Speaking of the various faces of Sonic, an unpopular opinion I've been having lately is that maybe I've never really looked in the right places, but maybe the community should give the Boost gameplay at least a little portion of the careful consideration it's given to classic Sonic gameplay. I mean, Sonic Rush is now older than Sonic 1 was when Retro was founded, yet I don't think anyone here -- or anywhere in the Sonic fanbase, really -- has taken it very seriously. Not theoretically (can't remember having ever seen a thoughtful discussion about how to make the best out of boost gameplay on its own terms) or practically (I played like. Some fangames based around it, but not many, and none that really caught my eye).
When people say "Classic Sonic is oversaturated" I think they are really saying that they are sick and tired of seeing the same three Classic Sonic level themes reused again and again. Every big Sonic Game from Gens onward has started with Green Hill or something extremely similar to it. There's also Chemical Plant Zone which has featured in three games since Gens, and Sky Sanctuary which has been in two games. Not to mention that 75% of the cyberspace levels in Frontiers use those same recycled level themes. Sonic Team has been recycling the same three Classic Sonic themes for the past twelve years and they are way past "saturated".
TBF I think what he means is that we don't have a saturation of actually Classic quality Sonic. Regardless of the boost playtime compensation classic-in-name-only we got too much of in the 2010s. I don't know a soul Sonic fan who doesn't want a Sonic Mania 2 with all original zones.
I don't want a Sonic Mania 2 with all original zones. Because my unpopular opinion is that Sonic Mania is overrated. I didn't like its level design (changes/additions), and I didn't like most of its original zones that had (to me) uninteresting themes like a TV studio, a paper pressing factory, and the inside of a giant robot. It feels kind of weird to say this, because apparently I did play it for about 100 hours.
After sitting on it for several years now, I've come to the conclusion that whilst Mania doesn't manage to topple S3K as the biggest and best Classic Sonic game, it makes a valiant effort and is still nothing short of excellent. If I had to criticise the it, I'd say that it feels like it's just a bit bigger than it needed to be. I'm hesitant to call it "bloated", but I do get the impression that the development crew leaned a bit too hard into replicating everything S3K did without much reason. More than half of the boss fights are a slog for example, but just like in S3K they had to put one at the end of every single act. The boss fight design in Mania is too slow for that to be very enjoyable, unlike in S3K. The pacing of the levels seems a bit imbalanced also, with some being too long and others having too many split paths that don't intersect often enough. FBZ2 sticks out as an example of this, with the absolute marathon that is the upper path and the blink-and-you'll-miss-it lower path. There's a distinct lack of variation between the character scenarios too, making it almost pointless to play as any of the different characters for a different experience. But I can't stress enough just how much praise I have for game. If I'm going to criticise FBZ2, then it would be unfair for me not to bring attention to CPZ2, possibly one of the best Sonic levels ever made. I love that act. And the original zones? Absolute knockouts. That's the exact reason I want to see the a Mania crew develop another Sonic game in the future. I can't wait to see Evening Star's original project.
Not sure on the popularity of this statement, but if a new classic Sonic game was going to be released, I really wouldn't particularly care if Tails or Knuckles were included as playable characters. I'd prefer a format of each new game being Sonic + a new playable character with a new skill/properties to Sonic that ties into the story of that game too.
I definitely revisit Mania less than the other games, but I’m not sure whether that’s due to accessibility (I have it on the PS4 which I haven’t been using much) or an actual reflection of my preferences. If I were asked to give a ranking, I’d say 3&K > Mania > CD/2 > 1. However, if you told me I’d have to give up one of the games forever, I’d slightly (READ: SLIGHTLY) lean towards Mania. As high quality as the level design and package is, it’d be like having a “greatest hits” as your favorite album. However, I assume this is entirely the result of limitations placed upon the team. There’s only so much that can be done when your constrained to reusing existing zones. While I don’t think all the level design changes are for the worse in the older stages, someone holding that opinion doesn’t surprise me. Those levels were tightly designed and refined already, so it’s much easier to fuck it up than find ways to improve. Anyway, I love Mania and it’s still my most memorable and hype game announcement/launch/first playthrough experience for me (though also for bad reasons considering the PC delay lol).
