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5241

I’m trying to play through games I’ve bought, and I’m on Sonic Mania. Boy, I sure don’t like it!!!

I grew up on 2d Mario games, and aside from Sonic 2 at a friend’s house with a plug-and-play style system, I haven’t had much experience with 2d sonic games. Here are some things about Sonic that I think are good and cool, followed by my complaints.

Sonic characters are really well designed. The sprites are great, movement looks cool, and they’re just classic. They have undoubtedly withstood the test of time. The levels are also colorful and beautiful, and I can see why people like them. The design philosophy is unique (even if I don’t like it) it’s unlike anything I’ve ever played.

Here’s what I don’t like:

The level design philosophy is weird to me. They’re just… massive levels, but also everything looks the same. I’m not sure how you’re ever supposed to know where you are on the map unless you play the level and explore very thoroughly. While that might be the draw for some people, I just don’t understand how to explore and learn levels that are so large with very little visual distinction to know where you are.

The controls are often weird. I love the simplicity of one button controls, but sometimes I’m not sure what direction to hold Sonic at times. I’ve actually had 2 game overs in a part of the game that shoots sonic up on a spring and has him running on the ceiling over an endless pit. One time I held right, and he slowed down, fell off the ceiling, and died. The other time I held down to get him to roll, he slowed down and died. And there’s no way to practice this because of the lives system!

This section was in the 2nd act, and both times I was sent back to the 1st act that I had already cleared (twice!!!). I truly don’t get or like lives in games like this, especially in a game with maps so large. I’m down with hard games, and I get that this is supposed to emulate old Sonic games, but hoo boy is it annoying to not even be able to “get gud” by practicing where I’m struggling.

Hard platformers are cool! I love Celeste, I 100% Super Mario World like once/year, and definitely want a challenge. But Sonic is oddly punishing without feeling rewarding.

Anyway, I’m probably done with this game. I just don’t like the Sonic design philosophy, and I’ve got better stuff to play.

2 Likes
5242

One thing to keep in mind with 2D Sonic is that they’re not platformers, not really. They’re racing games disguised as platformers. The levels are meant to be played through multiple times in which you blaze multiple paths and finding secrets along the way. It’s not exactly a stop and try to jump into every hidden wall sort of game.

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5243

I’ve read dozens of different interpretations as to what makes classic Sonic games good. The problem I found is that these different interpretations are contradicting themselves, and are at odds with the level design and gameplay. I would love to blaze new paths and explore if I had any way to understand where I’m at in a huge level, if individual level sections didn’t feel so repetitive, and if the movement and controls worked for me.

All-in-all, I don’t really know what to be looking for to find the good in Sonic Mania since there’s so much people like. I don’t know if it’s the lack of nostalgia, or I’m using the wrong frame of mind to try and play and understand the game, but I don’t think it’s worth my time to try and find something that works for me in a game that, in my experience, has been a drag to play (with incredibly few enjoyable moments).

Edit: I’m sure Sonic Mania is a good Sonic game. But I don’t really think it’s a good game on its own.

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5244

No-one has understood more deeply why I never got on with the original Sonic games [I remember just spending most of the brief time I had with Sonic 2 being very confused about where I was in some level with pipe networks in it].

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5245

There are a lot of games from the 90s that I love but looking back on them now I can’t understand why. Sonic and Star Fox are the two biggest ones for me, although the only one I’ve actually tried recently was Star Fox. Maybe the OG Sonic games would still hit the same.

As for Mania, isn’t that sort of a remixed version of a bunch of original Sonic levels with more stuff added? I can see how that would be really appealing to people who stuck with the series all along, but at the same time it’s a tough place to jump in or for lapsed fans to return to.

5246

Mania is the only Sonic game I’ve ever played (back in 2017 when it came out) and I adored it. I like momentum, and games that give me a sense of motion and speed, and I think to me both the challenge and enjoyment came from maintaining that speed through the kind of brightly colored obstacle course that each level was.

But it’s very much not a platformer, and I don’t enjoy it for the reason I enjoy difficult platformers nor Metroidvanias, despite it seeming to pull design elements of both. For me it was much more about the inherent joy of roleplaying a cannonball and finding satisfaction in that resulting motion, and it was very much a comfort game for me in a way hard platformers usually aren’t.

