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Sonic Mania Plus SPOILER THREAD with UNMARKED spoilers!

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Harmony Friends, Apr 25, 2018.

  1. Tiller

    Tiller

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    I got a steam copy and I'm trying to play the game windowed but the game is shitting itself every time it pops from full screen. Additionally minimizing the game instantly closes it. I'm not sure if it's related to the DS4 issues or not.
     
  2. Aquova

    Aquova

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    I've played Encore mode up through Mirage Saloon, and here are my thoughts so far

    - I like playing as Mighty, and I love playing as Ray. He controls really well and his glide move is really useful in getting a slight bit of extra height if you need it. Mighty I noticed jumps higher than Sonic, making some bosses like Studiopolis Act 2 really easy now.

    - The new palette swapped levels is a really neat touch, and I really like it. The rest of the stages 'remixes' really boil down to some enemy and spike placement changes, and moving around the special rings. I also feel like I've stumbled upon more special rings so far than I did my first playthrough of Mania vanilla, but maybe I'm just more familiar with the levels.

    - The new special stages are really hard. Granted, I haven't really gotten that good at the vanilla special stages, but it took me 6 or 7 tried before I was able to get the first emerald. If you liked the special stages from before, you'll probably like the new challenge, but if you were apathetic about them you may not be crazy about the new difficulty.

    - The changed boss fight isn't very good. The new Metal Sonic fight, while it looks cool, was kind of a mess. At its core, it's an easier version of the Death Egg Act 2 boss from Sonic & Knuckles, its only moves that I saw were shooting a laser across the screen, or throwing 3 projectiles, both of which were easily avoidable with Ray and Tails, and probably not too hard for the other characters. However, I died several times to the boss simply because the stage is moving forwards, so the characters tend to move towards the left, but there's no stage on the left side. Several times, I would attack the boss, bounce at a high angle, and be unable to move right enough to live. I won't claim to be particularly good at the game, but I felt like everytime I died to the boss it was a cheap death.

    - The new pinball bonus stage is... fine. It's pretty easy to hit up to the top and get to play the claw game, and it's really easy to get exactly what you want as a prize. It does seem very shallow, and I'm kinda bummed we didn't get bonus stages on the same quality level as the ones in Sonic 3K.

    All and all I'm really enjoying myself. 2 new characters and a new gamemode are a worthy addition for just $5.
     
  3. Glaber

    Glaber

    Has Beaten Sonic Genesis for GBA Oldbie
    Since no one tried it after I asked about it, I found out the answer myself on what happens to the digital copy of the game after using the physical version.
     
  4. rata

    rata

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    Trying to be useful somehow.
    And so...?
     
  5. Glaber

    Glaber

    Has Beaten Sonic Genesis for GBA Oldbie
    Well I do feel like the little red hen here, asking for help on the issue twice only to have to do it myself.



    But simply put if you didn't buy the DLC, the digital copy won't reconise you as having it despite the physical copy
     
  6. foXcollr

    foXcollr

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    @Glaner: That question was answered several pages ago but I'm not sure why nobody here took the liberty to just answer it again. Sorry, I totally would've answered if I read this thread in time.

    I am in LOVE with Mania Plus. The palette swaps aren't all completely amazing, but some of them are downright gorgeous, and even GHZ I really like after seeing it in motion. I still have two stages to go because I'm starting my playthrough later than I'd have liked to, but I'd say SPZ, OOZ, SSZ (WOW), and HCZ are my favorites so far. FBZ Act 2 is gorgeous as well. The level changes are actually quite generous and more extensive than I thought, and the people still saying “nothing was really changed but enemy and spike placement” are really confusing me. No, the level designs have not been overhauled in any major way, but the enemy placements are actually pretty clever and add some difficulty to the game. GHZ offered some new small challenges, but CPZ was where I started to think the devs really wanted to throw us off with those badnik placements right above the water. The spike and hazard additions caught me off guard a few times too, but having Mighty has made it a breeze to not have to commit to a jump out of fear you might land on spikes. It's only my first playthrough and I think I'm going a little by muscle memory, but I've still seen enough new pathways and secret routes to be genuinely pleased, and a few of them actually gave me a reason to play as Tails over Knuckles or Ray, which is really nice considering that I've always just seen Tails as an easy mode. The new special stage rings are hidden away really cleverly and I've only managed to find 3 or 4 new ones so far, but it's nice that in most of the old big ring locations you can find a character swap box or two. The character swap mechanic itself makes all of this so much more fun and gives you a lot of cool combinations to play with. Overall, Encore is proving to be a nice challenge, and the new special stages have been BRUTAL for me. Seriously, I'm on LRZ with only 1 emerald now. It's nice to see such a healthy dose of challenge in a Sonic Game.

