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Sonic Mania (August 15th 2017, Christian Whitehead, PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch) - The New Classic


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23 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

I'm not saying ALL of them mind you but it will be bad if every boss in the game sticks to the typical confinement of a tiny area.

In functional terms, it still is a tiny area, though. You're still stuck within the boundaries of the screen (or an area close to that size, at least), it just scrolls forward.

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2 hours ago, JezMM said:

(I'm still bummed that we didn't get Ep 3 to be honest).

Me too. Sonic 4's gameplay never felt anywhere near as good as the classics, but I felt Ep2 was an improvement over Ep1 and it would have been nice to have at least got some closure with Ep3. What makes me sad is that SEGA contacted Taxman (it was just one phone call) about getting him involved with Ep3 before they eventually cancelled it. To think, Taxman working on Ep3......what could have been!

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21 minutes ago, Gemster312 said:

I personally enjoyed Sonic 4 as well, so I can understand where this is coming from, but the way the game was handled, the way it felt, and the crappy minor story it had, it didn't feel like a true Sonic classic game. Honestly I think the whole Sonic 4 Saga would have done so so so much better if it was just advertised as a "new spin-off 2D sonic game".

It doesn't feel like it should be part of that classic story chain, and thus it's actions should probably be ignored and not counted as "cannon". 

Was sonic 4 a good game? Yeah. Should it have been named as the "SEQUEL" to S3K? Hell no. Should it's story be cannon then if it's more of a spin-off than a real title? Probably not.

I do wish they just called it something other than Sonic 4, and then i think an EP3 would probably have been made (there's a source somewhere where Aaron says that it was in production but cancelled due to poor reception, but they might come back to it at some point if they feel the request is there). Which would be cool, but it should totally be read on a separate line from the classic 5.

While I definitely agree it shouldn't have been called Sonic 4, I still consider it a main series game - it's a home console platformer set in the same continuity as the other home console platformers with no frivolous gimmicks to speak of, there is nothing about it that makes it a spin-off.  I always felt it was indeed kind of it's own thing - an unnecessary but not inherently incorrect-to-have-attempted "bridge" game between the classics and Adventure.  Right now the story is in limbo really, so I don't want to consider it non-canon until a newer game decisively overwrites something from it.

12 minutes ago, EllieBot said:

Me too. Sonic 4's gameplay never felt anywhere near as good as the classics, but I felt Ep2 was an improvement over Ep1 and it would have been nice to have at least got some closure with Ep3. What makes me said it that SEGA contacted Taxman (it was just one phone call) about getting him involved with Ep3 before they eventually cancelled it. To think, Taxman working on Ep3......what could have been!

Wow, I never knew that tidbit about Taxman... that is extra depressing lol (though granted, it would have been weird for Episode 3 to suddenly have distinctly physics-based play that felt TOTALLY different from Ep 1 and 2's more straight up basic bitch modern Sonic platforming (where they kept the game interesting by introducing a new toy unique to each level, but outside of that you were mostly doing the same stuff etc).

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I get the feeling this game is gonna have some kind of jab at Sonic 4. It probably wont override it canon wise though. There's not really any reason to do that to any sonic game.

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1 hour ago, Chris Knopps said:

I really, REALLY hope not ALL bosses are confined to an "arena" or "room" so to speak.

I would be absolutely THRILLED if bosses are focused on fast side-scrolling action. This is one feature that might make Freedom Planet possibly surpass Mania as far as boss/action quality goes.

freedom-planet.gif

I'm not to keen on the idea of such a formula returning to 2-D Sonic, but I'll be the odd man out and say that I actually like the bosses in Sonic Advance 2 (except for Sky Canyon's boss with its bullshit hand that can kill you even if you have rings). They were simple enough in concept and fit in well with Advance 2's greater focus on speed.

When you're playing as Sonic.

With his air-dash he's able to close the distance between himself and the bosses and the insta-shield gave him enough levity that you didn't need to be pixel perfect with you're hits (makes that aforementioned Sky Canyon boss a little easier). The other characters don't have that air-dash making it much more difficult to approach the boss to get a single hit and is not nearly as fun, unless you're Cream and you just remove the challenge entirely, which to me is even worse.

