LAST TIME ON THE SONIC MANIA VIDEO REVIEW...
A group of fans was hired by Sega to make an original pixel art Sonic game called SONIC
MANIA...
After nearly a decade of soulless, hollow nostalgia pandering, SONIC MANIA finally gave
Classic Sonic the justice it deserved...
But its levels and bosses tended to overstay their welcome...
Could the release of the new and improved SONIC MANIA PLUS help polish up the original's
rough edges?
The video review CONTINUES, TODAY on BETTER LATE THAN NEVER VIDEO GAMES!
So I'll be real with you, viewers.
I could have waited to publish my original Sonic Mania review after the release of Sonic
Mania Plus.
But I was banking on the fact that not a whole lot would change regarding my complaints.
That decision was informed by a leak of at least some of Sonic Mania Plus on the Playstation
4 in April of 2018.
Though it was not a final build of the game, it did provide an idea of the updates Sonic
Mania would receive.
Primarily, there were two major differences.
The first being the ability to disable the ten minute time out for levels.
And the second being a reworked fight against Metal Sonic.
Though we were told to expect more in the final version of the game, I hunkered down
and worked on my video review, feeling confident we had seen the biggest changes in Sonic Mania
Plus.
With the finished release of Plus now in my hands, I can confirm this to be true.
The ability to disable the ten minute time out is a welcome addition, but it's clearly
not the intended way to play the game, given you must manually disable the timer every
time you return to the file select menu, which is pretty annoying.
And the reworked Metal Sonic fight?
Well… on the plus side, the first three phases of the fight have been shortened, particularly
phase two.
Before, the only way to damage the boss was to bounce these little Silver Sonic guys up
in to Metal, leading to some initial confusion.
Now, bopping them will shoot a spread of little bullets that can damage Metal Sonic, on top
of this phase also taking fewer hits to clear.
It's a welcome change that makes the whole sequence go a lot faster.
Metal Sonic's final phase has been completely overhauled, now bringing in a version of Metal
Sonic Kai from Knuckles Chaotix.
Unfortunately, this is now the weakest part of the fight, as it is incredibly easy to
get stuck inside the boss and bounced into the instant death pit located behind him.
Just like with the many of the bosses in the original Sonic Mania, it's a cool reference
that isn't very fun to fight.
That left one question: what of the game's new Encore Mode?
If you already own Sonic Mania, it will run you about five dollars to buy the Sonic Mania
Plus upgrade.
Plus comes with new playable characters Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel,
in addition to the new Encore Mode.
As DLC and season pass prices soar ever higher, five dollars for two new characters and a
remixed campaign mode might seem like a steal.
The unfortunate truth is that taken by itself, Encore Mode is pretty weak.
Don't get me wrong, Mighty and Ray are plenty fun to play as.
Mighty's abilities are all about defense.
While spinning, he has invulnerability to spikes and projectiles, making him a good
option for players that are easily frustrated.
He trades that defense for reduced mobility, as every other member of the cast has some
way to go vertical.
Knuckles can climb up, Ray and Tails can fly, and Sonic can use the magnet or bubble shields
to extend his jump.
Mighty, on the other hand, can only go down, slamming himself in to the ground so hard
that nearby enemies take damage.
It puts him at a disadvantage when it comes to the game's more vertically-oriented challenges.
Ray is very technical, combining elements of Tails and Knuckles together into one of
the most agile characters in the game.
Instead of gliding in a straight line like Knuckles, Ray's glide is more about diving
down to pick up speed and then pulling up again to regain height.
In the right hands, Ray easily out maneuvers everyone else in the game, but his downside
is that he is completely vulnerable while gliding.
Touching walls, even touching the top of the screen will force Ray back in to a spin, requiring
you to plant your feet on the ground before you can start a new glide.
This can make Ray difficult to use, but oh-so-rewarding to master.
The problem is, the game wasn't designed for their inclusion.
They play just fine in the existing levels, but only a couple of new routes were added
for Mighty's slam, and they are easily missed.
