Similar issue here. It just... stops for half a second. I'm also assuming it's down to Denuvo's continuous de- and encrypting operations.
Honestly, as a now "casual gamer" I didn't even notice the DRM. Since I'm new to steam, it all looks foreign to me. I found that big picture mode is pretty cool as it looks like a modern console menu. Yesterday I finally finished a 3 emerald playthrough with Sonic & Tails and I have to say that the difficulty is absolutely fair. I got one Time Over in Titanic Monarch Act 1 right before the boss. I was wondering how they were going to top Death Egg Zone and the team did an amazing job. There was so much going on, yet it didn't feel cluttered or wall smashingly difficult. One question though... Where IS Titanic Monarch?
I'd love this too. But I'm assuming it was a time related thing. On that note I'd love to know how long it takes the mania team to create a entirely new level. Sonic 2 was in development for like a year? Hopefully Sega will increase the team size for the next game, so we could see a faster turn around like the good old days. Get Lapper on board also cos that Green Hill art is amazing.
That happens with both Super Sonic and Super Tails. Though Sonic eventually corrects himself. Did anyone notice the Metal Sonic boss battle bgm mixes Stardust Speedway and the Chaotix battle theme? I noticed the boss itself was a combination but it wasn't until my second playthrough I noticed the bgm. Really nice touch.
Pretty cool to note, I get a 12% decrease in Mania's CPU usage if I just close my browser. 14-15% down to 2% *Close all your other programs boyz* (not gonna act like I know why cause I'm clueless)
Finally got the 5th Chaos Emerald. I think what screwed me over the most besides going Mach 3 (Usually 2 is enough to catch the UFO in earlier stages) was that there's a fork near the end. One having a group of those spinning blue spheres and spikes after a sharp turn. The UFO goes the other way, which is a whole lot shorter.
Special stage 5 is currently trolling the fuck out of me on my PC. I already cleared it twice on my Switch using the same damn controller, so naturally I'm a little salty about it. Thankfully I just cleared the game as Sonic and Tails so now I can farm special stage rings more easily. I really wanted to get them all in one run through, though.
Once you've finished a game, you can keep reusing the same giant ring over and over. So as long as you know where to find one, you can enter the special stage, exit to the main menu and repeat.
I honestly though Special Stage 5 was a little counterintuitive, usually it's best to prioritize blue spheres in all the other stages but in this one it's better to avoid all of the bounce ramps and go foe the ring wireframe spheres (and generally stocking up on rings). Before I did this the UFO got such a big lead that I didn't have much of a chance.
On PS4, it's odd, the game also has a brief splitsecond pause between the fade-in for transitionless stages (think Oil Ocean -> Lava Reef) and does the same for transitioning between the acts of LRZ Act 1 and LRZ Act 2...
I've had it so that the transition between LRZ 1 and 2 breaks and Tails gets on the spindash elevator before Sonic and leaves without him. Sonic just sits on the platform near the lift crouching until it fades out and back to act 2.
OH SHIT BOIS I found the TRUE inspiration for Sonic Mania!! Compare this: (Skip to 25:21 & 27:20!) to the train sequence in Mirage Saloon Act 1 and the way it transitions to Act 2! Bubsy = practically identical to Sonic Mania!! i regret nothing
I was at the end of Titanic Monarch Act 2 with Knuckles & Knuckles under no save mode...and the game went black after destroying Robotnik's machine. I feel cheated. lol I had all seven emeralds as well.
Well... It wouldn't be a Sonic game without duplicate rings, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtArdH58In4
Yeah, I already made the joke : http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=35709&st=7920&p=904219&#entry904219
I think the fifth special stage gives you all the rings and spheres necessary to reach the UFO, its layout is nicely balanced. It's just some oddly placed bouncing corners that pushed me back here and there, so when I was about to catch up to the UFO, I bounce backwards out of nowhere, even if I was jumping over it at the time, and lose all that progress. Once I stopped repeatedly hitting that one rectangular corner in the beginning, I caught up to the UFO no problem. (However, it took a lot of restarts on a completed save to get there.) The stages after it are so much easier. The only thing that frustrated me were death pits. I have seen exactly one death pit so far in Mania's levels, so finding them in the special stages felt like an anti-thesis to Sonic level design. It's hard enough to avoid losing rings/time to land mines, did the stages really need insta-kill zones too? I think I prefer Sonic CD's "lose time for touching water" condition to that, because at least that way, you have a chance to recover from a small mistake. While it's not much of a chance, it's something. It's better than nothing. ™ :v: Overall, though, I loved this new take on the special stages. Sonic CD's special stages had good ideas originally, but none of its layouts were built around Sonic's speed; each one felt like he was plopped into a Super Mario Kart map that's too small for him. Sonic Mania took all of those ideas and did something infinitely better with it, made with ridiculously fast fun in mind. It's a nice thrill to hit Mach 3 and feel the time pressure of reaching the UFO before running out of rings.
I'm legit triggered: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=83UNT52EiU4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=83UNT52EiU4