Is It Epic? Video Games

Sonic Heroes is a huge turning point for the Sonic franchise. More than just the last game to feature the Sonic Adventure voice cast, it was Sonic's first multiplatform adventure after the demise of the Dreamcast. It landed on every platform available at the time, it set the world on fire, selling incredibly well and netting generally positive reviews.

Sonic Heroes was many peoples' first exposure to Sonic, coming not too long after the ports of his Dreamcast titles to the Gamecube, Sonic Heroes would further the divide created by the GameCube port of Sonic Adventure 2: Between those who grew up with Sonic on Sega consoles, and those who knew him through his forays onto other hardware. This puts me in a sort of unique position with the the series, because I really did a little of both. I remember seeing some of Sonic Adventure's more egregious flaws, in particular.

In a lot of ways, Sonic Heroes both makes those a lot worse and makes some strides to try and mitigate them. Sonic Heroes is divided into four stories, though only one of them really serves any sort of importance. Team Sonic, Team Dark, Team Rose, and Team Chaotix, each consisting of three members each. Team Sonic is the normal mode, Team Dark is hard mode, Team Rose is easy, and Team Chaotix is basically Mission Mode. You'll need to clear all four Stories and get all 7 Chaos Emeralds (put a pin in that, that'll come up again later) to get the hidden Last Story.

The plot, outside of Team Dark, is completely inconsequential, and even then, that feels like a complete afterthought. Team Sonic wants to stop Eggman because that's what they do, Team Rose wants to find Sonic for Cream's Chao's friend and Froggy, Team Chaotix picks up a gig thinking they'll get paid, and Team Dark is after Eggman so newcomer E123 Omega can destroy him and hopefully they'll find something to help Shadow regain his memories. That's about as basic and deep as it ever gets with Sonic Heroes, and that's not necessarily a good thing.

One of the most beloved aspects about the Sonic Adventure games is their stories, the worlds they created, the characters that grew in them, especially Shadow. His mysterious pass, his heroic sacrifice to save the world and fulfil his promise to his friend left a profound impact on everyone who played Sonic Adventure 2. Heroes effectively undoes all of that for what's barely a cliffhanger to set up Shadow's own game. Metal Sonic is here as the main villain, but that's totally inconsequential as everyone else. It never comes up again in any game, nobody grows from the adventure, and there's just so much nothing here that makes me wonder what the point of any of this was. So with the story being a massive letdown, maybe the gameplay will be better?

Unfortunately it is not. The gameplay is a barely functional, slippery mess. It uses the same gameplay engine as the Adventure games, but the topspeed is arbitrarily DOUBLED for no real reason at all, and the levels aren't entirely built to compensate for the speeds you can achieve. Many times I found myself coreening off the side of platforms and cliffs because I couldn't stop myself in time. This issue persists throughout the entire game, and it only becomes worse in later stages that just drag on and on and on with a seemingly unending parade of robots, that you must absolutely destroy if the door that leads to the path forward will open. What makes this even worse is the returning Special Stages, which can only be accessed through a key in certain stages. Picking up the key isn't the issue, it's usually in plain sight and easy to get to. What IS the problem, is that once you pick it up, you cannot get hit ONCE, or else you lose the key and don't even get the chance to pick it up again. What makes this even worse is that the collision detection is so wonky here, things that shouldn't even come close to you end up knocking you five feet back. Even worse, on top of the flying off into bottomless pits issue I mentioned, is that attacking with the Power Formation will send you lunging forward at a borderline unpredictable distance. Sonic Heroes is a game where even the most insignificant mistakes will cost you dearly.

If you game on PC, it's almost impossible to have not at least heard of VALVe, creators of Steam, Half-Life, Team Fortress, and so on. To me, however, there's another pair of games comes to mind when I think of VALVe's glory days: Portal and Portal 2.

