Sonic Mania (Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC...Netflix?)

And it did reintroduce the 'full pipe' from Chaotix :D S4EP2 was not too far from being a great Sonic game, actually.

 

If Ep 1 was more like Ep 2, and it was just one game and not 2, it would have been better off the bat.

 

I never quite got the chance to enjoy it because the music drove me fucking insane :v:

I'm one of the few that thought EP1 was better actually, level design & music wise.

 

It's a fair argument Ep1 has better level design, but the physics are complete shit which ruins any real enjoyment of the stage design. As for the music it mostly sucks in both episodes. Think I prefer dying ducks over orchestral masterpieces

I prefer S4 Ep2's special stages over Sonic 2's. The boost option in Ep2's special stages is pretty fun.

Edit: "orchestral masterpieces" it won't let me say dy*** cats lol!

 

There's basically no difference in physics, and E1 is more fun to play just because you don't have to stop every five seconds to use a tag move.

The music in E2 was better, but only because they hired me to sing for it.

 

Eh? The addition of momentum was a pretty significant difference. It's really nice not coming to a dead stop every time you let go of the D-Pad for even a moment.

Agreed completely. Episode 2 seemed to be mortally offended by the concept of flow, and was dead set against letting the platforming stand on its own merits.

 

The increase in momentum was pretty much the only difference, and it only applies when you're not pressing a direction (which is pretty much only when you're doing tests to see how the game reacts when you don't press a direction).

 

That "only difference" is the difference between moving Sonic and Megaman. =P

 

That's exactly how I feel! Glad to know I'm not alone.

 

Mega Man has zero momentum, and a single running speed without acceleration and deceleration.

S4E1 Sonic has momentum (just with friction/air friction set way too high) and acceleration/deceleration.

S4E2 just turned the friction values down.

 

I'm still exceptionally curious about this



Based on the background, it's clearly part of Studiopolis, but we haven't seen it yet nor do we know any details about it. I presume it's part of Act 2 and therefore Act 2 was at least partially done as far back as last summer.

 

There's other bits of Studiopolis Act 2 in the initial trailer. We just haven't seen anything new from Act 2 since said trailer.

 

My apologies for the godawful YouTube compression artifacts, but Studiopolis Act 2 looks pretty damn good.

 

Thanks for the advice, guys. I've gone for option 2 and will order the Xbox version and will sell the key and buy the game from Steam. Cheers

If anyone is interested, I will sell the key number for... let's say... £5 off the original price.

 

I don't know if I was so incredibly optimistic, but I've expected (during this event from 16th March) rather plenty of details about Mania (including release date, system requirements, game modes etc.). I admit that I was very disappointed (delayed release date would be fine, but again with season? not even a month?). Funny thing though - when I was asking about month ago local distributor in my country about PC Collector's Edition of Sonic Mania, he answered me, that he will know more in half of this year. I was initially surprised (why so late after supposed (April/May) release date?), but now... Did he already knew back then? Maybe. (Have hope that all this waiting will be worth of it).

I'm not especially excited about presence of Flying Battery Zone. For me it was in S3&K rather one of those "usual" levels, which was fine to play, but didn't left any remarkable memories or impressions (not to mention that in graphical terms it was, at least for me, strongly inspired by Metropolis Zone from S2... but with different idea for level design and not so catchy music ).

 

Not? so catchy?!? Man, I guess musical taste really can't be argued, because I absolutely love FBZ's music! Metropolis' on the other hand doesn't stand out for me.

 

I wasn't going to get into it, but Flying Battery is definitely the most boring zone in S3K. Airships are always cool, and the gimmicks like the magnetic platforms are pretty neat conceptually, but it just doesn't have much going for it in visuals or design. The background is predominantly a solid textureless purple, the outdoors backdrop is the sparsest blue sky in the entire series, the layout is excessively linear with path splits being very easy to miss (especially in act 1), everything feels cramped with ceilings that are consistently low enough to touch. The worst offense is the preponderance of gimmicks that force the player to stop and wait: You've got the corkscrew lifts, the precarious platforming across the orb chains where there's a high likelihood of falling and having to start the sequence all over, the vanishing chute platforms that you can run right past without noticing (except in act 2, with that one split at the slow candy cane door that makes you stand still long enough to spot them- another faux pas), magnet lifts in corridors so tight that you either have to wait for them to go up or awkwardly vault over them while losing your momentum with every jump. The spider grabbers. Jungle gym hooks. It even fucked up springs by substituting flame jets that take a full second to activate.

The zone is just preternaturally attuned to breaking your flow, even in the most basic ways, like the fake capsules you can only clear a with perfect jump, where you'll otherwise hit the button and spawn a bunch of enemies for you to deal with. Also, the reintroduction of the Metropolis rolling cages with much more restrictive collision rules that have you either slapping against the edges or just falling through them entirely if you don't enter them right, so you have to wait for that one slow moving platform to take you back up there so you can do it over. And then they bring back the Wing Fortress boss without the spiked platforms that made it fun, that you have to wait out for an entire minute. And then the rising floor segment immediately after where you have to wait another 40 seconds for the level to catch up with you no matter how fast you clear it. Not to mention that retarded dead end with the missiles that had me backtrack the entire level looking for another route. That derailed me harder than the Carnival Night barrel.

I didn't even think the list of transgressions was going to be this long when I started typing, but it all just kept coming back to me. Flying Battery drives me up a fucking wall. In that sense, I guess it's actually a perfect pick for Mania- it's the zone with the most potential for improvement, and it won't take too much effort to bring it up to the level everyone's deluded themselves into thinking it was at. So good choice in the end, but for a reveal that was supposed to get me hyped? Ehhhh

 

Flying Battery? Boring? Stop smoking meth. They took the best of Wing Fortress and Metropolis and add new gimmicks, paths, etc. while still staying fresh. The one zone that can fuck off is Sandopolis Act 2. It's worse than Labyrinth Zone Acts 1 through 4 combined!

 

Until exactly 4 days ago, I was convinced that if Flying Battery were the most boring zone, Sandopolis was still the worst zone overall. But I'm really not sure I believe that anymore- visually and structurally, there's nothing wrong with either act, save for the rising sand forcing the player to sit and wait in act 2. We just hate the ghosts. They're nervewracking, even despite posing no real threat to the player, given how long it actually takes for them to go aggro and how simple it is to defend against them. They're certainly not boring.

 

I'll level with you that Flying Battery is visually rather bland. While I like the colour scheme, there's just not a lot going on and that's probably a big reason why it's not nearly as striking as even GHZ in Mania. And then there's the secret passage that you have to open up with the missiles, too. There's no indication of any kind that those particular missiles will break open that specific patch of floor. There's nothing else like that in the game. The only reason it's not as bad as the barrel is that it'll probably either solve itself or the player will find an alternate route. Otherwise though, I'm just going to have to disagree. Flying Battery is a really fun level that's more platform orientated than some of the others in the game. I've always loved the layout.