Since we're stuck with drop dash, I want the bog-standard blue shield to make a return, with a slightly more powerful Insta-Shield as its double-jump move. Because if it's a power-up, it needs to be better than the insta-shield in Sonic 3&Knuckles.
As others have said, this is the first legitimate continuation of the original 2D gameplay since....Sonic & Knuckles. Twenty-three years ago. To expand on a comment I made back in the main Mania thread, how much Mania innovates on the existing gameplay isn't as important as to how well it restores said gameplay in the first place. If people are more concerned about a Sonic game that has "new things" or has "innovation" more than a Sonic game that brings back the classic Sonic gameplay, they're free to either check out the past two decades' worth of Sonic games that have come out since then, or watch from the sidelines and look forward to Forces. This is a game that's all about not going ham with innovation and going back to the roots of classic Sonic gameplay. Accomplish that, then come back and talk about shaking up the formula. And for what its worth....New Super Mario Bros., Megaman 9, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Rayman Origins can all be argued to have not exactly shaken up their respective formulas much either. But we know that shaking up or evolving the formula wasn't the point of those games, and that didn't stop them from them being well-received across the board and performing well in sales*; and they were all able to get sequels that gave the developers the chance to make a new game that shook up their formula (though whether they did so or not, depending on the game in question, may be debatable). If you really want that new Genesis Sonic sequel that evolves or puts a twist onto the core gameplay, support Sonic Mania so that the developers can get that opportunity to do so. *Rayman Origins is admittedly the exception regarding the sales bit, as it sold poorly (though was mentioned by Ubisoft that the game proved to eventually become profitable). I will say though Origins probably could had performed better in sales, had Ubisoft didn't send it out to die against the bigger titles during the holiday season --one of which included Ubisoft's own Assassin's Creed: Revelations-- with minimal advertising.
Rayman Origins is very different from its predecessors. It doesn't play like the original Rayman at all.
The idea of Sonic Mania wasn't to shake up the formula, it was to pick up where the Mega Drive series left off in 1994. Every Sonic game since 1994 has either been a drastic departure (the 3D games, Rush etc) or a step backwards from S3&K (Pocket Adventure, Advance, 4). Which electricity did the lightning shield protect against? I'd love to see a stage gimmick where you need the lightning shield to complete a circuit and power a machine. I really like the idea of the element shields having an effect on the environment that opens up new paths and secrets, it gives the player more incentive to not take a hit. Maybe there could be a steel shield, like an American Gladiators ball? It would be affected by magnets and prevent your character from being crushed. Maybe also allow your character to be unharmed by spikes? Also whereas the water shield allows your character to breathe underwater and the lightning and fire shields disappear underwater, the steel shield would be neutral. The Sonic exclusive "double jump" move would be a ground pound that can open exclusive paths.
Since we are talking about the Insta-shield, I'm honestly expecting an option to change between the Drop Dash and the Insta-shield, kinda like in the Sonic CD remake where you can change between the Spindash from the original version and the one from Sonic 2.
The Sonic 2 spin dash was an optional enhancement to an old game. A benefit of hindsight addition. The insta-shield and the drop dash are two completely different beasts though. The insta-shield's problem was always that it was too inside baseball. Tails' flight and Knuckles' glide were intuitive and immediately and obviously useful, the insta-shield wasn't.
I still don't think giving the characters optional new moves or adding new powerups/new functions to old powerups has to equate to radically altering the formula. S3&K added several things and stayed true to what Genesis Sonic was about. Several other franchises have managed the same. This aversion to changing/adding onto certain aspects of classic Sonic seems like fear of things being taken too far and killing off any potential of a full revival of classic Sonic. That's not to say that I think it needs to happen. While my favorite Mega Man game, Mega Man ZX: Advent, changes things up significantly by allowing the player to take on the form of felled bosses instead of merely acquiring a new weapon, Mega Man 10 manages to also be one of my favorites despite not doing much different from prior classic games. That's all I have to say about the subject. I'm still excited for Mania and any potential sequels either way.
