Sonic Mania

So your schoolmate’s dad who worked for Nintendo was right after all. Here is, to all intents and purposes, a 16bit Sonic game on a console belonging to Sega’s biggest rival of the time.

It’s a Mega Drive game in look and in spirit, made by a group of developers that grew up with Sega’s mascot. It soon becomes clear that this team has a profound understanding of how those old games worked. Yet it’s a double-edged sword: Mania carries the ring of authenticity, but it’s faithful to a fault.