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Concepts/Things In Mania You Dislike


Chris Knopps

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The Special Stages. Not only are they not good to begin with, but they get worse with every stage. 5 in particular is an absolute shitfest.

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Guys, I very dispointed that Tails campaign is total redundant,I know that was this way on Sonic 2,3 and knuckles as well but still ...

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  • 3 months later...

I wrote out a lengthy critique but I decided to save that for another day and just make some points..

I like this game. I really do

But this "celebratory" title frustrates me. I knew if I bought into this over hyped of a game, It would be even more disappointing but thankfully, I've subsided. Went into this wanting to have a fun and enjoyable experience. Was it worth a buy? Yes. I had a blast.

This small list of things I dislike does not mean I hate the game mind you. 

  1. The level design homogenizes itself and reduces the level of challenge in gameplay far too much where I do get bored playing the game(I sorta was already at certain points).Not to say they aren't well designed(although we can certainty debate this), just too similar. So many speed stages yet very little of them actually slows itself down a little. 
  2. Press Garden feels less of a Sonic stages and more of a Freedom Planet act. 
  3. Taxman and his team taking inspiration from Sonic CD. CD's gimmicks and level aren't even well thought out(perhaps to be debated) nor is the level design good. I opted to praise it for discontinuing them in later stages but Titanic Monarch gave me a nice big and long hug...
  4. The exploration is still not good when looking for giant rings. Sonic 3k started this mistake in introducing giant rings in the poorest of manners in it's later stages(Angel Island was wonderful in conveying this) to explore it. There isn't anything inherently anything wrong with exploration. Yet, you can't have a game, with a 19 minute timer that ticks down till your death, in a game where the stages are big, long and don't have proper conveyance on how to find giant rings.  Again, Sonic 3k I felt, didn't do this very properly. You'd have to waste the majority of the game looking for them or accidentally running into them. 
  5. Sonic 3k's Bonus stages already were doubled in it's own game. While they weren't the worst bonus stages, they certainly provided a sense of boredom due to them breaking up the pace of the game far too much and lasted too long out of the main game(Unlike CD, 3k's check point stages or Sonic 1,  it all depends on your skill and control the pace). Making the decision to quadruplicating them(32 total) makes this a very repetitive game. You have 7 more bonus stages to complete to gain Super Sonic(another horrible reward carried over from past games. Overriding the music isn't cool man!). 39 bonus games in order to get everything. Might I say this was quite archaic? Even for it's time I thought it was dumb.
  6. And last, Tails and Knuckles! I appreciate the levels for knuckles for one. The appreciation stops there. Movesets for both characters are still a drab and still unable to use shields. "But 1138! It's supposed to celebrate the past titles! Improving Sonic but not improving everyone else was intentionally designed to be a good thing! Cause you know, nostalgia!".. 
  7. The rehash of stages while incorporated rehashed elements from the MD/CD titles. Hmm..
  8. Misinterpretations of stages. Lava Reef confused me with some of the aesthetic additions..The metal gates didn't make sense to me. Could have used a different method for bringing new changes.

Aaaand I'm done. I have more to say but it'll end up sounding like I hate the game. The Mania was euphoric to experience and the love was clear. There is much to be in awe about Mania. It's a celebration title done right. Just next time; do some refining. Stick to being innovative with he classic formula, not regressive in the areas I mentioned. 

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The main thing I dislike about Sonic Mania is that it was rushed to release before Forces. This is shown through:

1. The later zones. Hydrocity, Oil Ocean, and Lava Reef don't have that same polish and nuance and the first three zones did. It feels like there is a small dip in quality towards the end.

2. The plot. Oh God! The story starts out okay, but with the lack of zone transitions in some areas the whole thing ends up being confusing.

3. The ending(s). The endings are just underwhelming and again, confusing. I had no idea Little Planet was even in the game until the ending but I guess it's just there, I guess? And Sonic Forces is connected to Mania too? It just left me underwhelmed and with many questions. The bad ending is even worse, as it just has your character do a dinky little smile and that's it. The animation itself looked okay, but it felt more like a motion comic then a full blown cutscene. Overall it feels like the endings were made last minute.

Also don't like how intrusive the blue spheres special stage is. It breaks the pace and you don't really get a reward for collecting them.

