![]() Sonic has yet* to be translated successfully, even now, several generations after 3D levels have become the norm for game design. Nintendo did just fine translating its franchises to the third dimension, Mario chief among them. Look at Mario 64, Nintendo got that right on the first go.”Īs Dave said above, though, that’s the major difference. “There’s a whole world of potential in a properly realised 3D Sonic game. I have three chaos emeralds! Two more than I’d gotten on my previous runs! A little frustrating, but not bad.ĭoing a run through with Knuckles now, and man, it’s so much easier to find those huge rings that lead to the special stages. Maybe it’s a collision issue, or maybe something was hitting me from below, but there didn’t seem to be any indication of what was killing me. I’d just be hopping around down there and die, without anything (as far as I can tell) there to kill me. ![]() Every so often I’d just die for no reason, usually during or after the platforms were sinking into the oil. The Oil Ocean boss is weird, and I wondered if something was glitched. I honestly don’t know how to trigger the portal…it just eventually seems to happen. I’ve finished the game twice and I still don’t think I worked out the gimmick! I just seem to amble around in circles, especially toward the end of Act 2, and then finally a big portal opens and I can go to the boss. “parts of Titanic Monarch (but even then I got through it at a first attempt, once you work out the gimmicks)” The final final boss you get with all the Emeralds is a bit tough at first, but not too bad once you work out a strategy. The only bits of this game that I found genuinely challenging were the fifth Special Stage (never have I been more relieved to get a Chaos Emerald after so many tries) and parts of Titanic Monarch (but even then I got through it at a first attempt, once you work out the gimmicks). I’ve seen quite a few complaints from young gamers of this generation that parts of Mania are incredibly unfair and almost impossible – like the Oil Ocean Act 2 boss, which is just a remix of a couple of classic bosses really – which I found amusing. I think part of this is the changed nature of gaming today, which is less reliant on fast reaction times and memorising level layouts than this type of gaming was in the ’90s. It’s super good, but the difficulty complaints are kind of surprising to me! I struggled my way through Sonic 1, 2, and 3 at various points in my life, but didn’t have any issues with this one until the final zone. You finally know for sure it’ll work, you don’t need to keep rehashing levels and other stuff from the past as a crutch any more. The best level design in Mania came from the original levels/new sections of old levels, so all SEGA have to do to top this is do what Christian “Taxman” Whitehead knew to do from the very beginning: just make a wholly new 2D Sonic game, all original levels and elements. God help me, I love the new Sonic game, but before Mania was announced I never thought I’d say those words again. Mania is the real Sonic Generations, and the Sonic game we all should’ve gotten on the Saturn in 1996. I could go on forever about what I love about Mania. ![]() They’re great, and an actual challenge at times. You can’t just jump on him easy peasy 8 times the way you can in practically all the old bosses. The bosses are wholly more clever than anything from the original Genesis games, with the vast majority requiring you to figure out the gimmick/work out a way to indirectly attack Eggman’s robot. I always considered Sonic 2 to have the unequivocally best level design of the Genesis trilogy (Sonic & Knuckles is literally Sonic 3 Part 2, not a fourth game), but Mania beats it out not only in what made it good but with a design complexity the Genesis could never have achieved on its meager double digit kBs of RAM. Mania is well so designed it’s actually making me spot flaws in my beloved Sonic 3 & Knuckles that never occurred to me before to name a more harmless example, how boring a level Angel Island is. Of course, it took hiring talent from the fanbase to make that happen, because SEGA has long ago lost its heart and soul and is just struggling in vain to replicate past games without any kind of understanding or insight on what made them fun to play. As a longtime fan from childhood, I’ve obviously been waiting quite a while for a new Sonic game that wasn’t one of those tedious “Hold A-to-Win” boosting-based Modern Sonic ones they’ve been making for the past decade.
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