Sonic Mania Review Roundup

17 Comments

1. What IGN meant to say was…. “Thank God the fans didn’t make Big the Cat a playable character in Sonic Mania because they want to have sex with him”
   

2. This….fills me with a mix of relief and absolute abject horror.

   I’m so happy that Mania is doing so great now! It sounds like it’s a real labor of love that is melting hearts like a 1000 degree knife through wax.

   But it also fill me with a sense of absolute horror because since it’s worked so well…what does this mean for 3D titles? Forces is already being kicked around like the runt of the littler because of how good Mania looked before release, but now that Mania has proven to be such a powerful success….does this mean that Forces and thus the 3D titles will be seen as even more unfavorable? In their effort to recapture nostalgia and build upon it, will they have effectively killed any momentum that the modern takes on the series may have had?

   Will Sonic regress to being only Classic games with 3D titles being nothing but a meme spouting wasteland of memories spoiled and molested by rose tinted glasses? Being forced to rely on fangames and Generations mods for any sort of salvation…

   tl;dr- Will Mania’s unbridled success destroy public interest in 3D titles to the point that Sega abandons them in favor of more Mania style content? Especially considering how the popular opinion seems to be dead set on seeing Forces as the redheaded stepchild of the two.

   1. This has been a legitimate concern of mine ever since I started being hyped about Sonic Mania rather than simply looking forward to it.

      I want Forces to be good too, I grew up with classic Sonic but I identify with modern Sonic. I don’t want 3D Sonic to only be P&G level crap for the rest of it’s existence.

   2. Christian Whitehead and co. have effectively raised the bar. If Sonic Team doesn’t get their shit together then what you fear may become true. To be honest with you…after beating Mania this afternoon…looking back at Forces, I’m not too thrilled with Forces. From what I’ve seen it wreaks of all the issues I’ve had with Modern Sonic lately. The MAIN culprit is scripted sequences and handholding and guided play and a game that seems like it’ll restrict me as a player to play around an experiment in the levels. I’ll have to play the game how they intended for me to play it, and that’s my problem. “Hey I’d like to go up this hill on my own, oh wait there’s Dash Pads EVERYWHERE so it’ll do it for me.” I don’t want to play that way anymore. I’d much rather them give the Mantle to Whitehead and have him take the series to new directions starting with Mania and progress forward naturally into new 3D games (almost as if there’s an alternate time where Sonic Adventure and other games that came after it didn’t exist) that’d be more interesting to me at least.

      1. I’d much rather have Sonic Team stepping up their game as opposed to once again trying to push away another big part of the franchise’s fan-base purely for nostalgia. A plan like that is honestly just as bad as simple nostalgia pandering or Sonic Boom almost being forced as a reboot.

         1. Well, Forces could do the same for Modern 3D games, Sonic probably can’t survive on his classic self as a franchise (anymore) so there’s the irony in that. Good or bad, after Forces, they’ll definitely have to step up their game, but most importantly… Mania isn’t really a new game. There are 4 new stages and some are based on old Concepts while the rest merely took something already good and made it better. Part of it being better was being different. Because now it’s good because the original is good, but
            It’s better because it’s got new stuff too.

         2. @RobothobIs is it just as bad though? I don’t care who does it, it needs to get done. All I’m saying is Sonic Team isn’t entirely reliable. And Sega definitely IS NOT.

         3. @Robothob
            I could give a damn about nostalgia. But I don’t. I want good games.

         4. @Axx
            I’m hoping at the very least that Forces is a step somewhat in a good direction. I’m hoping at least after this we can FINALLY get a game where more than just Sonic is playable in 3D. We’ve had wisps and Custom Characters, I think we can try going into making alternate multiple characters ala Classic/Rush/Advance.

            @JMack
            Not if it’s at the risk of basicly dumping 19 years of Sonic history in favor of Classic and 2D only. Boom is no replacement for Modern Sonic. Imagine if every single Mario game was only New Super Mario Bros, that’d honestly get stale. It’s part of the reason I’m excited for Mario Odessey.

         5. @Robohob
            I didn’t say there should only be 2D Sonic or only Classic Sonic…(though I highly question Modern Sonic’s appeal to the wider audience. He may not be a good sell anymore. We’ll see.) I agree with you. Only 2D Sonic games would eventually get old and stale. Again I’m talking about going from Mania onward, rediscovering what 3D Sonic should be as a game by studying what makes the classic games (and Mania) work. Sonic Boom can die off for all I care.

      2. @Axx
         I hope it does.

         1. @Axx
            I agree with you btw

3. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the length of the game, and little to no mention of multiplayer. On one hand, I thought Generations was one of the best platformers to be released in years, but it was too short, and lacked multiplayer.

   This title at least has it, and my favorite 1v1 version with fully playable stages, but no one’s capatalizing on this like Ubisoft did with Rayman in Origins, or Nintendo had with Mario starting with the 2d Wii games. When can we see some crazy 2 or 4 player online races? Would levels be slightly randomized to keep speed runners on their toes? Would more items and item boxes be thrown in, and would they have fixed placements or also randomized? These are questions I’ve been asking since the Dreamcast was announced to have online play, yet no outlet asks questions like this in previews or interviews. Ugh!

   To my point, I am really looking forward to Mania, and even though it’s short and has local multiplayer only, it will be a fun time. I’m keeping my head low to avoid spoilers as much as possible only taking the highlights from reviews(and forgetting the numbers completely..we’re in 2017 and still rate games based on a 100 grading scale. Lol). Here’s hoping the game sees as much success as the Crash remake!

   1. Mania isn’t short.
      12 zones, with 2 acts each. 24 rather big levels to explore and find plenty of secrets to.
      If you are going for all unlockables, then it’s gonna much, much longer.

      1. The thing is that most of the unlockable stuff are for the no save run only, badly reducing the interest of the thing for me.

         Sonic Mania is good, no doubt about that but yeah it is short and the feeling of “dejà-vue” was pretty heavy for me when I have played the game.

         I fear that Mania might be a game easy to forget over the time and I really hope that the PC version support modding to make the game perennial over time.

         1. No save run? Sounds perfect for the Switch version with it’s portability and sleep mode.

4. I have the 100% solution on how to deal with bad game reviewers….https://youtu.be/8Qtgm5g5Gyo?t=40s ARISE IGN…. ARISE SLASH GAMES….etc. 😆

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