I feel like SEGA practically had a 10/10 game on their hands but botched it down to an 8.5/10. It's still a great game but the Forces stuff hurt more than helped imo. 

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Reliance on old stages

lack of drop dash when acquiring an elemental shield

overuse of blue sphere stages

glitches that force you to die or restart

oil ocean act 2 and boss fight

How Amy wasn’t in the game, yet was treated like a villain in the form of evil dolls you were forced to destroy. If Amy showed up for a small bit in the actual game, I would have gotten a better laugh out of the evil Amy dolls, but it kind of annoyed me how she wasn’t in the game, and was treated as something that had to be destroyed. For a game that celebrates Classic Sonic games, it was a shame that the game didn’t bother giving Amy a more pleasant cameo for the fans who actually like her. She didn’t get much to do in Sonic CD, so it would have been nice for Mania to give her something to do, even if it was just for a stage transition. 

I still enjoyed Sonic Mania, so don’t let my minor nitpicks lead you into thinking I disliked it. I enjoyed it a lot more than Sonic Forces.

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  • 3 months later...

I think Press Garden Zone Act 1 could use some improvement. Every time I do a run of this game, this zone kills my interest in continuing my run. Trying to identify the problem, I feel the music in the zone is too weak, especially the start of the track. Every other track starts bombastic, while this one starts too small and slowly, and doesn't really take the chance to stand out later in the track. When I make my way to Act 2, my interest comes back with the music starting off stronger and staying that way, and I'm ready to blast through the game again.

And I dislike how slow the elevators in Lava Reef Zone Act 1 are. They could be a little faster, please!

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Flying Battery is my Press Garden Act 1. It just goes on for too long, and even the boss is perfectly in keeping with that theme. I actually think I prefer S3&K's version, I remember it being harder and shorter. Otherwise I'm sure plenty of people already railed on the inconstant cutscenes and confused level order (we go from little planet, to Angel Island, just to go back to little planet?).

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My biggest issue with Mania is that it tries too hard to be Sonic 3. Any kind of expansion on Sonic 3's gameplay starts and ends with the Drop Dash. The least they could have done is add a second button like the Advance trilogy, or even bring the Classic formula into 3d. There's also a total lack of playable characters who weren't in Sonic 3. I mean come on, give us a playable Amy at least!

Aside from stuff other people have already said, I have two minor nitpicks.

  1. The game cockteased us with Fang's return by having him be the Heavy Magician in disguise. His first appearance in 20 years, and it turns out to be an impostor...
  2. There's a mode based on the & Knuckles meme that exists only to be a reference to said meme. I had hoped the Mania team was better than that.
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5 hours ago, Polkadi said:

I think Press Garden Zone Act 1 could use some improvement. Every time I do a run of this game, this zone kills my interest in continuing my run. Trying to identify the problem, I feel the music in the zone is too weak, especially the start of the track. Every other track starts bombastic, while this one starts too small and slowly, and doesn't really take the chance to stand out later in the track. When I make my way to Act 2, my interest comes back with the music starting off stronger and staying that way, and I'm ready to blast through the game again.

And I dislike how slow the elevators in Lava Reef Zone Act 1 are. They could be a little faster, please!

Really? Music quality and elevator speed? This really is nitpicking there, pal xD Also, you must've gotten huge balls to be complaining about the music in Mania, let alone calling it "too weak", wow. But taste really is subjective, for example, Press Garden Act 1 is my favorite music in the game, so yeah..

If I had one thing to complaim about Mania would be obvious lack of some zone transitions, which was most likely cut to meet deadlines (which always sucks, let the people work). Also that the game ends. Wish it could go forever. If another Mania never happens well... This franchise is as good as dead, unless someone STILL believes in Sonic Team.

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46 minutes ago, Jango said:

Really? Music quality and elevator speed? This really is nitpicking there, pal xD Also, you must've gotten huge balls to be complaining about the music in Mania, let alone calling it "too weak", wow. But taste really is subjective, for example, Press Garden Act 1 is my favorite music in the game, so yeah..

