Sonic Mania Plus! Sonic Mania Adventures!!

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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Jasper »

Madmya wrote:I'm just wondering what do you bring to the world. I mean, you're just a parasite here, you sound like a parasite in real life...
My ability to deep-throat up to 9.5 inches! :up:

What about you Madmya? What are you bringing to the world besides being a cuckold and jacking off in the corner of the Broncos locker room as you watch your girl being passed around by your favourite NRL players. 8)
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Madmya »

So you actually have a job? A real job, not sucking dicks.
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Jasper »

I am a V.I.P Escort. I make more in under a month than your peasant arse makes in an entire year! :up:

Just last week I made $6500 in under 45 minutes by agreeing to eat out a Pakistani senior government official's arsehole. You can just imagine what that tasted like, but nothing a little listerine wasn't able to fix. :)
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Madmya »

Even for something that is generally free, you want money for it. I'm pretty sure that Pakistani official thinks you are nothing, it's hard to argue against him.

It's just so sad you say you're a VIP Escort with pride.
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Jasper »

You silly little suburbanite peasant! :down:

You actually think I expect to be respected by any of my clients? After performing sexual acts on me so damn degrading that most women would NEVER agree to...you think I expect them to then look me in the eyes with any respect? :?

I don't give a fuck what any of them think....as long as I am successfully emptying out their pockets! 8)

Your euphoria may be living in some asbestos ridden fibro shit-hole in Queensland with a dykey-haired chubby wife and annoying as fuck freckle-faced kids, as you all sit around your Fantastic Furniture dining room table and dressed top to bottom in Best & Less trackies whilst scoffing down on no frills baked beans like the bogan Queenslander trash you are. :redface:

I myself am a lady of leisure and DEMAND the finer things in life! 8)
Last edited by Jasper on 18 Aug 2017 12:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Madmya »

Exactly. Contribute nothing. Take, take, take. Your existence brings nothing to the world.
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Jasper »

Exactly! :up:

In fact it is YOU as a taxpayer who pays for my comprehensive monthly STD testing, as well as paying the tens of thousands of dollars it will cost over a lifetime for my male to female hormone replacement therapy medication. :)

Furthermore tax payers like you have paid (via Medicare) $14,370 towards my breast implant and gender reassignment surgery! :keke:

It's good to "take, take, take", and get away with it! 8)
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Madmya »

Well I guess that's wrapped up then!
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by GameHED »

This is why you should all vote for a tiny government and become libertarian so your tax dollars can go to fixing up sonic the hedghog games and not spent on helping people who are leeching off the hard working bogans who could be spending their money on indie games instead of fat alien hogbeasts disguised as female humans who don't exercise and think they are boys by wearing pants, growing facial hair and armpit hair and censoring all the games whilst promoting fat acceptance shit in the mainstream media.

Sega said they were going to bring back old franchises again. Where is the announcement of Streets of Rage indie game that remasters the originals in HD with amazing sprites that look like anime as seen in Arc System Works DragonBall FighterZ game? Come on sega stop fucking around. We want that.

Why is it that Rayman beat Sonic in the HD 2d handrawn race? Where is all their money going towards? Bloody PC games that's where! Nobody cares about pc strategy shit. The fans should be in charge of sega imo.

Imagine if nintendo went third party and were on PC? They would end up like sega. No coming back to old mascots fro mthe past. And games with no soul or passion behind them. Notice how sega never continue the series that do well like Sonic All Star Racing? How come they don't make more of those? Notice how they didn't even bother to bring Phantasy Star Online 2 to consoles? Wasn't that supposed to even go to the Vita? They are lazy fucks. The only good thing is Yakuza. If Sega were like nintendo imagine what an open world phantasy star game would look like? Something like Xenoblade that's what. But sega are too busy not caring about fans anymore which is why their brand is pretty much unrecognisable by today's kids compared to where they were in the 90s with the sonic games. Thanks a lot candy arse/reptilians/pc tards. You ruined them. The least they could do is try making a Wonderboy 3D game that is like Zelda styled adventure game with lots of places to explore and things to kill. Cel Shaded Wonderboy game with a world similar to a dragon quest game would be cool. Yakuza is a great series but it can only appeal to the older crowd. They need to constantly pump out mascots the way nintendo have always done to reach the kid-adult crowd and try to go back to the way they were in the 90s where original ideas were common. How about a hyper gorey altered beast remake that takes on the God of War series? hire platinum to bring this old arcade game back as an action game with story and deep combat? I get it: some peple like the 3D sonic games. But while you are making these, why not do new shit?
Last edited by GameHED on 18 Aug 2017 08:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Candy Arse »