Fun as they might be, they don't dramatically change the feel of these levels, and all they
do is serve as an excuse to replay Sonic Mania yet again.
The same could be said of the new Encore Mode itself.
Billed as a remix of the game's campaign, it features altered level layouts, but picking
out what's been changed can be a bit of a struggle.
Many of the differences are subtle, and in the bigger picture, all these levels feel
nearly identical to their original versions, with vast swaths of their layouts going completely
unmodified.
The only real noticeable changes are in each level's color palette, which paint zones
with new colors.
Some of them look fantastic, like Green Hill Zone at sunset or Mirage Saloon at night,
but many of them end up looking like somebody messed up the color setting on your TV.
If the levels themselves aren't different enough, at least the special stages are.
Encore Mode includes seven brand new UFO Chase stages, each one awarding you yet another
of the seven Chaos Emeralds.
Though these new special stages share graphics with the original seven, their layouts are
completely different and significantly more difficult.
Also new is a pinball minigame, replacing the original game's Blue Spheres mode.
Speaking as someone who is sick to death of the Blue Spheres minigame, it's a welcome
replacement, but the pinball table feels barren and the layout is clumsy, making it difficult
to aim shots.
Still, anything's better than more Blue Spheres.
The actual draw of Encore Mode is the new tag mechanic.
Encore Mode lets you buddy up with any character in the game, with your partner following behind
you like Tails.
You can then switch back and forth between your partner by pressing a button, allowing
you use the abilities of the two characters.
It's a cool system, but it has quirks that keep it from truly shining.
For starters, Encore Mode prevents you from switching characters in certain scenarios,
often simply because the game thinks they're too far away.
Plus, when you switch, you instantly teleport to wherever the other character is currently
located, which isn't always where you want to be.
The tag system should have learned lessons from Donkey Kong Country, where swapping between
Donkey Kong and Diddy retains the player's current position no matter where the other
player is being tagged in from.
Also part of this tag system is the new way in which Encore Mode handles lives.
Instead of the classic lives system, Encore Mode makes you rescue the four other characters.
By collecting a character's icon from a 1up box, they get added to your lineup.
If the character you're currently playing as runs out of rings and dies, rather than
resetting back to your last checkpoint, the next character in line jumps in and the stage
keeps going.
If you completely run out of characters, only then is it a game over.
It's an interesting system, but it sort of trivializes parts of the game.
It definitely makes tackling bosses a lot easier, as even if you die a few times, the
fight never resets.
It's a fun idea to mess around with in Encore Mode, but it would need further refinement
before I'd want a whole game by itself that played like this.
And… that's kind of it.
Five dollars gets you two new playable characters tacked on to the experience and a slightly
different retread of the original campaign.
Though it initially sounded like a great deal, in retrospect, five dollars is probably the
maximum I'd be willing to pay for Encore Mode.
As part of the larger $30 Sonic Mania Plus I guess it's fine, I just... kind of expected
more.
This comes nearly a whole year after the release of the original Sonic Mania, and even for
a small team, you'd think more would have been possible.
In particular, I was hoping for something more regarding Sonic Mania's secret final
boss, Egg Reverie.
The presence of an extra, unused song in the original Sonic Mania suggested there may have
been more to the game's final boss that was left on the cutting room floor.
In my opinion, Egg Reverie is up there with some of the worst final bosses in the Sonic
franchise.
It's slow, difficult to control and just doesn't feel especially climactic.
Contrary to some of Sonic Mania's other bosses, adding another phase to Egg Reverie
might've helped the game finish on a higher note.
It could have also helped tie up one last loose end.
In entertainment, there's a term called Chekhov's Gun.
Named for its creator, Anton Chekhov, the most simplistic explanation is that if you
intentionally show the audience a gun, then you must later show that gun being used.
Essentially, it's about understanding an audience's expectations, following through
on those expectations, and only showing things that are useful to the story you're telling.
And Sonic Mania contains a huge Chekhov's Gun that it never fires.
All throughout the back half of the game, you catch glimpses of a massive robot.
Diagrams for it turn up on video screens, it looms large on the horizon in Metallic
Madness, and it's a constant presence in the background of the game's final level,
Titanic Monarch Zone.
Sonic Mania focuses so much of your attention on this robot that I expected it HAD to have
a function.
And after you beat the game's final boss, you watch this gigantic robot explode, having
never budged even an inch.
For a game obsessed with being the ultimate in fan service, it is an incredibly underwhelming
ending.
Sonic Mania Plus was a chance to fix that, and it didn't.
Instead, the game almost feels MORE unfinished now than it did before.
There are bugs in Sonic Mania Plus that have been there since the original August 2017
release and still haven't been fixed yet.
That's on top of new bugs, like getting stuck inside of walls in Encore Mode because you
tagged to your partner character at the wrong time.
Encore Mode also goes out of its way to set itself up as a completely new story taking
place after the events of the original game, but doesn't do anything with that premise.
After the opening sequence, it replays all of the same cutscenes from the base game,
all the way up until you get to the end of Titanic Monarch Zone.
Here, if you finish Encore Mode without collecting the seven Chaos Emeralds, the bad ending implies
there may be something more waiting for you after you finish Titanic Monarch.
Finishing Encore Mode with all the emeralds reveals a cutscene where the Phantom Ruby
goes on a rampage, destroying everything… and then the credits just roll.
It all adds up to a feeling that something is missing, and instead of Sonic Mania Plus
filling in the blanks, it just makes those blanks even bigger.
I can understand if you think I'm being harsh on Sonic Mania.
But I want you to know that I'm only harsh because I care.
I am a game developer myself, and I've been experimenting with making my own games since
1998.
I have learned a lot of lessons over the last 20 years.
When I criticize Sonic Mania's pacing, or what it does or does not do with its boss
fights, it's not because I think the game is too difficult or whatever, it's because
I want it to be even better.
People can call me jealous, and like I said in the previous video, there is definitely
a little bit of jealousy here, but Sonic Mania is more than just a success for the handful
of developers directly involved in it.
It's also a success for the communities that spawned it.
Sonic Mania represents validation for hundreds or even thousands of people who spent weekends
off from school making fan games.
There were a lot of hopes and dreams riding on this game, leaving some pretty big big
shoes to fill.
Now, I realize that's an unfair amount of responsibility, and maybe not even a responsibility
that the developers of Sonic Mania are actually beholden to, but what I'm trying to get
at is this:
If it could be better, shouldn't it be better?
Shouldn't every game be the absolute best it possibly can be?
Now, video games have finite budgets and hard deadlines to meet.
You can't let your game sit in development limbo forever, or else it risks becoming something
like Daikatana, or Too Human, or Duke Nukem Forever.
There are limitations to what can be done in the time and resources allotted.
But Sonic Mania also displays a level of excess in certain parts of its design that most other
games on the market do not.
It did not just go above and beyond, it went too far.
It needed to be reeled in.
The length problems I explained in part 1 of this review just don't exist in the other
16-bit Sonic games.
If you were to take the four main Classic Sonic games, plus Sonic Mania, and found the
average size of a level for each game, you'd see just how much bigger Sonic Mania's levels
really are.
Not only is the average Mania level approaching four times the size of a Sonic 1 level, but
even compared to its closest relative, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic Mania's levels are still
over 15% larger.
If that doesn't sound like a lot, consider this: if you add all 84 of Classic Sonic's
levels together from all four 16-bit console games, Sonic Mania's levels average out
to nearly twice the size of the era it's paying tribute to.
That's not an opinion, that is objective hard data, measured pixel by pixel.
The opinion is whether not you're okay with that, and for someone like me, who likes to
punctuate the spectacle of going fast with moments of slower, more methodical exploration,
Sonic Mania just takes too dang long.
Did we really need 32 different Blue Spheres stages?
No, but Sonic Mania did it anyway.
On top of having the most levels out of any Classic Sonic game.
On top of having the longest levels out of any Classic Sonic game.
And all Sonic Mania Plus does is pile even more stuff on top of the stack.
Here's two more characters to replay the entire campaign with again, even though the
game wasn't built to support them.
And here, replay all of Sonic Mania a SIXTH time, but this time, Hydrocity is orange instead
of blue.
For someone who felt worn down by the original, Sonic Mania Plus has officially made me sick
of this game.
Which sucks!
Because in spite of all my complaining and nitpicks, there's a lot to like here!
The music is fantastic!
The quality of the animation is incredible!
The art direction and characterization perfectly encapsulates what made Sonic so cool.
Mirage Saloon, Studiopolis and Press Garden buck the generic archetypes that have plagued
so many other Sonic levels.
The level designs themselves actually understand what makes controlling Sonic so much fun.
The UFO Chase special stages are brilliant and unique amidst so many other throwback
games just recycling the Sonic 2 special stage.
An incredible amount of talent and care went in to Sonic Mania, from a team that very clearly
spent a long time thinking about what it was that made them love this series.
And I love that!
But, as much as I hate to say it, I think less would have been more.
Bigger is not always better.
There are limitions you have to respect.
Eventually, things get so big that it starts to feel unwieldy.
You out there watching this might think I'm crazy for saying such a thing, given the universal
praise Sonic Mania has received from basically everywhere else on the internet.
And my reply to that is this: I've been in your shoes.
I used to come home, load up Quake 3 Arena, set the frag limit to five hundred, and that
would be my evening.
The same map, the same 11 bots, for HOURS, and hours... and hours!
The longer a game lasted, the better.
At some point, all of that changed.
That doesn't mean Quake 3 stopped being fun, it just means I began to value my time
better.
Sonic Mania doesn't always respect my ability to do that, and in a way that's at odds with
the games it references.
My verdict on Sonic Mania is complex, because my feelings are complex.
My thoughts about Sonic Mania were never going to neatly fit into a black or white, love
it or hate it definition.
And I never really meant to say that Sonic Mania is a bad game, anyway.
Far from it; it's actually quite good.
Some would say it's the best Sonic game of the last 25 years.
And regardless of what you might actually believe, the fact that I still struggle to
truly enjoy it kills me a little bit on the inside.
I want to unconditionally love Sonic Mania.
But it's merely okay.
It could have been better.
Whether or not that matters is up to you, but for me, at least I'll always have Sonic
3 & Knuckles.
Thanks for watching.
Shoutouts go out to Chenginerd for usage of his Ray the Flying Squirrel speed run footage,
and to Ryan Langley for usage of footage from the fan game Sonic Boom, which was the first
recorded Sonic fangame from all the way back in 1995.
It's so old it doesn't actually run on Windows 10, so I had to borrow Ryan's footage.
Big thanks to Sega for sending over a Playstation 4 review copy of Sonic Mania Plus.
Videos like this one also wouldn't be possible without all of the wonderful support of my
Patreon donors, like Logan A., Brando, Thomas G., Conor F., Setsune, Dave M., Rose S., Juan
Pablo, Keith S., Lucas B., Tom B., Conor S., Ryan M., Fiesta, Anders M., Sam S., Ashley
J., Techokami, Stephen, and, of course Ryan L. -- yes, the same one who let me borrow
his Sonic Boom footage.
If you'd like to join their ranks, just visit Patreon dot com slash BlazeHedgehog.
Donors get early access to podcasts, plus exclusive content like bloopers, games, downloadable
music and secret videos.
Plus, I may even read your name out during one of these credits sequences.
All you have to do is visit Patreon dot com slash BlazeHedgehog to learn more!
There's also the usual social media stuff, and my tumblr blog where I answer viewer-questions.
You can also subscribe to this channel if that tickles your fancy, because it certainly
tickles mine.
And I'll see you in the next video… y'know, whenever that is.
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