Pah, it's just little issues in an otherwise great game. Like crush physics, ooh lawdy. I love the soundtrack of Mania, and PGZ Act 1 is still good. It just lacks energy, somewhat, compared to the other tracks. And elevator speed, it's just bothersome how slow it is in an otherwise fast paced zone :P

I find things I don't like in good things, and things I do like in bad things. I'm a bit strange like that!

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I'm one of the few people who didn't like the game, well, I enjoyed it a bit, but there were so many things that bothered me that I just can't fully appreciate the game.

First of all, I have read the whole thread, and I agree with 99% of other people's critics.

Then I want to add something from my experience:

- I agree the about level design being a mess, and not being focused, and the fact that they added gimmicks from different stages in unrelated stages (like the Marble Garden gimmick in Stardust Speedway, but there are more) just made the zones lose their identity even more. A comment on the Oil Ocean smoke gimmick, I prefer the ghosts in Sonic & Knuckles, because they are more creative, more interactive (you must dodge them instead of being a full-screen hurt box), and added to the atmosphere of the level, while the wall of smoke was just cheap and made the level look dull. Back on level design, there are huge parts of the levels where the game plays itself, just roll and watch 15/20 seconds of Sonic automatically rolling through pipes, slopes and loops where each interaction will just make him slower (I like the Advance games despite being full of those moments, the difference is that in the Advance games you can interact more, with the air dash, tag team moves and other gimmicks, so that you can make your character go even faster even during a semi-automated section; as I said, in Mania every attempt of interaction in those semi-automated sections will only make you go slower, except the loop jump trick that anyways is easy to fail).

- I didn't like most of the bosses, design-wise and gameplay wise. That guy from Oil Ocean is just too cartoony for Sonic and don't fit the artstyle of Classic Sonic, it seems something that comes out from Sonic Lost World. Gameplay-wise, most bosses and minibosses are cheap and unintuitive, confusing, and I would even say bad designed. I want to cover the Studiopolis act 1 miniboss later, now I only want to say that the bosses have too many phases, even throwback bosses such as the Hidrocity one, they made those bosses longer in an annoying way, you think you have defeated it and a new phase starts instead, and most of the times you can't attack the boss and you must wait until the attack pattern allows you to deal 1 hit. In the classics/advance games it was possible to attack the boss multiple times without waiting if the player was skilled enough.

- something that I hate about this game is that when you jump, you slow down a little. This isn't a big issue in most of the game, just annoying  because it damages the flow a bit, but I can live with it... the problem comes when you are supposed to fight the Studiopolis act 1 miniboss. The little slow down will alter your jump arc in a way that when you are jumping over a rocket, you are convinced that you succesfully jumped it but no, at half jump, Sonic slows down and lands on the rocket, getting damage. The boss is probably a reference to Sonic Advance 2 bosses, except that said game did the running bosses way better. First of all, the Studiopolis boss is very confusing, it's hard to understand what's background and what's foreground; then it's unintuitive: the egg mobile seems to be on the same layer as Sonic, it's natural to try to hit it, but it's actually not on the same layer, and you can't hit it... and the eggrobos are the same, except that they're also useless gameplay-wise and even more confusing because it looks like they are attacking you, but they don't; red and blue missiles are confusing, they both seem dangerous and there is nothing that suggests that you must hit a missile to damage the boss, you basically learn it by failing jumps; all this added to the slow down of the jump arc, make this boss a PAIN, and this is not the only painy boss, Mirage Saloon act 1 and the motobug boss, etc...

- I feel like the physics are far from perfect, and I wouldn't even call those good. As I said for the slowdown in the jump arc, there are many other small issues like that in the game, something hard to notice but that makes the physics more clunky, even drop dash feels that way, there's something that makes it feel unnatural and in a way it seems to work better in Sonic Forces than in Mania.

- The competitive mode stretching the screen that way in 2017 is just ridicolous and unprofessional.

- The special stages are decent, not the most original thing in the world but they are fun enough... if not for the horrible controls, horrible and inconsistent, because when you reach mach 3 it controls differently and you must get used to the new physics in the middle of the game; not to mention that mach 3 controls better than the slower speeds, because drifting while turning is more natural; jump physics and camera rotation are bad too.

- Something that other people already said but I want to highlight, the Puyo Puyo miniboss being extremely annoying and out of place, the Blue Spheres bonus stage instead of minigames with rewards like in S3&K (and the insane amount of them, all required for 100%), and Titanic Monarch being bad, especially act 2 and its 4 roads maze structure that's just boring and repetitive.

there is probably more but that's all what I was able to think now.

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1 hour ago, Iko said:

Words :V

It seems to me that you don't know Sonic at all, let alone like it :V

I mean, I've stopped reading after you said Forces' physics are better than Mania's. People say opinions can't be right or wrong... But sorry, you're wrong.

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10 minutes ago, Jango said:

It seems to me that you don't know Sonic at all, let alone like it :V

I mean, I've stopped reading after you said Forces' physics are better than Mania's. People say opinions can't be right or wrong... But sorry, you're wrong.

This is not really what I said. I said that a specific move (drop dash) feels better in Forces than in Mania, not the whole physics engine.

I'm a Sonic fan since Sonic 1, I played almost every Sonic game and Sonic 3 & Knuckles is one of my favorite Sonic games ever, just because I don't like Mania doesn't mean I'm not a Sonic fan, I'm just being honest.

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1 hour ago, Iko said:

- The competitive mode stretching the screen that way in 2017 is just ridicolous and unprofessional.

Since I don't personally have anyone to play it with I totally forgot this one.  It's INSANE to me that they felt this was at all a good idea.  Blue Spheres and Game Overing back to Act 1 of a Zone were pretty wanky, but the split-screen resembling Sonic 2's was without a doubt the most stupid "let's do it this way because that's how it was in the classics" decision in the entire game.  Lucky that it's in an entirely optional mode.

It just looks SO bad.

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If I was a fanboy, if that's what you're implying, I would have swallow that shit game called Sonic Forces like a lot of people did just because it "looks cool" and "it's Sonic". So, no, I am not a fanboy. 

Iko's points sound very fishy, I mean, Mania's physics are far from perfect? What is Sonic 4 then??

Whatever.

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5 minutes ago, Jango said:

If I was a fanboy, if that's what you're implying, I would have swallow that shit game called Sonic Forces like a lot of people did just because it "looks cool" and "it's Sonic". So, no, I am not a fanboy. 

I’m not sure you actually read Iko’s or Celestia’s posts. 

Knock it off already.

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For what it's worth I kinda get where they're coming from with the drop dash feeling better in Forces, but I think that comes from the fact that it makes you feel like a cool dude to use it effectively in that game (compared to just navigating the stages in Sonic's vanilla state which feels like garbage).  It kind of tricks you into feeling like you're playing a proper 2D Sonic game because it operates in the same basic way as it does in Mania AND you're in control of it.  Meanwhile when Classic Sonic is normally doing "physics" stuff in Forces, it's being heavily scripted and you may not even be in control at all.

 

One point I will disagree on is the cartooneyness of Oil Ocean's Act 1 boss not fitting in with Classic Sonic aesthetic.

Have you seen these guys:

obLGfR.png

Heck have you seen THIS guy

UUx94X.png

 

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29 minutes ago, Jango said:

If I was a fanboy, if that's what you're implying, I would have swallow that shit game called Sonic Forces like a lot of people did just because it "looks cool" and "it's Sonic". So, no, I am not a fanboy. 

Just accepting anything is, indeed, an example of fanboyism. As is coming down on people for not liking a thing as much as you do (or even at all), which surprisingly enough is annoying even if the game is Sonic Mania.

25 minutes ago, Jango said:

Iko's points sound very fishy, I mean, Mania's physics are far from perfect? What is Sonic 4 then??

Sonic 4 has arguably the worst physics we've seen in a mainstream(ish) 2D Sonic. Saying the physics in another game felt far from perfect isn't even in the same ballpack as that. It's like countering critique of a 3D Sonic with "Well, it's not '06."

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 Sonic Mania is certainly a pristine game. 

The special stages though, they really aren't fun. 

The control scheme doesn't feel practical, overly slippery too and not the best planned.  And if course, later on, they feel rather BS.

And I don't know. Something about this game makes it feel like their warp rings are a bit more of a pain to find here than in 3&K.

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19 minutes ago, Celestia said:

Just accepting anything is, indeed, an example of fanboyism. As is coming down on people for not liking a thing as much as you do (or even at all), which surprisingly enough is annoying even if the game is Sonic Mania.

