It's been two years since the best Sonic game!

[Deleted member 12790]

Wow! That's a lot of work on porting 1-2 old Sonic games to multiple consoles.

Click to shrink...

He, along with Nemesis, Hivebrain, and DRX, are also the ones who lead and began the disassemblies projects. We have all the source codes to Sonic games because of those 4 primarily.

I'll make a bold claim: The only person in the world who knows the Sonic engine better than Stealth, would probably be Yuji Naka.

Like, just to drive the point home: Taxman came into the scene around 2001. By that point, Stealth had already been leading the scene for about 5 years. I came into the scene in early 1997, and Stealth was already known as the leader of the scene by then.

 

[Kazooie]

Can you believe it released the same year as Forces? Talk about a whiplash in quality.

Click to shrink...

Though I prefer Mania, I still think Forces is a good game and I enjoyed playing it a lot.

I do not think Mania is the best Sonic game. In the exact same style, I prefer Sonic 2, in particular.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Reminder: You can legally play Sonic Megamix on Steam. It's available as a Sega sanctioned Steam Workshop mod for Sonic 1. It was the project Stealth lead before forming HCG and going to go work on Sonic CD with Taxman.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=676263858

It's unfortunately not the 0.4 or 0.5 versions as they moved to the Sega CD (piggy backing off of Stealth's port of the Sonic engine to the Sega CD) but this is the last Sega Genesis revision.

 

[flashman92]

He, along with Nemesis, Hivebrain, and DRX, are also the ones who lead and began the disassemblies projects. We have all the source codes to Sonic games because of those 4 primarily.

I'll make a bold claim: The only person in the world who knows the Sonic engine better than Stealth, would probably be Yuji Naka.

Like, just to drive the point home: Taxman came into the scene around 2001. By that point, Stealth had already been leading the scene for about 5 years. I came into the scene in early 1997, and Stealth was already known as the leader of the scene by then.

Click to shrink...

You seem to know a lot about all of this

Would you consider yourself a major player in all this along with the people you named? Just curious.

 

[Leviathan]

My first video game ever was Sonic the Hedgehog on the Genesis and I will definitely agree that Sonic Mania was a safe throwback to gaming a couple decades ago.

I still sincerely hope that they don't give up on 3D Sonic though, because despite some negative chatter and bad entries, they've put out plenty of good work and there's a lot more flavor, lore, and variety there.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

You seem to know a lot about all of this

Would you consider yourself a major player in all this along with the people you named? Just curious.

Click to shrink...

I'm one of the longest tenured members of the scene, yeah. My name here is my old Sonic scene name spelled backwards.

I've known stealth and tax and all those guys for seriously over 20 years now, we're friends. Stealth sent me an autographed copy of the Sonic Mania introduction manual signed by him and the rest of the team when I told him I couldn't make the Sonic Mania announcement, for example. I can actually dig up posts where we were talking on usenet forums and the very first community pages back in very early 1997. For example:

http://sost.emulationzone.org/oldsosth/oldsosth/theories/sosth_theories.html

I submitted the third second finding ever to SoST.

I would never put myself on the level of Stealth, though. But I've participated in a lot of big things in the sonic scene. For example, I worked with Jolly Roger and Andrew77 to release Sonic Xtreme. I'm like one of 3 people in the entire scene who has seen the Sonic Xtreme source code.

I credit the Sonic scene and stealth very specifically for not just what I know about video game programming and development, but also my literal career. Without Stealth, I wouldn't know half the shit I know. He was an amazing mentor for the scene (even if he can be very, er, passionate lol)

 

[Jahranimo]

Best game indeed. Still can't believe a high quality game with the cooperation from Sega was able to be made.

 

[Zalman]

I love Sonic Mania and I want more of it. My main issue is that some of the later stages drag on for too long.

 

[A Huge Battleship]

Nothing but positive feelings towards this game. It actually managed to live up to the expectations I'd been accumulating over the last 20+ years. I've enjoyed a fair number of the 3D games, but this was in a different Balloon Park entirely.

 

[NuclearCake]

I would still go with Sonic 3&K since it was such a ginormous leap for the series and the scale hasn't really been matched since. Sonic Mania still is without a single doubt the best Sonic game since Sonic 3&K by far. My only complaints are that many of the levels are reused from the previous games. If this game featured completely new levels it would probobaly be the best Sonic game. Acts 2 of the levels mix it up much more, but this should have applied to Acts 1 of past stages as well.

