2. Sonic Mania (2017, Switch / PS4 / Xbox One / PC)

Sonic Mania is pure joy distilled into video game form. It’s like being nine years old again, waking up on Saturday morning, and sitting down to a big bowl of sugary cereal just in time to catch your favorite cartoons. Later your mom says she’s going to drop you off at your aunt’s house, where you’ll spend hours playing through all the Sonic games on your cousin’s Sega Genesis. Sonic Mania is Sega finally heeding the fandom’s plea for a new Sonic game just like the old ones from the ‘90s. Remixed classic zones like Chemical Plant and Flying Battery brimmed with new mechanics and bosses to fight, while entirely new level experiences like Studiopolis and Titanic Monarch incorporated choice callbacks to the Genesis games, like the Crimson Eye miniboss from Sonic & Knuckles. Sonic Mania is every little thing that worked so well in Sonic’s early years—the spin dash, the shield powers, Tails’ flight, and more—stitched together into a quilt of color, love, and incredible music.

I teared up writing this, that’s how special Sonic Mania is. My cousin would have loved this game the way I do and it is the standard to which all future Sonic games should be evaluated. The reason it’s not number one is that, in this case, deference should be shown to its ancestor, without which we would not have Sonic Mania today.