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Sonic Mania: Any flaws?


MetalSkulkBane

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I don't think the music is all that great in this one, remix or otherwise. The only ones I really remember are Studiopolis Zone Act 1 (probably because it's played so often by the official accounts) and Press Garden Zone Act 1. 

I mean I have way more things to say but that's the first thing that comes to mind.

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2 hours ago, StaticMania said:

That's a good place to be really.

If I were including the Advance series, Mania would be third behind Sonic Advance 1.

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Also, do you somehow not have the same muscle memory issue with any other 2D Sonic game or do you only go back to Sonic 3?

Because that seems like a weird bone to pick with this game specifically.

No, I have the same issue when I go back and play Sonic 2 or 1 after 3&K. The difference with those two being that I have to remind myself they were made before Sonic 3&K, so it’s more forgivable with them.

Mania coming afterwards annoyed me mainly because I felt the Instashield was expected for most 2D games Post-Sonic 3 that follow the Classic mechanics. I felt like I had to return to playing like it was Sonic 2, because I avoided using the Dropdash whenever possible.

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The drop dash is the most useful addition to Sonic's kit in years and I'd recommend just engaging with it and learning how it works. I didn't like it at first either but now Sonic 3 feels like a lesser game for not having it. 

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Never thought I'd see the dropdash as one of the "flaws" of Mania; if anything I think it's the single most revolutionary addition to Sonic's moveset since the spindash

As for actual flaws, I'm going to echo the boss design and save point issue. The latter doesn't affect me as I'm pretty experienced with 2D Sonic and will happily replay any level just for fun, but the boss design is not always the best. I think the single best ones were in Green Hill, and while I adore the Mean Bean Machine reference, I think including a puzzle game as a boss level was not the best idea; I think it would have served much better as one of the potential bonus games. 

Actually, a flaw that I don't see mentioned much is how Blue Spheres doesn't offer you any in-game rewards like the mini games in Sonic 3&K. The medal collecting is a nice addition, but once you nab em all, what's the point? Mania Plus changes it over to the pinball mini game which sort of solves the issue, but as far as I'm concerned the pacing of grabbing items is too slow to be enjoyable. 

There's actually a mod fo Mania that changes the pinball mini game to resemble Sonic Spinball, and it's much better as there's less in the way between the bottom of the table and the prize area.

The last nitpick I have is there's no time attack mode for the Special Stages. I believe them to be the best that the series has ever had, and it's annoying that there's no way to just jump into one and muck around without having to resort to debug mode or the dev menu. Eh.

But yeah, it's hard to harshly criticize Mania as a lot of these complaints are just minor ones. Even with the boss design being a bit frustrating, it's easy enough to go through the motions once you've mastered it and move on the the really fun parts, which is the rest of the game. 

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Flaws... Mania is not one of my favorite Sonic games, there are a lot of things which I don't really like much, mostly design choices.

But actual flaws... I dunno... I agree on the boss desgn, I liked none of the bosses in the game, and some of them are IMO unintuitive and unfair.

I agree with the "wait for the weak spot" thing, bosses in the classics (and advance) can be attacked continuously, and the more skilled you are, the more hits you can deal; in Mania you have to wait a pattern most of the times and you can't deal extra hits regardless of your skills. Exceptions exist, but more or less that's it. Ray makes the bosses way more fun because he can cheat a lot with the flight and can allow you to deal multiple hits by breaking the game, but that's not a good thing, that you need to break the game in order to get any fun from it.

I also agree on the Blue Sphere thing, pointless and annoying, I avoid the sparkles as well.

About lives system, I liked how lives were handled in Encore mode, where each character was 1up, and the total amount of characters was the total amount of lives you could collect before actually losing (the system is cool but IMO it still needs improvements). I don't like the classic lives/gameover system, I think it's outdated and makes no sense in modern gaming (it only really makes sense in arcade games where the goal is to get an high score).

Another thing that I consider a flaw is the way how special stages control. I don't know, controls just feel bad and become inconsistent when you reach the max speed (handling changes completely all of a sudden).

I also agree with the thing that in some levels there's too much automation and sometimes you accidentally touch something and you are sent to the other side of the level without any chance to control the character, making exploration annoying or outright impossible. Ironically, those DIMPS games with similar problems, often offer you several tools to break the automation (tricks or tag actions), while Mania has a much simpler moveset and there's little that you can do in those situations (unless you break the game with Ray, once again).