So is it just me or does the PS4 version feel more responsive than the Switch version?
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Madmya »

So sick of the sonic 3 special stages, I've been ignoring them lately.
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Candy Arse »

I'd have much preferred the special stages from Sonic 1 or 2
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Madmya »

Me too. As long as Tails wasn't delayed by half a second like in Sonic 2. :suicide:
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by unfnknblvbl »

I'd have preferred an original creation. I mean sure, keep Blue Spheres around, but as a surprise boss level or something.
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by jizzlobber »

I like the sonic 3 special stages but nothing can beat Saturn sonic 3d blast special stages.
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Twiztid Elf »

Jasper wrote: Your euphoria may be living in some asbestos ridden fibro shit-hole in Queensland with a dykey-haired chubby wife and annoying as fuck freckle-faced kids, as you all sit around your Fantastic Furniture dining room table and dressed top to bottom in Best & Less trackies whilst scoffing down on no frills baked beans like the bogan Queenslander trash you are. :redface:
Holy shit I laughed hard at this.
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Twiztid Elf »

Hercy wrote:Shit, I think I'll switch on my Switch tonight for the first time since March.
I remember reading this last week and thinking to myself I must respond.
I'm stunned that you're not enjoying Switch Herc.

I don't want to shill or sound like a Jasper post, but I'm totally digging the switch, and it really is the perfect compliment to a PS4.
Between Zelda, MK8D, Splatoon2, and now Sonic Mania, it's been phenomenal. And I can't wait for Mario Rabbids, Odyssey, and probably FE Warriors.
I'll probably end up caving on Puyo Puyo Tetris at some point aswell. I feel like scum for how much time I've played the demo.
Nintendo are absolutely crushing it this year.
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Megaman »

Jasper wrote:Exactly! :up:

In fact it is YOU as a taxpayer who pays for my comprehensive monthly STD testing, as well as paying the tens of thousands of dollars it will cost over a lifetime for my male to female hormone replacement therapy medication. :)

Furthermore tax payers like you have paid (via Medicare) $14,370 towards my breast implant and gender reassignment surgery! :keke:

It's good to "take, take, take", and get away with it! 8)
Maybe with that $6.5k/hour you earn you could buy some health insurance? Or not, I'm sure the med students at you local public hospital did a great job on your boobs.
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Jasper »

The problem with you Megaman is you think you're so clever & quick-witted, when you're really a fucking idiot who doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about! :redface:

Who said anything about me having surgery through the public health system? :?

For unique circumstances like mine, gender reassignment surgery and breast implant surgery is claimable through Medicare. Medicate don't pay for the whole thing of course, but just a portion. It's like for instance having to pay say $100 to consult with your private practice GP, and then upon making a claim with Medicare, you're paid back a portion.

My surgeon is a private practice surgeon (literally the best in the country for gender reassignment), and I had my surgery in a private hospital (with my private hospital room and operating theatre costs paid for by HCF). 8)
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by PhoneMonkey »

Jasper wrote:In fact it is YOU as a taxpayer who pays for my comprehensive monthly STD testing
Monthly STD testing? Apart from the fact I couldn't imagine anyone going anywhere near you with their dick (and I hope for their sake they double bag), its dirtbags like you, along with the 'Stealthers', that are probably responsible for the rise in STDs in this country.

You're a piece of shit :down:
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Jasper »

Oh look, it's cocksucker PhoneMonkey! My little peasant tranny stalker who continues to fight for my attention by following me into every thread! :redface:

What's wrong dick breath? :?

