Spoiler-free Sonic Mania discussion thread

I went back to finishing Time Twisted Knuckles play.

I got my Sonic 1 download, but I'm having trouble with it recognizing the controller. Granted I had STT open too, so it may have been hogging it. Ill try again as I was up very late last night.

 

I've seen one act from each zone, not watching any more video or reading anymore info

 

Because we must remind ourselves of the absolute shit fest that was Sonic 4, and how Mania blows that away.

If every single level in this game consisted of 100% original content and not the likes of Green Hill and Chemical Plant showing up, Mania would truly be worthy to be called Sonic 4. But nope that silly episodic game had to go ruins things for people, right?

 

Hey, maybe the team can make Sonic 5 if Mania does well enough. Remember how we NEVER wanted another "numbered" title after 4?

 

Honestly, I still don't want another "numbered" title. Sonic 4 killed that possibility forever. Imagine trying to explain things if the Mania sequel was called Sonic 5.

"You want to play Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic Mania and Sonic 5"
"But that means Sonic 5 is the sixth game?"
"No, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles are actually two halves of one game"
"Oh, so they just never made a game called Sonic 4, but went ahead and made Sonic 5?"
"No, they did make a Sonic 4, it was just terrible and Sonic 5 is a direct sequel to Sonic Mania instead"
"So Sonic Mania takes place after Sonic 4, then? Should I play that?"
"No, it takes place before it, though they were both billed as a direct sequel to Sonic 3 & Knuckles"
"So Sonic 5 takes place before Sonic 4?"
"Uh... I guess so. Sonic 4 probably isn't canon anymore, though."
"Right... Why did they call this one Sonic 5 then?"

It's been ages since we had numbered sequels - Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Advance 2/3. Now that we have a proper foundation for a successful 2D series, I say we go with Sonic Mania 2! (Edit: Or Sonic CD 2)

 

This is completely different. You do *NOT* find out you have to "polish" or "optimize" the game 4 days before release. The game is done, the gameplay is tested, seeing as it will still release on consoles on schedule.

It's obvious that if they found game breaking bugs that they have to stop everything and fix the problem instead of releasing a faulty product, but the point is that under no circumstances should this be happening so close to the release date. If the problem really is that serious and affects so many people to justify a delay, this should have been caught a long time ago. But they won't even tell us what the real issue is, so all we have is speculation.

I wouldn't be nearly as upset if the problem was noticed BEFORE the review copies went out (i.e. before the spoilers started showing up) and release on ALL platforms was pushed back two weeks. All that would happen in this case would be that the same experience would be pushed back a little, slightly annoying but no big deal, but what actually happened is that the release experience was completely botched for PC players!

We can't play at the same time as everyone else, we won't be able to chat about the game while it's fresh, and we'll have to dodge 2 full weeks of spoilers if we want any hopes of being surprised by the contents of the game. That's not just "waiting 2 more weeks", it's sitting in the corner facing the wall while everyone else is playing, even though you did nothing wrong.

 

Nahh not Mania 2, I'd rather a line of classic games get their own individual titles, just as the modern games do. Equal footing

Plus, if we want 10+ 'manias' (dreaming) then the title is best stopped being numbered anyway. Plan ahead

 

Why would anyone cancel their PC Collectors Edition pre-order?

You're getting it late anyways.

 

The modern games all have individual titles because everything about them (including the quality) seems to be picked by throwing darts at a wall of ideas. You're as likely to get similar, solid games (Colours, Generations, Forces) as experimental nightmares (Unleashed, Lost World, Boom).

 

I'd rather not Mania 2 either, because it's pretty obvious there's going to be far more classic stages than new. I estimate around 5 or maybe (generously) 6 new stages. I'd be happy with 5 new and 8 old. But we could be looking at 3/4 new and 9 old so who knows. I haven't looked at the stage lists, but I think it's a bit suspicious we've seen far more classic stages in promo material :v:/> . But could be even lower. I actually am pretty hyped for seeing the re-imagined stages ever since the original reveal (I've played through Sonic 1, 2 and now 3 in anticipation for Mania). I actually loved the reimagining in Generations even, I'm a sucker for nostalgia :v:/>

But I'd hope the next game has all new levels. And I don't think you could call it Mania 2 because you'd associate it with classic remixing.

