I first experienced Sonic 1/CD/2 through the Christian Whitehead ports, which still hold up well today, even with touch controls. I’ve already got Mania on the Switch, but it just felt right to have it with the others, plus it was a nice excuse to replay it. The controller support is great, and the touch controls work well for regular platforming. My only complaint with them is that blue spheres can be kinda hard to control with touch controls, but it’s something that can be learned quickly. At the time of this review there’s a glitch in the D.A. Garden where the song immediately before the one you select always plays instead, hopefully that gets fixed. But overall, one of the best Sonic games ever, if you have a Netflix account and have been considering this game, definitely go for it.

So sonic mania, everybody knows it and everybody loves it but this just doesn’t hit the same as the Nintendo switch. I have it on switch and it is a phenomenal game. Probably my favorite sonic game right next to sonic three and knuckles and overall the Nintendo switch version is a amazing game that you should definitely give a play. It’s not just on attend a switch so if you have another consul available definitely play it… but this version just doesn’t hit the same. First of all the menu is just so sad. Not like the way that it makes you sad. It’s just super disappointing. the switch version was so much cleaner. And Nintendo switch HAD TOUCH CONTROL THEY COULD HAVE HAD KEPT IT THE SAME!!! and that’s not all the buttons to move around. It just looks so awesome. They could’ve just used the ones from the sonic one and two heck, even Sonic CD touch controls looked better than this! They just don’t mix well at all with the high detailed graphics of mania. And I’m not done yet for some reason. My game lags really really badly one second you’ll be going to the normal frames per second and the next second it will CHUG TILL LIKE THREE FRAMES PER SECOND. IT’S SO ANNOYING. Oh, and this is probably a problem on my end, but I’m still gonna take points away because of it. And overall just play the Nintendo switch version or any other port of sonic mania just not this one!

Don't get me wrong, I love this game (I've played it more times than I can count on my Switch) and I was excited to play it again on mobile. However, this port has a few issues which make it a lot less fun.Probably the worst issue is the audio. The songs seem to play a bit slower than they're supposed to, and stutters and crackling are very common. It's a big deal in this game because it has such a great soundtrack, so it being mangled detracts from the experience. In addition, there's some minor but noticeable slowdown throughout the entire game, and it gets worse when getting hit and losing a lot of rings. I'm playing the game on an iPhone 14 Pro, which absolutely should not be struggling. The game works just fine on the Switch, so a phone that is substantially more powerful shouldn't perform worse than a tablet with specs from 2015. The game is still fun, which is what really matters, but to see such a great game released in a state like this is disappointing, to say the least. Here's hoping a patch will come by and fix these issues.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the menu before. Even with playing it on my phone other ways before this Netflix port (through remote connection software, etc), the menu looked fine. It's like Netflix took it, decided to botch it up and throw it back in the game. I'm not even sure if it was intentional or not, using the controller and pausing the game, I can scroll through the menu options as expected, but cannot select exit. On my iPad, there's this line underneath the game screen that's always there. Especially noticeable when the screen goes black during a fade to the next level or scene. I'd argue that I'd rather just pay a one time price to get this game, but if Netflix is the only way to get one of my favorite games onto my iPhone and iPad officially, then I guess I'll have to take it. Also, please add support for keyboards! I may raise it up a star just for that. Also, why is Sonic completely off center in all the images on the iPad App Store page?