Are you angry that YOU are paying for my STD testing? Does it infuriate you that I leech of our government (each STD test costs taxpayers like YOU approximately $550), whilst I earn hundreds of thousands of dollars each year simply for getting fucked in a five star hotel or in the back seat of a limousine? :wink:

Does it make your blood boil that you have to work your broke flat pastry white arse of all day long to earn your chump change, whilst I work about 4 hours a week...and in those 4 hours make a shitload more money than you make in an entire month? :)

Sucks to be you! I'm a winner and you're a LOSER! Go cry your bitter tear you povo degenerate grotesque cunt! :up:
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Madmya »

The difference is when you die, no one will care.


I had an instance where Sonic Mania was performing terribly recently. Stutters in the title screen, game, it was horrid. I went back to the dash and rebooted the game and it was fine after that.
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Jasper »

Madmya wrote:The difference is when you die, no one will care.
I personally hope that when I die, I will be cremated and have my ashes flushed down a toilet by a random government worker who's job it is to manage unclaimed dead bodies! :up:

I'm not a pathetic little pussy bitch like you are...desperate for affection. :(

I choose to be alone! Who the fuck wants "love" (yuck....to have to share my person wealth & personal space and be committed to one person for ever) when I can live a life of debauchery in my CBD cosmopolitan luxury condo with endless cock, cash, cocaine, caviar, and cristal champagne? 8)

Then again Madmya, you are a NOTHING. Is it any wonder that a worthless NOTHING like you requires "love" to be able to function & desperately needs to latch on to someone...hoping that person's existence would rub off onto your NOTHING OF AN EXISTENCE, giving you a purpose to live and not blow your brains out? :wink:

Such a hassle for you Madmya, don't you think as you desperately search for a potential "soulmate"? You know statistically there's a higher probability than not that your potential future marriage to your "soulmate" is going to end in divorce, leaving you piss poor & broken-hearted....and ultimately jacking off your small stinky uncut cock in your dump of a rented studio apartment to a plus size "big is beautiful" underwear model in a K-Mart catalogue? :lol:
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Deef »

Edit -- I've spoiler-tagged the few things I've mentioned that weren't known pre-release.

Man I have had the worst(!) week for a release I'm excited about. Wake up to that last minute 2-week PC delay, cop spoilers having to google it, then the PSN pre-order apparently coming with extra goodies but nope, not quite. But most of all, work this week... frick. I got to sleep for 1 hour on Wednesday night yet that had nothing to do with Sonic Mania, which I didn't get to touch at all for 2 days. Barely any time to play the one game I've been anticipating so much, so I've needed the weekend to get a good idea of the game.

You probably already know that this is a read-at-your-own-peril. :D Here's the TL:DR in 4 points:
  1. It shines, with parts that as good as or better than the best in all the classic Sonics
  2. It feels a bit inconsistent, mostly terms of how it looks after its zones
  3. The rehash ratio and intensity is unfortunately higher than earlier news had me expecting
  4. It was clearly designed with a priority placed on being the most feature-complete classic ever. The superset, or a bittervet's wet dream, but that comes with some issues.
I wanted to form my own impressions before catching up on any of the news/discussion I've missed, so as I write this I still haven't seen or read anything about Sonic Mania since around May, apart from actually playing it. I have no idea what people here (or at Retro) think about the game yet.



1. Shiny bits

[Click to see hidden content]
One of the impressive things about Sonic Mania is that when you step away from the tick boxes -- all the features you want to check off as present -- a lot of the actual content is really impressive in its own right. There are some great levels in there. Green Hill Zone is basically perfect to me. Studiopolis Act 2 looks just fantastic. It also plays excellently, but damn it's a good looking level. Many of the zones play excellently, and that suprises me a little.

Sonic Mania's level designs are good. Very, unexpectedly, good. At first I felt like there was a little too much forced flow going on. Springs are now much more lenient; they're Sonic-Adventure-ish when it comes to making contact with them, and there are way more of them. Hidden too. Plus there's a definite increase in path connections and long runs. Chemical Plant is really in its element here. So there's a general increase overall in how often and for how long you find yourself zooming around and I agree, this isn't sounding good.