Also the bonus stages are a cool novelty at first, but they quickly wear out their welcome. The bosses are a hit and miss as well. Some are overly easy and others drag on for way to long. Then again bosses were one of the major weak points of even the 2D Sonic games, so i'm not surprised that even Mania couldn't get them quite right.

Still this was an amazing game. I hope i don't have to wait like 20 years before we get another one of these. It brought Sonic back from the brink for a short while and reminded me of why i used to love his original 2D games.

 

[Deleted member 6730]

I still think 2 and 3K are ultimately the better games.

Mania's the best Sonic game in the 21st century though.

 

[Jimnymebob]

I only played through it once properly, so for how good I found the game, I can't really say I love it just yet.

It's definitely a blast though, and probably the best Sonic related thing in a hell of a long time.

 

[G_Shumi]

He, along with Nemesis, Hivebrain, and DRX, are also the ones who lead and began the disassemblies projects. We have all the source codes to Sonic games because of those 4 primarily.

I'll make a bold claim: The only person in the world who knows the Sonic engine better than Stealth, would probably be Yuji Naka.

Like, just to drive the point home: Taxman came into the scene around 2001. By that point, Stealth had already been leading the scene for about 5 years. I came into the scene in early 1997, and Stealth was already known as the leader of the scene by then.

Click to shrink...

Wow, that's amazing! It's remarkable how much has happened since then and that they got their dream job to work on an official Sega Sonic game for millions of people to enjoy.

 

[Zippo]

Sonic Mania is now my favorite Sonic game and it's the best one they've ever made.

 

[badboy78660]

I had a good time with the game, but S3&K still trumps it for me. Though, to be fair, a lot of that has to do with how much time I spent with the OG games back in the day (Genesis was my first console).

 

[Deleted member 12790]

So, since I sufficiently talked up stealth in this topic, let me take the opportunity to talk about some other awesome shit Taxman has done in the past - I posted a video of his Retro Sonic Dreamcast Proof of Concept a page back:



I actually got a story about this from Tax; turns out in the Dreamcast homebrew scene, Taxman was shunned for this. In Dreamcast homebrew, the kosher method of developing new Dreamcast games is to use KallistiOS, a freeware SDK that is community developed. The Dreamcast is pretty interesting because there are currently 3 SDKs for it: Sega had their official Katana SDK that came with the Katana hardware. We obviously now have KallistiOS (also called KOS, pronounced "Chaos") which is a project that was ultimately birthed from Marcus Comstedt (aka the patriarch of Dreamcast hacking). And, ironically probably the most famous, Microsoft had an official Dreamcast SDK based off of Windows CE:

(This is why the Dreamcast says "Compatible with Windows CE" on the front. No, the Dreamcast doesn't have Windows CE inside, it's a reference to a deal Sega made with microsoft to provide a Windows CE compatible toolchain)

Anywho, it's illegal to use either the Microsoft Windows CE or Katana SDKs without license, even today, which is why KOS exists in the first place. Because of that, the community actually shuns info about the Windows CE and Katana SDKs, it's generally hard to find info about how to use either except in select IRC channels. Finding info about KOS is actually way easier (but still not easy).

So the story with Retro Sonic Dreamcast, and why Tax abandoned it: He used the Windows CE SDK to build it, haha. He had managed to get ahold of such a copy and built that proof of concept with it. That actually makes his work more impressive as he did so without much documentation, no real community help, and because the Windows CE SDK is notoriously less performant than the Katana SDK.

But that's the reason why Retro Sonic on the Dreamcast never went past the proof of concept, he'd need a complete rewrite due to scene scrutiny. He actually DID start a rewrite... and that became the RetroSDK that powers Sonic CD, Sonic Mania, etc.

 

[ScoobsJoestar]

For all its flaws Adventure 2 still holds that title for me. But yes, Sega would be nuts to not continue to have Mania-style games as the 2D pillar of Sonic much like what NSMB is to Mario.

Click to shrink...

Same. I'll be the first to admit that Adventure 2 is super flawed, but it's by far my favorite Sonic game. And yeah Mania-style games seem like a no brainer unless they cost way more to make than I'd have guessed.