While most of VALVe's games are ultra-violent, dystopian shooting games, Portal, in stark contrat, is almost nothing like that. While violence is certainly implied, it never really goes beyond the implication. Portal is much cleaner than something like Half-Life 2. That's because Portal is a much more futuristic looking first person puzzle physics game. Portal also deserves to be commended for having quite possibly the smoothest difficulty curve I've ever seen. Starting off, especially on repeat playthroughs, the game can feel almost mind numbingly easy, but the further you travel into the depths of the labratory, the more dangerous the world around you becomes and the more agitated GLaDOS becomes. If the regular campaign is too easy for you, then I suggest you try out the Bonus Maps, in which you have two options: Challenge and Advance.

Challenge maps will give you certain stipulations to complete the Test Chambers under, such as using the least amount of portals possible, taking the least amount of time possible, and taking the least amount of steps possible. Advance is pretty much exactly what you'd expect, being significantly harder versions of previous Chambers. And man, can they get challenging.

Everything feels fluid and responsive, running on the same physics engine as VALVe's other games. Everything feels incredibly satisfying to do, and you'll be sent flying and reach speeds Gordon Freeman only wishes he could achieve. For as amazing as the feats that you pull off in Half-Life can be, there's still nothing quite as satisfying as mastering the momentum system and reaching previously unreachable areas.

Portal's word is not nearly as character driven as VALVe's other games. There's really three that should have attention drawn to them: Chel, GLaDOS and Ratman. In the first Portal, that's about the extent of it. GLaDOS is the only one who will communicate with you directly, Ratman only leaving ominious messages from a long time past. You play as Chel, a silent protaganist who we don't really learn much about. She follows the tradition set by Half-Life in that regard. Your reactions to what's going on are her reactions, your thoughts are her thoughts. How she responds to GLaDOS' rude remarks and sarcastic humor, is your response.

Portal is a pretty short game. But I don't really think that's entirely fair to hold against it, as it's consistently fun from start to finish. Games like Sonic Generations and Sonic Mania show it's best to have your game focus on the highpoints from beginning to end, while letting all the more tedious junk be optional. Portal, even all these years later, is still a unique and captivating experience, and it definitely lands on a list of games I think all PC gamers should at least try out.

I am going to level with you: I originally also wanted to look at Portal 2 for this review. But with how long these things usually take for me to put together, and considering the game in question I'm looking at next time, that will be saved for later, and be a review on it's own. I apologize for seemingly splitting these up for such a seemingly arbitrary reason, but if you follow me closely, you likely have an idea of what's coming next and what a huge undertaking that will be.

For the full video review, see below:

PRELUDE: Remember Sonic Runners? I do. It was Sonic Team's first foray into mobile games, with Sonic's previous titles usually being handled by Hardlight or Gameloft. Gameloft returns to the helm for this one, after the original Sonic Runner's servers shut down. Unfortunately, this game doesn't quite match the quality of the original and ends up feeling like a kind of disappointing, half-hearted replacement.

THE SETUP: Let's establish one thing first: Sonic Runners Adventure is a paid game. $2.99, whereas the original Sonic Runners was free with a heavy focus on microtransactions, especially near the end of the game's lifecycle. Having to pay for as little content you get is sort of annoying, as it's kind of the opposite problem that the original Sonic Runners had. Sonic Runners Adventure forgoes all of the procedural generation, randomization and many of the microtransactions for a game that's sort of static and boring.

Sonic Runners Adventure is, much like the classic Sega Genesis games, kind of shallow in regards to plot. Dr. Robotnik is a bad guy doing bad things, and Sonic and his friends make it their job to stop him. While nothing new in terms of plot, it leaves a kind of empty feeling in regards to character interaction, as it's nowhere near as fun or charming as the original game, even more recent games like Sonic Colors had way more entertaining writing. It gives the bare minimum of characters meeting, saying where they're going or about to do and nothing much else.

Graphically, the game feels like it took a massive hit from the original.

