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(It was so good, in fact, that Sega hired him to recreate old titles for iOS and Android.) Simon Thomley, a fan-game developer known as Stealth, also worked on the game, as did composer Tee Lopes, who remixes videogame tracks on YouTube. Christian Whitehead, aka The Taxman, a lead programmers on the title, made his name designing a homebrew version of the Sonic game engine far better than anything Sega developed. Sega brought in some of the biggest fan creators in the Sonic community. Yet the best thing about Sonic Mania just might be the people behind it. The new, original levels and refreshed classic levels are stunning, wildly creative takes on old ideas. They provide bursts of motion and color, a heady distillation of Sonic's most thrilling parts. While Sonic Mania was a 2D platformer, the studios first game under their new name brings them into the realm of 3D, taking an incredibly vibrant colour palette that would certainly work in any classic Sonic game, and marrying it a world that one could say is mildly reminiscent of the hedgehogs rival Mario. Sega designed them around original set pieces-being zapped with electricity, for example, or funneled through a giant lottery machine-that feel like rewards for conquering each level. Mania hones that approach to the sharpest edge with obstacle courses that constantly propel you forward. But Sonic Mania does more than recreate a classic. I see nothing special in evoking a memory that isn't true to reality. I am often critical of nostalgia in gaming because I believe that trying to recreate old successes is, in and of itself, a waste of time. No, it created this game for people who have loved Sonic all their lives, who remained patient as Sega stumbled through increasingly haphazard ideas about what to do with its once edgy icon. I know that Sega did not create this game, which so lovingly taps idealized memories of the Sonic of yore, for me. So when Sonic Mania unleashes the vibrant sights and sounds of the original 2-D games-games created in no small part to challenge the hegemony of Super Mario-I feel a bit disadvantaged as a player and critic. That limited my adventures with the perennially speedy mascot, and I didn't even know what Chaos Emeralds were until I was in my twenties.
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I remember its first level from brief forays at friend's houses, but I never had a Sega console of my own. I never played much Sonic the Hedgehog as a kid. But Sega has created something else entirely: a resurrection, one that portends a promising future for gaming's most important icons.īut first, a confession. At first glance, it looks like an empty nostalgia trip. It is something of a remake of Genesis-era 2-D Sonic the Hedgehog games, with refurbished stages you may remember and new ones that pay tribute to those of the past. Sonic Mania, the latest installment of Sega's venerable franchise, churns with the improvisational energy of a jazz ensemble.