 

[Deleted member 34949]

I still can't believe this game exists. As a kid, I always dreamed of a 2D Saturn Sonic game that builds off of the Genesis games, CD and Chaotix from a technical perspective, and against all reasonable odds, it exists today.

So, since I sufficiently talked up stealth in this topic, let me take the opportunity to talk about some other awesome shit Taxman has done in the past - I posted a video of his Retro Sonic Dreamcast Proof of Concept a page back:



I actually got a story about this from Tax; turns out in the Dreamcast homebrew scene, Taxman was shunned for this. In Dreamcast homebrew, the kosher method of developing new Dreamcast games is to use KallistiOS, a freeware SDK that is community developed. The Dreamcast is pretty interesting because there are currently 3 SDKs for it: Sega had their official Katana SDK that came with the Katana hardware. We obviously now have KallistiOS (also called KOS, pronounced "Chaos") which is a project that was ultimately birthed from Marcus Comstedt (aka the patriarch of Dreamcast hacking). And, ironically probably the most famous, Microsoft had an official Dreamcast SDK based off of Windows CE:

(This is why the Dreamcast says "Compatible with Windows CE" on the front. No, the Dreamcast doesn't have Windows CE inside, it's a reference to a deal Sega made with microsoft to provide a Windows CE compatible toolchain)

Anywho, it's illegal to use either the Microsoft Windows CE or Katana SDKs without license, even today, which is why KOS exists in the first place. Because of that, the community actually shuns info about the Windows CE and Katana SDKs, it's generally hard to find info about how to use either except in select IRC channels. Finding info about KOS is actually way easier (but still not easy).

So the story with Retro Sonic Dreamcast, and why Tax abandoned it: He used the Windows CE SDK to build it, haha. He had managed to get ahold of such a copy and built that proof of concept with it. That actually makes his work more impressive as he did so without much documentation, no real community help, and because the Windows CE SDK is notoriously less performant than the Katana SDK.

But that's the reason why Retro Sonic on the Dreamcast never went past the proof of concept, he'd need a complete rewrite due to scene scrutiny. He actually DID start a rewrite... and that became the RetroSDK that powers Sonic CD, Sonic Mania, etc.

Click to shrink...

Ha, I'm pretty sure I still have that demo burned on a CD somewhere.

 

[EloKa]

I'm going with "liked it" because it felt like something was missing to reach to "love it" stage. Dunno what exactly might be missing tho.
I guess I might prefer the simplicity of the earlier stages and the last levels felt a bit too busy - same for the Plus levels.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

I still can't believe this game exists. As a kid, I always dreamed of a 2D Saturn Sonic game that builds off of the Genesis games, CD and Chaotix from a technical perspective, and against all reasonable odds, it exists today.


Ha, I'm pretty sure I still have that demo burned on a CD somewhere.

Click to shrink...

It's still available to download on Sonic Retro:

http://info.sonicretro.org/Retro_Sonic

It's under old versions.

Funnily enough, years and years later, my buddy SonicBlur ported Taxman's RetroEngine to the Dreamcast:



Full circle :V

 

[TheAggroCraig]

Mania is one of my favorite games of 2017, and I'd love another game in the same vein (remixed levels/new). It's the best thing to happen to Sonic in years.

 

[Sky Walker]

Sonic 3&K still the best. But yeah Mania is the best Sonic game since ever !

 

[Biestmann]

It's alright. Too much recycling for me to praise it more than that. They updated most old levels nicely, but not enough for them to feel novel again regardless. The best stuff in Mania is the original levels. I'd love if Mania 2 was nothing but those, but I can't see that happening. Overall, I think Mania is about as good as Sonic 2, with 3&K still comfily at the top.

 

[Deleted member 34949]

It's still available to download on Sonic Retro:

http://info.sonicretro.org/Retro_Sonic

It's under old versions.

Funnily enough, years and years later, my buddy SonicBlur ported Taxman's RetroEngine to the Dreamcast:



Full circle :V

Click to shrink...

Cool! I've been wondering since the Retro Engine 1, 2, & CD ports if it was technically feasible to backport the current iteration of the engine to DC.

Guess I have my answer, lol

 

[OneThirtyEight]

So it's been two years since i survived skydiving so i could go home and finally play the game i had been waiting for since 1995? Time is a thing. And it's moving fast.

