Sonic Mania

[Ben Kirkham]

Blah blah blah DRM blah blah Denuvo blah blah. There’s definitely a point to be made there – you should be able to play offline.

But I’ve not heard anyone talk about the game itself yet. I’ve been playing for a couple of days, and I’m really enjoying it. A smart and clever synthesis of the first four games, with a bit of Sonic CD, Sonic 3D and Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine thrown in for good measure. A bit like being 8 years old again!

Opinions?

Topic

[Warbodog]

Kryten is Knuckles? I don’t know

– David Ross Kryten is Pink Knuckles.

When I first saw Sonic 3 in a shop, I thought that was Amy, annoyed at Sonic for having pushed her in water and made her spines droop.

– Kochanski’s inexplicable makeover during the Nanarchy cliffhanger is Sonic the Comic getting the memo from Sega between issues 35 & 36.

[Moonlight]

He’s less pointy now.

[Niki Hutchinson]

Well, for the STC fans here… There’s going to be a ‘Sonic The Comic Convention’ in York on May 20th. I’ll probably talk about it here afterwards, but for now enjoy this image for it

[Nick R]

I’m going to that!

Also two of the guests are also relevant to Red Dwarf fandom thanks to their Smegazine work: Nigel Kitching (see https://www.ganymede.tv/forums/topic/nigel-smegazine-kitchings-red-dwarf-references-in-sonic-the-comic/ ) and Carl Flint.

Unfortunately I never actually read much of the Smegazine and am way behind with the G&T Dwarfcasts on them (sorry!), so I won’t have many of my own questions for them about that side of things…

[Podey]

This has probably been mentioned but I’d highly recommend ‘Sonic The Comic The Podcast’ to anyone with an interest. It’s brilliant and full of creative 90s nostalgia.

[Ian Symes]

A podcast series covering every edition of a 1990s Fleetway publication page-by-page? It’ll never catch on. 

[Podey]

😂

In some cases they’re even talking about the same creative teams, there’s a lot of crossover with the artists and writers. 

[Niki Hutchinson]

I’m going to that!

Also two of the guests are also relevant to Red Dwarf fandom thanks to their Smegazine work: Nigel Kitching (see https://www.ganymede.tv/forums/topic/nigel-smegazine-kitchings-red-dwarf-references-in-sonic-the-comic/ ) and Carl Flint.
Unfortunately I never actually read much of the Smegazine and am way behind with the G&T Dwarfcasts on them (sorry!), so I won’t have many of my own questions for them about that side of things…

If you want, we could both ask them a few Smegazine questions ??? If either of us get the chance on the day.

[Dave]

Exciting Nigel Kitching-based news:

https://www.sonicstadium.org/2023/05/sonic-the-comics-nigel-kitching-among-six-writers-confirmed-for-idws-sonics-900th-adventure-one-shot/

[Nick R]

I’m in the convention queue now! I’m wearing a “Gaming Legend” Sonic T-shirt if Niki or anyone else here wants to say hi. :)

[Jonathan Capps]

If you see a freakishly tall man that’s Julian. Go and tell him Cappsy says hello.

[Nick R]

I don’t know if I saw Julian (although the guy in the queue behind me was pretty tall) but I did speak to Niki. (Thanks to spotting a doodle of a worm in the guestbook/sketchbook at one desk and asking who’d drawn it!)

Nigel Kitching gave a talk where he did acknowledge the Red Dwarf influences on bits of STC like the repeated page in the Future Echoes/Sonic CD time travel bit. (Meant they got paid twice for the same page – and when it was reprinted, he got a panicked phone call from the editors, worried that they couldn’t find that page in their archives!) I told him that Ganymede & Titan are currently doing a podcast series about the Smegazine and that they’d probably be interested in hearing from him – he said to get in touch.

[Niki Hutchinson]

I don’t know if I saw Julian (although the guy in the queue behind me was pretty tall) but I did speak to Niki. (Thanks to spotting a doodle of a worm in the guestbook/sketchbook at one desk and asking who’d drawn it!)

Nigel Kitching gave a talk where he did acknowledge the Red Dwarf influences on bits of STC like the repeated page in the Future Echoes/Sonic CD time travel bit. (Meant they got paid twice for the same page – and when it was reprinted, he got a panicked phone call from the editors, worried that they couldn’t find that page in their archives!) I told him that Ganymede & Titan are currently doing a podcast series about the Smegazine and that they’d probably be interested in hearing from him – he said to get in touch.

Yeah, thought I would leave my mark for the event in that way… ;)

Joking aside, was great to meet up with you that day. And glad you got word in with Nigel (cause there was quite a wait just to get to him and Richard Elson !!!) Nigel did mention he couldn’t remember how and why certain things happen in STC, but he’s always got great stories to tell about the work. So he should be a laugh for the Dwarfcast if he done come along ;) 

Will showcase some photos of Elson’s work here, so keep your eye out for that Boomers xD ;)

[Ian Symes]

We’re only making plans for Nigel.

