Bashing Sonic Mania

The only way I would understand DarkVDee's complaints about Mania's graphics is if they weren't a fan of the graphics from the original games in the first place. The entire game is built from repurposed assets from the original titles; and beyond some added shading / intrinsic details, the reused assets don't deviate that much from them either. There were plenty of casual people who actually thought footage/screenshots of the remixed levels in Mania actually were the original levels from the old games.





If that's not the point of their argument...then I don't know what is.

 

Speaking as someone who actually doesn't have a real problem with the graphics in Mania, if I had to throw my hat in the ring, I'd imagine it has to do with the coloring used in the game.
Mania goes for a more saturated Neon look, whereas the original games on genesis were more grounded and earthy. This is even observable in the screenshots you provided.

The result is a game that feels several times more surreal and abstract than the actual Genesis (sans CD if you want to count it) games every really did, I feel.
In general, the Mania Team very clearly took a LOT of inspiration from CD in particular, (which is typical of fan games in general in my experience, in part due to the historic novelty of its obscurity, as well as its abundance of stylistic choices and elements that made it so distict in the first place.) However, this along with the games' act structure results in a game that feels a lot less cohesive and immersive than say Sonic 3 and Knuckles, which you can practically imagine in a 3D space despite never actually seeing the island outside of a 2D perspective.

Personally, given the premise of Mania and the Phantom Ruby et all, it's not something I can't accept, and while it isn't something I would change about the game at all, it among other things does contribute to me having a lower opinion of Mania than a good deal of other people I tent to interact with.

 

I liked Press Garden (Didn't like the final boss though-- way too difficult for me) but I wasn't a fan of the aesthetics and layout of Titanic Monarch Zone.

Also, special stages were too difficult, bonus stages were too frequent, and Oil Ocean's final boss was difficult (while the mid boss was a push-over)

 

If I may interject about Encore Mode for a second: it sucks. I rarely play it. The level changes are too minute and barely noticeable, the character swapping mechanic is interesting but not enough to justify a whole new mode, and the color palettes make me want to stare at the sun.

...Okay, they're not that bad, but they still pretty horrible.

I think the DLC is worth it just for the new characters alone, because I think they add enough replay value to justify the price, but Encore Mode as a selling point? Nah. It needed more meat to justify being a seperate game mode. More distinct level changes, change the level order a little, maybe even add a whole new exclusive level!

 

Encore Mode is inoffensive. If you like the main game, you'll like Encore Mode because it's basically the exact same thing again. But the differences between it and the regular game are the colour palettes (which are mostly low-grade ROM hack tier), character swapping mechanics (which can be largely ignored) and Mirage Saloon Act 1 (which is just one act out of 24). The differences in the level layouts are miniscule. I brought this up before and another member here said they live the layout differences in Encore Mode. And I'm sat here thinking... "what differences?" (If the person who said that sees this, I'd love some examples) Swapping out the odd spring for a moving floating platform and relocating some of the special stages? Eesh. There's nothing to it. It's so vanilla. Vanilla, but looks worse. At least the Special Stages added new, fun and harder layouts, although the game dull doesn't give you any option to replay them outside of starting a new file.

I'm so glad that Encore Mode was included alongside Mighty and Ray. If not, I'd have felt pretty let down by it. Encore Mode on its own is so pointless, yet the two new characters add way more to game. I'd honestly have very gladly paid £5 for each character individually rather than £5 for the entire Encore DLC package. But that's just me...

Encore Mode needed some extra twists. Some of my ideas are:

• A randomised act/zone order. You would always start with AIZ and end with TMZ2, but at the end of each act the Phantom Ruby could just warp you somewhere else.
• Bigger changes within the layouts, specifically designed to be more of a "hard mode" over the regular levels. Some new badniks would have been greatly appreciated, or at least mixing in badniks from other zones.
• Removal of boss fights, or remixed boss fights because as it stands they're really no different to the regular game at all.
• Better colour palettes. I'm sorry but Mania just dropped the ball so hard here.

 

If nothing else, Encode Mode justifies Mighty's Hammer Drop. There's very little use for it in Mania Mode, so all Mighty is in that mode is a different flavor of Easy Mode. That's why I firmly believe Ray was the better addition.

 

I wracked my brain on this for a while, and apart from VR stuff (which is obviously a totally different ballgame), I can't recall any other game that gave me motion sickness. That said, I think I've become more susceptible to motion sickness in general with age, because I never experienced it as a kid even when doing stuff my parents specifically advised against (e.g. reading in a car), but since my late teens I've had it a lot when riding the bus or when I'm in a car with certain drivers. So it might not even be that Titanic Monarch uniquely fucks with me, but that it's just the first time I've encountered a new game that could do this.

For the record, I don't get it from the bonus stage spheres in Sonic 3 either despite them having the same behavior. Maybe it's that the bonus stage only lasts for a few seconds, or that you're generally going in a single direction, or perhaps the abstract environment and lack of other obstacles to keep track of. Who knows?

 

Oh you could have it so much better

 

Oh, holy shit

 

I've seen so many things like this pop up on YouTube for a variety of games and... Christ, why would you even bother? This does not look remotely entertaining to watch, let alone fun to watch.

 

It is very much entertaining though.

