A Review of Sonic Mania Adventures 2 & 3

As much as I wanted to review episode 2 by itself I found that the content in the episode wasn't as substantial as I thought it would be so I decided to wait for episode 3 to come out that way I could review the two together to make up for the lack of substantial content.

It should be noted that episodes 2 and 3 are also animated shorts that move very fast.

It's their speed that surprised me as while Sonic is in episode 2, episode 3 lacks Sonic entirely but it's shorter than episodes 1 and 2 and has no reason to move as fast as it does.

But anyway, let's review!

Episode 2: "Sonic and Tails"

We open up with our adorable helicopter butt working on repairing a biplane when Sonic shows up. Of course Tails is overjoyed but Sonic gives Tails the little computer/Chaos Emerald detector thingy that he took from Eggman in episode 1. That little computer thing detects an emerald nearby and then we cut to Eggman digging up the ground for the red emerald - Sonic ran off to deal with him and left tails behind.

Dealing with Eggman gets Sonic whacked back to the plane by the ocean (resulting in my favorite expression in this show so far) and seeing this, Tails offers to help which Sonic gladly accepts and they end up defeating Eggman and his drill unit/robot thing by working together. Pretty simple episode with not a lot of substantial content worth reviewing.

The main highlight that's likely going to keep people coming back to this series is the fact that a new character is introduced each episode. In the case of episode 2 we got to see Tails. We got to see him working alongside Sonic and beating Eggman together, we get some very brotherly vibes from the way he and Sonic interact which I definitely like seeing from the two of them.

The episode ends with them each with an emerald in hand.

Conclusion: This episode was not worth reviewing on it's own.

This episode doesn't even really highlight Tails that much in my opinion. While we do see him in action and being an active agent in the story compared to more recent games where his badassness has been replaced with an over reliance on Soniku-niichan to help him when he's afraid even though it's been established that he's able to move past his fears and accomplish great things alone (just look at his Sonic Adventure 1 story mode).

Honestly for an episode with Tails proudly displayed in the thumbnail, most of the episode had me paying attention to SONIC and the way he behaved with or without Tails.

That was another reason I found myself unable to review this episode on it's own: my attention kept diverting to Sonic because Mania Adventures does give him a very interesting personality that I wasn't expecting to see!

By far my favorite Sonic personality is the one in Sonic X as he's a very well rounded, balanced character with multiple sides to his personality. He's a bit arrogant but not an asshole, he's a hero but he also has days where he wants to be lazy and not go anywhere or do anything, he even has a sweet side to him that SEGA isn't allowing in Sonic games or comics anymore - like how he goes through the trouble of picking flowers for Cream the Rabbit, wearing a seashell bracelet Amy was trying to give him for good luck and even the heavily implied love confession in episode 52 that likely made every SonAmy fan piss their pants while squeeing! He even has some decent character interactions with human characters in the show even though the humans are really shoehorned at times.

Of course Sonic X was just dealing with Modern Sonic and Sonic Mania Adventures is dealing with Classic Sonic who is his own character at this point.

Classic Sonic has been animated before back in the 90s in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog as well as Sonic SatAM - the latter being the show that established the fact that Sonic could tell a serious and darker story if he wanted to (keyword: wanted - as in: if SEGA wants Sonic to tell a serious story).

The Classic Sonic of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and SatAM is definitely his own weird character as well and a product of a time where just about every game or toy line was getting a cheap cartoon adaptation. To me it feels like they were still trying to give him a somewhat defined character in terms of personality so they threw stuff at the wall, saw what stuck and those traits got carried over into the Sonic in later games, other animations and comics. The 90s was definitely a weird period of experimentation in our culture...

Another big difference between the Classic Sonic in the 90s cartoons and the Classic Sonic in Mania Adventures is that Mania Adventures is trying to tie into an upcoming game, while the cartoons the 90s are not considered canon by Sonic Team. To those who want to use the comics to try to convince me that those characters are considered canon - keep in mind that those are it's own continuities. SEGA just gives a lucky comic company the license to use their characters for a series of comics that can last however long SEGA permits. Those comic companies can also make their own characters for this universe and because they own those specific characters, they can do as they please with them and if SEGA wanted to borrow them, they'd need the rights for it. These sorts of things are a big circle of rights that often gets bent out of shape and can be muddled by lawyers and rights holders.