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5247

Valhalla is a 200 hour game so I should probably pace my posts. It continues to be perfectly fine but largely unremarkable. I have more stuff to play (Bugsnax keeps staring at me) but I’m not on vacation yet and picking up something new right now just sounds like a chore.

1 Like
5248

I’ve been playing Riichi Mahjong, first on Clubhouse Games and now on Mahjong Soul. After wrapping my head around the basics while watching Ben and Jan play on Giant Bomb, I’ve been having a great time! Now I want a poster of all the Yaku on my wall so I don’t have to google them all the time.

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5249

The obvious contradiction here seems to be needing to find the Chaos Emerald stages, which are hidden in specific parts of the level. But saying that the Sonic games have contradictions in the design is nothing new. To this thread. Today.

3 Likes
5250

I (finally) finished up Yakuza: Like A Dragon after clocking about 100 hours in it. Overall it was… fine? I have some nit picks about the JRPG mechanics that I think make it not as good as it could be and I have a lot of thoughts about the game’s relation to the rest of the Yakuza franchise but I feel like my overwhelming feeling toward it is just that it’s fine. The main plot is an okay crime-thriller, Ichiban and the rest of the cast of characters are pretty okay, the substories seem to be about as good as they are in every other RGG game. It’s all just like… yup this is fine. And while that’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, I guess I feel a little disappointed. Almost like I wanted to feel stronger about it either for better or for worse. It’s a totally okay game that you can get a whole bunch of hours of enjoyment out of.

I’m also still playing a little bit of Spelunky 2 every day. That game is real good and fun. Someday I’ll be able to get the second ending. I’ve gotten close a couple of times, so it’s just a matter of time before I make it.

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5251

I have been playing a run or two of Spelunky 2 every day pretty much since it came out! I really love that game, and it’s probably my game of the year! I feel like it’s being slept on, and that’s a shame.

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5252

beat pokémon mystery dungeon etc etc recently. sky tower is so mean. it’s great. you get to the summit expecting it to be a short trip and then it’s eight whole levels that generate exclusively in two layouts - one massive that puts every room as far as possible from the other, and one tiny that railroads you into every battle that can occur. and then i had to link everyone’s moves for the last boss again. before that i got to see what ancientpower would have done in the fight with groudon had they actually landed it ever. ow…
i wasn’t expecting much from the plot, i didn’t know what to expect at all really, but the way your partner believes in you and stands up for you when no one else will, and even kind of literally follows you to the ends of the earth… i can’t not feel like, i would do the same in a heartbeat for sushie the mudkip, bestest friend in the whole pokémon world. totally cried at the ending. aaaaaaaaaaaa no i don’t want to leave ;-; and then i didn’t have to after all :smiley:
anyway it sure looks like half the game is after the ending and it’s actually kind of intimidating. rescue jobs keep coming in the mail, too, and it’s like, how do i do all of this. (i might not, in the end. we’ll see.)

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5254

I’ve been playing Greedfall with not many expectations, to be honest. But it kinda blew me away. It’s combat is quite Souls-y, it’s RPG mechanics are way deeper than I thought they would be. The storytelling is pretty good, and the voice acting is just amazingly good.

It’s basically alternative history sailing era Mass Effect, and I didn’t expect this, like, at all.
Also I love how you have a character editor and tons of dialogue options, but still are playing as a character set “historically” in it’s ingame world and lore.

If anything wild happens I’ll update this, but for now I’m just enjoying the ride and recommend to anyone to at least try it out on Gamepass or something. It’s really cool :slight_smile:

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5255

My hair disappears in the mirror. The cops aggro on me just for walking out of my apartment and past their crime scene. They start shooting into the crowd at me, emptying their clips through at least one wall and two vending machines. A car is sticking vertically up through the ground, a pedestrian cowering in the crosswalk, traffic backed up for blocks. My own car comes out of photo mode, pedal to the metal. I ride the brakes but my screeching tires leave black skid marks all the way to the objective. I kill everybody at the mission objective but the Start Mission musical cue keeps playing wherever I go, even as some anti-tech evangelist’s closed captions stick to my screen even though I have subtitles off, and that one lady in the zodiac shop reads my tarot cards but every card is just a red X.

Cyberpunk 2077 is going pretty well, I think.

5 Likes
5256

Just finished Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and while I could wax poetic about the incredible soundtrack, all the characters I fell in love with, it being one of the best video game stories this year, or how the web swinging, stealth, and combat are vastly improved with Miles’s skillset, I think the only thing that needs to be said is this:

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Game of the fuckin’ year.

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5257

Spider-Man, Spider-Man
Does whatever a spider can
Wears a cute, little mask
Chills in Miles’ lil backpack
Look out!
Here comes Spider-Man!

(…I was gonna say Spider-Cat but then I remembered that the cat’s name is actually Spider-Man)

3 Likes
5258

So I’ve been thinking a lot about Pokémon, and have been working my way through Platinum. I remember the older games feeling larger and more mature, so I wanted to investigate.

I was right! Pokémon Platinum feels like a mature JRPG. There’s something about a goofy guy like Lysander in X and Y that looks so immature, so I can’t take what he says seriously. In Platinum, the sprite design places a lot more emphasis on the dialogue, and it all feels heavier.

The game world feels big, even if it might not be (I don’t know how to check this?). Routes feel longer and more difficult, caves are big and maze-like, and it just feels like there’s more to explore than in games like Sun/Moon/Sword/Shield.

The sprite-based exploration and battles are great as well. It’s abstracted and leaves more to the imagination. Additionally, I think that the Pokémon portraits in battle express more personality than the 3d renders in newer games. They’re posed and drawn well, compared to a boring 3d model. My favorite has been Machoke, who is flexing and it just oozes style and personality.

There are some downsides. There’s little quality of life things I miss, like not being able to use an item like potions outside of battle multiple times in a row, navigating the PC is annoying, but the worst are HMs. I did not realize how much HMs hurt team building. I love my Crobat! But it has to learn Defog and Fly to navigate. There are 8 HMs, so instead of having a team of 6 Pokémon with 4 moves each, a total of 24 moves, there’s only 16 moves available if you want all 8 HMs at the same time. That makes team building literally 2/3rds as interesting as it SHOULD be. It’s easily the most archaic design choice, and I hope it never comes back.

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5259

X and Y feels like the largest games but also the emptiest. There’s so much pointless fluff. The older games (especially Gold Silver) pushed the cartridges to the limit in terms of available space but it mostly felt like I wasn’t traversing a space that was big for the sake of being big.

I think Sun and Moon were good though for filling in the space with interesting scenery that had stuff in it.

3 Likes
5260

I’m playing that there Cyberpunk 2077 and have probably played just under 8 hours, enough to get to the title drop. It’ll probably all go pear shaped from here on in, but I’ve found it is working mostly fine, and I’ve been playing on PC. Haven’t had that many glitches, apart from the hair mirror glitch (which I think is down to me wearing a hat normally) and the cops drawing their guns on me if I get too close, but I am enjoying my time with the game.

I suppose I was expecting something akin to The Witcher 3 in nuance, but really it is more like future GTA with a full on edge lord tone. Though I’d say it has more respect for the characters around you, most of your allies feel grounded enough to be interesting. You start off the game basically being best friends with Jackie, last night I did the mission where you attend Jackie’s funeral and it was surprisingly touching. I basically walked from one part of the city to the other, just taking in the sights before going through his stuff in his garage.

I’ve been mindful of a lot of the stuff in the reviews but I’m digging it so far.

5261

I finished Dark Souls 2 (with the extra bonus boss ending). Definitely my favourite of the Souls games so far. Pace is deliberate, world is both more understandable, and wilder in its mythology than what has come before. I found myself defeating most bosses in 2 -3 tries after I settled into a build I also used the NPC phantoms when available (In the previous games, I never summoned.) Was the most difficult to get into so far though, the early stages are particularly punishing. DS3 is in my backlog, but I needed a souls break.

I am through the main story, and into the DLC of Origins. I really like this game, but more than any AC game to date, this is too much game. On the upside, they worked out how to make most of the activities reasonably fun, and the level design is both beautiful and extremely readable. On the downside, some of the really nice things from Syndicate didn’t transfer (Special Assassination Goals, grapple gun), and there’s just too much here and thanks to the RPG heavy system, you kind of need to engage with the majority of the side content.

Bayek and Aya are wonderful protagonists, and the core story of loss and healing is actually good.

I tell myself that I won’t play Odyssey right after this. But I might.

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