I also don't like the dropdash much; it sents you fast enough that it will make you unable to see what's coming next, so you can really take advantage of it only if you learn the level layout (most of my dropdashes ended into hitting a wall and losing all the momentum). Also, I'm not sure, but I'm under the impression that it sends you at a fixed speed and doesn't take your former momentum into account, making you even slower in some situations... but I'm not sure about this. I agree with those who prefer the insta-shield and spindash, though I also didn't mind the slide attack and air dash from Advance 2 that, used together, did more or less what the dropdash in Mania does in but in a different way and with much more control on it.

Speaking of Advance 2, that running boss in Studiopolis is one of my least favorites in the game, and I like the running bosses from Advance 2. It's not the concept that I dislike, but the boss design and the physics; I would rather play the Egg Saucer a hundred times than play this boss once.

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3 hours ago, Indigo Rush said:

There's actually a mod fo Mania that changes the pinball mini game to resemble Sonic Spinball, and it's much better as there's less in the way between the bottom of the table and the prize area.

I didn't know about this mod until you mentioned it. I tried it out and it's now resting comfortably in my "always on" mods subfolder. Thanks for that.

Link if anyone else wants to check it out:

 

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6 hours ago, Wraith said:

The drop dash is the most useful addition to Sonic's kit in years and I'd recommend just engaging with it and learning how it works. I didn't like it at first either but now Sonic 3 feels like a lesser game for not having it. 

I know how the Dropdash works. I’ll still take the Instashield over it any day of the week, because I prefer attacking over speeding.

It’d probably be better if Mania followed the Advance series example in having multiple abilities with separate inputs rather than following the Classics one button format for it.

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I got that game for Christmas of last year and it's sat on my shelf the entire time. I should really get around to eventually playing it one of these days so I can have an actual opinion about it finally.

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I like the functionality of the Instashield but it isn't the godlike game-changer that is the Drop Dash.

Also I've seen a lot of miffiness over the years about the special stages in Mania, but I think they're some of the best in the series. Like, behind 3D Blast Saturn's special stage, I suppose, but that's it. They're extremely fun to replay; I remember back when the Switch version didn't patch out it's old debug code I would just use that to spam Super Rings so I could play them all over and over.. man, they should've been available in Time Attack.

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More like the Drop Dash exposes how dated the old Genesis control scheme is in the age of shoulder buttons.

 If you’re gonna add new abilities, might as well take advantage of new inputs with it.

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I understand using more than one button but why on a shoulder button?

Anyways, I feel like the Drop Dash has way more potential for utilization than the Instashield does, so when you make me decide between the two I'm gonna pick the former. The IS lets you dodge hitboxes and get an extra bounce, which is very nice, but I think in a game more about slope traversal (like Sonic tends to be) a move that makes traversing said slopes easier is the better pick, which the DD is.

I feel like there's a way to combine them, at least. One method a lot of fan games do is make the IS turn into a DD if held, but I've always thought that releasing a DD to do an IS would have a satisfying timing to it, plus have a proper visual cue (Sonic slashing out the excess energy he pent up from revving a DD).  

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12 minutes ago, azoo said:

I understand using more than one button but why on a shoulder button?

Why not a shoulder button?

You hold it mid-air after jumping to activate the Drop Dash then let go in a burst of speed. Seems natural to me and takes a cue from the Advance series in adding new abilities.

Hell, you could even put the spin dash on the shoulder button while you’re at it.

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Used to be I was a staunch defender of the "one button only" design choice of the Genesis games, but now I don't think it would hurt to have another even if I still don't mind that choice. The problem I have with the Advance games' moveset is that the extra abilities didn't seem too useful; they weren't inherently useless but these games just aren't designed for combat, and many of said moves killed your speed in a way that rolling and jumping don't. It felt as though the developers added them simply because they were staples in the Adventure games.

It also doesn't help that the instashield seemed to be heavily nerfed if not outright useless in Advance. I use it all the time in Sonic 3 but couldn't find any use for it elsewhere. Even in Mania it doesn't feel like it has the same properties, but I haven't messed around with it too much there to tell for sure.