ᵗʰᵃᵗ, ᵃⁿᵈ ᵍᵉⁿᵉʳᵃˡˡʸ ˢᵖᵉᵃᵏᶦⁿᵍ ᵃ ᵇᶦᵗ ᵒᶠ ʷᵃᶜᵏᶦⁿᵉˢˢ ʷᵒᵘˡᵈ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ᵃ ᵍʳᵉᵃᵗ ᵉⁿᶜᵒʳᵉ ᵐᵒᵈᵉ. ˡᵉᵛᵉˡˢ ᶠˡᵒʷᶦⁿᵍ ˢᵉᵃᵐˢˡᵉˢˢˡʸ ᶦⁿᵗᵒ ᵉᵃᶜʰ ᵒᵗʰᵉʳ, ᵃ ᵐᵉᵈˡᵉʸ ᵒᶠ ˢᵒʳᵗˢ; ʳᵃⁿᵈᵒᵐ, ᶜᵃˢᵗˡᵉ⁻ᵒᶠ⁻ᶦˡˡᵘˢᶦᵒⁿ⁻ˡᶦᵏᵉ ʷᵃʳᵖˢ. ᵃ ˡᶦᵍʰᵗʰᵉᵃʳᵗᵉᵈ ʸᵉᵗ ᵉᵐᵒᵗᶦᵒⁿᵃˡ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵘⁿᶦᵠᵘᵉ ʳᵉᶜᵃᵖ ⁻⁻ ᵗʰᵃᵗ'ˢ ʷʰᵃᵗ ᵃⁿ ᵉⁿᶜᵒʳᵉ ᶦˢ ᵃᵗ ᶦᵗˢ ᵇᵉˢᵗ, ᶦˢⁿ'ᵗ ᶦᵗˀ

 

I fully expect the special stages to do the same

 

I'm actually kind of surprised you went with CD for this and not Chaotix, which I recall a lot of complaints about with regards to its extremely oversaturated color pallete. With Mania explicitly intended to be a "what if Sonic actually had a main series game on the Saturn", I had read it as being an evolution from Chaotix, as that game was...some kind of attempt at showing off on a technical level.

(I think the colors and shading are fine, yes, even the Encore Mode palletes. For that matter, I like Encore Mode a lot too because I'm a sucker for any mode that introduces randomization of any kind)

 

If you're interested in a Slightly Different Mania experience, I'd recommend Sonic Mania: Advanced Quest by balibali_418; it's a mod that gives each level a unique condition or some type of change to deviate it from the vanilla version, as well as brand new palettes and some other changes. Honestly, the idea of it was kinda what I expected from Encore Mode before more got revealed about Plus. I don't dislike Encore, but I was expecting it to be at least noticeably more difficult.

Anyway, there's been a lot of talk about bosses. I have my hypothetical issues with the Studiopolis 2 and Titanic Monarch 1 boss as Knuckles that I mentioned earlier in the thread (short version of that being that the randomness of them could keep a player from being able to hit those bosses with Knuckles at all for a long time). Figuring out how to damage pre-patch Metal Sonic's second phase was also confusing. I also wonder if they always intended to have Giga Metal be the third phase of the fight. With that part of the boss in place as of Plus, it puts the Phantom Ruby in active use by a boss at the only other time in the game until the final bosses (it's also at the midpoint of the game). Also, both pre-Plus & Plus phase 3 both put the player in an "endless" running section. So I wonder if they set it up that way at launch in case they would be able to improve it later.

I also agree with the general sentiment of Titanic Monarch being a bit long, I do like the level tho.

 

One thing that bothers me the most about only four out of twelve zones being new is that... I don't like them that much?

I mean, I like Studiopolis for the most part, though I feel like it's aesthetically removed from the classics, and it contains some annoying/boring moments in level design. Mirage Saloon act 1 in the Tornado is just a massive annoyance. It reuses a level gimmick I really like from Sonic 2 but makes it not fun. Annoying twirling birdniks attacking constantly and erratically isn't fun to deal with, and using this level gimmick doesn't really have a purpose. In Sonic 2 it's a breather at the very end of the game. In Mania it's stuck somewhere in the middle with no significance and it doesn't feel like a breather at all. Just an annoyance, and a waste of an act. Even looking at act 2, I feel like the zone is kind of meh. Not bad, it's fine. Press Garden I just find kind of uninteresting. Again, not really bad, but not spectacular. Titanic Monarch is probably one of my least favorite "classic" zones in a Sonic game. It's boring, long, annoying, and extremely underwhelming for a last zone. I wish we could've gotten a full game of original zones so that we could get more of the Mania teams creativity. All that is only made worse by how some of the 'remixed' classic zones have some bad/annoying level design added to them. Of course their design sensibilities wouldn't have been made better just by not reusing old zones, but it would give a complete picture of what the Mania team was capable of when allowed to create more new things.

Bosses in Mania are all around pretty bad. Talk about some of the most annoying and tedious parts of the whole game.

 

I suppose Chaotix is fair game, but I just found the game's CD levels were the ones that felt the least visually changed in this regard in particular, so that's what my mind went, especially given the liberal use of CD element sin other stages.

 

Titanic Monarch is just way too long. The challenges are mostly fine it's just that both acts need to be halved. It doesnt help that if you die in Act 2 you go all the way back to Act 1

Ir also has lots of really obnoxious crushing deaths. Probably the worst aspect of the level for me.

I also think both bosses suck, which ruins its climactic nature. A bit Sonic CD there.

There is a lot I like about it. I like the aesthetic (outside the robot in Act 1 and inside in Act 2) but it's not communicated well at all. At least there is a cutscene before the level showing the robot, but couldn't they at least show Sonic go to it before the level starts like Death Egg in Sonic 2 and 3? It's also very unclear what it even does. It's a big mecha robot?

The music's great.

 

Huh? I'm gonna assume you mean "if you get a Game Over" since I know for sure one death will not send you back to Act 1.

 

That's what I mean lol

 

"It just so happens that your hedgehog here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead."