All right, I finally broke down and got this game a handful of hours ago after hearing everyone and their grandmother sing its praises. A few things to bear in mind:
-I've never been a Sonic fan. I don't hate the series or anything, I've just been ambivalent about the whole thing.
-I've hardly played any Sonic games.
-The ones I did dabble in (Sonic 2 and Sonic Adventure 2) were distinctly "meh" for me.
With that in mind, you may be surprised to learn that this is my current reaction:
I've only gotten to Flying Battery Zone so far, but I've been loving (nearly) every second of this game. The colorful visuals, the fantastic level design, the detailed animation and environments, the AMAZING soundtrack...you get the picture. Everyone else seems to be approaching this from the perspective of a longtime/former fan, but take it from an outsider; this is one bang-up game regardless of its forebears.
Actually, there is one element that made me wax nostalgic in a different way. As I was careening off springs and barreling through loop-de-loops on Studiopolis Zone Act 1 (groovin' to the stupendous beats as I went), I suddenly had an epiphany. I was feeling an odd sensation, something I haven't gotten from a video game in quite some time...pure, child-like joy, like I was eight years old again playing on the neighbor kid's SNES. In this day and age when the games industry shakes down consumers with all manner of sleazy business practices and exploitative Skinner Box microtransactions and loot boxes, it was a welcome change indeed to find myself enjoying a game that was feature complete at launch and focused on fun for its own sake rather than a means to bleed your wallet dry.[footnote]Admittedly this is from the PS4 version; I may have been singing a different tune if I had gotten the Denuvo-riddled PC port.[/footnote]
The one aspect of the game I haven't really enjoyed are the blue sphere bonus stages. I get that they're a callback to one of the games in the series (Sonic 3, I think?), but they're just too clunky and unforgiving for my tastes. Fortunately they aren't all that important and are easy to ignore.
So yeah, Sonic Mania. Killer game, even if you don't know what a Sonic is. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHqRHDZ6C5Y] Might even be GotY for me.