Sonic Mania is a Surprisingly Good Sonic Game

I’ve been kind of blindsided by this one. Although I don’t enjoy many of the mechanics in even the supposedly good original Sonic games, there was something special about them at the time that has been elusive to any of the developers working on the countless Sonic games since the first few on the Genesis.

From everything I’ve heard and read, Sonic Maniafrom Christian Whitehead and other third-party developers, fulfills the promise of a Sonic game in a way that Sega has been unable to fulfill. That includes the pitfalls of the original games, but without dumbass additions like guns that ruin modern Sonic games.

It’s out now on Steam for Windows as well as the Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 for $20.