Eh... the difficulty could be crafted so that new players really value the bonus stages as a chance to get a much needed shield. That adds fun imo. Meanwhile good players can crack the level design open a bit more. I see what you're saying but at the same time i prefer shields not just being restricted to fixed areas. Before the PC release I couldn't get a reply about the zero reward bonus stages. Now everyone's all over it. Oh, I really dislike the Y button on the HUD for Super. Can it go away? Is it still going to tell me to press Y in a year?
How do people actually discover these things? I've been yelling Panopticon into my controller during debug mode for hours, and still nothing...
Quoting this because I have this exact same issue. A friend told me to update DirectX but that did nothing.
I guess there's so much nostalgia wrapped up even in the codes of Sonic, I'm surprised someone didn't find it sooner. Not sure who Dunkey is, but it's a neat little easter egg.
I've played the game for about 9 hours now, and I have some more positives and negatives I didn't put in my post from yesterday: POSITIVES - Mean Bean Machine. Need I say more? -The Green Hill Zone and Chemical Plant remixes are actually pretty good now that I think about it! -The stage design overall is consistantly very solid, and zones don't feel too much like each other (it doesn't have the "Unleashed problem", as I like to call it). - The little nods to the Mega Drive and even the Advance games (the bungee rope gimmick from SA2 (I think?), the Studiopolis 2 funnel thingies from Casino Paradise (they even make the same kind of sound effect), and something else that I can't remember right now... - The Special Stages are really difficult, but I kinda like them to be honest. The courses don't always seem to be designed around going at "Mach 3", but the controls are just as good as in the similar, but much less well-designed Advance 2 Special stages, and it's infinitely better than Sonic CD's special stages (I can not get more than two time stones in Sonic CD, and I've really tried!) - The zones are really really big, which is great in most of the levels, especially Studiopolis Zone... NEGATIVES - .. but less great in some of the later stages, which contain less memorable landmarks and repeat setpieces and assets everywhere, resulting in some Sonic Advance 2/3 moments where you have no clue where in the level you are unless you've played them multiple times. Speaking of Advance 2, that game (and all of the later Dimps games) let you turn off the time limit. When you have these large levels and sometimes long drawn-out boss battles like in Mania, it's almost inevitable that you exceed the 10 minute time limit. Dying to the Studiopolis 1 boss because you ran out of time during an automated sequence is bullcrap. - On my first playthrough I encountered a bunch of graphical gitches, like Sonic occasionally being on a higher layer than the bars in FBZ (essentially hanging from nothing). While they don't really affect gameplay, they're still kinda jarring. - Inconsistant platform respawning. Some platforms respawn when you leave the screen, some (in Studiopolis for example) don't. - What is up with the level transitions?! Why do Sonic etc. sometimes just go from one zone to the next like in Sonic 1 and 2 when the first few levels and some levels after that have transitions? Why are you flying with the Tornado all of the sudden at the beginning of MSZ1, and where did Knuckles come from?! Why don't they just run, it'd be much faster than flying! - "You just unlocked [blahblahblah]!!" Cool, how do I do the Sonic CD peelout? How do I do the insta shield? I'm pressing all of the keys, and nothing's happening. Why is there nothing to indicate how to do these moves in the game? - The remixed levels that weren't shown before just seem a little lazy campared to Green Hill and FBZ. Seriously, can someone plz explain to me what makes Hydrocity in Mania so different and special compared to the Sonic 3 Hydrocity? And as for Oil Ocean, why would you bring back that annoying gimmick that no one liked from that annoying S&K level no one liked? The backgrounds in some of the remixed levels - especially the Sonic 2 levels - look more or less exactly like they did in the original levels, with only very minor changes. - Speaking of Oil Ocean, the OOZ2 boss is the worst thing ever. Every time I fell into the oil while the platforms were descending down into the oil and the boss emerged, Sonic simply died instantly from a weird glitch, as if he simply fell through the oil! This caused me to get a Game Over TWO times! So yeah, I would rank Mania as high as 16-bit Sonic 1 or Sonic Advance (and trust me, I love both of those games despite their flaws!). Definitely something I'll try to get the 100% for, even if that'll take a while...
RTFM Edit: EXCUSE ME I liked the light gimmick from Sandopolis and it's one of my favorite zones in S3K Also, I've had no issues with OOZ2's boss. Why are you even on the platforms that have tentacles climbing up them that visibly dragged them down during the boss intro? I've seen this complaint from many people that appear new to Sonic gimmicks, but this seems like it should be obvious to veterans. Don't be on the platform that is being pulled down, the other 80% of the screen including the oil is a safe zone.
My PC has a GeForce GTX 1050 in it, which apparently supports Shader Model 5.0? I'm not very knowledgeable about this stuff. Just to be sure, I reinstalled DirectX with the installer that's with the game's files, and there's still no difference between Clean and None at 2x window size.
Yeah I couldn't figure that out for a while either, but in case you still haven't figured it out, highlight "No Save" on the save screen and the "Delete" option will change to "Secrets" (activated with the Y button on a 360 controller) and from there you can change Sonic's ability and activate debug mode/&Knuckles mode. I think they only work in No Save mode.
I dunno, either my eyesight is getting worse or there isn't anything about the unlockable moves in this manual, cause I read the entire thing and didn't find it anywhere. Nevermind. But it's oddly cryptic and only mentioned briefly in the manual (which IMO you shouldn't need to read, because it's a freakin' digital manual for a 2017 download-only game) Also, I jumped into the oil because I thought it would be a safe zone, but I kept falling through it as if it simply wasn't there.
Huh. Can't say I've had that happen :\ I know I've been mucked around in the oil a bit during the boss, too. Also, since I haven't seen it here yet; Add "devMenu=y" to the [Game] section of Settings.ini and hit Escape to access the Dev Menu. It also makes F12 freeze the game and F11 frame advance. There's probably more things to explore with it, but I'm working
Since the Taxman is reading this thread, I just want to say thank you so very much for making this game a reality. I've wanted this game for over 20 years, and I'm far from the only one. Being able to personally thank you guys for all your hard work on this game is the very least I can do.
Sorry about that. I can edit the post out if you want. I might have gotten a little too excited. They really are. They're challenging, but they really are a blast.
Not to speak for the Mania development team, but the kind of data you just asked people to not divulge is priceless to a developer.
