I beat the game with all the emeralds, really enjoyed it! I feel it has some of the best level design of any platformer I've played. One question though, where the heck was the section with Sonic in the bowl with the balls with numbers on them? I'm talking about the bit that was shown off in the reveal trailer: [media]https://youtu.be/eI4hsOTQZME?t=1m13s[/media] I can't even tell what level it is supposed to be in.
Really? I never encountered it. Is it on a bottom path or something? Thank you for the answers though.
Yes, it's the bottom path. you know it's amazing how you can actualy miss these big set pieces by takeing the top path. (I missed the popcorn machines in act one on my first playthrough.)
The "Mania is a fangame" angle is particularly interesting in that it implies that say, everyone working on New Super Mario Bros. aren't just a bunch of Mario fans. Maybe it's just because Sonic fans produce so many games on their own already? But most people working on long-running franchises are fans of that franchise. The only distinction is that it's ultimately payed for and produced by the parent company. Maybe it also has something to do with how kind Sega is being with promoting the individual creators instead of the usual blanket treatment that big companies give.
I feel like being labled a fan project wouldn't happen were this any other medium. If it were, say, a new entry in a long-going franchise created by people who grew up as a fan of that franchise, I doubt it would be touted as a "fan" project at all. We have a prime example in Star Wars Episode VII; people who grew up loving Star Wars who became proficient at the craft and were given the opportunity to apply that to a source of their childhood inspiration. But you see very few people calling VII a "fan film." Not everyone uses "fan game" as a derogatory term, but I do feel like it IS undervaluing the work of the team. I think a lot of people around here call Mania a fan game because that somehow keeps Taxman, Stealth and the rest of the team "on our level." They're long-time Retro-goers, so by calling Mania a fan game, I think people are trying to subconsciously keep themselves in arms reach of the guys that made it big. I know I DEFINITELY have told people who have heard about Mania "those guys are on the same Sonic forum I AM! TAXMAN RESPONDED TO ME ONCE!" And I think that's all well and good. But when people start to ignore the fact that they are professionals who view the gaming industry as a career, it kind of undersells their accomplishments as developers. I might be overthinking it, and maybe the Mania team (you included, Boxer Hockey) don't see it as reductive in the least; I definitely don't want to presume I'm speaking for any of you. These are just observations I've made about this particular community.
I don't see it as derogatory by default . I just think it's interesting given the makeup of any other 25+ year old franchise's staff at this point. People don't call, say, the most recent TMNT show on Nickelodeon a "fan-show", though I guarantee you it is, and yeah your Star Wars example. I just wonder at what point something stops becoming a "fan" product or not, if that barrier isn't breached simply by putting a company logo on it.
I mean, I recognize the design language of the levels, the original ones in particular. By calling it a fangame I'm just meaning that it's more similar to fangames I've played and watched evolve for the past 20 odd years. Not in a bad way, but recognizable is recognizable.
Just my input. The reason I believe Sonic Mania may get labeled as a fangame is simply for the fact that there's a great emphasis on the team's past work being fan (non-official) creations. This person created this fangame, this person is known for his fan-creation... etc. etc. The bottom-line truth is that a good chunk of the Sonic Mania development team IS comprised of fans who are known for making fan-projects. I've seen comments where someone would say "SEGA is releasing a fan-game" or "They got fans to make an official fan-game." Regardless on the team's experience or quality of the product, some don't think "fans" can be taken seriously simply because they're "fans." Then there's the chunk of people who see Mania as a game made by talented and creative individuals who happened to be fans. It's comes down to the perspective of the person's outlook and how they take that info. Even if other game franchises were comprised of fans, Sonic Mania is a unique case where the team has been brought into the spotlight frequently through various accounts of promotion. I don't know who worked on New Super Mario Bros. and I don't know what individuals worked on this game or that other game. (Ignoring the fact that I knew about the team before Mania) I KNOW who worked on Mania because I see Aaron Webber stating who they are, I see these people's names being brought up in various gaming articles. There is a huge emphasis that the team are fans. Unfortunately, this is why I believe Sonic Mania may get the negative "fan-game" label. But hey, some may see the "fan-game" label as a good thing.
I'd like to know what peoples definitions of fangames are when they say it seems like one. All fangames are different! If people want to use "fangame" as a blanket term, I'll tell you what I think that means: A typical fangame (when implied to me) is one person in their spare time using a mismatch of assets they didnt draw haha (no, not all fangames are like this, but you know what I mean), certainly not a good comparison though. I mean, S2HD is a fangame. Call it that fangame all you want! Want to call it Sonic Utopia? Er, why would you do that, but hell yeah that's awesome! Many good ones out there which can be a compliment. But don't call it Sonic super extreme advance v2 with damizean slope engine 1.0 Edit: My point was that it's an absurd and ridiculous thing to say 'it feels like a fangame'. Maybe say what fangame it's like and why? Or just don't say anything? Just a game bash at the end of the day.
That said, I think some HAVE used that term to describe "Rogue One", so it IS possible there is some degree of dis-ambiguity from an audience over whether something feels too "fan-made" that is not just some subjective opinion. (In that case it was likely due to Rogue One being a movie jarringly different in tone, style and substance to normal Star Wars work, though. That's something that wouldn't really apply to Mania.) Personally, based on my time playing fangames, I would consider "fangame-isms" to be things like: 1) Obvious traces of the limitations of the engine being used that are usually scrubbed from professional product (This goes back to the "You don't know what professional game devvers use Unity" thing.) 2) Jarring engine quirks that can break a gameplay session (IE game bugs that can cause bad platforming clips or game softlocks caused by enemies not spawning or running offscreen in a way that's supposed to be impossible), that could have easily been fixed if they were spotted beforehand. (I experienced one of these in AM2R and it REALLY upset my opinion of the game after all the hype around it.) 3) As with the "Rogue One" example, storytelling and/or graphics/sound aesthetic that is shockingly different from standard conventions of the IP. 4) Heavy reuse of old game assets (Exceptions for Castlevania and Mega Man, where such would be standard for the IP.) And there's probably more I can't recall off the top of my head.
