I do like Wall Dash. I found myself reaching areas you wouldn’t typically reach with Sonic. I was worried if it would make him feel overpowered but it didn’t. I also noticed Knuckles has a Momentum Glide. If you Spin Dash and jump into a glide, that momentum will continue. I don’t recall a game doing that. I’ve seen videos for Fang too. He has a double jump where shoots his pop gun to the ground and it shoots you in the air before hitting the ground. The good thing about is if you hit an enemy, you get an extra jump. I also checked for Amy too because I thought I saw gameplay videos for her but I guess she did not make the cut for the demo. I pretty much liked everything in the demo except the boss fights. Don’t get me wrong, they are very interesting ideas but I wish they did not do the same thing as Superstars. You have to wait to hit every boss. They did not have to do this because the difficulty is already there. They need to not make the bosses like that the next demo or release whenever that may be.
Fuck this punkass little bitch and his invulnerability that's active for like 90% of the fight. The more I play these bosses the more I absolutely loathe them, it's baffling that a game which gets so much right can get this one thing so horrendously wrong.
They even had the audacity to give him an unexpected karate chop after he shoots the bubbles. Oh yeah, the bubbles can kill you! After dealing with all that, they did humor me with the cutscene. It’s so coincidental that it seemed intentional.
Oh yeah, the bosses. Yeah, hated the weak spot principle. I'll forever despise that every classic Sonic game for the past 10 years, official or otherwise, thought Sonic bosses were a problem that needed solving and proceeded to systematically do the absolute opposite of everything that made them supposedly bad, making all of them extremely obnoxious in the process.
God I hate this gimmick in Luminou City. Took me a few playthroughs to confirm what I thought was happening, but basically Turbo shows up and the idea is you're supposed to beat him to these race centres for items...yet he moves much faster and more efficiently than any normal player can without grinding the level a bunch first, especially since it isn't even clear where he's going to and you can completely miss these stations. That's not fun, it's just condescending, and in a game that already has overlong levels, it's aggrevating to be made to feel slow in an unfair competition. I really need fanmade level design to get away from this habit of catering to people who want to sweat while playing this stuff, it's a problem I have with Megamix Mania too - setting your own difficulty and goals in terms of whether you want to speedrun isn't as enjoyable as in the official releases because if you aren't max efforting these levels then the game pretty much scorns you.
I'm a BIG fan of subchallenges in a stage but I would have never noticed this is what this is all about if you hadn't pointed it out, because in the previous stage you have similar shenanigans -- that mechanical crab randomly appears and blazes past you or alongside you or whatever else, yet you're not racing him then. So I just assumed it's a thing that just happens sometimes. Special badniks will sometimes make an appearance over the course of a stage, to say hi for flavor. Apparently that's not the case though. See, this is the kind of... whimsical behavior I'm talking about!
I don't mind that sort of race, but it's true that on your first go... you're probably not going to win. But then do you need the prizes - I had like, 12 lives as Knuckles by that point. That's interesting in itself I suppose - some of those levels are 6-8 minutes, and I was ending up with 400+ rings. I can't tell if that's a good or a bad thing. Instinctively I feel like I lose more rings in an average session of Sonic Mania (which has similar level sizes(?)), but is that my fault, or the game's? If Sonic 2's Emerald Hill Zone was five times the length, would I be seeing similar numbers?
Something a friend of mine pointed this out, nowhere did that birch forest level appear in the demo at all despite being in the demo 2 trailer. Would that be false advertising??
Interesting question. Let's see. Emerald Hill Act 1 has 226 rings and 7 ring monitors, adding up to 296 available rings, of which you'll end a normal run (not speedrunning, mostly going forward, low curiosity about what other stuff is out there, not getting hit) carrying about 80, I think.¹ If it had five times its length, you could finish with 400 rings, yes. However, I'm pretty sure you don't get those many rings the first time around in Emerald Hill, and the fact that you don't get to collect 400 rings at any point does matter because you use rings to access special stages (instead of bonus stages), and being unable to get such generous and risk-free end-of-level bonuses (not to mention the extra life per 100 rings) means you probably won't have 12 lives by the third stage unless you're a very seasoned player. If you can consider Luminoucity and Aquatic Ruin comparably difficult, then you still have a much easier time in the former just by how much extra stuff you have by the time you get there. Also, I suspect the ratio of average rings/total rings one will get in Emerald Hill is much higher than in the first stage of Galactic, which (if true) means that if you do get hit you have to go out of your way more to stay safe because there'll be less rings to get. So I think it's not just a linear returns kind of stat in terms of how it affects player behavior. The absolute numbers do matter, and I personally prefer never having an overabundance of rings even disregarding how often I lose them. ¹ Source: did a couple quick runs, YMMV
...I'm confused. There are only 2 bosses in this game where you are required to wait for the weak point... -The 1st one has only takes 4 hits -The 2nd one allows you to hit it multiple times (but to be fair it does get longer attacks the more hits you do) --- Am I missing something? Why act like every boss is a massive waiting game? The first 2 bosses you can hit at every opportunity, though with Zone 1 - Act 2 you can't hit the bottom when he's charging. The only bad thing about the Crab Boss is that it's not clear when you can destroy its big claw, but I believe this boss also only takes 4 hits. (4 or 5) And again, Zone 2 - Act 2 you can hit the boss's tentacles at every opportunity...the problem is there's not clear marker "where" you can hit them, but you can also hit its bombs back at it to get the chance to directly attack it earlier. --- If there's anything that would make all of these "better" than what they are currently...it's better telegraphing (for those bombs) and better marking spots where/when things are vulnerable (like the tentacles and the claws).
Zone 1 Act 2, does have quite a bit of waiting. That Knuckles exclusive boss makes you wait. The three headed bird boss makes is invulnerable for a certain timeframe and then you can finally hit it. The boss with the electric guitar also makes you wait. As you can see, I do not know any of their names but that is 4 bosses.
They do have decently invincibility frames after hitting it...but in the case of the Crab & Tentacle bosses, you have the ability to make the boss vulnerable faster by destroying its legs & claws...or destroying the heads on the tentacles and bouncing its bombs back at it. You don't have to wait to hit the Zone 1 Act 2 boss at all, you can hit it from the bottom when it's in the air...or you can hit the antennae at the risk of getting hit by the electricity it's charging. I do believe I already said the Knuckles exclusive boss and final boss are the only 2 where you have to wait a bit before being able to attack it, but...as I also said the Knuckles exclusive boss only takes 4 hits instead of 6-8. Which is a nice compromise considering it's completely out of your control. So the problem really only applies to the final boss of the demo (as far as I know).
Pretty cool fan game. Love the Saturn Inspired feel for the game. The colors are great and love the size of the levels. My only constructive criticism would be the Bosses. The first mini boss was WAY too hard for a first boss encounter, hopefully this will get fixed with time.
Of course glide at the end and I hit it! https://x.com/sonic_galactic/status/1879365863838740492?s=46
I love this demo. The level design is fantastic and I personally enjoyed the longer levels. The graphics are also fantastic. I love Superstars but this feels like the true follow up to Mania. I’m not saying that to put Sega/Arzest down. I’m just saying that this is one of the most professional feeling fan game I’ve played. The only other one that comes close is triple trouble 16 bit
