Originally published on Trevor Trove on July 23, 2016
Growing up a 90s kid, I was blessed to fight on both sides of the console war between Nintendo and Sega. Well, I was easily in Nintendo’s camp and I just happened to smuggle a Genesis, Game Gear, and Sega CD onto this side of the battlefield. And, of course, the icon of those platforms was none other than Sonic the Hedgehog. And it may be the marketing talking, but the speed and vibrant style of those early Sonic games definitely stood out as something we weren’t seeing on Nintendo.
And after failed attempt after failed attempt to make a Sonic game work in the 3D space, Sega is taking the character back to his roots for his 25th Anniversary in the newly announced Sonic Mania.
As someone who never really delved into any of the 3D Sonic adventures, I’m honestly rather ambivalent about this game. It looks fine, I guess, and seems to be trying to do everything it can to honor the first few games. But I don’t think I’ve played a Sonic game since Sonic and Knuckles. In 1994. More than 20 years ago. Sure, I’ve got fond enough memories of the series but I spent far more time with a couple other releases that year: Earthbound and Final Fantasy VI – both of which I’d much rather see revisited (or have the dang Mother 3 sequel properly localized for North America).
Will I play Sonic Mania when it launches Spring 2017? Probably. I imagine it’ll be a fun game to blow through for a week or so. But I’ll most likely forget about it until then because the nostalgia of the attitude-filled blue hedgehog doesn’t really do anything for me.
That said, hearing the old “Se-ga” intro definitely takes me back…