The two new characters – Mighty the armadillo and Ray the flying squirrel – add their own thing to the game as well. The original didn’t lack either of those things, but it’s nice to see a set of passionate people who aren’t settling for good enough.
There’s always the worry, when messing with a good thing, that tweaking it will end up making it worse, but Whitehead and crew have done an admirable job here the original Mania stages were already grand, but Plus’s levels add new verticality and replayability. Sonic Mania Plus further remixes the levels from the original release. In this regard, Sonic Mania Plus is very much like last year’s release because it’s built on the back of that game. Most of Mania’s appeal comes from this reimagining of the past: only five of the thirteen original levels in Sonic Mania were new, but they’re just as lovingly crafted and fun to play as the remixed levels. Most of the levels are remakes of classic areas like Green Hill Zone or Flying Battery Zone, and feature both new and familiar bosses to tackle. There’s no annoying animal friends, no obnoxious story, and no pointless nonsense. It feels like a sequel to Sonic and Knuckles that got shoved into a box and forgotten for two decades. The graphics are better, the controls are tighter, and the music is on point. Mania is the way you remember the Genesis titles, not the way they actually were. If you haven’t played Sonic Mania, it’s a retro homage to the old Sonic games on the Genesis. "Mighty’s ground smash allows you to discover hidden areas lurking beneath your feet, and adds new paths to the game’s already impressively varied levels." The question is, can you tweak something that was already nearly perfect and make it better? Plus adds two new characters, a new mode, and a number of other things to Mania’s already great core. If the original release of Sonic Mania was the version that played in theaters, Sonic Mania Plus is the director’s cut you get on home media.
But Christian Whitehead, Headcannon, and PagodaWest Games apparently aren’t satisfied with excellent. Spoiler alert: it’s excellent and it deserves both the fan and critical acclaim that has been showered on it since launch. I was lucky enough to review the original game when it released. But pretty good is a hard fall from the days of the Genesis and the fact that the game was followed by Sonic: Lost World, Sonic Forces, and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric didn’t give people much hope that SEGA had learned from what made Generations work. That the best game of the modern era prior to this point was probably Sonic Generations was a scathing indictment of a franchise that once stood shoulder to shoulder with Mario. Prior to the release of Sonic Mania, things were looking pretty rough for SEGA’s Blue Blur.
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