Sonic's rebirth from its roots and from the fans: Sonic Mania
I have always thought about this, but even today after decades I am still surprised by the marketing and dirty tricks that existed in the video game in the 80's, especially those who were the great exponents of those times, Nintendo and Sega since the second became serious in their intentions to compete against the great Japanese empire had some decisive situations to seize the market, One of them was the introduction of Sonic that saw in its first years of life an explosion in terms of gameplay and games, Sonic's titles were so fast and brazen that Mario and Nintendo had to make some extra efforts to prevent Sega from gaining a foothold in the industry, it was a little late but then tragedy struck, Sega began to slacken and its competitors to catch up and eventually to overcome it, by the mid 90's there was no trace of this Nintendo competitor.
Sega lived a few declines since those years, with Sonic at the helm it thought of rebounding now in the gaming market but without having any overwhelming success in the years to come, Sonic had become a guest of luxury other games but no one even remembered the feeling of playing a fresh title of the hedgehog. The blue company needed to change its strategy since several years ago but it has taken almost 4 console cycles to bring to light a project that promises a lot, its alliance with several independent studios has left them a great victory with Sonic Mania, which I think is the rebirth of the hedgehog as well as its closest tribute to all his adventures in the 80s.
At first glance we may be talking about a title that brings nothing new to the table other than being a tribute to all the original levels of the first games of the hedgehog, nothing more false than this, because Sonic Mania is a game that sweeps by its very clear and original approaches, we are playing a Sonic but with infinite variations in each game that give us surreal and even comic moments, added factors in each level that make us enjoy and even challenge us much more, each level is redesigned from its concept to give us that feeling of novelty mixed with nostalgia, the new final bosses stand out for presenting in each zone new mechanics that we will have to master to be able to defeat them, their way of packaging everything makes this work even more endearing, you can see the passion and the almost obsessive dedication to return Sonic to his roots, but to return it is not enough, Christian Whitehead's team does an impeccable job introducing new concepts, much more complex levels that most likely will take us a while before we can pass them in their entirety, but above all it shines in capturing the essence of the original Sonic titles, giving them a twist and making it even more interesting for the player.
12 levels ranging from those we know as the meadows with Green Hill ramps to new areas such as Studiopolis (which this level, I tell you is PERFECT with the others), each area has that air of nostalgia of the old classics but are completely redesigned, both in its structures and objects as in their enemies, giving us several levels where we can fall and follow our own path, the craziest mazes that we can get as well as some secrets that allude to the old installments of Sonic, you can tell it's a game developed by fans for fans as each level is a world that give us the pleasure to explore and pass running, but of course we do not take more than 10 minutes because in that case we are dead. The final bosses are perhaps what I enjoyed the most because each one offers a different challenge to what we see in the original games, the animations are extremely careful in each phase but it feels like one of those cartridge games that you put in the console and you let yourself go for hours.
The platforms in this game are intense to the max, each level is a representation of what were those mythical levels of the first games but combining more aspects of other levels and original designs to give the player a completely new way to overcome not only with Sonic, as this game also integrates other characters like Tails or Knuckles (although others also appear in the Plus version of the game) that have their own circuits where to run and also have their own special abilities and animations so the playable variety in each race will change with each character.
One situation that did leave me wondering is how to define this game, because while it is true that it wants to try to put something on the table what I mostly see are combined ideas but that we have seen before in these titles. Sonic Mania is built much more as a quality tribute to these legendary games but it's hard to see if the hedgehog saga can make a step in today's industry, the 2D and platforming of Sonic are excellent but I still want to see the equivalent of Super Mario Galaxy with a character like Sonic, we'll see what Sega thinks, they have let a team of fans ridicule each of the productions they have let Sonic be made in recent years, I don't know, maybe this is the signal for SEGA to change course and set their sights on independent minds where ideas abound and amaze.