But the saving grace is that Sonic Mania still doesn't commit the sin of going "Hey watch this cool rolling sequence and by the way you have no control." The long, connecting, and easy runs are still long runs past options that you can switch to at any time, and typically want to switch to because you want to explore because, surprise surprise, this is actually a classic Sonic game. And exploration is definitely a thing; the levels are a really good size. I don't think anything quite beats how massive Carnival Night or Sandopolis are, but they're all up there. I've run out of time at least once from exploring (not backtracking), and I doubt anyone has felt Sonic 3's stages needed to be bigger. Flying Battery in particular... there's so much to check out and so much variation.

In other words, really good level designs. Better than I thought, and I already thought things were looking pretty great.

The sprite animation is also beyond expectations. And the intro, oh my god. I need to fanboy-out for a moment.
Spoiler!
Holy shiz, that intro is amazing! It is so good and I am still blown away by how well it's done. As far as I can think of, that animation is the best Sonic animation, ever made, by far. Sonic CD's style (which everyone has always pointed to and loved), nailed, and then some. And it's great in just how blatantly it champions that style; it immediately lets you know what to expect and then completely delivers. It's cute, heroic, fun, and this is the Sonic that people can't not like; he is adorable and awesome. Sega how have you always missed this so hard. Damn.

I will admit, the Little Planet storyline and Toot Toot Sonic Warrior of CD's intro do still out-epic Mania's intro which, in terms of hype, plays it pretty safe (and very rightly so).
...Where was I.

Oh yeah, so beneath all the bulletpoints that make the fans happy is actually some very strong content, some of it up there with the best classic Sonic gaming we have.

Side note - I used to chat to Taxman on MSN Messenger because fangames. Like 15 or more years ago. Apart from just saying "Yo I used to chat to Taxman on MSN", I wanted to also express how really good it is to be playing a new classic Sonic I've been waiting 20 years for, that was developed by a guy that is so legitimately, genuinely into the oldschool games that I have 15-year old memories of actually chatting to him about them. It's probably the only time I'll ever play a game where I can feel that kind of certainty that the developers are on the same page with my own hopes, checking on my own memories that the lead guy has been all over the classics, physics, fangames and all, the whole time I have. While playing the game, seeing all the little touches that exist for that reason... it's a really nice thing.


2. Inconsistent

[Click to see hidden content]
But Mania doesn't quite hold up to its own standards, I think. A lot of what I write here stems from the fact that I've been avoiding Sonic Mania news since Flying Battery was announced, which means I have no idea what kind of expectations were set after that point, while I know that before that point we were seeing greatness. Studiopolis looked amazing. Not just visually, but the level design looked on point. Green Hill also; the level design and size looked great. Mirage Saloon, again, the level design looked good and I was starting to feel amazed that these guys really did seem to know their stuff. Everything we saw looked like they were getting it absolutely right.
And having purchased and played the game, those levels are that great. Basically, every single thing revealed during Mania's development looked amazing and is amazing. The problem is the other stuff.

I finally got to the first zone I hadn't heard of, and immediately things were off.
Spoiler!
Press Garden looks and plays a bit low quality. It is part blocky, part uninteresting, the gimmicks are pretty timid (the belty wheel things are great but they need to be part of something better), and all this, plus the dull visuals with lime green brick and orange everywhere, just gives it that fan game smell. Every time I play it I just don't know why it's even here. Five of the six acts so far had been great, as in, Sonic 3 great, but then Press Garden is kinda fehhh.
Act 2 definitely picked up. It's a tonne more interesting and pleasing to look at, it flows much better, and its gimmick game is way stronger. Something about it still feels a bit tacky to me, possibly just the bricks and blocks, but the level is decent.