    The small changes to the bosses were really nice.
    Gonna spoil a few of those changes and I can't put a spoiler tag on mobile so just skip this whole paragraph if you don't wanna be spoiled!
    *****FBZ2 is more consistent and no longer has collision issues when you knock him onto the edge of spikes. CPZ2 felt a little more challenging this time around but that might just be me. PGZ1 got a nice little intro that I don't think was necessary because the original boss was pretty intuitive, but I appreciate that they added that in for players who don't think the original did the trick. OOZ1 still has the spikes but they are no longer crushing/instakill, meaning the boss is still a little bit deceptive but the major issue of it eating away lives for unsuspecting players is now gone. SSZ2 is a nice callback; the new “Kai” phase isn't too elaborate, but it's a lot nicer than the original last phase and I personally didn't find it difficult or unfair at all. Maybe that's just me, but I would just wait for his hand to go down and then jump on top of his chest chamber, which usually sent me bouncing back to the right. I'm not sure if I just got lucky, but I didn't have any problems dying in the rather small pit underneath him, and the attack pattern was a little difficult to avoid but easy enough for me to get my rings back afterward. Gotta say I REALLY like the changes to phase 2 though; all three of the Silver Sonics spindashed on my first playthrough, none of that arm twisting attack he sometimes did in vanilla Mania. It was nice to only have to hit him 3 times and be done with it, rather than playing the waiting game like you had to before the update. If there's one boss change I disagree with so far it has to be OOZ2, although I know that's an unpopular opinion. For a boss that late in the game it actually felt too easy with the tentacles shooting inward toward the mech. In the original I was constantly dodging oncoming bullets, but in this one I could just drop into the oil and keep landing hits without consequence. Not a huge deal though; there's not too much to complain about a boss being too easy.

    As for Ray, I'm gonna have to just echo most of what everyone else has already said. Using his glide is a blast, and the minute little tricks you can pull with it are so interesting. You can pull back once for a little boost in height. You can start a divebomb and then pull up slightly and let go for a horizontal boost out of a standstill. You can simply divebomb downward from high up. You can rebound off an enemy or item box and start gliding at the peak of your bounce. You can jump all the way to the left and then start gliding upward to the right for what is essential a triangular double jump. You can use the slight boost to glide up and hit bosses like GHZ2, MSZ1, or FBZ1, or to reach up and hit enemies you couldn't otherwise. I never find myself having too much time to freeglide over the level without hitting a wall, which is nice to know so the ability isn't horribly broken like we thought it might be. More often than not I find myself using the glide for less than a few seconds just to reach higher ground or drop down from above, and I feels like with enough skill and practice it could be used to maneuver through tighter corridors as well.

