the overall package (not just that it is literally now in a physical package instead of exclusively downloadable). It speaks to the charm and usefulness of the new characters that given the option, I almost always preferred using Mighty because his slam ability was so useful for cutting a wayward jump short or smashing an enemy. Both were fun additions to the game that worked well alongside the series mainstays like Sonic and Knuckles. Ray is a plucky yellow squirrel who can swoop through the air à la Super Mario World’s cape, and Mighty is a red armadillo with a gruff attitude and a chip on his shoulder who can slam into the ground. They are so well realized as Sonic characters that, had I not known any better, I would have thought they had been in the games alongside Tails and Knuckles the whole time. Even if you were one of the few who played that earlier arcade game, this time out they no longer control identically to Sonic and they have their own unique moveset to set them apart. Sonic Mania Plus most notably offers two new playable characters in Ray the Flying Squirrel and Mighty the Armadillo (not completely new as they both appeared in arcades in SegaSonic the Hedgehog back in 1993). Sonic Mania inexplicably feels completely fresh while also mining the depths of its history to feel like something ripped out of time, and the new additions to Sonic Mania Plus (Encore Mode with two new characters and some remixed visuals) fit the series like a pair of red sneakers. I started to wonder if Sonic was ever even good, and if we had just been delusional for some part of the early 90s, but as Sonic Mania proved when it launched last year-and what Sonic Mania Plus reinforces-is that it is, in fact, very possible. For years I thought the dream of a good new Sonic game had long passed.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |