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

The music stops playing for me roughly 4 out of 5 days. Powerups.. drowning.. if something changes the BGM there's a chance it won't come back.

Reageding the controls, honestly the command space is too crowded already. Sonic games boasted really basic controls but now it's becoming messy.
The drop dash:
- gets in the way of bounce control
- gets in the way of airlift with Tails (I'm not defending the airlift here, just pointing it out)
- disappears with shields, as the insta did
- is delayed and unclear to use in its own right


I know people will probably get defensive about it but those 4 points are true things. The drop dash is right on the edge of "simple and intuitive"...honestly it isn't that simple. I already notice and I'm a veteran player. Go on Youtube and see people up to Hydrocity still trying to work it out.. not because it's difficult but because it's not super clean. My housemate is fairly new to Sonic games and does exactly the same thing with airlifting... accidental drop dashes.

And now people are suggesting we open a classic Sonic manual with 5 moves squashed into 1 button. Air + hold direction + hold jump + wait to land... That's way too messy.

 

I agree with you actually. I feel like having you unlock the Insta-Shield and the Super Peel-Out was a step in the right direction, but you can only use them one at a time, and only in a "no save" file. I feel a plausible solution would be to allow customizable movesets with 3&K mode being the default. I love the Drop Dash, but its inclusion with the elemental shields does make things feel a bit messy. It's not a major issue to me, but I can see how intrusive the Drop Dash can be compared to the Insta-Shield, especially with the elemental shields involved.

 

I still have yet to intentionally use dropdash. Almost every time I try to liftoff with tails though. Why not just utilize the buttons? EDIT: also fuck the whole no save for insta-shield shit, I should be able to use it on my completed files.

 

I'm with you on this since Sonic 3 released and I saw how Tails flight worked compared with how it did in Sonic Chaos. While Chaos version lacked a lot of technical advantages the Mega Drive version had, and triggering it was fairly simple in both, not having to mash the jump button and just direct Tails with the D-Pad felt a lot better, and it even allowed Tails to stop and maintain position in mid-air if needed. Any extra control shouldn't go too far from the "Down to roll, A/B/C to make a jumping attack" formula.

 

You are right, and I think that's why Mario is always more sucessful than Sonic.

Sonic has always had more content, but Mario games are consistently clean and easy to pick up.

 

Just re-checked and nobody said that... =P

Down + Button tap while in the air was already introduced in Sonic Advance, and it's a quite simple and intuitive action.

That wouldn't allow Sonic to both fly with Tails and be able to attack, as in the Marble Garden boss.

 

Don't feel messy to me. I just feel that the drop dash is not very intuitive to newcomers as I never really see anyone use it or even know it's there.

As far as the elemental shields, you can still use the drop dash if you got the invincibility item, which is more that what you can say for the insta shield.

I've said this before, in the future I'd like to see various moves mapped out to various buttons. Double A is double jump, double B is instashield, double C is homing, drop dash can be mapped to X, etc. Probably not that exact layout as it's just an example, but even better to have the option to map it out as well.

 

Yes but having two control schemes for Tails would be really bad, design-wise.

 

Well, that's what Sonic 3 does... Never heard anyone complaining about it.

 

That is used only in the boss, and you can't activate and enter that mode again. It's completely different. (And it also doesn't work like normal gameplay because falling off the screen doesn't kill you).

 

I think different skills should be left for different characters, so they don't turn into Sonic/Tails/Knuckles clones and Sonic doesn't change his aerial action on each game. In fact, the shield actions only made sense with the insta-shield as the way sonic stimulated them, and those actions were given to Sonic on further games (to some extent) without the need of a shield: flame dash works like the forward dash from the homing attack when Sonic finds no target, the electric shield used double jump way before games like Colours, and Sonic bounced in Adventure 2 using a permanent item. We could give those abilities to new characters, and they would be fully working and different from the drop-dash/flight/glide from the current characters, while also allowing Sonic to use the drop dash and transform while shielded.

 

I think the drop dash has 2 main problems:

1. It's not clean like every other classic control. It steps on a couple of other moves, and its activation is not rock solid. For a game with really pure controls this isn't ideal.

2. This conversation. No matter what happens now, "Classic Sonic's second move" is going to have different opinions everywhere. Plus there's no way to address the above point in a future game without further inconsistency.


I can list 4 or 5 reasons that support the decision to overwrite the insta-shield with something different, and what we got isn't a bad replacement. I was ready to get out the purist's imaginary textbook of Sonic principles and argue against the drop dash, but at the same time I can't really think of a better alternative, plus they were careful to leave it weak enough to avoid damaging the core game. That at least is the most important thing, still safe.

