In all classic Sonic games, when you are moving upwards between 0 and 4 pixels per frame, air drag is applied to your movement. It's mostly clearly seen with Tails - he can't move as quickly while flying upwards as he can while flying downwards, for example.
I think generally people are very satisfied with the game, but the 2 decades worth of experience being Classic Sonic fans has resulted in pathologies. A lot of people here have been dissecting the franchise for so long they hardly know anything else. There hasn't been much else to do, really. On top of that, what crumbs we have been fed over the years have left a bitter taste in peoples mouth. People are rightfully jaded. I know that I loved 99% of the game, and for that reason I don't care to discuss the other 1%. Now, in the past situation where I enjoyed 5% and hated the other 95%, I'd be in there like a dirty shirt. But I don't care for this petty stuff because I derive pleasure from the game, not analyzing every single god damn pixel, but hey, this is the place to do that isn't it. It's actually very normal for people who are obsessed with something to be perfectionists. This is why designers are known for being dictators. Nonetheless, it might make sense to cut the shit temporarily, but mostly for the sake of optics. Obviously a lot of good can come out of this community, and if our opinions are to ever be taken seriously, they need to be perceived as balanced and realistic. I understand that you can love 99% of something and still want to discuss the other 1%, and that isn't wrong per se. But the reality is to most people that don't understand this kind of love, it just comes off as unappeasable, and therefore why should anyone care about such opinions. EDIT: changed paragraph order
Sonic Mania is excellent and greatly exceeded my expectations. I've nitpicked a few things, as have others, but I think the majority of us do it from a place of "this was so good, but with a few small tweaks the next one could be even better". The fan game talk is dumb. Show me any full Sonic fan game that looks, sounds and plays as good as Mania. A higher quality Sonic sprite running through Green Hill Zone Act 1 felt somewhat incongruous in the initial reveal trailer, but in the full game the returning levels and the new elements all ended up harmonising rather well. One thing that is different about it - in S&K an animal pops out, but not in Mania.
Can we all just take a moment to recall how amazing it was to play Lava Reef again, and my god Act II was a religious experience. I think my heart skipped a beat when I got to the top and saw the starry sky and the pooling lava. And that music! Utterly gobsmacked! Then there was Metallic Madness. Just wow! They totally brought it to life, and that creepy funky music completely changed the tone. I never cared for that zone much, until now. Sorry to interrupt with such a post, but really this is what it's truly all about isn't it. We don't talk about our experiences enough... it's all pixels and Hill Top trees around here...
My main complaint is that Sonic and co don't go into their helpless state animation when going down the slides in Hydrocity. Boy I hoped somebody got fired for that blunder
I kind of wanted for the HBHs to be initially be designed by Eggman instead of being transformed by the Phantom Ruby. That kind of threw me out of the loop for a little bit. Saying that, did the transformation also had an effect on the little animals inside? Spoiler Is this how Infinite was born? Was he the little animal inside Heavy King?
The art team absolutely nailed the backgrounds in Lava Reef Zone. All of the new/remixed elements in Lava Reef Zone were great. And the Act 2 BGM! Probably my favourite "old" Zone in the game. I think more than any other Zone it had that "things have changed since last time" look to it, rather than just "here's a section you didn't see in the original". (I'd really like to see the Mania Team's take on "Mecha Green Hill Zone", as in the actual Green Hill Zone taken over by Eggman. The 8-bit version didn't really "sell" the concept beyond the palmtrees.) Maybe the subconscious of the animals helped shape the forms of the Hard Boiled Heavies?
They did great work with Lava Reef. I also think they did great work with basically all the stages, with the exception of Hydrocity Act 2. Why are you 90% S3 Hydrocity Act 2? I mean, I loved it then so I don't not like it now but it was very tame. Act 1 mixed things up a tad. I loved the bosses though. Speaking of Lava Reef, I wonder how late in development it was added? It's the only zone notable for having a surprising amount of unused sections, particularly the Hidden Palace portion which has the original SK layout duplicated off screen somewhere. But you also get things like the original SK Sonic start position, but that's also walled off, and you also get some weird object placement (like one of those rocks you can stand on in lava, but it's under a bridge for some reason). I'm just curious about the process really.
In the stream, Stealth says the Drop Dash was Tom Fry's idea and that he implemented it. This Tom Fry seems to have played a big role in Mania, I think Hunter Bridges was responsible for a lot too. If they make a sequel to Mania we need all these people back, not just Taxman and Stealth :v: . Also, the special stage models were by Kieran and so was the robotnik statue in Metal Sonic's fight.
Tom Fry is an artist deity from above. To be honest everyone who worked on this game seems to be an eternally higher power. I might start a religion.
The system requirements for Sonic Mania on Steam have been updated again. The previous "minimum requirements" have been removed, and the previous "recommended" specs have been made the new minimum. There's no "recommended" specs now, just "minimum": OS: Windows 7 / 8 / 10 Processor: Core 2 Duo Memory: 2 GB RAM Graphics: DirectX 9.0c compliant video card 256MB DirectX: Version 9.0c Storage: 400 MB available space Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c Compatible
Well, there goes any hope running this on my cheap android tablet. I was probably hoping for too much since this is a Windows game with DRM, but I was gonna do some research to see if it was possible to run it in DOSBox or something.
While I have yet to play the game, I have noticed that on this forum and other outlets, Sonic Mania seems to be bringing back many people who have not played Sonic in awhile. I can only hope that this will somehow reach the higher-ups at SEGA and will, in turn, give Taxman and Stealth the go ahead to create a Mania 2 with all new original levels. Studiopolis and Press Garden remain some of my favorite zones, and the ice gimmick in Press Garden is pretty cool too. I say these things because Sonic CD is one of my favorite games in the series, as I enjoy the large expansive stages that allow for more exploration. Speaking of exploration, does anyone know if there are any maps of Sonic Mania stages? I always enjoy looking at some of the maps of previous Sonic stages to see how the stages have evolved from game to game. Sonic Mania seems to have wide open spaces like CD, and S3andK.
I finally got that damn fifth chaos emerald as Sonic, got half gold half silver blue spheres coins, and beat the game as Knuckles. My game froze after I played ghz 2 as Tails in time attack mode, so I'm taking a break. (It froze when I attempted to check the leaderboards, which is odd seeing how I'm playing it on the Xbox One. Though it's not the first time it randomly crashed on me.) I'm sure most people on here already got all the chaos emeralds, but I suck at the special stages. xD
With the extremely positive reception and good sales, I would be very surprised if this is the last Sonic game that the Taxman, Stealth and Pagoda West make. I think a sequel is practically inevitable.
I find it really hard just to find the giant rings. I don't want to ruin it by debug searching, nor just grind GHZ (I only know 2 with Sonic in the whole zone anyway). Roughly how many giant rings per act? Easiest one I know would be PGZ1.
Most levels have three. Some have two or four (or five, since some are Knuckles-exclusive), Mirage Saloon 1 ST has only one.
