Netflix Proves You Don’t Need A Console With Greatest Sonic Game Ever Made

All you have to do is open the app on your Android or iOS device—apologies to that one person still rocking a Blackberry—and go to the games section. There, you will find games like Sonic Mania that you can download for free with your Netflix subscription.

Initially developed for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Windows, Sonic Mania was past due for a mobile port like the one Netflix offers.

As far as the story goes, it’s the classic tale of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles vs Doctor Eggman that you know and love. This time around, Eggman—Robotnik if you’re nasty—has some new robotic henchmen in the form of the egg-shaped Hard-Boiled Heavies.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but the classic 2-D Sonic games weren’t “All that and a bag of chips,” as people used to say in the ’90s. Sometimes, we’d substitute “side of fries” for “bag of chips,” but that’s beside the point.

Much like my cringy Xennial slang, the “classic” Sonic games are outdated and better left in the past with Ecto Cooler and Hit Clips.

Don’t get me wrong—Sonic is an icon, and I’ll still occasionally pick up Sonic 2 or Sonic 3 and Knuckles when nostalgia hits. But it doesn’t take long for the series’ cheap enemy placement to rear its ugly head, and pretty soon, I’m reaching for something from the era that holds up like Super Mario World.

Netflix’s Sonic Mania, however, doesn’t suffer from the same problems as classic Sonic.

Sonic Mania plays the way you remember Sonic 3 playing—not like Sonic 3, but the way you remember the game playing. It sounds confusing, but if you haven’t played one of the Sega Genesis Sonic’s in a while, hop on Netflix and go a few rounds with Sonic Mania.

Chances are, it will feel super familiar. Once you’ve done that, fire up Sonic 3 if you can play it and see how it feels.

Switching to an old Sonic after playing Sonic Mania on Netflix will make you appreciate it even more. If you’ve ever played the abysmal Sonic 4, you know how bad it can get when programmers try to “capture” that classic Sonic feel. This isn’t that.

Sega is one of the only video game companies not to bust fangamers and ROM hackers. Instead, they encourage them.

As a result, lead developer Christian “Taxman” Whitehead had years of practice taking apart Sonic games and rebuilding them from the bottom up before Sega hired him to lead the Sonic Mania project. The results speak for themselves.

Sonic Mania‘s creator managed to pay homage to Sonic’s golden age while improving upon it. Settling on a style halfway between the Genesis and the Sega Saturn, Sonic Mania isn’t a clone of the 16-bit Sonic games but an evolution. Mania is the 32-bit sidescrolling Sonic title we never got back in the day.

Now, thanks to Netflix, you can experience Sonic Mania wherever and whenever you want. All you need is an Android or iOS device and a Netflix subscription, and you’re good to go.