Still working on my review, but yes, to the surprise of few at this point, the game is fantastic.
It's also weird, because it's easy to not fully appreciate that it is. There was a point where I realized that my head was back in the 2D era of Sonic, and it felt like I was just playing the next natural continuation of the series so of course it was great. Like, it's easy for your brain to take for granted what we've gotten after a while.
I'm not sure I could ever go back to a 2D Sonic that doesn't have the Act variations like Mania does, because man does that keep things feeling so fresh and interesting. Three of the four new stages are great, with
being my person favorite. However, I really didn't care for the fourthI think it's brought down by one of its main gimmicks being completely obnoxious. I'm also not sure that all of the choices for stages to bring back were great either: I'm assuming some people out there like it, but
was an immense low point in the game for me. Also, there's some great ideas going on for the bosses, but some of the earlier ones are just way too easy, making some of that creativity feel wasted.
Oh and FFFFUUUUUU the Sonic 3 bonus stages who on this planet thinks those are fun?!
Still, man, it's so great to have a real (to me) Sonic again, and this is yet another wonderful release in what's been a year of non-stop hits.