So that brings me to the next piece of inconsistency. I had already noticed this before
Spoiler!
Press Garden.
They keep the good stuff for Act 2 while Act 1 is kind of a lower-effort warm up. Chemical Plant,
Spoiler!
Press Garden, Oil Ocean,
Flying Battery, Stardust Speedway, Mirage Saloon... in ALL of these, Act 2 is clearly a step up from Act 1 and that kinda hurts things a bit. I don't really recall that being so apparent in earlier games. Maybe Icecap only. The issue is emphasised by the rehashing. Most of the revisited zones have kept Act 1 in a pretty unoriginal state, so not only is it the less fun part of the zone, it's also the part you're already over. And with the game's save system not giving you a nice way around it, the issue is only highlighted more.

Don't get me wrong. The variation is good. Mania sometimes sets a bit of a new standard in that regard. Studiopolis is more like 2 small zones than 1 zone with 2 acts, and to be honest they could have stretched that content more than they did, even going a little further and actually making 2 legitimate separate zones. Once again Studiopolis setting the example. So the variation is good, but the feeling of Act 1 being filler until you get to Act 2, which is the case in a number of zones, not so good.

So some levels are amazing and some are just ok. For comparison's sake, while Marble Garden may not have been the crowd pleaser that Carnival Night was, the technical and gameplay quality of both were consistent.


3. Rehashing

[Click to see hidden content]
I won't carry on about this because I imagine it's obvious to anyone. The 2:1 old to new ratio is ouch. I was surprised to discover that the game had this many full zones. I wasn't thrilled though to see so many of them were old. I was less thrilled to discover that Green Hill is definitely not the most tame of the revisits.

Some are great. All of Green Hill is fun. Again with the Act 2 issue, Chemical Plant 2 is very good. Flying Battery 2 really changes things up.
Spoiler!
Lava Reef 2 is different enough to be interesting, especially with that construction in the background.
But apart from one gimmick that you can miss completely in Act 1,
Spoiler!
Oil Ocean Act 1
is probably the prime example of nothing changing. This is really disappointing for me.

With the revisiting approach being used in Sonic Mania, if a level is going to provide nothing new at all then it's entirely at the mercy of how much the player is or isn't tired of that level before Mania came along. So I admit that's a really strong factor for me 3 zones, but still I think that having nothing new at all to do in an act is a mistake.
Spoiler!
Hydrocity
on the whole is kind of an odd downgrade; I really thought that zone was going to shine with its room for expansion and already-great music, but it's only been slowed down and its music barely changed.
Spoiler!
Metallic Madness, despite the Chaotix gimmick, also is just more Metallic Madness.
I didn't think their intent with revisiting zones was just more of the same, but sometimes that really is it.

I had been thinking that all the rehashing was an executive order kind of thing; that Taxman and co did it because they had to. But now I think the other way; this was part of the business agreement not to restrict the what the team could do with the project, but to make the project something the team could actually manage. We only have a few new zones because it would have been too much for them otherwise. That's my thought anyway.



4. The Superset

[Click to see hidden content]
On one hand, it felt really relieving to me to see how seriously Sonic Mania was taking this. You can get out all the checkboxes and it does a great job of filling them.
Spoiler!
All the characters, shields, and moves, all of which come with a bit extra. As large as S3&K. Sonic CD-beating intro. Sonic 2 split-screen, best split screen, with 12 acts to play in. Bonus and special stages. Act transitions. Unique acts. Mini bosses. Time attacking. DA Garden. Debug mode. Tick tick tick tick tick, and seriously they even included debug mode? At least that was one spoiler I didn't stumble onto in advance.

(While mentioning it, the split-screen mode holds up really well. Have they doubled the vertical resolution for that or something? Or just tuned the dimensions and scaling? It looks quite a bit better than Sonic 2 and plays well.)
So at first glance, the superset concept holds up. Almost everything the classics did that was good, Sonic Mania has picked up and improved. Except it's also a little off for 2 reasons. One of those reasons is that it brings out the nitpicker in me, so actually I'm not even going to bother going into that and will just say if you're led to expect the superset, there are a few small mis-steps.

The real problem with the superset approach is that while Mania has so deliberately done everything any classic did, at the same time it has missed the one big thing every classic did, which was to leap beyond its predecessor in some way.

