Sonic Mania + Encore (DLC)

I went back into Sonic Mania the moment Encore dropped, half expecting a thin character pack with a new menu screen tacked on. What I got was something more considered: a full second-pass through the game with a fundamentally different survival system, two long-absent characters who actually play differently from the existing trio, and a local multiplayer bump that quietly turns a solo-friendly platformer into a couch competition. The package is modest in raw content, but the ideas inside it are genuinely good. Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel are the headliners, and they earn it. Mighty's Hammer Drop, a mid-air ground pound, lets him shatter terrain, crush Badniks below him, and shake loose hidden items from the environment. His shell also absorbs one spike hit without losing rings, which makes him the more forgiving pick for players who still fumble the trickier sections. Ray's Air Glide is the opposite philosophy: high-risk, high-reward. Hold the jump button to soar, then angle up and down to trade altitude for speed and back again. Get the rhythm right and Ray reaches shortcuts none of the other characters can touch; miss the timing and you're eating a pit. Both feel built for the levels, not bolted on. Encore Mode is where those characters get their proper showcase. The standard lives system is gone entirely. Instead, you carry a roster of up to five characters as a kind of rotating party: two on-screen at once, swappable on the fly, with random monitors reshuffling your bench as you run. Lose a character and the next one drops in automatically. It plays a little like a retro version of a Donkey Kong Country tag mechanic, which keeps the momentum going even when things go sideways. Zones carry remixed color palettes, altered enemy placement, and new paths built around all five characters' abilities. There is also a new Angel Island Zone opener, though it is brief and bossless, more of a framing device than a full act. The Blue Sphere bonus stages from the base game are replaced with a new pinball table stage, which most players will agree is a welcome trade. Time Attack gets fresh leaderboards for both new characters and all the Encore-remixed stages, and Competition Mode now supports four players locally. The honest knock on Encore is that it does not add a single new full zone. Every stage you run is a variation on something you have already seen, and if you are coming in cold or you have not played Mania to saturation, the remixed layouts alone may not feel like enough. The difficulty swing in Encore Mode can also be severe: play your cards right and it is barely harder than the original; lose your reserve characters before a boss and it sharpens into something genuinely punishing. That variance will feel like a feature to some players and a frustration to others. There are no new achievements on PC either, so completionists get no additional checkbox satisfaction from the run. For anyone who finished Sonic Mania and wanted one solid reason to replay it with fresh eyes, the Encore DLC delivers that reason clearly. The two new characters do mechanical work that justifies their inclusion well beyond nostalgia service, and Encore Mode's party-survival spin keeps the moment-to-moment feel surprising even on zones you know by heart. It is a lean add-on, but a well-crafted one. Alex, Scout Team