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Sonic Mania |OT| Dreams Come True

for the life of me i can't find the big ring in green hill zone act 1, it's killing me

1) what dos the blue ring thing do?

2) any good hints on chaos emerald pacing? i imagine they get tougher & take a few tries as you go, do you on average shoot for 1 each zone to comfortably get em? i wanna do this right!


There's at least two big rings in Act 1. The first one can be found easily within the first 20 seconds. Stick to the low route and you'll eventually come across one hidden in a wall to the right of a crabmeat on a hill.

The blue ring makes it so that when you take a hit, your collection of rings is broken up into large clunks so that you are able to re-collect all of them. It's useful because if you can re-collect at least 100 of your dropped rings you can get another extra life.
 

JackelZXA

Member
Mirage Saloon taking place in Angel Island after
Hydrocity
would make the most sense. Especially since that was where the
Tornado
was left before Sonic and Tails were teleported to Green Hill.

Reason I say this is because
Little Planet
is also revealed to be
chained to Angel Island, as shown in Lava Reef
, my guess is Eggman realised his plan to utilise
Metal Sonic failed, so dropped them off Little Planet so more time would be spent working on Metallic Madness and Titanic Monarch
.

Think
Oil Ocean is an Eggman made factory, so it could technically be placed anywhere. This is the biggest mystery of the whole story so far, must also have been made on Angel Island since Lava Reef takes place after.

They need to elaborate this more with adding the missing scenes or whatever, but this is the best that I could come up with.

thinking about it it does kind of makes sense that hydro city is next to the sandopolis ruins
 

IrishNinja

Member
There's at least two big rings in Act 1. The first one can be found easily within the first 20 seconds. Stick to the low route and you'll eventually come across one hidden in a wall to the right of a crabmeat on a hill.

The blue ring makes it so that when you take a hit, your collection of rings is broken up into large clunks so that you are able to re-collect all of them. It's useful because if you can re-collect at least 100 of your dropped rings you can get another extra life.

aw what, cant believe i missed that one...thanks for this man!
 

Cindro

Member
Good lord, the final boss is really aggravating me. I despise how game overs send you back to the beginning of the first act - Titan Monarch Zone is so laborious.

Anybody have any tips?

Flying around as super sonic is SO slippery, and I keep getting nailed by the electric orbs being thrown out. It doesn't take many hits before you're out of rings and dead. Are there any parts of the screen I should be hovering around in order to maximize my safety? So far I've just been flying back and forth from left to right, unable to properly dodge the projectiles because of how loosey-goosey super sonic controls.

I just want to finish this clown before I get Rabbids tomorrow!
 
Good lord, the final boss is really aggravating me. I despise how game overs send you back to the beginning of the first act - Titan Monarch Zone is so laborious.

Anybody have any tips?

Flying around as super sonic is SO slippery, and I keep getting nailed by the electric orbs being thrown out. It doesn't take many hits before you're out of rings and dead. Are there any parts of the screen I should be hovering around in order to maximize my safety? So far I've just been flying back and forth from left to right, unable to properly dodge the projectiles because of how loosey-goosey super sonic controls.

I just want to finish this clown before I get Rabbids tomorrow!

Go to ground level. I'm not kidding.

And also don't double-press the jump button for whatever that attack is. Not worth the 10 ring cost.
 

Cindro

Member
Go to ground level. I'm not kidding.

And also don't double-press the jump button for whatever that attack is. Not worth the 10 ring cost.
Ground level, eh?

The weak spot you have to attack on both robots seems to be on the top of the machines - are you able to reach those spots with an attack if you're just running across the ground instead of flying through the air? Or is there some weak spot on the bottom of the robots that can be attacked instead?
 

Opa-Pa

Member
Ground level, eh?

The weak spot you have to attack on both robots seems to be on the top of the machines - are you able to reach those spots with an attack if you're just running across the ground instead of flying through the air? Is there some weak spot on the bottom of the robots that can be attacked as well?

They're right, ground level is your best bet. And as far as I remember, you can hit them anywhere.
 
