Then I started Mania, and yeah, this is only after Green Hill Zone, but it is hard to escape the profound feeling of *what is the point?*

And yeah, this is only after Chemical Plant Zone, but it is hard to escape the profound feeling of what is the point?. CPZ:A2 is God's gift to anyone wanting to demonstrate that popular Sonic is pure hold-rightism. It introduces new gimmicks left and right but never fucking stops for a second to let me interact with any of them. It's like a caricature of the boring cutscene pipes first introduced in... Chemical Plant Zone Act 2 Version 1.0! And come on, are all the Act 1s going to be 90% cloned from the originals? Why not jump straight into the new stuff? Two zones in, they already feel like filler.

Finally with Studiopopolis Zone we enter fresh territory. I don't want to judge the new material too seriously on first pass, though I think it's fair to say Studio P. is essentially a reflection on Carnival Night. Both have the floating bumper formations, and the sproingy things feel like a less interesting version of Carnival Night's balloons, all globbed together without any suspension. The falling stage lights aren't really threaded throughout the level either, though they at least provide some self-sustaining challenges. Hold-righting is still in excess but not nearly as bad as CPZ2, and certain layouts like the revolving bumper crescent seem to be used repeatedly without development. I had no sense of an overarching structure of the level, but that's exactly the kind of conclusion I don't expect to be able to draw after a single run.

I don't think I can construct a paragraph about Flying Battery. It was... there. Was the only new gimmick the trash chutes? That's not really an idea. It really cannot be overstated how boring these re:Act 1s are. The Sonic franchise reuses settings a lot - too much, in fact, and this trend was set as early as Emerald Hill Zone - but that can be interesting in its own way. New aesthetics and audiovisual styles can be reinvigorating, fresh mechanics can recontextualize old challenges, and elements can be rearranged in novel or ironic ways. Even at their most derivative, sequels like Sonic 4 and Generations get some juice from the former two principles. Mania, locked into its traditional pixel art and player mechanics, needs to rely entirely on the third, innovating in the stage design. Not only does it fail to do so, it happily chooses not to try. Old layouts and challenges are copy-pasted exactly from their source material.

Looks the same, plays the same, is the same. It's a surreal experience, like Gus van Sant's notorious shot-for-shot Psycho remake, to be playing something that's exactly the same but cost fresh money. It's insulting too, and I'd prefer to believe The CW made this call to meet restraints on the schedule or budget, because otherwise it's extremely cynical as a comment on just how brainless gamers are. While critics and audiences joined voices in a collective Fuck You to Psycho '98, Sonic Mania has been greedily consumed and enthusiastically praised, leaving one to wonder if such cynicism on the developer's part would indeed be ill-placed. I'm being pretty harsh, but keep in mind that these duplicated levels constitute an entire third of the game, and the Act 2's aren't terribly impressive themselves.