Sonic Runners

Sonic Runners Adventure

To my understanding, the models they use are the same, but just took a hit in the textures department, which, I can definitely see. And, as far as that goes, I'm willing to excuse lesser fidelity if it ultimately means better performance. But unfortunately, that's also part of the issue. The maps in the original Sonic Runners were procedural generated, meaning no two runs would be quite the same, throwing a variation of different enemies and obstacles at you. Sonic Runners Adventure takes a different approach: pre-made maps with challenges. The maps themselves don't change in subsequent playthroughs, and playing through them again with different characters feels like a purely cosmetic change. All the music is reused from previous games, some tracks even returning from the original Sonic Runners. Which, fair enough. I would've vastly preferred to have a new, super great soundtrack, but if that simply wasn't in the budget, well, I'm at least glad they reused a lot of great songs. Except for Green Hill. I am very tired of Green Hill.

PRELUDE: Emily Wants to Play Too is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, the sequel to 2015's Emily Wants to Play. That statement in and of itself should tell you right away whether or not you'd enjoy the game, being more of the same as the original, but in a new location and some added bells and whistles. If you haven't played the original, well, I think you should play that first with the added difficulty of this game. If you didn't enjoy the original, I'm afraid I don't think this game will do much to change your mind. Let me explain:

SETUP: Emily Wants to Play Too is an indie horror game released in 2017 made in the Unreal Engine. This time around, it starts up a bit differently as you aren't immediately brought to the horror. Well, in a way, you are. The character you play as has apparently been having nightmares of strange and creepy dolls in his apartment, that, if you meander for too long, will attack. In the nightmare, a mysterious hallway will appear leading to a door and clocks that don't seem to function. If you return upstairs and select the right painting, getting the keycard from behind, and open this new door. Within seconds, a creepy, dead looking girl will crawl in, forcing him to wake up. Once all is ready, you leave for your job, which happens to be a sandwich delivery boy, making a delivery to a police station. It's here where you see your nightmares were rather prophetic, as you see the same dolls along with some others roaming the station. They've trapped you inside, and much like their owner Emily (who also shows up later on), they want to play a few games with you.

THE GAMEPLAY: It seems to be standard horror game fare that the festivities last from midnight to 6AM. Emily Wants to Play Too is the same in that regard, one or two of a few dolls will come at you as you make your way through the station. Unfortunately, you're armed only with a flashlight. You won't be picking up any weapons to defend yourself, that's for sure. That's not to say you have no ways to counter the dolls, they all have their own things you have to do to avoid them, either running to the next room, staring at it long enough or not moving at all, or shutting off a music box before it finishes or other such things. All the dolls from the original return in full force and they bring some friends along, and they all want you dead.

Mercifully, you have the option to turn off jumpscares this time around, but in a way that makes this game even less scary, as it's really at that point just ambient lighting and closeups of some uncanny looking dolls to keep you scared. Emily Wants to Play Too isn't exactly just a jumpscare factory, there is some minimal lore, but it's not really enough to be fleshed out, nor is it very interesting.

PRELUDE

I have a sort of interesting relationship with Rake. I bought it during the Summer of 2016 and never really gave it much thought. It wasn't until January of 2019 that I really got into the game, learning the ropes, the ins and outs of it. And, unfortunately, in a way I couldn't have picked a worse time, because full disclosure, this game is, for all intents and purposes, dead and abandoned by the developer who lost the files to the game some time ago. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't land a single decent multiplayer lobby. A letdown to be sure, but in a way, I kind of don't really mind having to fly solo, and hopefully this review will explain why.

THE SETUP

Rake is an indie horror game released in 2015 based off the popular internet creepypasta of the same name. In this game, it's a monster that roams the woods and has been terrorizing the local wildlife and hunters, and you make it your goal to catch it on film and kill it. How accurately this follows the established lore of the internet creepypasta, I'm not entirely sure, being someone that doesn't usually keep up with such things.

However, I don't think a lack of context on the monster really hinders the experience in any sense. Being dropped in the middle of nowhere with no one to help you, the the cover of darkness and forest and something out to kill you is almost in of itself an inherently terrifying idea. And to many degrees, Rake utilizes it exceptionally well. In other regards, not so much.

THE GAMEPLAY

Rake is, at its core, a very simple game. You move about like any other first person action game, pick up cameras, set them on specific key locations, explore, pick up your weapon, and wait for nightfall when the Rake comes out. From there it more or less becomes a game of hide and seek. You must track the Rake and shoot it, and this can be a rather tedious process depending on how you go about it. If you just run out and bum rush it, you won't have much luck and in worse case scenario, will find yourself on the bad end of the Rake's killer claws. Much like life, take too many razor-sharp stabs to the body, and it's game over.

When enough days pass, the Rake will begin to taunt you, leaving decapitated pig heads on pikes around the forest. As days pass, the creature will also become increasingly more aggressive, leaving you with fewer and fewer places to run and with fewer options than to either confront the Rake directly, (which is almost never a good idea), or to hide and hope it doesn't find you. That's not to say you're limited to just a shotgun, however! You also get bear traps and a hunting rifle that make the task of hunting down and killing the monster significantly easier.

The Rake is an incredibly fast creature that will often sneak up on you when you least expect it. Tracking it and getting your shots off is a matter of wits and keeping your will stone solid.

But that's sort of the issue: Where and when he attacks feels sort of randomized and up to chance, leading it to feel kinda unfair in some instances. Often times, his attacks will often disorient you, leaving you on the ground and forcing you to look away from the Rake as it makes a break for it off into the darkness.

The shotgun's sights also aren't so great. It's more realistic than something like say, Call of Duty to be sure, but getting a shot off on anything can be kind of cumbersome after getting so used to shooters like Left 4 Dead.

THE VERDICT

When it was initially revealed in 2016 alongside Sonic Mania, my immediate reaction to what then known as Project Sonic 2017 was excitement if a bit of confusion. For as much as Takashi Iizuka tried to swear that it was a unique, new experience and not a sequel to anything, for the longest time all we had was a CG trailer that was highly reminiscent of Sonic Generations. The more of it was revealed, the more skeptical I became. Everything seemed like an almost deliberate step back from previous titles, specifically Sonic Unleashed and Generations. Despite priding itself on being developed by the same team that brought us Sonic Colors and Generations. This would be incredibly contradictory to both what we know and what we would learn as the game came out.

For those of you who are unaware, Sonic Team as we know it is divided into two halves, for the sake of brevity, we’ll refer to them as Team A and Team B. Team A has made Sonic Unleashed and Generations, whereas Team B has worked on Sonic Colors, Sonic Lost World and now Sonic Forces. Like many people I was under the impression that this would be a return for Team A, who now, at time of writing this, has been absent for about 7 years. This is because Sonic Forces, as we later found out, was developed by Team B. For most of those 7 years, Sonic Team was developing the new Hedgehog Engine 2 that makes it debut in Sonic Forces. Sonic Forces spent roughly a year and a half in development, whereas the Hedgehog Engine 2 spent around four years in production. That may sound relatively short in comparison to other games’ development times, but for Sonic, short development cycles are normal and pretty standard. Does Sonic Forces break the standard, or does it fall into the same trap a lot of other Sonic titles do?

Before the review proper begins, it’s important to note that Sonic Forces has an “Episode Shadow” DLC that serves as a prologue for the main story of the game. It’s not REQUIRED playing to understand the plot, and what it does add is very little and almost makes me question why they even bothered with it. Confusingly enough, the prologue itself has a miniature prologue. Try to wrap your head around that.

The story begins with Shadow on a mission, infiltrating Eggman’s base for information on something that’s never really elaborated on and encounters a mysterious figure leaps at Shadow only to be quickly dispatched. After screaming about how he’s not weak, flash forward a few months and Shadow is on a mission on a search for E-123 Omega. Encountering the same figure, donning a mask, the Phantom Ruby from Sonic Mania and the new name of Infinite, he swears his ultimate power and how not even Sonic will be able to stop him.

A month later, things are looking a bit screwy as Green Hill Zone’s once vast oceans and lush fields are replaced with miles and miles of sand and dying grass. Via walkie-talkie, Tails informs Sonic that Eggman’s forces have stormed the city and are running amok. Rushing to the rescue, Sonic destroys some of Eggman’s robots that, for some reason, Tails was cowering in fear of with the other citizens. Before Sonic can take on Eggman directly, he’s intercepted by Shadow, Zavok, Metal Sonic and Chaos, followed by the new kid in town, Infinite. Sonic promptly is knocked out and is taken captive.