My favourite crush death of Mania was in TM act 2, one of the four segments starts off with one of those wide platforms attached to a mechanical arm that elevates when you stand on it, if for some reason you decide to stand on the very right edge of it you'll clip a bit of wall as it sloooowly rises up in its arc and suffer a miserable yet hilarious demise.
 

JackelZXA

Member
Press Garden's Shredder miniboss is the one boss in the game absolutely no one likes.

Have Heavy Rider be the miniboss of Press Garden and Heavy King as just the general Lava Reef Act 2 boss for all 3 characters.

(It'd be cool to have Heavy Rider leave a trail of flung newspaper sheets as she rides around, sort of like a dimmented Paperboy and push the "Eggman's newspaper" thing better.)

Also it'd address that major downspike in that zone and probably fix the overall pacing, plus Heavy King is a great fight and its a shame Sonic doesnt get to fight him.
 
Tee Lopes is streaming himself playing Sonic Mania. Can't watch right now but hopefully he goes into some more detail about his thoughts during composing the OST
 

Guess Who

Banned
I don't double-dip much but I am absolutely double-dipping on the PC version of this.

also gonna see if i can rig it to run under WINE on macOS
 

Mr-Joker

Banned
Ground level, eh?

The weak spot you have to attack on both robots seems to be on the top of the machines - are you able to reach those spots with an attack if you're just running across the ground instead of flying through the air? Or is there some weak spot on the bottom of the robots that can be attacked instead?

You just need to touch any part of the robots, but sticking to the ground is better as;

A, you can avoid Heavy King green orb attack,

B, Use Eggman turn to gather up rings,

C, Keep better track of both villains.

Honestly your biggest problem will be trying to maintain Super form as you will end up burning up rings faster than you consume, especially if you get hit or use the boost attack.
 

Mr-Joker

Banned
2) any good hints on chaos emerald pacing? i imagine they get tougher & take a few tries as you go, do you on average shoot for 1 each zone to comfortably get em? i wanna do this right!

I strongly recommend finishing the game first without getting all the emerald as once you do you will unlock level select and you can just replay Green Hill Zone to collect them all as they will get harder, especially 5 and 6.

Plus you can just play the game at your own pace rather than trying to hunt for the big rings.
 

Ristifer

Member
Aaron Webber mentioned on twitter about Mania's impending release, saying it was releasing with bug fixes which are also coming to consoles soon. No date was given for a console patch yet, though.
 

Cindro

Member
Woo, I finally did it thanks to the helpful folk in this thread!

I spent some time grinding out lives before attempting the final boss again, so when I entered the showdown I had about 24 chances to blow through it.

I beat it with 9 lives left. Between this run and last run, I spent about 20 lives total on this endeavor!

Can't say it left me with a happy final note to go out on, but all in all I really appreciated this game. It was positively bursting with color, creativity, and polish - more than enough to let the game surmount its shortcomings!

Switch first year keeps slaughtering. Now we get Rabbids tomorrow, and a Nindie Direct the day after? It's too good to be true!

Anyway, Mania was striking enough that they've already earned my money for the sequel. I'll be following the output of Christian/his studio for a very long time!

And let's not forget the cruelest jape of all: I'm morbidly curious in Sonic Forces now. As in, morbidly curious enough to play through it at launch.

The contrast between the two games, if nothing else, should be hilarious.
 
Tee Lopes is streaming himself playing Sonic Mania. Can't watch right now but hopefully he goes into some more detail about his thoughts during composing the OST

Just joined the stream where he is playing
Hydrocity.
Explained why he barely changed the songs for the zone "because they're amazing already... what am I gonna do to it besides refresh it?"

I'll drop more anecdotes when I rewatch the beginning / as I watch the rest of this.

Made the entire OST by ear, learning how to read music.

He is considering releasing a few tracks that didn't make Sonic Mania on Youtube.

Didn't really use any of the original synths and samples from the original Sonic games, but when he did he got them directly from Sega.

Doesn't know if the OST will be on Spotify, but he hopes so.

Someone asks how much composing Falk did, Tee Lopes put over how much of a great artist he is but he only worked on the mixing in the game.