 

[RockmanBN]

Good fucking game, only prefer 3 & Knuckles over it. I loved all the new Zones and hope the next game has more of them. That or zones from Modern games done in the style of Classic Sonic.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Cool! I've been wondering since the Retro Engine 1, 2, & CD ports if it was technically feasible to backport the current iteration of the engine to DC.

Guess I have my answer, lol

Click to shrink...

Sonic CD, yes, but Sonic 1, 2, and Mania, probably no. The Sonic CD port above is based off of the android version for a specific reason: that Sonic CD android port released back when cell phone hardware was such that you couldn't guarantee the average android phone had shader support. So, it uses a cheat to achieve the palette swapping that is used all over Sonic CD: they render much of the tile set to multiple textures several times in every palette they could need:

The dreamcast actually supports a palette mode: 1024 dictionary entries at either 4bpp (64 sixteen color palettes) or 8bpp (4 two-fifty-six color palettes), but it's not conducive to how the Retro engine handles things. With Sonic 1 on wards, it uses a newer version of the retro engine, and by that time the limitation on android phones no longer existed, so mobile phone ports work much more like how the console/pc versions worked, which eliminates a real possibility of a Dreamcast port without significant reworking.

 

[BanetteAndBaguette]

Rayman legends is a much better platformer

 

[Vargas]

How about a sequel Sega?

 

[fontguy]

I'm pretty much alone here, but I feel like Mania's level designs took too much inspiration from Sonic CD (the worst of the classic games) despite the other games providing the lion's share of aesthetic reference. Lots of vast, open spaces with no sense of direction. That meandering I think just killed my enjoyment.

And a lot of the new twists and gimmicks were a bore. I can't imagine what could've happened to make the devs think navigating an underwater in those stupid bubbles was a good idea.

And also the bosses were all either way too easy or just a mess. That HBH shinobi boss extra sucked.

It's like this game was tailor made for me and I just don't like it. Sonic Generations is still, by far, the most fun I've had with 2D Sonic gameplay since the '90s.

 

[Ferrs]

I'm pretty much alone here, but I feel like Mania's level designs took too much inspiration from Sonic CD (the worst of the classic games) despite the other games providing the lion's share of aesthetic reference. Lots of vast, open spaces with no sense of direction. That meandering I think just killed my enjoyment.

And a lot of the new twists and gimmicks were a bore. I can't imagine what could've happened to make the devs think navigating an underwater in those stupid bubbles was a good idea.

And also the bosses were all either way too easy or just a mess. That HBH shinobi boss extra sucked.

It's like this game was tailor made for me and I just don't like it. Sonic Generations is still, by far, the most fun I've had with 2D Sonic gameplay since the '90s.

Click to shrink...

Mania feels closer to 3K to CD to me (and I say this as someone that loves CD the most). It doesn't have the open ended nature and the constant switchable routes of CD, nor the ability to backtrack to the start of the stage from that game.

it's really just an (even bigger) 3K structure.

 

[FallenGrace]

Sonic Generations was eight years ago though.

Click to shrink...

This.

I liked Mania Well enough but I didn't love it. The special stages were just awful for me.

 

[I Wanna Be The Guy]

Can you believe it released the same year as Forces? Talk about a whiplash in quality.

Click to shrink...

Not the first time this has happened. Sonic 4 episode 1 vs Sonic Colours. Shadow the Hedgehog vs Sonic Rush.

 

[Psychonaut]

Coulda sworn Sonic Adventure was way older than that.

Sonic is weird for me. I always thought I liked it as a kid when I played it on my second-hand Genesis just because it was better than Mario (which I still stand by, despite it being a very low bar for me personally) but now I can't stand those 2D Sonic games. I much prefer the 3D games. Even though the lows are much lower, there are actual games in that crop that I have some interest in touching again like Adventure 1 and 2, Heroes, Unleashed, etc. Given that context, you can kinda guess how I feel about Mania. I'm glad fans of those games got something they like, and I can only hope that 3D Sonic fans get something decent in the near future.

I will say this though: calling Mania arguably the best 2D platformer of the generation is a tough sell when Celeste exists.