I know Freedom Planet only used the running boss concept twice and while they work well for spectacle, they're not very engaging. Then again I'm a bit biased when it comes to Freedom Planet because I feel that its bosses are very unfair. It's not fun when you try a hard mode run only to get blind-sided by a single attack that takes 2/3's of your health! Hell, even in normal mode they tend to blind side you because the camera never focuses on them and all the chaos going on makes it difficult to focus on where their attacks are. I suppose something else I'm not of is being forced to abuse invincibility frames to avoid a boss' attack in what is primarily a platformer.

I think sticking to the more arena structure for boss fights works best for Sonic, at least 2-D. They tend to allow for better focus of what's occurring on-screen at all times and they can even allow for better utilization of Sonic's physics engine, like in Casino Night's boss.

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2 hours ago, Gemster312 said:

Although the Freedom Planet bosses that are side-scrolling like that are cool, I personally never enjoyed those in Sonic games. Such as the Advance series, where you run to chase down the boss.

It's a cool concept that makes sense, you're a fast character, why not run and kill the boss that way. But it's not really on-par with what the identity of a boss battle in the classic Sonic games is. In those "hold right and jump" boss battles, as cool as they look, in all honesty they are pretty boring to me. You really just hold right, and at the right time jump to ensure you hit eggman. Also, if you get hit and lose rings, they go BYE-BYE. It's more creative if the boss is more focused on the whole "platforming" and strategy part. The whole stage is about going fast. Now it's a battle, get strategic: Dodge bullets, figure out the right positioning, run to the left, run to the right, stop early, don't run into that. It's more diverse, and personally feels like that "Boss" room is more intense. If you're just running a long line, i don't care about the scenario where I am at. If it's locked into a single location, i feel like the particular room/location im in has more meaning.

But that's just my opinion :)

Either way, sonic can't do those attack moves like the characters from Freedom Planet that makes these boss battles feel so much more epic and interactive. Sonic can only boop eggman to crack him open :)

This post hits the nail on the head for me for why "rolling bosses," though excellent as ideas, tend to stumble in execution.  I don't rule out that a rolling boss can be done very well, and I wouldn't be against having one or two in the game either if only for variety's sake, but I don't think we need another Advance 2 experiment.

Of course, you could always combine rolling and regular bosses by having a fast-moving boss in an extremely wide arena with no autoscroll.  Try to keep up, or hang back and try to get a hit in in passing?  The strategic potential is immediately obvious.  Or, if you want to challenge the player to master Sonic's running physics in a boss battle, you can have something like the Quartz Quadrant boss when you're running against a high-speed conveyor belt for the whole battle.

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4 hours ago, Jango said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So guys, how would you feel if the level list is the following:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Green Hill;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- New Zone (ruins/ancient trope)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Oil Ocean (with clean water on the bottom and the only oil will be running on pipes aka not f***ing the environment. The place became a water park/level basically);

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Mirage Saloon;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Launch Base (full of snow, malfunctioning elevators/alarms/those spinning things, frozen water and such);

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Studiopolis;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Quartz Quadrant (will be set on the present, with more sections underground, now with LAVA, as if the quartz caves were near a volcano);

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- New Zone (haunted valley, similar to the likes of Pumpkin Hill, but with a different color palette, less orange, more grey/purple/green);

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Mushroom Hill (during SPRING, much more colors, plants and different mushrooms);

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Hidden Palace S3&K (for plot, fight with Mecha Sonic);

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- New Zone (a futuristic city inside a dome, underwater, which is this game's Eggman's base);

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- The Dead Egg (as it turns out, the Death Egg fell into the ocean, and Eggman build the underwater base/city around it, and not just that, the fallen station is this new base's energy supply, as it still has some "juice" thanks to the Master Emerald exposure in S3&K);

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Boss Fight inside the Dead Egg against Eggman (no Super Sonic);

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Final Boss (Super Sonic only): Eggman escapes the underwater base in a serpent (or hydra) like robot. Super Sonic goes after him (Tails and Knuckles get into an emergency escape pod and are launched out of the ocean). Super Sonic fights the Eggman robot above the surface of the ocean).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He wins, Eggman sinks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a problem.

Where is Hydrocity

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12 minutes ago, Sonic+Shadow+Silver=OP said:

What kind of things do you think make 2D Sonic better than 3D Sonic?

On classic Sonics I had fun every second. On 3d sometimes I just hope I reach the next section because I'm getting bored. Even in Generations. Also, the classics controls were better imo.

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20 minutes ago, Sonic+Shadow+Silver=OP said:

What kind of things do you think make 2D Sonic better than 3D Sonic?

For me, I have fun the entire time in the 2D games, but in most the 3D games, I get bored or other stuff (basically what molul said)

I also love how big and connect the worlds are, at least for 3&K with the connecting zones and acts, making it feel like a grand world and adventure.

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7 minutes ago, Zippo said:

*Looks at calender*

*Remembers what day it is*

*sighs apathetically*

Patience, young Zippo, patience....

Honestly, waiting for March 16th is such a painful experience.

Even then, that's not the release of the game. That's just probably the announcement for the actual release date.

When do you guys speculate the release date to be?

The release window is March 20th - June 20th (Spring).

Current hinted dates:

-March 19th (Gamestop supposed leak. Strange enough, it lands right outside of the "Spring Window" by 1 day. Coincidence?)

-March 20th (One can only dream that it releases the earliest day of Spring)

-April 25th (Amazon.com has this date next to some of the pre-orders. Place-holder specific date, or maybe a leak?)

-May 2nd (Recent social media post shows Sonic next to a bowl of Chili, 5 rings above it (May), titled "2nd best day of the year" (2nd), while in the comment clarifying that the Release Date for Sonic Mania is the #1 best day of the year. A stretch? Maybe, but it's fun to speculate. Additionally, it lands on a Tuesday, a common game release date. So my bets are on this super speculation).

-May 21st (My birthday. What a glorious present this would be.)

-June 20th (Sega really giving us the middle finger while still technically landing inside of the Spring window)

-June 21st and beyond (They pushed back the release date and use our tears to continue to polish this masterpiece)

Any guesses?

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On 2/23/2017 at 0:58 PM, Maxtiis said:

Huh. And here I'd thought I'd read up on all we know about Sonic Mania. Thanks for sharing that, it just makes my anticipation soar even higher.

And since we're still talking about bosses, who wants to bet that we're going to get a new robotic doppelgänger for Sonic? Every classic Sonic game has a robot Sonic in it with the exception of Sonic 1. It'd be nice to see the tradition continue. Hell, they might just use Metal Sonic; I'm sure Sega has it mandated somewhere that he's the only robot duplicate allowed now.

 

9 hours ago, FFWF said:

Thinking about it, time was that they'd redesign (or design a new) Metal Sonic every time he showed up, but at some point they seem to have decided that there was only one Metal Sonic allowed - no more Mecha, Rocket, Neo, etc.  It's kind of a shame.  I'd like to have seen his design be constantly tinkered with and upgraded each game to show that Eggman was still working on him after each defeat.

Well, the last Sonic Team game to have a new Sonic robot was Rivals 2, with Metal Sonic 3.0, who was a recolor of the normal Metal Sonic (one could count Generations, which added a small chibi version who was ostensibly meant to be the original), not counting the Sim Sonics. 

 

Non-Sonic Team entries have had more leeway with this, however. Sonic Dimensions (expansion of Lego Dimensions) featured Mecha Sonic (with the S2 design being branded "Robo Sonic"(unlike the usual "Silver Sonic" name) and the S3K design also featured) and a cameo of the Tails Doll. Fire and Ice had bots of all the Boom mains. (But no Metal Sonic appearance, nor Metal Sonic-Bot, Shadow-Bot, or Perci-Bot) 

 

As far as I know, the game doesn't seem to have Sonic Team on board, so I bet they can at least utilize older models ST doesn't want to, if not create a fresh one. 

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1 hour ago, Gemster312 said:

Honestly, waiting for March 16th is such a painful experience.

Even then, that's not the release of the game. That's just probably the announcement for the actual release date.

When do you guys speculate the release date to be?

The release window is March 20th - June 20th (Spring).

Current hinted dates:

-March 19th (Gamestop supposed leak. Strange enough, it lands right outside of the "Spring Window" by 1 day. Coincidence?)

-March 20th (One can only dream that it releases the earliest day of Spring)

-April 25th (Amazon.com has this date next to some of the pre-orders. Place-holder specific date, or maybe a leak?)

-May 2nd (Recent social media post shows Sonic next to a bowl of Chili, 5 rings above it (May), titled "2nd best day of the year" (2nd), while in the comment clarifying that the Release Date for Sonic Mania is the #1 best day of the year. A stretch? Maybe, but it's fun to speculate. Additionally, it lands on a Tuesday, a common game release date. So my bets are on this super speculation).

-May 21st (My birthday. What a glorious present this would be.)