There, I was being annoying, I admit and I'm sorry, that was kinda of an ass. No more condescending posts from me. I guess Mania gets praise enough, a few critics wouldn't hurt. It's just... IDK, we got a lot of Sonic games before that tried to capture the essence of the old games, but they always failed someway somehow, be it the physics, the music, the aesthetics... Then, when we finally get a game that does the franchise's justice, I still read some people saying things like the "game lacks creativity and identity" or "the physics are far from perfect"... I can't help but get confused, this game, Mania, needs to be appreciated, it's as high as this franchise got in ages. It's not me saying, it's not me being a fanboy, it's a bunch of people all around the gaming industry confirming it.

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As I said in another topic, I don't like that Hyper Knuckles and Super Tails didn't get a proper final battle against Heavy King and Eggman. It's honestly another example of lost potential because they were trying to stick to the formula in S3&K by having Sonic be the only canon character to go Super and fight Eggman. Even if it was a non-canon battle, it would be been nice to see.

I don't like a lot of the bosses in the game either, a lot of them are downright glitchy in taking them down and can lead to plenty of cheap deaths because of it, Oil Ocean and Mirage Saloon Act 1 being ruined for me exactly for that reason.

The game was unnecessarily buggy at launch too, with my first playthrough being ruined twice because of said glitches ruining zones, both times it happened on Act 2. First being the glitch that Sonic gets stuck in the Puyo machine in Chemical Plant, the other occurring on one of the zones I hate most in the game (Flying Battery) where Sonic got stuck in an animation loop.

I like how there's multiple characters in the game to play as too, Knuckles and Tails had been stuck as unplayable characters for too long, but I dislike how bosses were not adapted at all for their unique attributes. Oil Ocean's already frustrating boss for example is downright aggravating trying to play it as Knuckles due to his lowered jump height, which means you'll be unlikely to manage to get back onto one of the rising platforms if it's already fully risen up as Knuckles.

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I actually agree that a decent chunk of the bosses in Mania are poorly designed. The Puyo Pyuo one in particular has created a complete pace breaker on most of my playthroughs for the sake of something that was cute..once? I would have rather them hid that somewhere and given me a proper fight to play. Even if the fight sucks I can go super and cheese it.

This is kind of a pet peeve, but the immediate red flag for me is when they didn't follow the golden rule of hitting Eggman's cockpit always counting as a hit. It makes some of them like the Spider-Boss  unintuitive, even if that one in particular is fun when you know how it works. Speaking of unintuitive, the Metal Sonic boss just doesn't really make sense at all until the second half and I'm surprised that made it into the game.


Some of them, like the Heavy Gunner, pretty much clings to the Modern Sonic school of thought. You can't hit the boss until it exposes itself. I prefer the bosses to be more like the ones in Sonic 2 or 3 where the only condition to hitting them is getting up to where they are. It means I can take the upper hand make the bosses move at my own pace if I know what I'm doing. The Classic games had a few bosses like Heavy Gunner, but the ones I can remember didn't have you waiting around as long

There are also things like Mirage Saloon Act 1's boss and Oil Ocean's bosses where they're so bad I'm surprised they made it into a game that understands what makes good level design as well as it does. It's a complete contrast and makes the game feel like an early Dimps one at times.

It's just a really, really mixed bag in the same way Sonic CD's bosses were. It's one of many things that make me associate Mania more with CD and Chaotix than to consider it a proper sequel, even if I love it as a game and had a LOT of fun with it.

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Just now, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I don't like that Hyper Knuckles

Super*

It's Super Knuckles, not Hyper. It's ALWAYS been Super Knuckles with the Chaos Emeralds and it even says it in the game. Hyper is only when he uses the Super Emeralds just like with Hyper Sonic.

Sorry for nitpicking at that, but it kinda bothers me that there are people who STILL get that wrong after all of these years. I blame Archie for that.

With all of that, Super Knuckles and Super Tails DO have non-canon Egg Reverie fights. Yes, you have to use & Knuckles Mode or Debug Mode to get to them, but they're perfectly working with the characters.

Sonic's the main character so of course he gets the canon battle in a normal playthrough. That's how it should be. The extra characters can get a little extra thing in the unlockable modes instead.

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