Sonic Mania

I will die on the hill that this is the best Sonic game of the last 20 years, and that Sonic does best in 2D. Honestly think building off the success of Mania and continue in this art direction.

Still simultaneously has some of the best level design, flow, exploration(Why is there a time limit.), physics, music, and art of any platformer game I have EVER played. You can't play it like a regular platformer, you HAVE to learn the physics. Speed is a REWARD, you have to actually understand the environment if you wanna go fast. Going fast isn't all the game offers either, the levels are absolutely MASSIVE and just traversing them is a true joy. Every level is just a huge sandbox for you to toy around with the momentum and controls in. The physics in this game are so incredibly polished I cannot overstate how insanely funny gameplay of this game looks when you compare it to something like Sonic 4. The only thing that can get annoying is the bosses, but, they're short, so hey(COUGH COUGH SONIC SUPERSTARS). Story also isn't nearly as good as Sonic 3&K, but I'm not really sure who plays classic Sonic games for the story. (not trying to undermine how good that game actually was at storytelling, I love it, they could have tried a little harder here. story is literally just "OooooOOh phantom ruby OOOoooOOOh nostalgia"). I also would have loved to see less reused and more original zones too, the original zones are just perfect. (Why did we have to bring back Oil Ocean Zone???) Even with that said, there's just way too much to love here. Please buy it, you won't regret it. 9/10. I am actually so insanely disappointed in SEGA for releasing Sonic Superstars after this masterpiece instead of an actual sequel. Probably would have been the best platformer ever made. Just saying.

The fact that SEGA wants to distance themselves from "16-bit-like" classic Sonic titles is extremely disappointing; this game is absolutely beautiful.