I personally loved Sonic Mania very much and think it's an awesome game, but I have to admit every time I re-visit the game, it's mostly the original zones and... Chemical Plant Zone (Act 2) and Lava Reef... that's it. So yeah, Sonic Mania should have more original zones. That's why I want a "Sonic 5" more than a Sonic Mania 2 (I don't care that much if that's Modern or Classic).
If they want to recycle old zones so badly, I beg them to use anything other than Green Hill, Chemical Plant, and Sky Sanctuary. Even just using Emerald Hill instead of Green Hill would be a step up.
On that subject... That's definely a unpopular opinion, because I wanted they to bring back a 3D version of Oil Desert from Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II in Sonic Frontiers. The reason is just I personally thought that would fit with the Cyberspace environments. But yeah, that's a very specific wish.
Well, Christian did say in an interview that the initial zone list was vetoed, so I imagine it had a few more "deep cuts" (not that it's hard to go deeper than Green Hill and Chemical Plant lol) while Sega wanted to stick closer to the usual suspects. Oil Ocean was the only genuine surprise to me.
so I do feel that the game feels bloated, but I disagree with the conclusion. I feel that the level design and a boss after each act is just a normal progression after S3&K, and doing anything less would feel...lacking by comparison? I think the game feels bloated because like Sonic 2 it has too many zones sharing themes - namely, there are a lot of industrial zones with the last stretch smashed together (Oil Ocean -> more industrial version of Lava Reef -> Metallic Madness -> Titanic Monarch) and it just feels way too long because at the end of the day that final stretch are just variations of the same theme. The theming variation and how those themes were broken up is why IMO Sonic 3 & K doesn't feel "too long" despite being very long - in the S&K portion alone you just have so much variety up into the final stretch and it makes it still feel fresh and exciting even the hundredth time you play it.
And Wacky Workbench is just diet Spring Yard because that zone also has surfaces that bounce you off. There's probably more to it than that. And here's my Mania CPZ hot take; the boss is stupid. I love Puyo but it has nothing do with Sonic gameplay beyond muh nostalgia and might be the best example of Mania's overdesigned bosses. Also since I'm half decent at Puyo it ends up being easier than the first miniboss. I would've much preferred an Eggman boss that directly involved the jelly physics.
Hot take time: I enjoy the boss difficulty of the classic games; Some of them are just relaxing after a stage. That's why I'm very back-and-forth with Mania's bosses. Not fond of OO2 and in general of lot of them (like Studiopolis 2) just feel like they drag down an otherwise fun stage. The slight physics differences in the TaxStealth games make dodging projectiles more troublesome (OO2, PG2) than I feel they would be on actual hardware.
Agreed. Another layer of this is the lack of any and all real sense of progression felt by going from one industrial area to the next. In 3K's latter section, you can appreciate traveling underground into a volcano, before gradually getting closer to the Death Egg's ominous face in the crater above, before finally taking to the skies, getting onto a space station, and then going out into space itself. I don't think plot/story matter as much as gameplay does, but the former can certainly enhance the latter, and they certainly do in 3K's case. Even Sonic 2 has you progress naturally during its climax, from a big industrial base, into the sky, before going into space. In Mania, it's just sort of a gauntlet of different industrial areas you teleport between, before whatever is happening in Egg Reverie. I love the idea of Titanic Monarch, a gigantic mech that you have to progress up into. But I think it would be better served as something like the industrial level at the game's climax, perhaps before going into the sky and then into space. Or maybe it's the "space station" you're in. re: Puyo Puyo I think it would have been much better as a sort of in-checkpoint Bonus Stage. I'd have liked it even more if you had to beat another character in a game of Puyo Puyo to add them to your party in Encore Mode.
Personally I think the reason it feels bloated is because Titanic Monarch sucks. How our brains work is that 80% of our overall impression comes from how much we liked beginning and the end of the media we just experienced. And Titanic Monarch is easily the weakest level in the entire game with a boring level theme and music. Especially compared to Sonic 3K's Death Egg which is in my opinion the best last stage in the Sonic Franchise. It's overreliance on the orb and bouncer gimmicks also doesn't help.
Is the level generally liked or hated? I haven't seen many opinions on Titanic Monarch since the game initially launched and I don't remember what they were even saying back then. If the general consensus is that it sucks, I'll contribute the unpopular opinion that I personally think Act 2 is really cool.
