You can view it that way if you like, but that doesn't change the facts that: That's never shown to be the case in this instance. That's never the case for any of the other levels, which all lead directly into each other. Even though OOZ, MMZ and TMZ lack intros, the outros of the preceding zones make the progressions logical. It's a bad stage transition. It's probably one of the most difficult stage transitions to conceptualise though. I've never been able to come up with any ideas for how HCZ2 could transition to MSZ1 effectively. Maybe have the floor fall out from underneath them and have another character flying the Tornado swoop in and save them? That doesn't work for Sonic & Tails mode though. I dunno... Got any ideas? Oh but at least MSZ1 to MSZ2 has a brilliant transition. That little cutscene with Nack, Bean or Bark is always a delight. And bonus points for the glitch in the early versions of the game (at least on Switch) that would make Knuckles remain on the Tornado and he'd heart be chilling there, sitting on the destroyed plane.
@Blue Spikeball That's funny because I thought Knuckles had the most improved sprites of the bunch. The rest were just Sonic 1/2 enhanced but Knuckles' sprites were unique. I have mixed feelings of Knuckles Sonic 3 sprites, some seem weird due to the prerendered stuff, he had a tan crescent instead of white, inconsistent head shines, Mania's version didn't have these issues. I share the sentiment that many have here that Ray has the worst sprites. Mighty is already a Sonic recolor so of course traced sprites make sense, and I liked Mighty's palette in Mania, shame his super form breaks it though. But Ray is too tall, if anything they should have used Tails as a base for Ray. Also I was REALLY disappointed that there was no Mighty & Ray mode. Those two have been interpreted as an alternate Sonic & Tails for years, but nope, not here. Would it add anything? Not really. But I enjoy it when I make it so via the mod loader (Mighty & Ray, Sonic & Mighty, Mighty & Knuckles, and Knuckles & Ray are my 4 favorite combos... I don't like Tails the modern games realllllyyy tainted him in my eyes). That's mainly why I like encore mode, the switching concept is fun. Maybe in the future though, you can pick any two characters and switch back and forth between those two at any time.
Of course it's not shown, that's the whole idea of time skips. They're skipped rather than being shown By "short time skip" I just meant that there were a few scenes not shown that took place between levels. This was definitely implied to be the case in the original Mania before the added scene transition (just as in Sonic 2 between Metropolis and Sky Chase), unless you think the devs expected us to assume that the Tornado and Knuckles materialized out of thin air in front of Sonic and Tails between the two zones I don't see how the added transition "retcons" that. It seems to me that they simply added it for completeness' sake, as all the other zones were given end transitions by that update. Fo sho, it's a poor transition. I think they didn't bother fully connecting the zones for the reason you stated. Showing the characters grabbing the Tornado and picking up Knuckles would probably have made for a weird and overlong transition.
I've never quite signed up to the idea that the levels in Mania were significantly reshuffled for release from the original order because I think the game was more focused on showing highlights of old Sonic games than presenting a new adventure (ala Sonic 3 or even Sonic 1, 2, and CD). But I feel something must have definitely happened in development to go from Hydrocity to Mirage Saloon. It's jarring in itself to go from an underground water labyrinth to flying above the skies, but the way you have Knuckles with you (who's never shown in Sonic and Tails' story) and then he immediately falls from the plane and is never seen again, It's just bizarre. I think it's a mystery on the same scale as the weird stuff in the Classic Sonic games. And the fact the transition is so half assed in Plus I think reinforces that something happened, as if they knew they couldn't fix it to make sense in the new story so just did the bare minimum. I think the only reason they kept it was to give context for Knuckles having his own Mirage Saloon Act 1, but it's still odd. I imagine that in the original game, there must have been a cutscene of Sonic and Tails meeting Knuckles, getting in the tornado and flying off. I have no idea why though. Was a level cut? Was Hydrocity and Mirage Saloon moved? We'll never know until we get a prototype.
No, you got it. They just wanted a level where Sonic and Knuckles got to experience ENTIRELY different Acts and thought it'd be fun to include Knuckles during the cutscene because it incentivizes you to play through his campaign and see what happened to him. It is, for sure, no deeper than that or I think one of them would have said something about it by now.
I honestly never found it too odd that they would be in the sky after breaking through the innards of an island that is known specifically to be floating in the sky from time to time. But, even then, that's definitely a lot being left to the imagination.
They've said very little about the game's development because they are precarious developers under NDA.
Maybe they just figured that since not all zones had scene transitions originally, the underwater zone -> desert skies thing wouldn't be so weird, but it became awkward when they added transitions to all levels.
If you say so, I still don't think it is deeper or there were ever any plans for a longer transition. Remember Mirage Saloon Act 2 was one of the first stages they showed off and I think they even said it's because 1 does something special so it was probably just an idea they wanted to use and found a way to.
