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

In the Japanese manual (and the PC S&K Collection) it's explained that the Death Egg crashing into the floating island knocked it down to the surface.

http://sonicjam.wikidot.com/sisghzs:md-sonic3s-t2

Get to a high point in Angel Island Zone Act 1 as Sonic or Tails and you'll see ocean in the background. But as Knuckles the background is just sky, since his story takes place after Sonic's.

 

Anyone notice that when going down the water slides in HCZ, you don't get put into the falling animation. After years of seeing it, having your character just run or roll down them feels wrong.

 

Heya guys, looking for a for sure confirmation on something, Wondering if anyone who has beaten the game and collected all the tokens from the Blue Sphere bonus stages can confirm if you got a silver token, can you later replay the bonus
stage for a gold token? Currently I have 20 gold tokens and 1 silver token that I got early on when I first started playing.

 

When I played S3&K as Knuckles the other day and got a Game Over, I thought "Oh, no, zone restart!", and then appeared at the last starpost I touched in act 2 and thought "Hey! I didn't remember this, how good!" So I think I feel your pain despite being a waiting PC-only user. Which leads me to think why they didn't implement it if it was already there. Sonic 2 was way shorter, so the rewind wasn't that harmful in that game, but I suppose it isn't Mania's case.

EDIT: Forgot something.

While I love the nod, it's not a bonus stage, it's a main game thing that changes playstyle completely. Imagine Sonic was the one who had to fish in Sonic Adventure right at the places Big did but in the middle of standard gameplay. I didn't have a problem in playing Big's levels and emblems, but interferences like that would be pretty annoying. They could have put a Sonic Drift course as well, and it would have been still the same problem as with puyos,only that different people would have appreciated the cameo.

 

It cycles through the stages you haven't beaten until you beat them all, then cycles through the ones you haven't got the gold medallion on (until you get them all), and then just cycles through them all from then on. At least, that's what I think happens.

In Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, a game over without continues puts you at the start of the game, and using a continue puts you at the start of the Act you were on. In Sonic 3 (& Knuckles, not S&K alone) getting a game over without continues puts you at the start of the zone you were on, so using a continue puts you at the last starpost you touched.

Mania keeps the S3&K save system, but doesn't have any means of obtaining continues so running out of lives always means restarting the zone.

 

I confirm it. Before to being able to replay bonus stages with silver medal, you need to complete all the bonus stages first.

 

In the second game only, and EW2's continuous genre shifts is why I prefer the first one (which still shifts between platforming and racing, but continues the "avoid hazards while attacking enemies/the boss" theme throughout.

And I didn't like that either.

It is silly. I didn't like that one either.


TL;DR - just because other games do it, doesn't mean it wasn't bad there too; and it can work if the basic dynamics of the game remain in spite of the mechanics changing, but that's not the case in the CPZ2 boss.

 

And once you gold all the stages it goes back to giving you a randomly selected stage that you've already beaten.

Speaking of which, getting gold in everything is not a requirement for unlocking anything. You only need silver to unlock everything. That bonus stage that is essentially a square with 4 blue spheres in total can go fuck itself btw when it comes to getting a gold.

 

Thanks guys !

And also I hate the stage with the spring and 3 blue spheres next to the spring ! Ahh well at least I have a Challenge ! So its welcomed even though its so hated ! Maybe that's what I love about it ?! So let me say this ! ! ! ! I hate you Blue Sphere stage with the Spring and 3 Blue spheres layout! You can go to hell !

 

So, I'm giving this game a 9.5. I've learned some things that have since impressed me more than expected (Mostly Knuckles related stuff), and the actual gameplay is (unsurprisingly) perfect while I've only played through Green Hill/Chemical Plant but I had a TON of fun exploring the stages despite recycled assets (or ironically, maybe even because of them.)

I am disappointed by only 4 new zones and some other assets, but they managed to fix it with new Knuckles material so I'm giving back at least .5 to my personal score because of this.

My 'only' complaints so far are as follows. Spoiler tags below.

Spoiler

1. Still a bit too much recycling in a few of the acts (Hydrocity act 2, oil ocean 1, and Stardust speedway 2 seem the worst offenders. But this takes away less from the game than I thought it would. All other acts are actually mostly new designs or entirely new, or at worst 'very' cleverly expanded versions of classic stages. The best of the romhacks could be my worst critique for stage design so far, which is a compliment and makes sense considering this team's heritage.)
2. The missing transitions are kind of jarring. Why? Can more be patched in during a future update? It's so minor and yet it really makes the game feel incomplete. I'd totally accept fan-made mods/patches if we have too.
3. Still want one more original zone, but oh well. We need Mania 2 for this all. And I will do whatever I can to help promote sales and make sure we get it.

Otherwise, very, very impressed with this. I was anxious in the past week, but the labor or love is clear in this. The dashdrop is easier to use than I expected and the fact that so many haven't figured it out yet is a shame. I'm enjoying blue spheres again and what I've done of the special stages so far has been solid fun. This is a true return to form and we need at least a few more of these games until SEGA can get 3D Sonic up to this level of quality.

But officially speaking? Sonic is back! Wholly and truly! Congrats to Team Mania for living the dream!

 

Speaking of continues, the final song in the D.A. Garden, "Countdown Jingle," sure does sound like a Continue Theme to my ears. Maybe continues will be patched in?

 

It can seem like a poor decision to dramatically change up the gameplay -- especially going from platformer to puzzle. What fun is that? If you love platformers, and hate puzzle games, that's the worst decision ever, right?

I'd say game design wise -- that's subjective. "Design" by its very nature is art, which means by nature it isn't wrong for them to add it in. The most important thing is it fun? For you, no. For me, yes. I'd say for the majority of people: if it wasn't a fun decision then definitely remove something like that. That'd have to be answered in a good testing environment.

It's a risk they took to surprise and dazzle classic fans, I'm assuming. I geeked the hell out when I came across it, therefore I wouldn't say it was a wasted decision since I'm sure it hit their goal for a percentage of classic fans. Again, the question is: what percentage?

 

No, the start of Sonic Mania takes place after Sonic & Knuckles. Angel Island being on the ground again without explanation makes no sense!

 

I think one thing this game could have done to help was maybe explain the mode a little more. Like, yes tutorials can be kinda silly in Sonic games but they don't give you prompts for anything. Like I had no idea where the secrets option even was for a while, or that it was tied only to no save. What if you've never played Puyo puyo and have no idea how it works? They could at least throw something up that says "Hey, press buttons to turn pieces and make combos to beat Robotnik."

That being said, while I appreciate the reference, I feel like a Sonic Spinball boss throwback might have been a better choice given the mechanics are more aligned with how Sonic plays. And also, props to them for not including bosses in Time attack mode. I really appreciate that.

 

I don't know if has been posted, but here's an article of Gamasutra talking about the game and some insights from the developers.

 

Bingo. Subjective ? objective.

For me, throwing me off when getting to that boss made me grin from one ear to the other. It was out of nowhere, and I really enjoyed it.

 

But this is Sonic, not Earthworm Jim. =P

I love Puyo Puyo (and, coincidentially, finally managed to finished Tsu a few weeks ago on my Mega Drive) but yeah, I was expecting this to be just a funny intro to a boss who would then be played in regular platformer fashion.

Then again, this is a 25th anniversary celebration game, so why not?

 

I think the Mean Bean boss as it was implemented is the best way they could've done it. I love how all of the multicolored chemicals foreshadow their eventual transformation into Beans. The Chemical Plant is now canonically Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, and I love it. The AI is incredibly easy, and they added the unlockable VS mode if you want a real challenge. I think that's great.

You can argue it's "bad design," but I think it's really inoffensive because of the (almost insultingly) low difficulty and how the theming was handled. I also happen to love Mean Bean Machine and Puyo Puyo, so I obviously have an agenda here. What I wanna know is, if arguably mandatory (for completion) Special Stages that change up the genre are okay, why isn't a lone instance of Mean Bean Machine okay? Because it's unavoidable? Because it's a puzzle game specifically? If Mean Bean was the bonus stage, would that make it okay?

Spoiler

Between Mean Bean, Blue Spheres and the Special Stages, all three feature multicolored round objects :v:/>/>

 

Totally unrelated to my avatar, but why aren't we talking about the fact that Mirage Saloon Act 1 is basically an hommage to Bubsy?

Spoiler

 

Well it's not like Sonic has never had this sort of gimmick. Sunset Park in Triple Trouble and E-102's Hot Shelter come to mind.

Unrelated, but I really love the special stages. I wish there were more than 7 of them to play. I want a mode of 30 of those, not of Blue Spheres :v: