Imagine it’s 1992 and someone said to you, “Sonic The Hedgehog will end up on a Nintendo console and it will kick ass”. Your immediate reaction would have been a hefty scoff followed up with telling the peep espousing such absurdity to seek medical advice!
Well, it’s 2018 and Sega’s blue mascot has appeared on many a Nintendo systems, some hits and some misses. Thankfully, Sonic Mania Plus has hit the bulls-eye on the the Nintendo Switch. Seriously, this game is something else – it feels, dare we say, at home on the Switch.
In a nutshell, Sonic Mania Plus is a greatest hits collection and a love-letter to the original Sonic games with a healthy dose of remixed action coupled with new experiences to hook you right in. The game, for the most part, has you playing levels from the originals that have been revamped with additional routes and fun new bosses and twists. Make no bones about it, this package goes right for the player’s sense of 16-bit platforming nostalgia, which there is plenty.
The visuals are nothing short of gorgeous running at a solid 60 fps (docked at 1080p or 720p in handheld mode). Coupled with the visuals is the awesomely cool and funky soundtrack by Tee Lopes. Of course a good looking and funky sounding game doesn’t get too far if its controls aren’t up to standard. Luckily the development team rounded out the package with tight and responsive controls, with the weighting of jumps and game tempo being nigh on perfect. To be honest, we are running out of superlatives to use for this game. The whole package comes together so well that you get an immediate sense of satisfaction as soon as you press play – it is that damn good!
So what’s with the Plus you ask? Well, a few things. For starters, this release introduces two new playable characters, Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel. Both characters have their own unique talents which make them play differently from the rest of the characters. Plus also provides not two, but four-player simultaneous racing action through the campaign levels, splitting the TV into quadrants, a la Mari Kart 64 style.
Oh yeah, the physical Sonic Mania Plus edition also comes with a 32-page art book. The emphasis on this companion piece is on the production artwork – very cool indeed. Another pretty cool surprise is the reversible cover that looks like a late-era Mega Drive game. We had to reverse our cover immediately to give us that 16-bit feels.
If you have been holding onto your Sega Mega Drive to just play Sonic The Hedgehog games, the good news is you can now either pack it away or get rid of it! Sonic’s new home is on the Nintendo Switch, and it’s brilliant.
We don’t usually provide scores for our reviews, but if we did, this would be a solid gold 9.99/10! Sonic Mania Plus on the Nintendo Switch should be an insta-buy!
Buy Sonic Mania Plus here.
Disclosure: Sonic Mania Plus [Nintendo Switch] was kindly provided by Five Star Games for this review.