Flash forward another few months, the newly formed Resistance pressumes Sonic to be dead as he breaks out of prison. As they learn he’s in fact alive, they send a new character that you create to go rescue him. After the rescue, it’s up to you, Sonic and Classic Sonic who is now from another dimension to stop Eggman and Infinite’s plans for world domination and save the day.

You’ll notice how much of the story is delivered via these black screens with text and these little walkie talkie moments on the World Map. That’s one of the larger problems with the story, it does more telling than it does showing. It has a lot of pacing issues that make it feel really inconsistent, one cutscene everyone thinks Sonic is dead and then the very next cutscene they learn he isn’t. Time skips in stories are not a new thing, but the placement of them ruins the pacing and makes the entire thought of Sonic being dead completely pointless.

You’ll also notice how passively I mentioned Classic Sonic. And that’s because he has very little if any importance in the overall plot. He shows up out of nowhere, dispatches Chaos 0 who Tails also cowers in fear of and from there he just kinda…doesn’t really do anything? It’s mentioned how he’s now from another dimension (which doesn’t make a lot of sense, either!) and Sonic makes a lame joke about how it’s been generations since he’s seen him, (ha ha, get it?) but really, he doesn’t do anything much at all. If you wrote him out of the plot, very little would change and it may actually be better if anything.

Messy, poorly written plots aren’t really anything new for Sonic, and for better or worse, Sonic Forces isn’t an exception. But plenty of beloved Sonic games have crummy plots, right? So maybe the gameplay makes up for it? It really, really doesn’t.

Sonic Forces largely walks in the footsteps of the games to come before it, for better and for worse. Modern Sonic controls as a sort of hybrid between Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations, and that’s not really a good thing. The problems lay largely in the momentum and weight of all the characters. Everyone feels remarkably heavy and stiff, and it’s especially noticeable with the two Sonic’s. What should be simple jumps are now leaps of faith.

The Custom Character in particular feels incredibly clunky. Movements are heavy and the Wispons range from sending you flying forward to being borderline useless. Somewhere in the middle is the Burst Wispon, easily the most overpowered weapon in the game with how easily you can mow down everything in your path with it and how quickly it shaves off health from bosses. The catch to this is that this is the default Wispon you get at the start of the game, so you really have no reason to ever use anything else.

Sure, Red Star Rings return from previous titles, but those don’t really contribute to anything, either. Super Sonic returns in the form of free DLC, and there’s no secret unlockable levels, either. No secret unlockable characters unless you count being able to play as Shadow in the Modern Sonic stages, nothing, really. Everything is and feels completely inconsequential.

Rings don’t really serve much of a purpose, either. Sonic Forces does away with the lives system that was standard in just about every prior release, and depending on if you pick Normal or Hard mode, you will always cap out at 100 Rings or will be able to, in theory, collect as many Rings as you can grab respectively. This is where it gets a little backwards, if you take a hit in Normal mode, you lose 20 Rings at a time and in Hard mode you lose all your Rings. This never made sense to me. With the lack of a shop mechanic and how levels are scattered with Rings to tempt and challenge you to take certain paths, Rings, much like in 2014’s Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, act like more of a health bar than anything. But wouldn’t it make more sense to let the player collect more Rings in the Normal mode? Normal mode describes itself as “For those who have never played a Sonic game before”, whereas Hard mode describes itself as “For those who have played a Sonic game before”.

Wouldn’t it make more sense for lesser experienced players to have an easier experience? One could argue that Hard mode creates a “High risk, High reward” scenario, but the question is, what IS the reward? S Ranks are handed out like candy, and as mentioned earlier, Rings don’t really contribute to anything beyond the Rank. Unlockable items are completely randomized. Having all equippable items be unlockable feels completely counterintuitive for a Custom Character. One could also argue that 2011’s Sonic Generations was also a very easy game but was still highly regarded, so Sonic Forces could be the same. Unfortunately, it isn’t.

