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Sonic Mania - Special Stages, Bonus Stages, & Time Attack Shown Off

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Metal-Geo said:
The 3D special stages even have shitty draw distance. This is all so weird I absolutely fucking love it.
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They are very much committing to their pitch that this was designed as a 2D Sonic for the Saturn that never happened and I love it.

Also my personal opinion on Sonic special stages is probably CD's UFO chase = 2's tunnels > 3's blue spheres > 1's pinball thing
 
I was terrible at the chaos emerald stages in S3. I could nail the first 3 or so but after that it got so complex and hard that I had no chance of getting all the emeralds. It was usually because you had to nail your jumps perfectly or else you'd bounce off a bumper and hot a red sphere. On a few occasions I'd also run out of blue spheres and would run around the "globe" aimlessly until time ran out.

I had to just use a cheat or game genie to be super Sonic.
 
Think I need to tap out. I have never liked any of the old sonic games and don't know what i was thinking when i thought i would give this a chance. Those special stages look awful and now i have a splitting headache.
 
How is this game just looking better and better? What source of wizardry did Sega find? What kind of deal with the devil did they make?
 
The Xtortionist said:
The time attack footage shows off the drop dash super well. Looks like a great way to keep the pace up.
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Drop Dash is low-key brilliant and one of the biggest additions to the game, but none of the footage until this trailer has demonstrated why so people just don't know yet.
 
SomewhatGroovy said:
Think I need to tap out. I have never liked any of the old sonic games and don't know what i was thinking when i thought i would give this a chance. Those special stages look awful and now i have a splitting headache.
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Okay then.

It's still wild they absolutely nailed the Sega 32x/Saturn look for the special stages.
 
Between this and Mario+Rabbids August is looking pretty great.

Can't wait to sink my chops into some proper classic sonic.
 
Guess Who said:
Drop Dash is low-key brilliant and one of the biggest additions to the game, but none of the footage until this trailer has demonstrated why so people just don't know yet.
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I keep watching footage of people playing and like no one uses the drop dash. It's so useful! Rolling is the safest state Sonic can be in, and you're saying I can both roll and accelerate after landing any jump? Sign me up.
 
Massive GET BLUE SPHERES fan, here. I always loved the tactical, challenging nature of them. I spent months with Sonic and Knuckles + Sonic 1 GBS alone. The remix is also fantastic, and that brief few seconds of Studiopolis Act 2 music gets me so hyped.

Thank you for allowing this to happen, Sega.
 
NoKisum said:
How is this game just looking better and better? What source of wizardry did Sega find? What kind of deal with the devil did they make?
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None
It is just a team that understands how the original games worked and expands on what worked
 
Oh god, why the Sonic CD style of special stage? Those were the worst. Awful to control, speed is a bad thing, hard to see what was what. Those were just awful.
 
Diablohead said:
Sonic 3 blue spheres is the worst out of all 3 main games to me, but glad they are there.

Also a shame blue spheres in mania doesn't use the 3D special stage visuals, the old 3 frame running sprite with some extra shade applied is ugly.
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No way. The first one's pinball spin mazes were by far the worst.
 
tkscz said:
Oh god, why the Sonic CD style of special stage? Those were the worst. Awful to control, speed is a bad thing, hard to see what was what. Those were just awful.
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This one's different, albeit inspired by it. There's only one UFO you're chasing basically which is carrying the Chaos Emerald, get rings to increase time, blue spheres to increase speed, and catch it before time runs out. I think the sort of 'track' format it has too also helps it.

It looks like it handles differently as well, so there's that too.
 
Dusk Golem said:
This one's different, albeit inspired by it. There's only one UFO you're chasing basically which is carrying the Chaos Emerald, get rings to increase time, blue spheres to increase speed, and catch it before time runs out. I think the sort of 'track' format it has too also helps it.

It looks like it handles differently as well, so there's that too.
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True, but it still brings up memory of the worse Special Stage design in Sonic (IMO of course).
 
Before this game the best bonus stage was Sonic Spinball's bonus stages, followed by the Casino variant of Sonic 1's Special stage, then the gumball machine. The electric orbs was the worst (good music though)
 
Diablohead said:
Sonic 3 blue spheres is the worst out of all 3 main games to me, but glad they are there.

Also a shame blue spheres in mania doesn't use the 3D special stage visuals, the old 3 frame running sprite with some extra shade applied is ugly.
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I actually liked how Blue Sphere allows you to spend as much as time as you need in the stage, despite getting faster. Never liked Sonic 2's half pipe for how the harder stages effectively require rote memorisation, given that you're funneled down a half pipe with no way of stopping.
 
That special stage is insanity.

Taxman and Stealth doing work.

tkscz said:
True, but it still brings up memory of the worse Special Stage design in Sonic (IMO of course).
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Have you played the Sonic CD remake? The special stages are much easier to deal with in that version cause it's not running at 15FPS or whatever it was doing on the Sega CD.
 
Piers said:
I actually liked how Blue Sphere allows you to spend as much as time as you need in the stage, despite getting faster. Never liked Sonic 2's half pipe for how the harder stages effectively require rote memorisation, given that you're funneled down a half pipe with no way of stopping.
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Yeah, I mean I like CD and Sonic 1 stages better than Blue Spheres but 2 stages are the worst because of that IMO

jman2050 said:
That special stage is insanity.

Taxman and Stealth doing work.



Have you played the Sonic CD remake? The special stages are much easier to deal with in that version cause it's not running at 15FPS or whatever it was doing on the Sega CD.
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Also it doesn't has that weird scaling on UFO's so it's actually possible to hit them lol
 
I LOVE Blue Spheres, but I never was good enough to do all of them in 3 and Knuckles.

This new Chaos Emerald stage looks like Sonic CD's with some differences. Looking forward to playing them.

Piers said:
I actually liked how Blue Sphere allows you to spend as much as time as you need in the stage, despite getting faster. Never liked Sonic 2's half pipe for how the harder stages effectively require rote memorisation, given that you're funneled down a half pipe with no way of stopping.
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You know what REALLY hurt 2's?

Tails when a friend wasn't controlling him. Guy would run into bombs all the time.
 
Piers said:
I actually liked how Blue Sphere allows you to spend as much as time as you need in the stage, despite getting faster. Never liked Sonic 2's half pipe for how the harder stages effectively require rote memorisation, given that you're funneled down a half pipe with no way of stopping.
Click to expand...

Fun fact about those: The ring requirements are actually slightly higher than they should be in normal play because you have Tails with you. Playing either Sonic or Tails alone relaxes the ring requirements in some of the more tricky sections. And of course Knuckles in Sonic 2 relaxes them further.

I actually never play Sonic 2 anymore with Tails as a partner for this (and other) reason(s).
 
FUCK YEAH BLUE SPHERE IS BACK!

SomewhatGroovy said:
Think I need to tap out. I have never liked any of the old sonic games and don't know what i was thinking when i thought i would give this a chance. Those special stages look awful and now i have a splitting headache.
Click to expand...

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Oh hey I guessed blue spheres was going to be the bonus stage. Neat. And remember Sonic 3 had two of them, maybe we have something else to be surprised about
 
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