I wouldn't want it to be called Sonic 5 either though. I'd like them to start a new, proper, spinoff series. Ideally keep the 2D within the spinoff series and the 3D within the mainline titles. I'd also like a bigger budget than with Mania but with these same guys at the helm (if Mania ends up being good).

 

I get that, Classic sonic games are far more tightly sown together in story and gameplay. There's probably a way you could come up with new titles which still link to each other nicely.

 

This thread is overflowing with unbased speculation, assumptions, and entitlement. I'll add some more speculation.

My theory is that they discovered a problem not too long ago that needed to be fixed. Maybe it was weeks or only days ago. At that point, they made the decision to work hard to try to fix it and avoid moving the PC release date. And nobody would have ever known there was a problem. A few days before the release, it became clear that they wouldn't make the deadline, so they extend it instead of releasing something broken on August 15. You can't undo bad initial reviews of the game. In choosing a new release date for the PC, they probably could have had it ready in a week or so, but if that turned out to not be possible, delaying the release a second time would look really bad. So they play it safe and choose a date well into the future (August 29) where they're fairly confident that everything will be good to go.

Also, I doubt anyone will be talking about this delay in a few weeks or months time. But if there were bad reviews that definitely would be remembered. Nobody's talking about how the game was originally scheduled for release way back in spring 2017.

 

Okay, what the hell.. hopping in here to advise everyone to stay off any Mania-related articles on the wiki, as spoiler content (with no warnings) is, apparently being added.

 

Also, with respect to the "4 days before release" thing, didn't they just send out review codes earlier this week?

Like others have said, I think these suspicions would be quelled if we knew exactly what happened, but in hindsight it is good that they caught whatever the issue was before the game launched proper.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Btw if anyone on here has Twitter and doesn't want to go totally off the grid, along with muting "Sonic", "Mania", and "#SonicMania", definitely also mute "Zone".

 

Sounds like an average discussion trying to explain the Kingdom Hearts games
"Er, well it's called Kingdom Hearts 3 but uh... It's actually the 96th in the series, yeah, take a seat and try not ti ask questions in the next hour as I explain..."

 

We'll probably only get official word/reasons after the PC version actually drops. You all still have an absolute right to be mad, but it's really not fair to these guys to assume that they just didn't do their job well enough. Maybe they didn't, I'm not saying it's not a possibility, but I'm pretty sure Aaron was massively generalizing "optimization". I know its hard to look at it any other way, but don't say you know what happened when you don't. Because only they know for now, and they wouldn't have done this without a REAL good reason.

 

I actually got peace of mind after the initial shock. My mind is treating this delay the same way as when the game was delayed from March to August; I will play it someday, after all. I've visited the spoiler fest thread too, and I'm glad I know some things now I didn't before, so I think sometimes good spoilers happen too.

About what is better from the game, well, think of this: delay negatives are not gameplay negatives, and the game will be out on time to shine, so I think a single platform delay isn't that bad for it, just bad for us PC users, who, as someone said before, will forget most of our grief once we play the game, and have no "before release" regrets at all once we know it as well as the people who played it from the very first day.

EDIT: Corrections.

 

They'll never reveal the reason. Aaron completely generalized the issue so now no one knows who's to blame.

There's clearly nothing wrong with the base game itself. It's already active on one platform and launching on time for the other two platforms. Five days before the game is supposed to come out and they've suddenly found out there's a critical bug due to an "optimization" issue? There's something SEGA isn't willing to tell people over this delay because it's probably something really fucking stupid that people will get even more furious about if they ever reveal it. Taxman's tweet posted earlier says it all and those System Requirements are pretty fucking ridiculous when you look at Sonic CD.

 

TAXMAN'S TWEET HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SONIC MANIA

 

I can't speak for other people, but if I'm ashamed of someone, it's because they're doing something shameful.