My opinion about the music didn't change much after watching gameplay videos, I still think it sounds pretty bland and uninteresting most of the time, without any remarkable melodies to make the themes stand out. The act 2 boss theme did grow on me though, and I now think it suits the boss battles quite well. The mid-boss theme on the other hand, is still boring as hell and completely unfitting, IMO.
A massive smile popped up on my face when I saw him. I then went giddy when he started pumping out 8bit sound effects.
I don't feel like reading through all the pages I missed while I was doing stuff today, so I have to ask. Why is the Switch port so janky? I noticed that it slowed down a tad in special stage 1, it crashed when I exited to the menu the first time and all the unlockables came up, and it also takes forever for it to go to the home menu or go to sleep.
I ran into that bug several times, usually always in the same stage. I'm sure someone probably has a recording of it but it's in one of those 4x4 sections surrounded by bumpers except some of the spheres are already red so you have to make a weird pattern to "circle" them and if you mess up it turns the inner 3x3 circle into rings while some of the outer ones are still blue but it counts as if it were a 16x16 set of blue spheres. At least that's the best way I can describe it.
^Someone was very fond of that arrangement :v: Actually, are the new Mania Blue Spheres stages actually new? I swear I remember at least two of them in the Sonic 1 + SK Blue Spheres mode. But to be fair, there are how many stages in that mode? Like a million? Every version seems to be a tad janky at the moment but I believe a patch is on the way. For example, I'm playing the PS4 version and the game crashes whenever I try to access certain levels' leaderboard times. That's probably the most annoying glitch, the rest are more minor annoyances. But I have faith that they'll work on it, they have a good track record of maintaining support for their ios/android ports at least.
Just played through the game twice. I love most of it, but some of the bosses and bonus stages are immensely tedious. Is anyone else getting a serious Dynamite Headdy vibe from Press Garden act 1?
Level design is what makes it. The way Mania plays with the physics makes the old games almost feel boring because it was snoozing on all the potential.
Biggest issue with Mania though is that it stretches the zone content thin, basically Metropolis/Sandopolis tedium syndrome.
My buddy ran into a bug on Nintendo Switch: SPOILERS obviously https://clips.twitch.tv/MotionlessPrettyNikudonRedCoat
Playing this game was such a joy -- doubt any gaming experience for me will top this experience this year. It truly felt like I was in the 90s again. I have to say, the gimmick creativity was brilliant. Oh man. I LOVED the ideas with how the shields interacted with the environments, and I also loved how there was much more done with an interactive environment in general. Please, more of that in the future. That was definitely adding a hint of "next-gen" to our Sonic, in a classic way. The next game DEFINITELY has to be 100% new. There were some beautiful new levels that I wish I could see more of. Especially that creative level with the ice and such. There is so much replayability in this title. I think a lot of us will be playing/mastering this years to come (at least I will). My biggest issues: Drop dash was marketed very heavily, and we have to unlock it (as far as I know) to use it -- I assumed I could use it in the beginning, which was very disappointing. I'm assuming mismarketing? There was a LOT of awesome stuff I loved in the later game, and there was also a lot of frustration in the later game. It was difficult in an annoying way, versus a fun/fair way. I don't see myself playing certain acts again in the later part of the game, at least not too much. The boss riding on the other motorized robot was BS -- the hitbox is so small, and it has to be timed just right. I need to watch strats on that, it felt very unfair of a fight. I have a love and hate relationship with the blue spheres. I was VERY thankful I knew how to get through a lot of them right off the bat. I'm motivated to finish all of them. I think I'd like to see the end of blue spheres after this game, however. Anyways, incredible game. Some folks stack it better than S3&K. I think it's not quite to that level, however I'll definitely admit its in the same league. You guys are DEFINITELY on the right track, and thank you for saving this franchise. Also thank you SEGA for trusting your IP with the fans more than ever. As long as we continue this route, I think I can finally be a comfortable Sonic fan again. We have a future.
