Before the addition of encore mode, Sonic Mania was a pretty good game! It was one of the best Sonic games I've ever played in awhile, was. But now we're introduced to Sonic Mania Plus, an expansion pack that includes 2 Extra characters and a remix mode of the campaign.
Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the flying squirrel have been missing for along time, and now they are back. Mighty has a stomp ability which made him invulnerable to spiky obstacles and Ray is pretty much the cape feather from Super Mario World. The Encore mode is pretty much a recolor of the Mania mode with a few minor changes to the level layouts, but you'll barely notice them since not all has been given a complete makeover. Because of that Encore mode feels like padding to me, just replaying the same Mode with a different coat of paint feels underwhelming and sort of lazy. Besides that there's a pinball bonus level that replaces the dozens of blue sphere mini games once you've completed all of them, the problem is its not very fun to mess around in, something about it feels too flat and it's not like the other weird pinball Sonic games for sure, but something felt missing or incomplete about it.
While it's not completely terrible I can't help but feel that this mode brings down the game for me, It's still a wonderful time and I have no problem replaying it, its just a little too long and could of used some fine tuning to help broad out the pace of the game better.