You can see a few photos of Sally Acorn in this panel.
(Sonic Forces: Looming Shadow)

Of course there will always Easter eggs like character cameos, hinting at a character in a line of dialogue, even describing a character with words - those sorts of mentions are acceptable ways of bringing other characters into your canon without having to worry about the rights holders getting on your case. But does this make those characters from a non-canon work actually CANON? I'd say no.

Currently the Sonic franchise is obsessed with relying on nostalgia, giving into some fan demand, relying a lot on fourth wall breaking and very flawed story telling that could use some heavy edits and could take a few more changes if they weren't relying entirely on Sonic to keep people coming back for the good, bad and ugly. Even Sonic Mania Plus is doubling down on this nostalgia-reliant trend by not just being an updated re-release of Sonic Mania (which came out in 2017) but also with two additional characters that the fan base loves but hasn't seen in years due to the copyright holder of Mighty and Ray not budging until now.

Due to these issues with copyrights and license agreements - the version of Sonic from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and SatAM are likely versions of Sonic we'll never see again because while SEGA licensed the product (Sonic) to DIC Entertainment to co-produce the animations that doesn't mean they're going to accept that material into their canon for Sonic and even if they did want to - they may have to go through a series of lawyers and through several rights holders to do that (and the same would apply to Sonic X - but almost nobody likes the human characters from X anyway). SatAM did almost have a shot at having it's own game but the proposal was turned down by SEGA who felt the demo for this proposed SatAM-based game was more like Metal Gear Solid than Sonic... If that game had been greenlit by SEGA, that could've resulted in a future where the characters from that canon are in the Modern series of games and not stuck in comics but that's not the reality we're currently in.

The reason why I mention these topics: the Sonic in Sonic X, 90s animated version of Classic Sonic, right holders, characters that aren't really accepted by SEGA as canon and so forth ties back into Sonic Mania Adventures as a whole...

Mania Adventures is giving us it's own version of Classic Sonic that is pretty much the opposite of the animated Sonic from the 90s. The Classic Sonic of the 90s was highly experimental in his characterization in every aspect (giving him a voice, interests aside from going fast, how he treats other characters and so forth). This Classic Sonic is mute but still has an attitude - one that's not entirely in your face but an attitude none the less. He can be a little reckless but is a quick learner. He's capable of empathy. He's capable hero but can also get hurt...

To me it feels like Sonic Team is trying to get back a little of that Sonic from Sonic X and mixing that personality in with the cute and mute Classic Sonic from Sonic Generations to get Mania Sonic. I'd say it's a pretty good fit for the character and whether Mania Sonic grows up to be Modern Sonic or Boom Sonic or some other Sonickier Sonic this dimension will never get to meet is beyond my knowledge and out of my hands - but as he is Mania Adventures Sonic is a pretty solid personality type for the character and a big reason I couldn't review episode 2 on it's own: I couldn't focus on Tails for the episode because I didn't get much Tails material out of it. It all came back to Sonic and his surprisingly solid characterization in this series.

To me it's a sign that SEGA wants to try to get it's blue hedgewhore's image back together and his fans' good graces again. Of course not every single fan will be satisfied but as long as the character can maintain his popularity that's what'll matter most (for better or worse). As someone who's still somewhat outside of the fandom I can appreciate this movement while also being critical of it - which I think puts me in a somewhat unique position when it comes to reviewing Sonic-related stuff... I didn't grow up liking the character or hating the character so my strength here lies in indifference and being overly critical over what makes a good character and story.

Author, get on with it...

It's been getting me more involved in the community and the fandom that actually makes me feel bad for this hedgewhore sometimes for reasons better explained another day...

Onto Episode 3: & Knuckles

Where I couldn't talk about in episode 2 regarding Tails, this episode pretty much forces you to focus on Knuckles. And it's a really nice little episode. My only complaint is that it moves way too fast for a character like Knuckles.

