I almost got a time over in TMZ Act 2, but made it to the boss arena just in time. It's been part of the game's mechanics since the beginning. Why would they remove a feature that's been part of the series since the beginning? It'll be like removing rings or badniks.
It wouldn't be like removing rings or badniks, that's an absurd statement. Besides, Knuckles Chaotix already modernised the design principles by removing the lives system entirely. In fact, did Knuckles Chaotix even have time overs?
This is more reasonable. Time Limits were arbitrary holdovers from the arcade days. Purely there to escalate tension and keep the player on a deadline. By Sonic CD, where we started getting stuff like save system and the games having much larger stages, it became kind of stupid. I wouldn't go as far as to say any of them should last 10 minutes, not even Mania's, but it's just redundant at this point.
Gonna echo these statements. I had several moments where I was doing well and got fucked over by the Time Over. It doesn't help much that "Time" doesn't even flicker once you enter the 9th minute. Flying Battery Zones boss is the most notorious moment I can think of, with Titanic Monarch coming close behind, only saved by the Act 2 boss resetting the timer. I also feel like with how huge the levels are now, I wish the Time Over wasn't there even more, because it would mean unlimited time to explore every nook and cranny of the maps. A lot of times I felt pressured to keep going instead of stopping to explore because I was already pushing it at 7-8 minutes.
I'm going to write up a long post detailing my thoughts on Mania, but I definitely think that the team were too slavish to making the game feel authentic to its time. There's no reason for Time Over's to be in this game and there's also no reason for Game Over's to send you back to Act 1. It's funny because the Sonic 1 and 2 remasters didn't send you back to Act 1, those remasters are actually more modernised than this new game :v: . In fact, Mania has a lot of flaws that I'm going to tackle soon. I wouldn't give it over an 8/10 because of its flaws. But it reminds me of Sonic 1 because both that game and Mania feel like a first run experiment to me. If Mania 2 were to come out (or something akin to Mania 2) I think their next game would improve tenfold as Sonic Team did with Sonic 2. Of course, Mania is far better than Sonic 1. But in all honesty, I'd probably rate the classic style games as: Sonic 3 and Knuckles (Best) Sonic 2 Taxman-Stealth Sonic Mania Sonic CD Taxman-Stealth Sonic 1 Taxman-Stealth Knuckles Chaotix (Worst)
Please don't patch this out I love seeing (blue) super sonic again. reminded me of this topic from ages ago.
Instead of getting rid of the time limit altogether, why not make it a bit longer to accomodate for the longer levels? A 15-minute time limit seems reasonable enough.
Damn, I want the game to unlock on Steam already so that I can dissect every piece of it and nitpick all the tiny details and stuff. Oh yeah, and play it too. =P
I mean...that's being way too harsh on the game in my opinion. It wreaks of experimentation, but in a bit more of a subtle, creative way, unlike Sonic 1's, "We don't really know what to do". They were careful in taking out stuff that would kind of break the game. Classic Sonic without lives takes a lot of the wind out of it's sails. Just look at Knuckles Chaotix awkward attempt to make exploring a level with barely any valuable stuff worthwhile. Assuming there are no lives, there are no game overs, and so whenever the player fails...should they just...kind of keep going. Should they really not suffer SOME sort of penalty for messing up or making a mistake? There's modernizing, and then there's just ripping the game apart to make it more user friendly. I'd agree they stayed a bit too close to the classics with the implementation of certain things, but I'd rather they do that than strip the game of it's mechanics and awkwardly try to throw in new ones.
I was playing through Stardust Speedway act one earlier and a thought occured to me, you know those big vines that grow in the level and has those mechanical claws? You don't suppose those vines are the Krudzu from the Archie Sonic Comics?
Nope, they're actually a blatant homage to one of the most interesting enemies in a Sonic title to date; Spoiler :v:
I've seen a lot of time overs in my life due to exploration on the levels, specially with carnival night back in the day. I'm no t really worried about it, though; it's not like it would be hard to get new lives most of the time. But it's true that, with time, levels have gotten bigger and the time limit should be adjusted, may be up to 12 or 15 minutes instead of just 10. That would make exploring easier, since you should still be able to get to the end on time unless something goes really bad or you're really stubborn like me and try again and again something probably impossible.
