Sonic Mania - 25th Anniversary Debut (New 16-bit style game)

[Nebagram]

Sonic's back
I just can't stand that the new Sonic games are such trash. Is it really so hard to make great sonic games? Just continue makind 2D sonic games and people will buy/play them.

Unfortunately, Sonic 4 kinda disproved that theory, but I have high hopes for Sonic Mania and early reviews are promising. Hopefully 'Sonic Mania 2' won't be too much to ask for. :-)

[Nz17]

I've been saying it for about a decade now: Sonic's "curse" is thanks to Takashi Iizuka leading Sonic Team after Yuji Naka left SEGA. Iizuka's first major game as the Sonic lead was Sonic Heroes.

There were missteps before, but with him at the helm, missteps turned into a regularly occurring thing.

Iizuka did not lead the development of Sonic Mania. He's credited for overseeing it from afar. The game was primarily developed by three Westerners.

Fun fact: the composer of Sonic Mania, Tee Lopes, is Portuguese.

[otaku]

cool info nz17 I think this game is great hopefully this trend continues what platforms are you all getting it on? I am going to get it on switch so I can have it mobile

[SpaceHarrier]

The PC version of Sonic Mania contains Denuvo DRM, hence the delayed release. Some are reporting controller support issues (sigh..) and others are saying the game won't work unless they are online.

Guess I'll pick it up on Switch, whenever I find that freaking thing.

[Nz17]

I am very disappointed over this DRM situation. The Steamworks (Steam DRM) I expected to be there and would have tolerated, but then to add Denuvo DRM to it, and to delay the game by 2 weeks and only for PC players - it's terrible.

It's like being called a thief, and treated like a thief, regardless of your behavior.

Courtesy of http://www.tssznews.com/2017/08/29/s...listing-error/

A few hours after news broke of Sonic Mania on Steam containing controversial DRM code that, among other things, prohibits offline play, an unnamed representative from Sega published an update acknowledging the DRM should have been listed before launch.

The statement below, in full, has been met with a chorus of negative responses, despite conceding the Denuvo technology should never have required an active Internet connection for play:

Like you, we’ve noticed an error in the Steam store not mentioning the DRM for Sonic Mania.

We’re fixing that now.

Sonic Mania is intended to be played offline and we’re investigating reports on that.

We’re also investigating other issues like controller support, these are all PC specific things that Christian and the team have been working on these last few weeks

Please bare [sic] with us while we collate and investigate problems that are being brought to our attention

In the hours that have followed, a wave of negative reviews have been posted on Steam largely based on Denuvo’s inclusion alone; now about a quarter of Mania’s reviews on Steam do not recommend its purchase. But just in the past couple minutes, members of the Steam community have apparently found a way to at least circumvent the offline play shutout via a hex editor. We are working to verify the authenticity of the information.

We will continue to bring you updated developments on this sudden turn of events in Mania‘s launch when warranted.

I like how the Sonic social media manager, Aaron Webber, has been clever on his personal Twitter account:

One day until Sonic Mania launches on PC! Two things to note: 1.) PC will launch with some bug fixes that are also coming to consoles later.

And 2, since we've seen the rumors: No current plans for Steam Workshop support. If anything changes, we'll let you know!

~~~

Happy Mania PC launch day! If you have feedback, please do share it so the right people can hear it: https://support.sega.co.uk/hc/en-us/requests/new

In particular, please do share your feedback on DRM or any issues you're having at the link above. Make your voices heard.

He must have warned SEGA's management about these reactions weeks ago before they stepped forward with these decisions.

Oh, and people have allegedly been claiming that if you gave away the Steam gift copy of 16-bit Sonic The Hedgehog (the one given as an apology), then your account will be denied any attempt at a refund of Sonic Mania. My thoughts are conflicted about that.

...Perhaps SEGA's management should be called Mismanagement instead? Then again, they've never made a mistake.

[Nz17]

Even the developer is upset:

https://www.greenmangaming.com/newsr...-dev-and-sega/

And hey, SEGA made Rolling Stone! Too bad it wasn't for a good reason:

http://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/n...denuvo-w500303

[Nz17]

So, the game's been available for a while now. What are your thoughts?

I liked it, but not as much as other people. The stages seemed 2 - 3 times too long for a speedy Sonic game. I'd have liked it better if there was the same amount of content, but the acts were split into smaller acts. Imagine splitting the acts along some of the checkpoints, and just having five acts per zone.

Sonic Mania has a lot of cool SEGA references like to Shinobi, Space Harrier, the Game Gear, the GG Sonic games, and naturally, the Mega Drive and other Sonic games.

I wish that the game would save your progress after every act, not after every zone. The way it is (like Sonic CD and Sonic 3), and with Mania's lengthy acts, the level progression is only saved about every 20 minutes.

There's a lot of multiplayer options, but unfortunately no 1P vs CPU for the split-screen versus, so I haven't played that.

Sadly, most of the leaderboards have been ruined by cheaters who have posted times of 0'00'00 and the like.

Overall, I liked it. It took around 6 hours from the start to the regular ending including the playing of some special stages and extra stages.

I'd rank it about on par with Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice, with a slightly higher score for Sonic Mania. Both are good games, but neither are true classics. SB:FI isn't simple enough with too much to worry about regarding controls and collectables, while Sonic Mania is almost like a "Sonic Generations 2D" as it relies too much on references and nostalgia instead of forging its own identity.