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I don't really see much point in splitting the Drop Dash and Insta-Shield across two buttons; is there any situation in which just doing an Insta-Shield before a Drop Dash would be a negative? It's like how if you're Fire Mario in [Mario Game], when you start running you'll throw a fireball because they're the same button. Like, sure you may have just intended to run, but it's not like the fireball toss has a downside per say. 

Just tap jump for an insta-shield and then hold it for a Drop Dash. The Max Control cheat setup from Mania, basically. 

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3 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Why not a shoulder button?

It's kind of out of the way for a 2D game that only really uses one button anyway.

1 minute ago, Sean said:

Used to be I was a staunch defender of the "one button only" design choice of the Genesis games, but now I don't think it would hurt to have another even if I still don't mind that choice. The problem I have with the Advance games' moveset is that the extra abilities didn't seem too useful; they weren't inherently useless but these games just aren't designed for combat, and many of said moves killed your speed in a way that rolling and jumping don't. It seemed like the developers added them just because they were there in the Adventure games.

Agreed. They have a lot more purpose in a 3D game, since attacks are good for hitting enemies without needing to do any moving around (and can double as a brake!), but in 2D games that kind of comes off redundant since you can attack with precision rather easily.

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5 minutes ago, azoo said:

It's kind of out of the way for a 2D game that only really uses one button anyway.

Hence why we wouldn’t be using one button anymore. I feel people are attached to that idea out of sheer nostalgia—the shoulder button isn’t that far out there to use even in 2D games.

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There's no really good point in having more than one button in a 2D Sonic game, at least with the intent of attacking.

Combat moves ie the Advance games are nice to have as an option, but I don't really think they add anything like they do in 3D games, and giving them reason to be effective would only slow the games down. It's best to just keep it simple.

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I basically always go into a Sonic playthrough of Mania with that cheat code on so I can have both. They work together pretty well and I think they pair together well, but I also do like @azoo's idea of having the insta shield after you release the button rather than at the start. Would be interested in playing a hack with that.

In regards to the single button argument, I suppose I get it, but with the kind of gameplay seen in the original Sonic games it's not necessary unless they add moves or features that truly necessitates a second or third action. The moves in Sonic Advance were nigh useless so I think that's a poor example to follow. I think it's possible to come up with a good move, it just isn't going to be the somersault, yeah?

The dropdash doesn't need its own button, either way. I do love the insta shield and think with some tweaking, it can be even more useful than it is in specific situations, but that's another topic for another time. 

 

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I also think it can come across an unintuitive - in Advance 3, the Sonic & Knuckles combo actually *does* map the insta-shield to B, and I frequently forget I even have it because having it be a double-jump action makes more sense. Same goes for the drop dash. 

You could move it another button, but there's no real reason to, nostalgia or not. 

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I only really get moving the Drop Dash to another button for a 3D game, since it'd make sense that the button you use to charge a Spin Dash does the same thing in the air. But again, that's 3D games. lol

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6 minutes ago, azoo said:

There's no really good point in having more than one button in a 2D Sonic game, at least with the intent of attacking.

Combat moves ie the Advance games are nice to have as an option, but I don't really think they add anything like they do in 3D games, and giving them reason to be effective would only slow the games down. It's best to just keep it simple.

I don’t know where you’re getting this idea of using the moves from the Advance Series, because I said nothing remotely along those lines.

I referring to the idea of taking advantage of the extra functions you can use with more buttons. A lot of the abilities in the Advance Series were useless, yes, but they weren’t that complex to pull off using two buttons to execute—the idea is to do that with the Drop Dash instead of the Slide Attack.

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It might just be because I suck at them but I hate the special stages. They're a little too difficult and have a bit too steep of a learning curve to get used to. This might just be a me thing though because I have seen people that make them look like nothing.

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1 minute ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I don’t know where you’re getting this idea of using the moves from the Advance Series, because I said nothing remotely along those lines.

I referring to the idea of taking advantage of the extra functions you can use with more buttons. 

You're dodging my point where I believe any attack moves in a 2D game feels kind of redundant, and I have yet to see an argument on what moves would work, so of course people are going to assume you mean the Advance moveset. What are you trying to play here, lol.

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2 minutes ago, azoo said:

You're dodging my point where I believe any attack moves in a 2D game feels kind of redundant, and I have yet to see an argument on what moves would work, so of course people are going to assume you mean the Advance moveset. What are you trying to play here, lol.

Again, I’m not talking about attack moves.

I spelled it out the first time that I’m talking about control functions.

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