On Green Hill - tried to keep it as faithful to the original

Act 2 - was made with Brazilians in mind, samba based. Brazilians have been huge Sonic fans so he decided to dedicate GHZ Act 2 to them.

On Danger on the Dancefloor (Mini Boss theme) - 1st or 2nd boss theme he composed, was originally intended for Robotnik but got relegated to the mini bosses.

On Chemical Plant Act 1 - same story as Green Hill. Challenge for the song was to find the right snare while trying to make it sound more modern.

Act 2 - someone asked if the beginning was referenced from MJ's Jam... he says no, but can say it may have been inspired by it.

On Studiopolis Act 1 - very first song he created for the game.

On the Hard Boiled Heavies theme - inspired by Jet Set Radio and Cowboy Bebop

On Studiopolis Act 2 - inspired by TV show openings and breaking news reports

On Flying Battery - loathed this zone in Sonic 3&K. Zone reveal version had the Act 2 intro because that was all they had at the time.

Act 2 - all the trash that we see were all the badniks Sonic destroyed in previous games.

On
Press Garden
Act 1 - Inspired by the legend Stevie Wonder!!! (no wonder I fuckin loved that song so much!!!). He composed this song at a time he thought the Sonic Mania's songs he made so far were starting to sound too similar. So he ended up scrapping them.

Act 2 - Inspired by Revenge of Shinobi (as a lot of people guessed)

On Stardust Speedway - hated the stage.... the music was inspired by believe it or not.... Sonic CD's Stardust Speedway

On Mirage Saloon - composed Act 1 (Sonic ver.) after he did Act 2... wanted it to fit the tone of the level (more actiony)

Act 2 was one of the first songs he created for Sonic Mania, the version of Act 2 that was ripped to Youtube months ago was the version he presented to Christian Whitehead when he first suggested Tee make the music for Mania.

On
Oil Ocean
- second time in his life he remixed the song, first time was for a fan project
Sonic 2 HD
which was scrapped.

Act 2 - everyone says it was inspired by Shantae but he says it wasn't... but first played Shantae while he was composing Sonic Mania. Loves Jake Kaufman's music

On extending the Angel Island music - doesn't have the time.

On
Lava Reef
Act 2 - was his favorite song to remix

On
Metallic Madness
- wrote the raps and did them himself

Act 2 - revealed last night it was inspired by Streets of Rage 2

On the Final level - wasn't too sure what he was thinking besides it was the last level, pretty sure he was pissed at someone that day.

Act 2 was his favorite song he composed.
 

Atrarock

Member
lol, i hope someone catches a clip of that bug lopes just got on the act transition during the stream
This one?
giphy.gif
 

SoulUnison

Banned
It's weird this isn't a midnight release on Steam.
It's already out on every other platform and it's entirely digital, so why arbitrarily release it at 8 AM, apparently?

Especially after the delay...
 

MarkusRJR

Member
Holy shit I'm getting pretty pissed at the Xbox One version of this game.

50% of the time when I start the game up once it gets to the menu the frame rate tanks and stutters. This carries into the main game. Sometimes I can get it loaded and it seems fine but once I get into the game it stutters stutter occasionally. None of my other games have these issues. I end up just resetting the game numerous times until by chance it suddenly feels like running in 60fps.

I've tried everything I can think of. I've moved it from external hard drive to internal, power cycled the console, and deleted and redownloaded the game. Nothing seems to fix the issue.

I'm hoping they fix this soon in that recently announced patch. Wish I bought the Switch version now tbh.

EDIT: (Last level spoilers)
I just got to Titanic Monarch and holy shit it is long. That one bit in act 1 where spikes crush you is honestly the worst. Act 2 seems worse... I wish the game saved after each act. Having to replay this long first act again and again is making me lose my mind, haha.
 
A dedicated super button is most welcome, I finished up my tails only run yesterday and always felt like I had to go super because it would otherwise stop me flying until I changed.
 

Colby

Member
HOLY SHIT separate super button is all I really wanted in postgame support! Thank you Taxman and Co.!

THANK YOU SO MUCH

I literally only get six emeralds with Tails and Knuckles now. I rely on their skills too much to run around in Super form all the time.
 
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