It's a new gameplay situation that could have been revised so that it wouldn't be exploitable. You're just recovering rings you lost as a penalty, getting extra lives out of them shouldn't be a thing.
It's always been exploitable, though. If you have a level with 304 rings you can get four extra lives from the rings, even though there's only just enough for three and the game doesn't reward any beyond 200 rings. I'd make the argument that this should never have been the case, personally; once you have the 100-ring extra life you shouldn't be able to earn it again without dying or completing the level (I'd go a step further and say dying shouldn't reset it, but only if you remove collected extra lives as well like some Sonic games do).
I really suck at the special stages :v:/> especially that 4th stage which I failed 3 times. It's challenging, and I did rage. A lot. Speaking of rings, I hate when you get hit, you can only collect around 15 - 20 rings. But then again, frame rate might be an issue.
Just to clarify, that was exactly what I meant and I know that the maximum nº of rings that spawn when hit is 32 (has anybody ever got them all back?). I took a look at the github S1 disasm and found that if the value of the rings is over 100 it plays the extra life sfx and increases the life counter value by 1, it's also the same with over 200. It means that the flags reset when the ring counter value goes back to 0, like it does when an act is finished or getting hit. I have little to no experience with asm but it wasn't hard to figure out. This is really only an exploit now because of the way the extra lives from rings are triggered, so it's also an oversight with the combi-ring mechanic. Though this is nowhere near as bad as the Flybot767 (the flying badnik from Launch Base) alarm extra lives exploit in S3K.
Here's something super cool and I wonder if this is an actual thing: Spent the day in the city and spotted at least 3 or 4 kids with Mania Sonic-blue hair. Coincidence or self fulfilling thinking?
Someone didn't buy the LP. =P All of the tracks on the album have actual endings rather than fadeouts, this is one of them.
So, like always, Sonic does best on Nintendo platforms. Shame that Mania seems to have fallen off on every other chart, though. By the way, after talking with Nvidia tech support, seems it was some 3D driver confusion that was causing the color issue. Had to delete them to get the colors working again.
I still feel the 4th Emerald is the hardest one. The 5th one compels you to master all the tricks possible on a special stage, so it may look harder at first, but I still sweat sometimes when getting the 4th. Either way, there's an huge downfall in the sensation of difficulty once you master the 5th emerald, and you'll probably get all the emeralds on first try after you get all the emeralds for the first time, or have a minimal number of retries at the very least.
So has anyone with the vinyl album figured out what that secret message is yet? Tom Fry hinted in his tweet that it would say something interesting. I doubt it's any kind of teaser or a confirmation of a Mania 2 or something, but it'd be interesting to know just for the heck of it.
It's a message on the inner groove/wax which is “By The Mania” on side one and “For the Mania” on side two. Leaving etched messages on records is actually a common practise. Most of the time it's usually just a matrix or pressing number but sometimes it includes a message too.
So I guess we're going to be getting more classic Sonic thanks to Mania essentially dumbfounding Nakamura.
The fact that Nakamura is "dumbfounded" at the idea of a very well-made classic-style Sonic game, something fans have been asking for for years, and developed by a talented company comprised of major Sonic fans, selling extremely well is what's wrong with this picture
It's nothing new: In previous interviews about Mania, Iizuka wrote off the love for classic Sonic as a niche. He also said that a classic Sonic game would have to come from outside Sonic Team, as they don't know how to make such games anymore.
Where are you getting this "dumbfounded Nakamura" thing from? Because he claims in the linked interview that he wasn't surprised by Mania's success. Does that outright contradict previous statements by him or something?
It says Iizuka-San was involved in the approval process and gave directions on how to make the games "feel like the classics." I wonder how involved he was in the design process? Or how much he had control/oversight with the level design process? I ask because if he's actually still good at level design I'd much prefer him have control over that than the series as a whole lmao
Hey here's a standout quote from that article: *Clap, clap, clap* Took ya that long to figure out that one huh? Please, please do this it'll be better for everyone. However I hope your selling points from Mania aren't "Classic Sonic + levels from Sonic 1 - S&K" because that'd be missing the point.