Some notes after two playthroughs (first: Sonic+Tails, second on same file after I got the last emerald): Spoiler - GHZ2 doesn't lock the screen correctly, creating some ugly spike placement. - Standing on a collapsing cliff as a motobug is driving over it makes the motobug hover in mid-air. - The Chemical Plant boss is stupid. - In the transition from Studiopolis to Flying Battery, Sonic grabs onto the air behind it. - At one specific spot in FBZ2 holding down puts you in your crouching animation on the ceiling, but the right way up (instead of upside down) - Why is there no transition from Flying Battery to Press Garden? You could literally just copy/paste the original Flying Battery's zone transition and it'd be fine. - When you have to bounce off a conveyor to hit a switch in Press Garden, and it closes doors below you to land on, it's possible to rebound with enough speed to get stuck underneath them (especially as Super Sonic). This doesn't fix itself even after leaving the area and coming back, and I couldn't find an alternate route, so this forced a restart. - There doesn't seem to be any reason behind when Metal Sonic is vulnerable. He becomes vulnerable in the last phase, but there's no visual or logical reason behind it. - Why is there no transition from Stardust Speedway to Hydrocity? - Dick object placement seems to start in Hydrocity Zone and persist onwards (the earlier zones are much better in this regard). - In all of the previous throwback zones, it'd been established that Act 1 was essentially "old zone layouts plus a few extras" and Act 2 was "all-new with maybe some of the old layouts still present". Seeing the extras in HZ1 hyped me up for what HZ2 was going to be like, and when I get there... well, it's alright for the first minute or so, but after that it's identical to the old HZ2. Even the big ring is in the same place. - I died in the first part of the HZ2 boss because the things you hit to hurt the boss decided to not appear for an extended period. - The HZ2 boss has exactly the same bug as the original HZ1 boss in that when the victory animation triggers and you're on the wall, you'll end up doing a pose standing on nothing. - Why is there no transition from Hydrocity to Mirage Saloon? - Mirage Saloon Act 1 is terrible. It has literally every single problem that Sonic 2's Sky Chase does, and more. It goes on too long; it looks stupid running in place to move a plane (just let me move the plane directly and show Sonic looking cool on the plane instead, like he does at the end of the act); you can spindash (or new! Drop Dash!) on the plane, or just run as Super Sonic, and die; and it's off-putting when objects suddenly fly away from you because now you're moving down-left (in the original game, they waited until all objects were off-screen before panning like that so it looked like it was the Wing Fortress going past you, rather than sudden backwards flight). Come on guys, even Sonic 4 did this better. - There's no indication that standing on the outside piston things in the OOZ1 boss will kill you. - It's possible to jump on the ceilings in the OOZ1 boss. - The gas in OOZ2 decreases your ring count even when you're invincible (but not when you're Super). - The OOZ2 boss is a clusterfuck of non-ideas. - Why is there no transition from Oil Ocean to Lava Reef? - The rocks in Lava Reef still look like penises. - Why is there no transition from Lava Reef to Metallic Madness? - The MMZ1 boss can crush you without warning if you stand on the side of the screen. - Entering a bonus stage in MMZ2 while mini will respawn you at normal size, and although it's still possible to complete the level it's incredibly unintuitive as to how to do so. - Spindashing on conveyor belts that are side-by-side while mini causes Sonic to collide with the edge of the second when he should just run along them. - Perhaps when Sonic is mini, Tails should respawn as mini too instead of continuing to try to run alongside you at his normal size. - There's some kind of weird tile at the very start of Titanic Monarch 2, if you head left from the start. It looks like a wall tile but you can go partially through it. - Entering the final portal in Titanic Monarch 2 as Super Sonic turns Sonic back to normal, but continues to use the Super music. - Why can't I do repeated low bounces with the bubble shield like I can in Sonic 3? - Super Sonic uses regular Sonic sprites for many things, most egregiously the spiral tube in LRZ1. - Why is the button to transform the jump button? Why can I not transform with a shield? Sonic 4 fixed this one too. If one person can find this many faults in a few hours, what the fuck is your QA team doing?
The level design was top notch, but I felt every level was throwing me everywhere. From satellites, to the CP tubes, Mirage's gun thingy etc etc. I can't really say this was the case with past classic games.
How do you use it? Isn't it hitting the A (or whatever) button twice? Jump, then right on land, jump again? I kept playing with it, and I could never get it to work.
Next game should be Sonic 5. Also Sonic 4 should be remade in the Retro Engine. No I don't consider myself asking for much. :P