 

[fontguy]

Mania feels closer to 3K to CD to me (and I say this as someone that loves CD the most). It doesn't have the open ended nature and the constant switchable routes of CD, nor the ability to backtrack to the start of the stage from that game.

it's really just an (even bigger) 3K structure.

Click to shrink...

I don't think it derives most of its design from CD, just that it derives enough to kill my boner.

It feels like Mania took advantage of all the extra space afforded by giant widescreen TVs by just spacing things further apart instead of maintaining the density (of items, enemies, and platforms) and just letting you see more. In the macro, it resembles the Genesis games, but in the micro it feels as aimless as CD to me. There are way too many little leaps of faith in a game with nearly double the horizontal screen space as its predecessors.

It's almost like a Sonic uncanny valley. It's like 95% a Sonic game I'd love, but that intangible, missing 5% ruins the experience for me.

 

[Quantza]

Nah, Sonic Unleashed day levels and bosses, some Generations levels and Sonic Colors for me.
Overall, still Unleashed.

Still remember liking Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Advance 2 more than Mania, but that was a long time ago (nostalgia goggles?).

For a next 2D game, I'd like Sega to make a HD engine (textures, lighting) with some elements of Sonic Rush and some cool tunes.
Maybe cel-shaded in some way?

 

[Petruccis Biceps]

I had played Sonic 1-3/S&K back in the day on my friends Genesis(I never owned one) but I played it enough to understand what the gameplay was like. Was never a gigantic fan of Sonic, and I knew Sonic games were kind of lacking in the past years. When I saw Mania, my friend told me to get it since it looked exactly like the classics. Glad I did because it really does feel like a super HD new version of the 90s games. Tee Lopes really nailed the fucking music, its so godamn good. It just feels so great to play it. I played and beat it with my wife since she grew up on sonic games as well back when the game came out and I literally just fired up the game again last week to start a new file by myself. Really damn good. Really hope there is a sequel on the way at some point.

 

[Bioshocker]

I will be completely dumbfounded if Sega hasn't already greenlit a sequel. It's the most acclaimed Sonic game in more than a decade, and sold pretty well I believe too.

Click to shrink...

I hope so. Never seen any sales number, though.

 

[Shining Star]

Hard to believe Sonic Colors was only two years ago, it feels like way longer.

 

[Kizuna]

Yes, I too like me some Sonic Forces. Thank you OP, very cool.

 

[secretanchitman]

Yep it's the best Sonic game in the entire franchise next to Sonic 3. I *really* hope they make a sequel to it!

 

[Extra Sauce]

i just wish it didn't throw you back several levels behind when you run out of lives.

one of those days i'll have to git gud and try and finish the game...

 

[dock]

Does the best Sonic game have too many bosses, each with terrible hitboxes and stages designed to make you drop your rings. I wanted to love this game but I ended up quitting on the umpteenth terrible boss.

 

[Why would you do that?]

While I'm not a Sonic fan and didn't love this game as much as others, it definitely is a very quality experience. I really hope they make another game, hopefully with more original levels (as those were imo the best in the entire game except for the very last zone).

 

[Mama Robotnik]

There is some criticism here that the game had too many rehashed levels from the classics. I differ in my view- I thought the balance was spot on!

I'd love to see more revisits to past zones - the team rehabilitated Oil Ocean and made it really interesting - I'd love to see their takes on Bridge Zone, Scrambled Egg, Hill Top, Scrap Brain, Mushroom Hill and Quartz Quadrant.

 

[chivibowie]

I hope so. Never seen any sales number, though.

Click to shrink...

According to sources (well, VGChartz...), Forces has sold better than Mania.

 

[ZeoVGM]

The fact that there is anyone who believes that Sonic Unleashed is a better game than Mania, S31&K or Sonic 2 is one of those "losing my faith in humanity" moments.

 

[chezzymann]

Cant be the best when so much of it is remixed content. Give me a 100% original game with at least 8 new zones and get back to me.

Zero revisiting of old stuff next time please.

 

[Bioshocker]

According to sources (well, VGChartz...), Forces has sold better than Mania.

Click to shrink...

Oh God no...

 

[Unknownlight]

The thing I love most about Sonic Mania is that I already love it so much, and yet I can imagine it being so much better. It's so good already, and yet it has so much room to grow for future games.

It's similar to my feelings toward BotW, in fact.