That's a good point. For me anyway I honestly have no insight to those other development teams at all. This game is unique in that I know it was made by people who have been floating around the same space I have for years, producing various hacks, fan games, or other proofs of concept. And that too, Sega gave the team the billing instead of slapping "Sonic Team" all over the place. They know the names headcannon and Christian Whitehead mean something to us (sorry pagodawest, I didn't know you all worked on Sonic 2 HD from the get go). Sega themselves kind of marketed it as a fan game. By the Mania for the Mania right? It's also particularly noteworthy that fans made the game in contrast to years of what were soulless cash grabs made by people who seem to not understand what Sonic is about. Oh hes in a storybook now with a sword. Ya give Shadow a gun. Ya focus groups! SONIC 4. The fan aspect is a breath of fresh air, finally a group of people who gave a shit and it showed.
Personally, while there is a lot of truth in what you're saying, I find it somewhat insulting to the fangame community as a whole... A fangame is simply that: An unofficial game based on a licensed media made by a fan or team of fans. There is no quality threshold for a fangame, they can be made up of acquired assets or be fully unique, they can be low quality or high quality. Not every cup of tea will be identical, some will be stronger, some will be sweeter, some will be milkier and some will have no milk at all. To make a fangame you need to have a fair amount of skills and/or an extreme devotion to the license you're making a fangame of. Using fangame as a derogatory term is ridiculous, though through ignorance or bias it will be used that way simply because most people are too lazy to actually look at all the good ones that are on pedestals rather than looking at all the decade's worth of trash or standard items that built up and which are scattered across the floor, some of which built up the knowledge base of those held up on pedestals. Is Mania a fangame? No, it's a piece of licensed media. Is it filled with unbridled devotion and love for the license, its' mythology and the community that once surrounded the developers? Hell yes! Funny you should mention that... :v: The feeling of it being like a fangame probably also stems from this very thing. Mania's reuse of assets that have been touched up a bit is not really something an "authentic" game of the period would likely of had, yet it is something that numerous fangames created in this very community have included for over a decade. I honestly think that this kneejerk reaction of "It's not like a fangame! You can't feel like it is! That's absurd!" is an incredibly absurd reaction. We all have experience playing fangames, if it evokes the feeling of playing a fangame in some people well, they have experience that explains that feeling. Accept you don't get that feeling yourself for some reason or another. Is all of this really so hard for people to see? :specialed:
I personally don't see it as a fangame myself. Simply because it's a licensed game by Sega, and it's being sold. Fangames are unofficial games made by people in their spare time and are not to be sold for profit. I don't think the term "fangame" is a bad term but one that doesn't fit mania.
The thing is, (and I think it was already mentioned several pages earlier) the fangame and hacking scene is the only thing that built on, refined and experimented with the classic formula for more than 15 years now. So it's probably kinda hard to shake off these influences. Well, I don't complain about it.^^ My biggest gripe is that the time limit hardly leaves room for exploration in several Zones, considering you also still have to beat a boss, while you breeze through others in 3 to 5 minutes. Also yeah... some cheap crushing.
Flame shield works too. I wonder if lightning shield would work if you could hit them from below? Oh shit. I will need to test this myself.
I don't really get technical with the "fangame" term as people most likely use it to just mean "below expected quality" or "out of place compared to the official games" and I'd have to say the only zone I could describe like that is just Press Garden Act 1 due to two things: The very flat-looking palette and the hard to discern theme (on first impression at least). However, Act 2 does not have these problems at all IMO. The rest of the original zones are about or even above the level of quality I expected.
For me, that is a great definition. Below expected quality; out of place compared to the official game. Here are some instances that felt like that for me in this title: The HBH robots in the beginning of the stage. I thought their oversized bodies, and how crowded the screen was, was very out of place. May have looked better if the old school Green Hill Zone wasn't the backdrop for it all. The sound effect of time distortion when Eggman used the Time Stone. And also the color change effect. Was also very "out of place" to me. I think a better sound would've been the "Past" or "Future" sound to indicate story wise what even happened. And I would've preferred something different than the inverse (or whatever it was) color change that happened. It just seemed off, design wise. The trashed robots in Flying Battery Zone. Also looked very off in the design of the stage. The final boss when you have all the Emeralds with Sonic. How we got to that point was anticlimatic, and I hated that inverse color theme that I mentioned earlier. Plus it was way too similar to S3&K's final. As I said a while ago, being Sonic was pretty damn cool. I'll give it that. at least. Level transitions in general -- I really had a hard time following the story. Could be just me though. While I have those complaints, other than those -- this game played VERY official. Most moments I could easily believe the early Sonic Team would've made. Special Stage design is incredible. I feel like the original levels were spot on as well. I'm confident once they make a game that's 100% original, a lot of my complaints will be taken care of. I hated a lot of the design decisions because said decisions occurred in old school original levels, and just looked really off. Would look okay/great in an original level.
This development seems to me like I was right about people implying fangame as a lower level of quality. It's nice to see some specific examples though. If you want to criticise mania's visuals like that and therefore call it a fangame, by those standards I guess all the other classic sonic games look like fangames too? I get the times are different now but damn mania is polished up the backside, and I can't grasp this fangame comparison at all.
