37. Sonic Mania Plus (Headcannon, Playstation 4, 2018)

Sonic Mania is the most recent mainline 2D Sonic the Hedgehog game. I've never loved the original Sonic games, they've always been good not great: while I think the music and visuals are stellar, the gameplay never really excited me, because it always felt like you were either moving too fast to deal with whatever obstacles may appear, or you were moving slower and it wasn't as fun as moving fast.

Sonic Mania does a lot to improve on this formula, and it's clear that the developers have a lot of respect for the original Sega Genesis games. The levels themselves feel huge, and exploring them is made much more interesting because of just how many different kinds of platforms and gadgets that you can interact with. The game feels maximalist, like they crammed everything they could think of in here, but because the pace is so brisk, it never feels like too much (though it does make me want to only play a few levels at a time).

The music includes both remixes of classic Sonic music, as well as new music in that same style, and it all really works. The game is also a bit less challenging than the Genesis Sonic games, and on top of that the bosses are much more interesting. In the second level, you fall down an tube into Dr. Robotinik's Mean Bean machine, and the boss fight is a round of Puyo Puyo, which was delightful.

5/5, there's a quote on the cover that says "the best Sonic game" and I can't argue.