So you know how we've been discussing about the time limit function being obsolete with these massive multipath levels, I politely request that we have an a update patch so we have the option to disable it in the options menu. A reasonable middle ground wouldn't you say? Disable trophies if you must for this mode.
The thing about penalties like starting from Act 1 after a game over and running out of time is that those things do not have much of an impact on more skilled and knowledgeable players. Yeah, these things can encourage a worse player to improve, but you know what else can? Challenging level designs/bosses, ranks/score/time, bosses getting new forms or attacks depending on how well you've played (e.g. bosses in the Mega Man Zero games), bonus areas that can only be accessed by playing well (e.g. Special Stages, Bonus Stages, the Super boss fight, paths that require a specific powerup, Crash Bandicoot's death routes, Rush Adventure's timed gates), etc. Reward good players with additional content without overly penalizing bad players.
I'd have to agree on the time limit being a disservice to the game's stellar and intricate level design. Something else to keep in mind is that in Sonic 1 and 2, only the last acts had bosses, whereas every act in Mania ends with a boss fight. While you can easily get more extra lives while exploring to make up for the 1-3 Time Overs you're likely to get if you explore every nook and cranny, the fact that it's there can make newer and less experienced players feel like they're being unexpectedly punished despite playing well in their eyes (in the sense that they're collecting a ton of stuff, bonking badniks left and right and avoiding losing their rings). I don't think Mania's levels are at quite the length were the time limit can seriously gate off newcomers, but they cut it close in some spots. Possible ideas for modernizing the mechanic: - Removing it altogether a la Sonic Adventure 1. - Instead of having Sonic and co. spontaneously die when time is up, play a pouting animation with the message "Eggman Got Away!" or somesuch. Not an actual solution but I think something like this would make it feel less outdated. - Do what Ridge Racer 7 did and increase the time limit to 13 minutes with a 3 minute warning at 10. - Have the timer reset before all boss battles and then split up time records into two categories: Stage time and boss time.
So is there a way through the level select to pick a specific Special Stage? I tried setting the sound test numbers similar to how the mobile remasters did it, but no luck.
Any theories as to why Press Garden Zone only has one animal type (Flicky)? Every other Zone in Mania and the classic series has two animals per Zone. I also noticed that Wocky (monkey) and Becky (bear) show up during Knuckles' intro and Metal Sonic's intro, but neither are a featured animal of any Zone. All of the Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 animals appear in the game, but none of the Sonic CD exclusive animals show up. SCD Stardust Speedway has Pocky and a yellow bird, Mania Stardust Speedway has Pocky and Flicky. SCD Metallic Madness has a grey bird and a sheep, Mania Metallic Madness has Cucky and Pocky.
I can't wait for the PC version to unlock so I can do a CRT SD run. Gonna live stream it, too. And capture the footage on a real VHS tape using a real VCR, just like I did as a kid.
Sonic Colors had a good time over mechanic, but given the lack of rankings in this game it wouldn't do a whole lot. Basically after a certain amount of time in a level (which you wouldn't know until you got it, so that was bad design), you were no longer awarded points for anything, even at the end of act tally, so your rank was inevitably shit. So you don't die but you have the chance to learn and explore still, even if you're punished a bit for it.
The 10 minute timer is there to push players forward and encourage them to replay the zones later and explore paths that way tbh. It's a bit rigid in TMZ Act 2 but then you realize that the boss resets the timer, so it's no big deal to me there either. I personally think this game is better than S3K because it has no zones that are either boring and/or awful (SAndopolis, Death Egg, Marble Garden, Carnival Night UGHHHHH). I wish the save system saved acts though, but that's more of a minor problem and not one I'd dock the game points for. But this game is going to see like, one million playthroughs from me before I get sick of it.