-June 20th (Sega really giving us the middle finger while still technically landing inside of the Spring window)

-June 21st and beyond (They pushed back the release date and use our tears to continue to polish this masterpiece)

Any guesses?

Reminder that you can cross anything falling on a Sunday off your list, because there's no way this is going to release on a Sunday.

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It's easy to forget but we did have scrolling bosses in Sonic & Knuckles: Mushroom Hill Act 2 and the final part of Death Egg Act 2.  Mushroom Hill Act 2 is actually a really fun example of one - it doesn't throw a crazy huge amount of stuff at you nor does it go ridiculously fast.

I'm definitely not a fan of scrolling bosses where essentially you're just playing a regular boss but speed to the right hand side of the screen is 25% and speed to the left hand side is 300%.

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3 minutes ago, JezMM said:

It's easy to forget but we did have scrolling bosses in Sonic & Knuckles: Mushroom Hill Act 2 and the final part of Death Egg Act 2.  Mushroom Hill Act 2 is actually a really fun example of one - it doesn't throw a crazy huge amount of stuff at you nor does it go ridiculously fast.

I'm definitely not a fan of scrolling bosses where essentially you're just playing a regular boss but speed to the right hand side of the screen is 25% and speed to the left hand side is 300%.

I'm a fan of running bosses when they aren't all of the bosses and are done right. The mushroom hill boss, eggman laser chase and egg man getaway in deathegg are all super fun.

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Sonic 4 is complete trash and is an affront to the series. But I definitely would not mind a Tee Lopes remix of this bad boy:

 

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9 minutes ago, Zippo said:

Sonic 4 is complete trash and is an affront to the series. But I definitely would not mind a Tee Lopes remix of this bad boy:

 

I think we can all agree they wanted Metal Sonic to be the star and get the VIP treatment in Episode 2 above everyone and everything else.

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32 minutes ago, JezMM said:

It's easy to forget but we did have scrolling bosses in Sonic & Knuckles: Mushroom Hill Act 2 and the final part of Death Egg Act 2.  Mushroom Hill Act 2 is actually a really fun example of one - it doesn't throw a crazy huge amount of stuff at you nor does it go ridiculously fast.

Yes! ^_^   Then, from the same timeframe, Sunset Park Act 3 can be inclulded as one that is definitely loved by many worldwide!! 

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8 hours ago, Marcello said:

Why are you spacing your post out like that? It's annoying.

I'd hope for a few more stages than that.

I am so sorry, I don't know what happened there o.o

I wrote the post using the Tapatalk app, a glitch probably occurred... it's fixed now!

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1 hour ago, expansivelovestories said:

Yes! ^_^   Then, from the same timeframe, Sunset Park Act 3 can be inclulded as one that is definitely loved by many worldwide!! 

Actually that boss is kinda boring if you ask me.  I think people only remember it because for a Game Gear game the instant act transition with the signpost dropping down and such was really cool, and of course, the music.

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I honestly really liked unleashed's running bosses, in fact they were all pretty much my favorite bosses in the entire series. But in terms of 2D games I've never really liked them all that much but I also feel like just having these single room boss fights sort of undermines sonics abilities a bit and most never really do make use of what all sonic can do outside of his normal run and jump so it'd be nice if we had more that actually made use of the physics and the speed in a natural way.

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16 minutes ago, MegasonicZX said:

... but I also feel like just having these single room boss fights sort of undermines sonics abilities a bit and most never really do make use of what all sonic can do outside of his normal run and jump so it'd be nice if we had more that actually made use of the physics and the speed in a natural way.

Y'know a boss that does take good advantage of Sonic's speed and physics?

zmmUb1H.png

Casino Night's boss got way easier and way more fun once you started ignoring the flippers in favor of spindashing up the walls, then leaping off to slam Eggman from above.

Though at the same time, it kind of exposes a major problem of trying to work his speed into boss fights; giving Sonic enough space to zip around in easily leads to the boss (and his attacks) being offscreen, making it harder for you to know where to aim and what to dodge.

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15 hours ago, JezMM said:

Despite everything though I don't really want Mania messing with the canon that Sonic 4 established.  I know I know, I'm just saying from a lore basis it'd bother me personally to throw yet ANOTHER hiccup into the series chronology.  But we'll see.

The last thing Sonic Mania wants to do is remind you of Sonic 4. In fact, I'd say it's entire purpose of existence is to make you forget it.

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