The episode is completely without Sonic save for a tiny Sonic in Knuckles' imagination when he's thinking about who might want to steal the Master Emerald (which THANK THE ALL MIGHTY CHAOS - HE'S ACTUALLY WATCHING IT FOR ONCE!). While we don't get to see Sonic in the episode it appears that one of my worries for the series that I talked about in my review of episode 1 has tried to fly his floofy butt into my heart and failed... Of course I'm talking about Ray...

Ray the Flying Squirrel makes his first animated appearence in Sonic Mania Adventures episode 3 "& Knuckles" and honestly I don't see the appeal of this character... I know it's something t do with the comics and an arcade game he was in as a substitute for Tails but he doesn't appeal to me. He feels like an inferior version of Tails just based on character design and even Knuckles looks offput by him in the episode.

I feel like this may be a reference to the poster Easter Egg
in Sonic Generations in which Mighty is on a missing persons/
wanted poster - but maybe I'm just digging for trivia...

Of course the time slot he was given was already small combined with the fact that this episode was under 3 minutes long already and they may do something else with him within the last 3 episodes of what's supposed to be a 6 episode miniseries that might make me change my opinion on him. Currently all I think of when I see Ray is "why?".

Based on his actions in this episode alone, he's looking for Mighty the Armadillo. That tells me that they're still friendly in this new canon they're being brought into and that they're used to working together. Not necessarily a bad thing - he could be more reliant on his Sonic-equivalent than Tails is which is a nice contrast. After all, Tails has been proven to have some level of independence when Sonic isn't around - more recent Sonic titles where Tails seems to be fearful bordering on over-reliant on Sonic for his social needs be damned. Ray does also try to touch the Master Emerald which makes me think he's a curious person and even his expression is somewhat childlike (making me question his age).

Overall, not much to say about Ray as I have no personal attachment to the character nor have I heard anything about him that was interesting. This episode did make me look forward to Mighty though - as I HAVE heard of other fans (and older fans) of the Sonic franchise say that he actually has done things that were cool, mainly in the Archie comics. I sort of feel like Ray being here was just to hype up Mighty and if that's the case it certainly works for old-time Mighty fans and people like myself who are still new to the fandom and are still wondering who certain characters are outside of the multitude of characters introduced in the mainstream games.

So what's my conclusion for episodes 2 and 3?

Meh... They're ok.

It's in reviewing these two episodes that the show started feeling slightly like a commercial for Sonic Mania Plus which was a concern of mine back in my review of Sonic Mania Adventures episode 1.

Episode 1 was sort of a perfect debut episode. It was short, simple, to the point and highlighted it's main character.

Episode 2 made me assume it was going to focus on Tails, but instead drew most of my attention to Sonic and how he treated Tails - making me hope that SEGA takes their relationship to the sort of brotherly direction that is used to be in.

Episode 3 was also nice but nothing too impressive in my opinion. For Ray's debut they didn't do too much with him that would make me instantly care about him as a character - but it did make Knuckles look cool and put him back at a level of intelligence where he knows to watch the Master Emerald but he IS capable of getting outwitted. If his snark towards Sonic returns that would also be a nice thing to see in this current interpretation of Classic Knuckles.

And while I know that my reviewing episodes 2 and 3 so late in the series is somewhat futile as the day I'm publishing this post, episode 5 is going to come out BUT this post did sit around needing to be finished for a while. I did mean to post it sometime in June, but the talk of Sonic's character portrayal evolved into my essay on Sonic's Character Portrayal Based on Voice Actor that same night (which ended up being a hit on Amino and was perfect timing as the flippin' hedgehog turned 27 the day I published it on Blogger).

The Morale: sometimes you need to pursue a certain idea when you get it.

In addition: the fact that I personally felt that episodes 2 and 3 didn't have enough content to warrant reviewing each episode independently - I thought I'd repeat the same for episodes 4 and 5. The last episode in the 6 episode series I'll review on it's own.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy this review and I hope to see you again soon!