Sonic Mania (Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC...Netflix?)

Remind me. Why do you dislike Mirage Saloon? What bothers me is that the music is basically a re-imagining of Studiopolis's.

 

I'm not sure if I really am annoyed with Hydro City 1 as much as I'm just disappointed in it. It's a fine level but definitely not up to the same level as the other remix stages.
Mirage Saloon 1 featuring the plane is fine by me, but the train concept is woefully underused. Hopping from train to train via giant pistol would have been a great second half. It also has one of the worst bosses in the game.

 

The Act 1 is really buggy. I've fallen off that plane too much.

Act 2 is good but could be longer and have a transition to a different background etc.

I wish I could skip Oil Ocean, though.

 

The fact that the plane can still kill you if you go too fast is unforgivable. There's a feeling of dread and insecurity that always follows me into the plane levels.
MSZ1 is at least a bit more active than Sky Chase was. I don't mind the level that much but the inability to speed it up on repeated playthroughs and the crappy boss really weigh it down. It doesn't help that act 2 is insanely short.

I'm still quite surprised by how much this game made me like Oil Ocean. The tweaks to enemy behavior and object placement really improves certain areas and the new areas help flesh out areas that once felt empty. I actually didn't mind the red fog in act 2, just like how I didn't mind the darkness in Sandopolis (the real problems were the stupid rising sand segments).

 

It takes the worst part of Sonic 2 and keeps all of the things that made it suck, then adds a few on top.

 

Yeah, Mirage Saloon Act 1 is definitely the low point of Mania for me. I hate most autoscrollers, especially slow ones, and it's really easy to fall off the plane. There's no checkpoint until the train, so if you die at the very end of the sequence, you're wasting another two minutes.
Not to mention how dull the entire thing is.

I'm a bigger fan of Sky Fortress Act 1, Sky Fortress Boss, Tropical Coast Zone ?, and Sky Road Zone 3. The former two are a bit more varied with their obstacles and have encounters with Metal Sonic in an airship and the latter two play similarly to the Rocket Barrel levels of the Retro Studios Donkey Kong Country games.

Since it's possible to enter Knuckles' Act 1 with the other characters, I wish the team had the foresight to make it possible for Sonic to finish the stage by himself.

...and then make it possible to replace the normal Act 1 with it without modding the game.

 

I personally enjoyed Mirage Saloon, since it felt like an easy breather level before the likes of Oil Ocean and Metallic Madness. I didn't even know about the plane glitch until someone else pointed it out. The Knuckles map is also one of my favorite levels in the whole game, since it feels so unique and is fun to explore. Act 2 feels easy too, and I like that it's a zone that just lets you coast through and enjoy the scenery.

 

Mirage Saloon's act 2 being so heinously short is this game's biggest crime. The whole level's such a joy to play and it's over before you know it.

Sonic's act 1 being a Sky Chase redux in tandem with that made me feel doubly sore about it until I found out that Knuckles got his own awesome act 1. Him having an exclusive level that plays to his unique moveset makes up for having less exclusive routes than 3K in my books, doesn't bother me at all that you can't play it with the other two.

You could probably file that under "things that probably would have gotten done with more time"

 

Yeah, the plane sequence in Mirage Saloon 1 gets annoying and tedious on replays. And I was disappointed by the shortness of the train sequence and the second act. Mirage Saloon as a whole, as well as Stardust Speedway, felt unusually short compared to other Mania zones. Which is a pity, as the latter is otherwise my favorite zone in the game.

 

At least it's short, and more fun than Sky Chase.

Really I'm still just so thankful this game even exists, let alone being so thoroughly fantastic.

 

I don't know about anyone else, but I found Stardust Speedway to be an annoying level to get through. The whole Zone is just one spring bouncing onto another in crazy directions all over the place; I've never liked CDs levels as they all seem to be like that.

Plus there doesn't seem to be any exploration in it either. Every time I get to this stage, I always just want to get through it to get to the next zone.

The Metal Sonic boss isn't too bad, though having a wall of spikes you have to outrun while attacking Metal is a bit cheap though.

 

Honestly, I see people say this often, and it makes me wonder if I played a different Stardust Speedway from them. I can get through Mania's SS just fine; I hardly recall any instances of getting bounced back by springs, especially considering that most springs let you pick the direction or path, so I'm usually thrown in the right direction. Do people just press the jump button as soon as they enter the spring gizmos without bothering with the aim and timing? And even with regular springs that send you back, I found them sending me to alternate, higher paths, rather than back to where I came from.

And what you do mean it has no exploration? It has plenty of alternate paths and hidden big rings, like all zones. On replays I found a number of big rings I had previously missed.

 

Stardust Speedway is the zone I hate from this game, except maybe act 2 (not counting the boss) because is quick to pass through and ignore. If I'm gonna make py playthrough a two-parter, Stardust Speedway is the point where I leave and resume later. I like Hydrocity ten times more than this one; it my not be very fun, but it isn't annoying, and SSZ is.

 

I can't believe people don't like Stardust Speedway in mania.

 

Stardust Speedway is Mania is possibly the greatest 2d platformer level ever made. Being 100% serious here.

 

I was 100% serious before too. The degree of automation and the lack of control in what you do most of the time in speedy/gimmicky sections, plus those many moments when the pace breaks in act 1 and sometimes even in act 2, no thanks. Marble Garden's elements may fit with the new concept for SS past, but they're part of the problem I see with the level, since marble garden wasn't a speedy level and had a more open nature (see: wider spaces to move around, even if they're still tunnels). And the boss can have those many references to not-CD bosses, but those last just an instant as a joy, and the gameplay lasts forever as a pain. Pairing "Mania" and "boss" gives that kind of results, but this one's of the most evident.

 

Stardust Sucked in CD, and still sucks in Mania.

 

I disagree with this sentiment. Never found my pace broken, can speedrun the both acts easy if I wanted to.

 

Thanks for the clarification, we couldn't have figured out you were being serious otherwise