I don't want to say Sonic Mania should be doing something new; it shouldn't at this point and I totally believe in its Star Wars Epsiode 7 approach of staying safe and getting everything right. But I feel like it could have still remained safe while stepping further from its nearest competitor. Mania definitely isn't to S3&K what S3&K is to Sonic 2, or what SCD is to S1. I'd much rather the risk not be taken and am glad the game does play it safe, but it definitely has set a goal, ticked it, and stopped there.



.... So they are my main 4 impressions. Now more blurb woo!



Bonus Stages

[Click to see hidden content]
I definitely had more fun with the bonus stages than I've had with any bonus/special stages in any classic. Simply because they're a good, deterministic special stage to start with, and this time around there were some significant rewards behind them. Oh my god, did they used to go this fast? I can't believe how intense literally the last third of bonus stages would get. I don't remember it being this hard to see what I was doing. Is that me or the game? Not sure. Might be the game.

But I definitely had more fun with them than I was expecting, especially since for a full day of not being able to play, I had the impression they were literally just the S3&K stages and nothing else.

One really big downside though; they have zero to do with the game you're playing at a given moment, and honestly, once you've unlocked everything, those Sonic 3 special stages immediately and thoroughly return to being something I am completely over. So it's a sad fact that I am now practically guaranteed to never use a bonus stage in Mania again. :/ I'm not sure how I think about that design choice; do I prefer the short-lived but most fun I've had with bonus stages? Or a bonus stage that actually lasts more than 3 days and relates to the game I'm playing?


Colour pallet

[Click to see hidden content]
If there is one thing in Mania that I could point to as showing a lack of skill, it's the colour design. When I first saw Studiopolis I wasn't blown away, but believed that to be because it looks just like a zone from Megamix. Actually, it is coloured just like a zone from Megamix, and now that I own Mania... boy do they like purple.

In fact Studiopolis Act 1 makes you wonder why there's so much blue in the back when Sonic is blue. These blues are all mixing together. Then you play the stage with Knuckles and suddenly notice how much purple there is too. Ok, let's try Tails... what. Studiopolis Act 1 excels at being whatever colour you don't want it to be. (Act 2 fixes this at least.)

Mirage Saloon Act 1 suffers from this a bit too. Everything the colour of Knuckles.
Spoiler!
Press Garden Act 1 is plain ugly in its colour scheme (imo). Even Hydrocity underwater, Knuckles feels like he's disappearing into shadows.
So anyway, mini-rant there. Studiopolis and one other zone in particular suffer from the absence of some better colour design. And purple.


Rotation

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Even way back, when Taxman was making fangames, I wondered if someone was going to actually take advantage of the fact that we have 4+ times the number of pixels on screen as we need when it comes to sprite rotation. Those little sprites built for a 240p screen don't rotate nicely, but Mania can't get enough of them. The characters now rotate more smoothly, definitely, but at any given rotation Sonic Mania's sprites look worse than Sonic 3's. Yet they could have easily changed the rotation to work in terms of screen pixels rather than sprite pixels and avoided all that cludginess. Not totally trivial but it would have been a change that was only required once.

I asked months ago why it wasn't done, and someone replied that it would have created a clash in style or something like that. Perhaps they anticipated the issue of players identifying the sprites as low-res rather than it just being a low-res game. Shrug. But honestly I have to disagree that it would not have been the better thing to do. Mania uses rotation everywhere and it's a bit of a mess. The HBH boss in Studiopolis is probably the best example; it's not really pleasant to watch in my opinion.

Sonic 3 couldn't do it, so didn't try, and doesn't often look so rough as a result.


Insta-shield

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I whined earlier about not having the insta-shield and the Sonic 3- style rolling jumps. I have to admit, I care less about the rolling jumping than I thought I would. I found myself feeling fine with the extra free control rather than missing the play in control. To make myself look worse, what I really missed was the cheap-skate invincibility. Oh man, I don't remember what it was like having to try with bosses... I'm so used to just insta-spam.