    Mighty feels like more than just “Sonic with a permanent bubble shield” to me. The bubble shield aspect is definitely fun; dropping down quickly from cliffs like in HCZ1 is super useful and being able to rebound projectiles is occasionally a nice little save. What I really enjoy, however, is the bounce mechanic and the ability to bounce off of (or sometimes even roll over) spikes. I second the enthusiasm about being able to bounce off of certain slopes. Bouncing down long steep slopes in PGZ or HCZ is fun while maybe not particularly useful, and dropping straight down a vertical wall onto a half pipe practically negates the bounce altogether and sends you flying forward. At first I thought you would be able to hammer onto enemies and item boxes and bounce up into the air, but on second thought I really like the ability to hammer through enemies and breakable objects, like the pipe caps in CPZ or the ice in PGZ2. The invulnerability is super useful against bosses as others have said, and although I haven't really mastered how to roll over spikes yet I've seen a few interesting instances where you can roll off a low platform onto a bed of spikes and bounce across it. Overall, I love these two new characters and I think they add something really unique to this franchise. Combined with the drop dash, which I am still finding cool uses for even now, the 3 new movement options this game adds make traversing through zones a lot more fun and a lot more rewarding. In a game like Mania where the act maps are more expansive than ever before, I think giving characters more ways to move vertical through the stage and interact with the terrain gives classic Sonic a fresher focus on exploration than ever before, and I'm always pleased to find neat new paths or ways to travel through an act I haven't yet seen before. Oh, and when it comes to movement, I actually appreciate that they patched the bug where you could hold down and jump repeatedly to gain insane speed on slopes. I always abused it wherever possibly to gain a little extra speed, but I think I enjoy the game a lot more now that I can jump off the bottom of slopes like normal to gain that extra speed. Cheers to that!

    Mania Adventures 5 had me laughing out loud. Every single character is on full display and their characterizations are fabulous, right down to the way they walk and carry themselves or the little details in their facial expressions. For each character in the cast I had at least one stand-out moment where I could really sense the essence of that character and it genuinely made me smile and giggle a little. Awesome job to everyone involved. The art book was brief but really interesting and filled with really high quality illustrations that I really enjoyed just sitting down and looking over for a good 15 straight minutes. When you look at the airbrushed art up close you really start to notice all kinds of little details to appreciate, and the doodles on the inside covers are the absolute best. Reversible cover was just what it was supposed to be and that was nice and looks pretty nifty. Holographic package is stylish and the overall packaging is just really charming.

    I don't know what else to say, this is definitely my favorite Sonic game now if it wasn't before. Sorry for the lengthy post, but for the price tag I'm really happy with the 2 new characters, the considerable challenge of the new hard mode, all the little QOL changes and updates to bosses and animations, the lovely new palettes... Outstanding job to the entire team. Thank you for bringing us such an awesome Sonic game in 2017 and 2018; here's hoping for another classic Sonic game in the near future!
     
  7. corneliab

    corneliab

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    Enjoying Encore mode quite a bit more than I expected. Mirage Saloon 1 was rad as hell. Holy cow those special stages though.

    Ray and Mighty are fantastic additions to this game.
     
  8. Axanery

    Axanery

    Member
    So as I mentioned before, Green Hill has an unused Encore palette. Here is a video: https://youtu.be/r7pizN6W9YE
     
  9. Axanery

    Axanery

    Member
    Along with the Green Hill unused Encore Palette, here is the unused Angel Island act 2 file running in the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oaK554Muwo. Normally it crashes with the AIZSetup, and I think that is because there is no Encore palette that it can call. I used GHZ's StageConfig along with palette editing the GHZEncore palette to get it functional (read: barely functional). Since it's a port of the scene file, all of the tiles are garbled messes because the tile numbers do not correspond with Mania's.
     
  10. Linkabel

    Linkabel

    Member
    A lot of my thoughts have been posted here by other members but I disagree with one thing: encore mode does not feel like hard mode at all. In fact the whole mode feels pretty chill to me in terms of difficulty.

    The ability to switch characters definitely helps more in getting out of tight spots and sometimes the encore layout changes seem to benefit you more than hurt you ( I noticed this more on Metallic Madness and Titanic Monarch).

    Trap Tower also helps a lot in getting shields or to get back a character in the rare occurrence you lose one.

    This is not a criticism btw, it was honestly a lot of fun and they did a great job with the mode.

    The special stages were hard though, but strangely the first 3 felt harder than the rest. Maybe because once you figure out that the hazards are more for show than actual trouble the stages just become easier to beat.

    I hope the team comes back for another game.
     
  11. Sid Starkiller

    Sid Starkiller

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    One thing that surprised me about Ray was not his ability to go up, but his ability to go down. Using the glide to take a nosedive saved me from getting hit more than once.
     
  12. McAleeCh

    McAleeCh

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    For anyone looking into the game's internal files, here's a question: I notice that in Encore Mode's Green Hill Zone Act 1, there's a Mighty-only tunnel inserted into the layout early on which connects to what's normally the Knuckles-only route in Mania Mode. As far as I've seen, this breakable object and the vertical tunnel linking the two routes aren't present in Mania Mode - how exactly has this been handled? Is the ground for that section in Mania Mode now an object which mimics the look of the usual ground (which is then simply replaced with a breakable object in Encore Mode's object layout), or is this an actual difference in the level layout between the two modes? Just curious, since aside from Mirage Saloon Act 1 I was under the impression only the object layouts for the stages were different between Mania and Encore mode.

    Also, not completed Encore Mode yet (and can't crack those bloody Special Stages - need to go back through Mania Mode with Mighty/Ray and get all the Emeralds as practice!) but can I just say I love how the character swap monitors start cycling through all the possible different power-ups once you've stocked up on all possible characters. Have managed to nab a couple of much-needed items through some carefully timed jumps thanks to this feature! = )
     
  13. Lilly

    Lilly

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    As well, the game's logic doesn't freeze when the window is de-focused. (The previous version of Mania didn't have this issue.) It cuts off the sound and appears to pause the game, until you re-focus and see that Mania was still in action. The last sound effect that was playing resumes as any changes to background music kicks in. I wonder if a few rounds of hotfixes are planned.

    I much preferred minimizing or de-focusing the game, since the pause menu takes too long to react to inputs. Oh well, can't have it all. :v:
     
  14. Rlan

    Rlan

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    Finished Encore Mode and got all the emeralds. Now I just have even more questions!!
     
  15. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    So far I've completed Mania mode as Mighty and Encore mode twice, once with all emeralds and once without them (I also got like halfway through Mania mode as Ray). I really love how Migthy and Ray play, it's just a shame that the level layouts don't make much use of them, which is to be expected since the game wasn't built for them. I like to think of playing as those 2 in Mania mode is something similar to playing as Knuckles in Sonic 2. Encore mode is lovely though, I love switching between the characters, though it kind of makes me wish there was maybe a 6th character or something so things could be mixed up even more.

    But either way, all the additions are great and I love Mania Plus. It's great seeing Mighty and Ray again after all this time.
     
  16. Playing as Mighty in Mania mode is a blast, although I hit a snag last night against Metal Sonic. I keep accidently dropping down off the edge while trying to jump away. Awesome though, and I'm sure the fight won't be as challenging with Knuckles for instance.
     
  17. Blue Blood

    Blue Blood

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    Go to the right-hand side of the screen and spindash into Metal Sonic, taking care to avoid his hands of course. It's by far the safest method.

    There's one pretty major gripe (relatively speaking) that I've got with This expansion. Although Ray plays brilliantly, I don't like his sprites. The vast majority of them look like edits of Sonic. Whilst that works fine for Mighty, Ray looks oversized. His gliding sprites and other very unique animations look great, but most of the look a bit cheap. Especially when he's stood next to any other character in Encore Mode, he sticks out in a bad way.
     
  18. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    I've gotten more used to Ray's sprites the more I've played the game, but they're a tad jarring for sure.

    Also, random side note, but Encore mode Eggman does not mess around in the Mean Bean Machine match. Relentless bastard. 1st time going against him he got a 7 chain against me.
     
  19. Felik

    Felik

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    That's official: whoever was in charge of setting the rules for allowing you to swap your character during gameplay hates fun.
    I also would rather have a visual que telling me when I can change my character than hear that annoying ding sound all the time.
     
  20. Blue Blood

    Blue Blood

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    Both characters have to be in the ground and on screen. That's literally it. There are a few circumstantial things (not On the oil slides in OOZ, not in the background of MMZ1), but for the most part that's it.