As I said in the Mania topic, the last thing we really want right now is a radical shaking up. We've bloody missed having the true Mega Drive-style derived gameplay!
I haven't played any other fan games recently besides Sonic Time Twisted, but the evolution of the elemental shields and the addition of the Rock, Ice, and Wind shields is the perfect to me. Although, the wind shield sometimes made things ridiculously easy, but I beat some bosses in record time!
I think Mania definitely shakes things up enough in terms of what it's trying to be. I.e a 32-bit pixel retro Sonic game and a celebration of the classics with 100% accurate physics and rad music & level design. There's enough new and re-imagined content/gimmicks to keep it fresh. Going too radical with the first proper sequel to the classic series in 23 years could easily have done more harm than good. If we were to speculate about a Mania 2, then yeah, maybe changing up the formula would make sense to stop the appeal of a retro Sonic game (especially outside of the hard-core fanbase) from going stale, but in terms of Mania 1 I think they've got the right balance between new and old. The gameplay looks incredibly fun, as it should.
Sign me up with the camp that feels like Sega in general shakes things up way too frequently, hence adhering to the base Classic formula is refreshing.
I was going to make a meme of that kid with the really veiny head but replace it with Laura's avatar and have it say "When it's been over 5 minutes and you haven't complained about Mania yet". But that was too much effort that I wasn't willing to give you. Laura, every post you make about Mania is some inane complaint. "Oh, the graphics on this floor aren't exactly finished." "Why is the floor still not fixed? Delay this by a year!" "This doesn't shake up the formula enough." It's like, okay. We get it. You like to complain and you can see small problems. This thread is pointless in and of itself. It's a classic game. Of course it's not going to do something catastrophically different. Because no one would like a game in the classic style like that. Sega has also just done that for years with Sonic, it gets old to keep changing and have no consistency. Mania is an insanely good thing for the franchise and I'm shocked you're not able to see that.
While I personally would have liked the inclusion of Amy as a fourth character, Mania really doesn't need any shaking up. Pretty much echoing everyone else here that the only thing that Mania needs to shake up is the Status Quo over at Sonic Team.
I'd definitely be for Amy becoming playable if there were ever a Mania sequel, but only if they could figure out a way to have routes within the level that only she could access. Otherwise you're getting into Sonic Advance territory, where the other characters are just kind of there for the sake of it. I love that Mania is going full S3&K, with alternative Knuckles routes and act transitions and the like, and would hope that ethos would carry over into a theoretical sequel - by contrast, much as I love Advance it always felt like a bit of a regression compared to S3&K by not factoring these things into its design.
It's not difficult: 1. Amy can hammerjump higher than both Sonic and Knuckles so can access some Tails-only paths; Amy can also break through walls Tails can't, so a breakable wall on a Tails/Amy-only path would make it exclusively Amy-only. 2. The other way around works too. Amy can break through walls so can access some Knuckles-only paths; Amy can also jump higher than Knuckles, so a high ledge on a Knuckles path would make it exclusively Amy-only. 3. Amy can get a ton of extra height by hitting a spring with a hammer, to the extent that she could reach areas even Tails couldn't through sheer height. 4. Amy jumps without curling into a ball; an object that the main trio breaks when they jump on could be stood on safely by Amy.
Ooh, some great suggestions here! I particularly like the idea of using Amy's lack of a spin-jump to her advantage, as well as threading areas requiring higher jump height into otherwise Knuckles-only routes. Good thinking! = )
Amy in Sonic 1 hack by psi was one of the most fun and refreshing experiences I had with a Sonic hack. So just take that, polish it a little bit, add some alternative to spindash (Sonic 1 was not designed with spindash in mind so it wasn't an issue there, Sonic advance had the hop move and it was enough)
