Sonic Mania (PC, PS4, XBO, Switch)

[Fe 26]

It might be tv lag. I was at a friends house and I have my doubts he researches such things before making purchases.

[Fe 26]

Sonic was always easy. This feels about the same to me. There are some lives wasted figuring things out but once you know it, it isn't tough. I continued a couple times my first play but my second I finished with like 35 lives.

It's really bizarre to me to see people complain about how hard this game is. A lot of people just fundamentally don't understand Sonic.

It's easy by the standards of the time of release. Sonic 1 was actually ground breaking when compared to other mega drive titles at the time as it broke away from the arcade model.

Easy by modern standards, not so much. Sonic 2 for example is just fucking long. Your hands are tired by the end. And the last three zones are full of shit to fumble over.

But after you learn 2 you can burn through most of it before you get tired. You can even burn through flying fortress when you figure out how to bypass troublesome areas.

Also, I don't think kids understand that you are not supposed to see everything on the first play through. Or even be good at playing it. Perfection and exploration come later.

That is part of what makes the series timeless. It links the older play style of the arcade ports with a newer style we take for granted now. Everything let's you earn more lives and recover from hits now. Not so back then

[NeoZeedeater]

The main game isn't that difficult but the bonus rounds are harder than any previous Sonic, especially given how many there are.

[Frogacuda]

I don't think the bonus rounds are harder than Sonic 2 or Sonic CD's, but the lack of opportunities is definitely a problem. Apparently that was a point of contention among those working on it.

[ChaoofNee]

It's telling that I don't mind randomly replaying stages to get chaos emeralds, but don't really care if I don't find the ring. These stages are so damn fun.

[Fe 26]

After going through the game 2 times, I think the biggest thing that will be iconic to it is the number of same posts and rings. You can get an insane number of rings if you are good. I found myself with 165 or more with ease. Sometimes 300 or more if I could keep my shit together.

Also, they keep the speed mechanics on into the later levels. Most of the 16 bit sonics got heavy into platforming by the end. If you tried to burn through metropolis or flying fortress you could get jacked. Not so here. Almost every zone has loops and speed areas.

In some ways that may be the little bit of the 3D games that made it into mania.

[NeoZeedeater]

I would have preferred they had a slower level for variety's sake but I suppose more people would have complained if something like Marble Zone was in it.

[Frogacuda]

I think they tried to take the Sonic 3 approach where the levels balance those elements without making you sit through a whole zone of slow.

[Fe 26]

I feel like the lava zone was the slowest.

[Son of Bryce]

Ok, I love this game. I was a huge Sonic fan throughout the 90s. You don't know how many late summer nights I spent burning Sega candles and praying for Sonic Xtreme, reading Ultra Gameplayers previews over and over again. Imagining how the hell this game could even work with a fisheye camera. Sonic Adventure made up for the Sonic-less years, but after Sonic Adventure 2 I kinda stopped caring for Sonic games outside of some of the GBA games (I remember I had a lot of fun with the fighting game! haha).

This game is the ultimate fan service for the Sonic fans out there, at least fans of the original trilogy. I actually learned about the decline of Sonic sales in the Sonic history book, about how Sonic 3+K sold a ton less than Sonic 2. I thought Sonic 3 was a huge improvement at the time. Back then I imagined that I could keep playing these 2D Sonic games forever. But playing through this game, I think I'm starting to understand why they stopped making this style of game for mainline Sonics.

Sonic Mania starts off super strong, giving you more of what you'd expect in a new/remixed Sonic game. They do enough in the game to spice up the formula in ways they started doing in Sonic 3. New gameplay mechanics sprinkled in, semi-puzzles in certain stages. I think they come close to pushing it as far as you can before you wouldn't be able to recognize it as a Sonic game.

Studiopolis zone feels right at place, feels sort of like a stage out of Sonic CD era. The art in the new stages is sorta hit or miss. I think a lot of time there's great art, but inconsistent with the rest of the game, or foreground and background elements blend together too much. This is nitpicky stuff and beggars can't be choosers afterall, but I just found myself looking at the game like "this looks like Sonic, this doesn't look like Sonic."

Fe 26, said some stuff about the boss battles. I totally agree. They did a great job coming up with clever new bosses but some of them seem overly thought out leading you to just cheeze them. Maybe you could say the same about most Sonic bosses in the first place.

I can't give enough appreciation to the basic fact that they totally nailed the feel of the original games. I played through a fair amount of Sonic 2 the day before this came out, and jumped into this not having to adjust anything. I played through it with the switch analog stick and didn't have any probs with the special stages or anything (except that I can't stand playing these anymore after earning Hyper Sonic so many times in the past).

After this game I don't even feel the need to do any more Sonic games in this original style, especially not another remix project! If they do another 2D Sonic game, I want them to bring a Nintendo-level reimagining of what Sonic could be.

I think I was listening to the Game Informer and 8-4 podcasts with people hating on Sonic games. Some too young, some not understanding when to slow down or speed up. People thinking Sonic is too hard??? It really got me thinking of how soft gamers are these days. The game journalist playing Cuphead crappy video's been making it's rounds lately (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpNBLRKAcg0 ), and I feel like there's too many people out there like that don't need to be opening their mouths about anything.

About the Sonic style of level design, am I alone in totally getting it? Thinking about it, it is kind of weird to know when to speed up and slow down but I feel like the level design indicates what you should be doing, aside from certain 'traps' that you have to learn to figure out. Playing through Sonic Mania, I feel like they captured the feeling of Sonic because I naturally felt that ebb and flow of gameplay. I didn't get confused or frustrated, which signals to me that they succeeded as game designers. But maybe this is just something you don't understand unless you grew up playing Sonic all the damned time. Sonic 1 and 2 didn't have any save so you were expected to replay over and over again and eventually learn the inner workings of each stage. It seems like the only game where it's expected to replay the same area multiple times is Dark Souls these days.

Anyway, I'm gonna be picking up Mario Odyssey over Sonic Forces but I hope that doesn't turn out to be garbage. I may have to wait another decade to let out a rant on a Sonic game.