But in my opinion they built themselves a tricky puzzle and they didn't quite solve it. The insta-shield definitely is less of a party trick; there are old-school players who still simply don't use it, while the drop dash is almost definitely going to automatically self-promote thanks to time attack. But the insta-shield was perfect for the role it had to fill. It was a unique and interesting move that actually had a bit of depth, but more importantly it was a perfect fit within these 3 problems: complementing motion & control principles, giving Sonic a second move that didn't step on any other moves, and finding an ability that could be switched off with shields without being sorely missed (the drop dash is looking less sure in its role as a sometimes-move).

The insta-shield pulled off all of those things, largely through its subtlety which also became its downfall. My favorite part of it, its affect on motion, is probably known by 50% of the members here and maybe 4% of the larger player base. And even then I honestly miss that part a bit less than I thought I would.

The drop dash meanwhile didn't quite stick the landing on any of those 3 points. It's not perfect in a game where perfect control is religious, but for a lot of people it is still better.

It's also one of the verrry few places where Team Mania actually changed the classic formula rather than just upgrading the packaging. Personally I wouldn't have changed the insta because I think it was simply too hard a puzzle. I don't think there is a different second ability you can give Sonic that ticks boxes the way the insta-shield did. So when the name of the game for Mania was to bring back a long lost formula with die-hard assurance, I wouldn't have messed with a particular part that doesn't appear to have any other perfect answer. I would have been less concerned with changing Tails' flight, for instance, than with replacing the insta-shield (Note, I do _not_ want anyone to change Tails' flight). That would have been much more noticeable and probably would have raised many pitchforks, but if I'm entering the business of creating questionable fixes, I can imagine that being easier to find a perfect solution for than fitting anything into Sonic's moveset as finely as the insta-shield.

So ultimately it's not that I think the insta-shield was a funner move than the drop dash. It's not the move itself that I miss; it's the cleanliness that I miss. It didn't have oversized feet. The drop dash steps on toes and gets in your way from time to time and takes a while to get used to and a while to stop accidentally triggering and a while to learn to feel out that un-indicated sweet spot for height.... and yeah, I miss the insta's absence of clunkiness. It's a bugger having to cycle through options to then only get it in cheat sessions. I like the drop dash's move -- but.

So I would have looked somewhere else for that little bit of new pop in the fundamentals that Mania needed (shields would have been a good avenue to consider for that), or thought harder about its implementation, perhaps even axing Tails' airlift or something. Or just left it alone.

But it's here now, so next game I wonder what happens. I can get over the insta-shield no longer being the default, but I'm not totally in love with the slightly rough drop dash always sitting in what were always otherwise-perfect controls.

 

Before Mania came out I wasn't huge on Sonic losing the instashield but I use the drop dash all the time now and don't want to go back. I do think it needs a less subtle animation when charging though.

 

I don't understand why you couldn't just map drop dash to down+jump while in the air, since it's effectively an aerial spindash anyway. That way you can still have the Insta-Shield (overwritten by shield abilities), but also have the drop dash (available even with shields). Throw in the Peelout while you're there.

 

You might want to press forward rather than down while you're in the air.

 

Drop Dash cannot be holding Down in the air because then you couldn't prime it while buffering forward or backward movements. The move is meant to retain momentum so mapping it to a direction that doesn't let you buffer/immediately retain said momentum would be a bit questionable.

It's a move I greatly prefer over the insta-shield because it fits much more with what Sonic's gameplan is and it molds well with the level design and the idea of retaining momentum. It's also really hard to accidentally drop dash considering the criteria of holding the button down after you prime it, an input design I wholeheartedly agree with.

 

Shoulder buttons are standard on pretty much all modern day controllers. Have the Drop Dash be Sonic's default double jump, and have the Insta Shield activate by doing a double jump while holding L or R. New players wouldn't appreciate the move in the first place, so having a .0001% more esoteric input for it wouldn't be detrimental to anyone who would actually be getting any practical use out of it, and you wouldn't have to ruin the Drop Dash that way.

 

I understand the point behind the 1 button simplicity but I think that can be axed. Hell even Mario always used 2 buttons, it's not that complicated. Actually it may be less complicated than having 1 button do 3 or 4 different things depending on the circumstance (jump, drop dash, have the second player fly while holding up, spin dash, use shields. A bit bloated for 1 button)

 

While I would have been content with the insta-shield remaining Sonic's special ability, I completely agree with you here. The insta-shield is an awesome maneuver, but the drop dash feels so much more suited to the momentum-based movement we all know and love. It also allows Sonic to feel like the most speed-oriented character, despite the fact that all playable characters share the same ground speed and can perform the spin dash.

 

Who said "holding Down in the air"? I said pressing down+jump in the air, much like you press up+jump to summon Tails. You can tap the inputs and then go back to holding right afterwards.

Also, the move is not meant to retain momentum at all. It launches you at a set speed when you land, which is the exact opposite of retaining momentum. "Retaining momentum" is what happens when you don't drop dash - you land and continue moving at the same speed you were going while you were in the air.