I'm confused about the people saying this comes off as a fangame. Despite all of the sprite work people are pointing out as fangame staples, none of that matters to the population as a whole because most non-ultra Sonic fans haven't played fangames, or many of them, so they wouldn't know these are 'staples' in fan games. And there isn't anything innately bad about their inclusion in Sonic Mania anyway. I'm starting to think that there isn't anything Sega can do to completely please the Sonic fans-- if Sega hiring competent fans-turned-developers to create an original game with authentic physics and a look that evokes the look and feeling of a lost 32 bit 2D Sonic game isn't enough to please you, then nothing will.
I'm buying the shit out of this, and then I'm buying it again, and I'm going to do everything I can to convince my friends to buy it, and then I'm probably going to buy some copies for my friends that refuse to buy it. This is Sega squarely listening to their fans and actually executing on that idea, not some half assed 2.5D effort that was shitted out with the noise of dying cats