Sonic Forces essentially plays itself in all the worst ways. Gone are features like shorthopping and drifting, now corners are scripted along with essentially all the corridors, and that’s essentially the best way to put it. Sonic Forces is mostly scripted. What few places you have full control in are as short as they are easy, and the stages aren’t much better, either. Levels average about two to two and a half minutes long. Levels constantly feel like they’re building up to something that simply never comes. Just as things start to get interesting, the stage abruptly ends. Bosses aren’t very challenging, either. The fight with Metal Sonic is blatantly copy and pasted into the final battle with Infinite, and the first phase of the Death Egg Robot is just the second phase of the Egg Dragoon but with easily avoidable disappearing ground. All the challenge in the game comes from frustrating, poorly controlling mechanics such as the slide in the Jungle levels. Hopefully the modding community can give us more for the levels than Sonic Team did with all four locales in Sonic Forces.

Sonic Forces is not a very good game. It feels so bland and afraid to stick to any of it’s ideas, some of which are legitimately interesting and could actually be fun if they were more fully realized. But as it stands, Sonic Forces is not a game worth buying. If you must play it, give it a rental or wait for a large price drop. The future of Modern Sonic is uncertain, and that’s both exciting and terrifying. But with Sonic Team’s track record, I imagine much of what was in Sonic Forces will either be completely abandoned or beaten to death and annoyance. We’ll just see. For a more concise video review, see the link below.

Note: this review was originally completed April 7, 2017.

2013 was an…interesting time for me. I had started high school and with that came the purchase of my Wii U and ZombiU. I of course had my eyes on another game that I had been following since its initial reveal: Sonic Lost World. Was it worth the pre-order and picking it up launch day? The short answer is no, it really, really, really wasn’t.

Sonic Lost World opens with Sonic and Tails chasing Doctor Robotnik high in the sky as he carries with him an animal capsule anyone who’s played the original Sega Genesis games will immediately recognize. After a failed rescue, Sonic and Tails make an emergency landing on the Lost Hex, a thing that’s not really given any explanation behind the fact that it’s a thing that exists.

How long it’s been there, what it is, none of it is ever really touched upon by anyone.

Upon landing, Sonic encounters Eggman now leading the Deadly Six, a group of bad guys who exist on the Lost Hex and that’s all we ever get about them. Their personalities are obvious immediately upon looking at them and much like the Lost Hex, who they are and what they are is never really addressed. They just sort of are.

Eggman uses Conch that once again is never explained, to which Sonic hastily kicks it away. The Deadly Six take control of Eggman’s robots and it’s up to Sonic, Tails and the Doctor to save the day.

The writing team of Ken Pontac and Warren Graff return, and it’s very obvious, as, while less prominent than Sonic Generations, the plot of Sonic Lost World is about as deep as a kiddy pool. Plot threads pop up seemingly out of nowhere and never really go anywhere, and the plot in general leaves a very empty feeling at the end of it all. It feels like it was rushed, like there was supposed to be more here but all they had time to do was strike the major plot points but either weren’t allowed to flesh them out or they just didn’t have time to.

The plot of Sonic Lost World is best left ignored.

One of the major selling points of Sonic Lost World was the new parkour element, who sees Sonic run up and across walls easily. Gone are the days of slamming into walls when running at high speed, but instead will see Sonic make his way up various obstacles with the touch of the run button. And no, you didn’t hear me incorrectly, the run button. With the success of games like Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations, one would think that Sonic Team would expand upon that, but what we have instead is radically different from either of those titles. What we have instead is a bit of a weird mishmash of Super Mario Galaxy and the canceled Sonic X-Treme, with level design that’s mostly large cylinders and spheres with various cubes placed on them. On paper, things like parkour and the run button aren’t necessarily the worst ideas in the world. And for the most part, they work. However, much like Sonic Riders in 2006, neither one is really explained to the player, at the very least, not very well. Sonic Lost World has also seen two patches and no less than 3 pieces of DLC: The Zelda Zone that skilled players can clear in under a minute, the Yoshi’s Island Zone which is good for scoring extra lives, and the Nightmare Zone, a throwback to NiGHTS. While all of them are free and nothing but a grand total of a few minutes were lost on them, none of them feel particularly great or worthwhile. The biggest problem Sonic Lost World suffers from is that it can’t seem to pick one thing to focus on; each act feels completely different from the last. One will play almost like a traditional Sonic game, the other will have Sonic travel as a giant snowball. This is compounded by the game’s new dual-homing attack system,

