Sonic Mania is out and holy crapballs is it amazing. For those who don't know and are new, Sonic mania is one of the two new Sonic games coming out this year. Mania seems to be a retro love letter to the previous Sonic games of the 16 bit era. The constant work of nostalgia has seemed to garnered the love of fans and critics alike. But is the game's love and success due to the huge galore of nostalgia or is there something else behind why the game being so awesome?
There's no doubt that Sonic Mania is a big pretty package of nostalgia and glory to the earlier Sonic games. It's return to full 2D and full retro feel. The return of the Blue Sphere mini game. classic retro zones returning, the Special zones being ripped straight out of the Sonic CD. It is even chocked full of secrets and easter eggs going back to that to Sonic's golden era of games. But we've seen the nostalgia card being waved before in the Sonic series and it hasn't worked or wasn't quite perfected, looking at you Sonic 4. Sonic Mania is the response to what the fans want: A simple Sonic game.
The team fronted by Christian Taxman, who worked on the earlier Sonic games, stripped down and went with what worked in the past games, and went back to basics which ironically is what the series needed to do all along to stay fresh. No weird game mechanics. No Werehog, no dark and gritty reboot like Sonic '06 was, and whatever the hell Shadow the Hedgehog was. It is a far cry from some of the Sonic games I referenced from the series' later years where development teams tried piled on so much stuff in games that it just ended up being a big mess. The nostalgia is only a front.
Hopefully Sega has learned learned something from this and maybe Sonic 4 that less is more and simple works. They seemed to be on the right track with Generations and it would be nice to momentum continued with Forces whenever that comes out.
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