One of the not-quite-a-superset nitpicks is that we do get the insta-shield, but still are stuck to starting from GHZ with it, and still I'd like the jumping control difference to be in there too.


Missing Knuckles glitch

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The Knuckles glitch... did anyone else ever notice/use it in Sonic 3&K? If you did and you got used to it, you probably feel the same pain I do.

In S3/S&K/S3&K but not S2&K, Knuckles can start a spin dash during the automatic crouch that comes from a gliding fall, or from a slide, and these occur on any terrain at all. Coupled with the oddity that for some reason, Knuckles' glide-falls don't preserve inertia, it meant you could always stop and spin-dash absolutely anywhere. If he could land on it, he could spin dash. You can travel up Icecap's snowboarding mountain doing this, for example. This, and its absence in Sonic 2, is why I assume it must be a glitch.

Terrain-aside, it also meant 2 more things. If you were sliding, there was no delay. Just spam out a spin dash before you stand up. But most of all, since landing meant cancelling all inertia with Knuckles, he always had the ability to be running full pelt anywhere and stop on a dime. In S3/S&K/S3&K, the crouch-animation-into-spin-dash meant Knuckles could rocket around anywhere, stop on a dime, and instantly spin dash and rocket off in the opposite direction. Once I got used to it, that's how I played as Knuckles. Fast, instant changes in speed, zipping around everywhere. It was way more active than Sonic's playstyle.

Sonic Mania has disabled that. Now Knuckles has to stand up fully before he can crouch again, totally changing how he can be played. When you're used to how much more agile he was in Sonic 3, this is really pretty frustrating.

But... does Knuckles jump higher, or is that just me? He admittedly feels less frustrating in some other way.


Bosses

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Mania's bosses shine for their creativity, but are maybe hit and miss for their actual combat. The old "wait for the moment, get one hit in" tactic is kind of a textbook no-no for Sonic bosses. There are exceptions... I think Mania makes more exceptions than usual. I think. I'm just realising now I can't quite remember them all yet heh.



Yep I know this has been a really exciting read hehe, one that was kind of a downhill march. Sonic Mania is good, I'm happy with it, but I wish there were more new stuff, and that the quality was lifted a little in some places. Some levels are fantastic, some are not, but I know I'm going to enjoy playing it more and exploring until I have actually sussed out all the levels, and that my enjoyment will be genuinely in the same way I enjoyed the other classics. That alone is a great thing.

Definitely already sold on Mania 2 of course, and if they have to revisit some zones again that's fine with me, just not so intensely next time would be good.


Annnd that's about all I've got for now.
Last edited by Deef on 20 Aug 2017 08:46 pm, edited 14 times in total.
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Madmya
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Re: Sonic Mania

Post by Madmya »

Jasper wrote:
Madmya wrote:The difference is when you die, no one will care.
I personally hope that when I die, I will be cremated and have my ashes flushed down a toilet by a random government worker who's job it is to manage unclaimed dead bodies! :up:

I'm not a pathetic little pussy bitch like you are...desperate for affection. :(

I choose to be alone! Who the fuck wants "love" (yuck....to have to share my person wealth & personal space and be committed to one person for ever) when I can live a life of debauchery in my CBD cosmopolitan luxury condo with endless cock, cash, cocaine, caviar, and cristal champagne? 8)

Then again Madmya, you are a NOTHING. Is it any wonder that a worthless NOTHING like you requires "love" to be able to function & desperately needs to latch on to someone...hoping that person's existence would rub off onto your NOTHING OF AN EXISTENCE, giving you a purpose to live and not blow your brains out? :wink:

Such a hassle for you Madmya, don't you think as you desperately search for a potential "soulmate"? You know statistically there's a higher probability than not that your potential future marriage to your "soulmate" is going to end in divorce, leaving you piss poor & broken-hearted....and ultimately jacking off your small stinky uncut cock in your dump of a rented studio apartment to a plus size "big is beautiful" underwear model in a K-Mart catalogue? :lol:
Awfully big response from someone who doesn't care. But that's a good thing, maybe there is something left in you that is real.
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