I think the cutscene for Mirage Saloon Act 1 was always there. I just think that they almost certainly intended a better transition into it.
I never got what was so special about scene transitions, and honestly I think some people place way too much importance in them. Like, I remember seeing people actually whining about the lack of scene transitions when Mania first released (I had much bigger problems with the game so I thought it was kind of trivial to be concerned about that). Personally I've always preferred the simple fade to black from the pre-3&K games anyway. I don't dislike scene transitions (unless they're being awkwardly shoved into pre-3&K games that didn't have them originally), I just don't think a lack of transitions is worth getting upset over.
I think transitions add something. It makes it seem more like you're in a world rather than just a random string of levels. Plus in the original Mania, it was more the half and half approach that confused me. Either every level should have transitions or none should, not half one way and half the other. HCZ Act 2's transition was extremely shit though. They should have just done another phantom ruby warp, or hell, copy S3K's transition have you fly up in the sky, that might help make some sense of the transition?
Time needs need to be conveyed to the player. S1, S2, the Advance series, even Heroes etc etc don't try to convey much plot at all during the game, and therefore the lack of transitions is fine. The implication is that the characters are just getting on with their journey and have entered a new area. It's simple and doesn't leave the player with any questions. That's precisely why the transition from Metropolis to Sky Chase in S2 is a total non-issue. Mania however does try to convey a bit of plot in its gameplay, showing how one area connects to the next. As Dark Sonic put it, the half-and-half approach of the base game is confusing for its lack of consistency. It sometimes shows the player how two areas connect or what happened to the characters, and then completely ignores it in other levels. That's poor presentation. The patch rectified this in all cases except HCZ to MSZ. There's no transition shown between the two levels. You cannot infer a time skip or any other development when there's a total absence of information that is present in all other instances. Without much evidence to back it it, I think it's a safe assumption that many zone transitions were cut just to save time. They were all added back in via a patch, most notably the introduction to CPZ for Tails. He had a unique animation like Sonic and Knuckles in the base game, but it was unused and a brand new animation was added for him in the patch. I guess that they simply didn't have time to draw and implement his new animation in the base game, and his unused animation was rejected for one reason or another. They're just a nice thing to have. S3K included them and they added an extra layer to the presentation of the game. They helped to tell the story in an nice way. Not having them feels like a step backwards, but it's fine when the game is presented in an arcade fashion. As a successor to S3K, Mania really ought to have stage transitions. And when it delivered, boy did it hit hard. The issue with Mania is that is was inconsistent in its approach is the base game and still manages to be messy when it comes to the specific case of Hydrocity post-patch.
I don't know why you're explaining this to me. Like I said, I agree that it was inconsistent and poorly presented. I was just saying, the fact that the trio was together on the Tornado obviously implied that they got reunited and boarded it before Mirage Saloon Zone started. Even if most of the other level transitions were immediate (but not all; the one at the end of OOZ implies that the flying sub flew all the way to Lava Reef in Angel Island), the implication this one wasn't is there, whether it was well presented or not.
All they had to do for Hydrocity 2 was show the character running to the next room, have a character who wasn't present pick them up in the Tornado, and fly off. That would've been fine. I'll give them the BOTD and assume they had a deadline for the DLC and couldn't improve that transition, but damn.
Because you made a silly argument about a time skip and I'm explaining why that doesn't hold up. A time skip that isn't presented in some form is a problem. It's just an incomplete story in Mania.
This is such a pointless discussion. But I'd say that the fact the situation changes completely between scenes, namely going from your player character being alone (or with Tails, if playing as S&T), to the trio being all together and flying on the Tornado, is the game's way of communicating that said scenes don't take place one immediately after the other.
I agree that this discussion is going nowhere. Your attempts to justify a time skip are pointless when the criticism is simply "the presentation sucks".
It's hard to have a problem with Mania Plus since it's mostly just adding onto a 9/10 but I agree with the criticisms about encore mode. The pallets are kind of hard to look at and the character swapping stuff isn't nearly as fun as it sounds. There are a couple of tweaks there that I wish just existed in the regular game, like the new minigame at the checkpoints. Ray was pretty fun so I got my money's worth, but I barely ever touched any of the new stuff. The new metal sonic boss...I hated it at first but I have a good handle on it now and honestly it's not as buggy as the old one. I like it. I would have traded all of this for a new zone to play and I would have happily paid more for that, but I could see why they wouldn't want to invest that much more into a game that's already packed.
You can unlock the pinball bonus in the regular mode by getting all Blue Sphere gold medals. Heh, I remember being so disappointed when AIZ in Mania Plus turned out to be just a mini-act with half-assed graphics
