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

I'm surprised by the SSZ negative opinions here. Act 2 isn't one of my favourites, primarily because of how short it is. The layout is fun though. But Act 2 is fantastic; it's one of my favourite levels in the entire game. I adore everything that the stage to offer. PGZ stands out as my absolutely favourite zone though, and Mirage Saloon is disappointing because of its short length. Act 1 as Sonic and Tails is a total throwaway, whilst Act 2 is simply too short. Short and sweet though, it has to be said. Now Act 1 as Knuckles is great; the reliance on gliding and climbing is unobtrusive and those abilities really come into their own unlike before.

I don't know what I'd call my last favourite zone. I really enjoy all of them. The game is of consistently top quality, so any least favourite of mine would still be a good level.

 

Try the old Sonic 2 trick where you spindash up the helix you came along and jump for super jump height while submerged. You should be able to fly all the way to the top and avoid going up the tower of blocks.

 

It's just that I also remember reaching Flying Battery sometimes and thinking about giving the game a rest, and I do like that level.

 

Same. On a No Save Game, I either always feel like stopping on Flying Battery, and if not that, its always Hydrocity. By that point I've gotten all the Emeralds, so its just a "I've seen everything today" kind of feel.

 

So Sega's consolidated financial statements for the second quarter are now available.

Unfortunately, we still don't have any sales numbers for Mania, but it can at least be assuredly confirmed that Mania was (still) a commercial and critical success for the company:

"In the packaged game software field, sales amounted to 8,650 thousand copies (4,650 thousand copies for the same period in the previous fiscal year) thanks to the strength of the new title 'SONIC MANIA,' which earned the highest Metascore in the new titles of the 'SONIC' series released in the past 15 years."

There is a possibility Sega might have something about Mania's sales in their presentation for the second quarter results (which hasn't been posted yet) or Sega may announce Mania's sales records separately, but I wouldn't necessarily count on it.

 

I bet they're still on that physical copy-release (is this still a thing?).

To me the definitive way to play Sonic Mania is with the joystick and one of the TV filters on. Since Mania lets you do everything at once I play as Sonic and Tails with their 3&K ability and & Knuckles on. Also Titanic Monarch Zone is one hell of a stage IMO.

 

I'm sure I'm not the first person to run into this, but it's certainly annoying.
https://www.youtube....h?v=0RO9YmiWeeo
The last patch was in September, so I guess we shouldn't be getting our hopes up for any more fixes?

 

Well, the bug reports topic was never reopened so yeah... maybe we shouldn't.

 

Well shit. This terrifies me right out of playing No Save mode. But I must & Knuckles. Can't imagine life without YouTube these days.

 

Sonic Mania Complete, I can see it now. :v: *bricked*

I'm beginning to doubt SEGA is still supporting the game as well, now that the worst bugs are taken care of. (Such as the soft-lock in Knuckles & Knuckles mode.) Once extensive hacking is possible, though, would some members of the community take matters into their own hands? It wouldn't be the first time a "I Fixed It" edition of a Sonic game has happened before.

All of which have been quite good. If my PC could handle Lost World, I'd also try the mod that gets rid of the deadly six. The Hard Boiled Heavies have them beat, no contest.

 

The better option is to just take the route that avoids it completely. That's what I always did in Sonic 2, and it's what I do in Sonic Mania as well.

You're better off watching a video than trying to understand me trying to explain it but... take the top route at the beginning of the level, and about half way through after going through a couple loops there's a spring you'd normally hit that sends you backwards and downward. Jump over that instead and you go into the section with the huge 45 degree downward slope like the beginning of CPZ2 in Sonic 2. Let that launch you all the way to the top to the area with the 2 spiders & 3 monitors like the original game had, and continue on that route to completely avoid the water section.

 

Speedrunning this game is going to murder my hand, especially after I learned the technique for faster spindashes by mashing multiple buttons at the same time :v:

 

I don't get it, Taxman supported the mobile remasters far beyond their normal lifecycles of support ended, how come Mania is a 1-and-done deal?

 

Well we don't know if it is, but console patches are harder to get approved and launched than mobile patches, they also cost more. Also one of the reasons why the PC port has had like 3 or 4 patches so far.

Also for the mobile games, firmware updates and new phones can cause the games to just not work and then you can't play it anymore, so they need updates to continue to reach the audience. That doesn't really apply to consoles that have longer shelf lives.

 

Because it is prohibitively expensive to patch console games. They need to go through a QA process on the platform-side and the last time I heard a $ figure on that process was about $10k per patch. So multiply that by the number of platforms is on, plus development time, internal QA and cost of potential customer support... I don't think it's worth it to Sega who really isn't going to get a big boost of sales out of it. They fixed the major bugs, as far as they are concerned they've done their due diligence.

On mobile, updates are free. Android doesn't even go through an approval process. Apple does need to approve iOS updates, but doesn't charge for them. So if Whitehead and Stealth did do improvements on their own volition then it makes sense for Sega to just push the update, doesn't really cost them anything, nowhere near as much as a console patch anyway. There could be PC patches as, as far as I'm aware, Valve doesn't charge for Steam updates but bringing the PC version out of step with the console versions seems like a headache no one wants.

 

Are you sure were talking current gen. consoles here? because I thought both Sony and Microsoft dropped their patch fees when they moved to the XB1 and PS4. unless it's Nintendo thats still charging, that would make sense then (can't patch 1 console without patching them all).

 

No, you're right. I'm way behind. Microsoft stopped charging for Xbox Live Arcade patches in 2013. Seems unlikely anyone is continuing to charge for patches to download games at the very least.

Once again my contributions are just simply amazing. My apologies.

 

I still feel like an X patch can happen since the PS4 has a Pro mode.

+ - and level transitions  

 

Patch charge is gone but that doesn't mean the development of the patch is free. There's still man-hours you have to out behind the development of the latch and QA testing. And even if the patch fee has been waved, you still have to deal with the certification process. If you fail that, it's back to the development process. The worst part is if you fail one but past the others. Then you have to wager how much you want to piss people off. Do you delay all platforms, it do you delay just one? Friday the 13th has been juggling that for months and it's been holding them back from making their promised significant content updatea that would serve them better marketing wise than a bug fix patch.

 

Aha. I knew about the Sonic 2 secret route. I wasn't aware there was a way to avoid that mega mack section entirely in Mania. Thanks.