Sonic games have always been hit and miss, and Sonic Lost World strikes out several times over.

One thing I can’t fault Sonic Lost World for is the presentation. The world is vibrant and colorful and the game looks almost as good as Sonic Generations. Sonic Unleashed still beats it visually speaking, but Sonic Lost World isn’t half bad looking. The sound design, however, has seen a significant step down from Sonic Generations. The music, despite some tracks being more memorable than others, feels largely uninspired. Tomoya Ohtani returns to handle the soundtrack, and unfortunately, very few tracks stick out in memory.

Sonic Mania is a pretty special game, from it’s creation story to the end product we see before us today. During the days of the Dreamcast and the days following after, there would be several attempts to recapture Sonic’s glory days on the Genesis. Though none of them quite matched the quality of those games, for many, Sonic’s handheld adventures such as the Sonic Advance trilogy would be Sonic’s only 2D games for several years.

But that’s just for official Sonic games, meanwhile, there was a steady, lively community for Sonic mods and fangames, yet again trying to recapture that Sonic 16-bit magic. While many fell flat on their face, some of them actually came quite close. Enter Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley.

Christian Whitehead, also known as the Taxman, had coded his own engine, dubbed the Retro Engine, and showed it off at SAGE of 2009. This engine would of course, be used for his pitched remake of Sonic CD. Whereas games like Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 were available on iOS at the time, they ran on rather crummy emulators. This was different. This was a complete remake from the ground up.

Enter Simon Thomley, aka Stealth, who worked on several well known Sonic fangame projects like Sonic MegaMix, and possibly most famously his own version of Sonic the Hedgehog on Gameboy Advance Hardware. Being friends with Christian, he provided his own advice on the Sonic CD remake before joining him on the remakes of Sonic 1 and Sonic 2.

After a failed pitch for a Sonic 3 and Knuckles remake, the two would not be deturred. Enter Sonic Discovery, after a lengthy meeting with Takashi Iizuka, Sonic Mania was born. After it’s reveal at San Diego Comic Con 2016, people were excited, and I was right along with them.

After a frustrating delay for the PC version and dealing with the fallout of Denuvo, many people, including myself, were completely enamored with the game. But that was a year ago, and a lot can change in a year. I’ve certainly changed a lot in the course of a year.

With the new Sonic Mania Plus DLC that was released in July of this year, the game has changed quite a bit and the hype has died down significantly. With this in mind, I figured now is as good of a time as any to sit down and really analyze Sonic Mania, especially with the new 1.4 update.

The plot of Sonic Mania is unfortunately a lot of wasted potential. After discovering a mysterious power source on Angel Island that teleports whoever it is you’re playing as to Green Hill Zone, it transforms the surrounding EggRobos into the new Hard Boiled Heavies. Through one big adventure, The Heavy King faces off with the Egg Reverie and Super Sonic. After defeating them both, a portal opens up and Sonic is sucked in, kicking off the events of Sonic Forces.

In essence, the story only exists to advertise Sonic Forces and that ends up working against it. The original story saw Dr. Robotnik falling into a deep depression after the events of Sonic 3, with the Hard Boiled Heavies taking over, but that was scrapped for reasons I’m not entirely sure of.

But story was never the drawing point of Classic Sonic the Hedgehog. While games like Sonic CD or Sonic 3 had something of a narrative, it was never the heavy focus of the game. What really sold Sonic was his gameplay, and luckily, Sonic Mania excels in that regard. What made Sonic work in the original Genesis games were his physics and level design.

The key to good Sonic level design is fluidity, keeping Sonic moving is as important and his speed itself. Take Sonic 1 for example, all the best levels in that game are filled with slopes and loop de loops that Sonic can roll around and pick up so much speed that he can outrun the screen itself. Sonic Mania keeps such design mentalities in mind, as even in more rigid levels such as Titanic Monarch, skilled players can speedrun it as easily as something like Green Hill Zone.

What’s also important is Sonic’s physics, and by extension, his momentum. This is where Sonic Mania succeeds and something like Sonic 4 fails miserably. How Sonic reacts to the terrain below him is cruical, because if he doesn’t react properly, then the game won’t function right.

Sonic Mania is the first “Classic” Sonic game since 1994 to truly feel like it understood why the Genesis trilogy was so beloved, expanding on what people liked about them in every way. That’s not to say the game is without it’s flaws, however. Some of the bosses way overstay their welcome. Hydrocity Zone Act 2 in particular can really feel like a slog, being two full bosses back to back. Metal Sonic also can be a bit of a drag, but thankfully in the recent 1.4 update, it’s been updated to be slightly more forgiving, adding a checkpoint right before the final phase, which has also been updated quite significantly.

Some of the levels in general can also go on for a really, really long time, and that’s especially a bit of a problem when the save system saves only by Zone and not by Act. What’s especially strange about this is that the Sonic Advance trilogy, Sonic Rush games, and the Sonic 1, 2 and CD remakes all had this figured out, save by Act, and those levels are significantly smaller than those found in Sonic Mania. If I stop playing at Mirage Saloon Act 2, I shold, at the very least, be able to pick it back up again at Mirage Saloon Act 2.

While it’s nice to see the Elemental Shields get some more creative usage, they don’t really get enough of that creative usage. I mean, yeah setting fire to Oil Ocean Zone is pretty cool, and yeah, sticking to the ceilling in Flying Battery Zone is a pretty creative idea, but aside from setting fire to a bridge here or there in Green Hill Zone, that’s kind of it.

Sonic Mania also got paid DLC in the form of Sonic Mania Plus, adding two new characters, Mighty and Ray. It also adds some new Bonus Stages, new Special Stage layouts and a brand new Encore Mode, with new stage color palletes and slightly altered stage layouts. But that’s the operative word: slightly. Mighty is essentially the easy mode of this game, with a ground pound that can destroy certain objects and occasionally lead to different paths, and his shell protects him from certain dangers. Ray is essentially Super Mario World’s Cape Mario in the form of a Sonic the Hedgehog character, allowing him to glide over large distances.

The new level layouts don’t really lend themselves well to the new character’s abilities. By and large, aside from different entity placement, the levels are basically identical. The Special Stages have also seen a significant overhaul, with all new, much more difficult to find Warp Ring placement, the Special Stage design aesthetics going in reverse and being BRUTALLY unforgiving. One slip up, and at that point you may as well throw yourself off the track because you aren’t getting the Emerald.

The only reason I got all the Emeralds in my playthrough of Encore mode is, what I assume was a Debug feature left in the PC version by mistake that allowed you to instantly go up a speed level and the press of a button.

But as cool as it is to see these characters return after over 22 years of absence, and as fun as they are to play, these levels aren’t entirely built around these characters’ abilities. We have fewer Warp Rings and those are moved around quite substanstially, and we have a lot more harsh enemy placement, but that’s all, really.

To be completely honest, I am beyond the point of burnout with Sonic Mania. With over 100 hours on record, gathering all the footage for the video review and getting 100% clear on all files in Encore Mode, I am Mania’d out. I am taking a long, long break from Sonic games until Team Sonic Racing comes out.

Though I sound pretty negative in this review, don’t take that the wrong way; Sonic Mania is a gorgeous, beautiful game that serves as a love letter to fans of Classic Sonic. While not a perfect game, for the first time in many years, we finally have a worthy followup to Sonic’s adventures on the Genesis. If you fell in love with the potbellied hedgehog like I did, Sonic Mania serves as a beautiful reminder of why Sonic set the world on fire.