Escapist's Sonic Mania review:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/117140-Sonic-Mania-Zero-Punctuation
After beating several more levels the game still hasn't really grabbed me,
and I encountered the "10 minute per level" issue he talks about. Again,
it just boils down to the unnecessarily huge stages and how much of a chore
exploration is. It also just highlights another poor design issue with the
game (he describes the very scenario I faced almost perfectly). For some
reason they thought it would be a great idea to only reset the clock if you
die due to time over. Clearly they didn't think that one through very
carefully. Escapist's review is right. The game doesn't need a stage
timer.