[Moonlight]

Spinball the game fucking sucks but this is good.

[Niki Hutchinson]

Better be the one to tell about this… There’s going to be a Sonic Symphony World Tour that’s happing in London for Sept 16th.

However as of writing this, all of the tickets have sold out. (Some folks managed to find a loop hole in getting seats for it early via a membership for the venue)

They maybe more available come nearer the time so best to keep you eye out for it. In the meantime, here’s a video for what there going to do !!! https://youtu.be/_XJJC01WzJI

[Moonlight]

The symphony was great. Although as far as the initial orchestral section goes, I feel like they absolutely CHEATED the late 90s / early 2000s 3D games by giving Adventure 1 a single piece based on the character themes (fucking incredible work from Falk Au Yeong, who was the audio engineer on Sonic Mania and head composer for well-regarded fan games Sonic Before the Sequel and After the Sequel) and then NOTHING from Adventure 2, Heroes or Shadow the Hedgehog. Like I get that that there was a Crush 40 concert at the end that covered some material from those games, but in terms of level themes we got jackshit nothing. And maybe just add Jun Senoue on guitar if some of those level themes don’t work without it. It certainly worked for Live & Learn at the end.

Meanwhile they spent like ten hours on Sonic Lost World and who fucking cares?

God I fucking love the Sonic Adventure soundtrack so much that even though we got something great out of it I still feel cheated the level themes were passed over.

WARNING: This is now turning into a Falk appreciation post. Trying to convey the breadth of styles he can do without linking a hundred tracks.

God that last one is so fucking sick. Sonic music is so good that even the fan games can have banger soundtracks. There’s a reason that Sega SEGA-HIRE-THIS-MANNED this man.

[Warbodog]

Has anyone else gone on a deep dive through 80s Japanese jazz fusion in the past with the express purpose of finding something comparable to classic Sonic music? It was never quite right, but late-80s The Square / T-Square seemed to have the closest vibe.

[Moonlight]

Embed a video you coward.

[Warbodog]

[Moonlight]

I dunno, I just did like 5 and it worked. Just find the first ampersand in the URL and erase it and everything after or it doesn’t play nice.

More of you assholes need to have played Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 back in the day because, aside from coming slightly later in my life, those games basically have equal importance to the classics in my memory. I’d like excuses to yell about them. Sonic controls fucking perfectly in SA1 and they never got it quite that good again in 3D, fight me. Even SA2, which I consider the second best, I don’t think feels quite exactly as good even though it’s still miles beyond most 3D Sonic. They can’t seem to decide between excessively responsive and sluggishly unresponsive. Frontiers is the first 3D Sonic to not do that since SA2.

[Warbodog]

It’s more like Sonic-style music if it were intended for traditional listening rather than atmospheric BGM. My mental visualiser has a Sonic 2 Sonic running along a randomly-generated zone in any case.

Edit: I can’t embed, here are normal linxx.

Here’s the one that famously/supposedly influenced another character’s music (1:03):

[Dave]

[Niki Hutchinson]

Said I was going to showcase some of Richard Elson’s artwork… And here it is !!!

Enjoy

[Dave]

That’s cracking. Love that Metal Sonic shot.

[Moonlight]

As someone who never really engaged with any of the comics, I was taken aback by the design(s) of Chaos there. I’m scared to think what old Ken Penders did to Sonic Adventure in the Archie Comics considering he was so obsessed with using the echidnas as his own personal playground.

[Moonlight]

It’s more like Sonic-style music if it were intended for traditional listening rather than atmospheric BGM. My mental visualiser has a Sonic 2 Sonic running along a randomly-generated zone in any case.

These sound more like Sonic CD than Masato Nakamura Sonic music to me.

This should not be a hot take, but there is no classic-era game that I wouldn’t sooner play than Sonic CD (unless you count Knuckles’ Chaotix, but I don’t because calling it a game in the first place is giving it too much credit), and I much prefer the version of the two CD zones in Mania to their originals, especially Metallic Madness.

Wacky Workbench is a war crime.

[Niki Hutchinson]

So this has just been discovered… That there was an idea for a 4th DiC produced cartoon mooted about. And… Here’s what could of been… “Super Sonic Sisters” !!! 

[Moonlight]

I just watched that earlier. As much as it sounds interesting, I can’t help but sigh at the fact that the Sonic cartoon for girls is about going to school.

[Ridley]

Why aren’t seconds 5 through 13 the game?

[Niki Hutchinson]

Man… It’s all go today with the Blue Blur !!!

Why aren’t seconds 5 through 13 the game?

[Moonlight]

So I was not expecting this to be revealed for sale this year, and I was not expecting it to look this good. The mere fact that the physics appear to be accurate to the Genesis games put me at ease, and the co-op feature excites me.

The digital level is something I’ve wanted to see tackled again in 2D Sonic. Not counting Frontiers, which barely counts, we haven’t seen a digital-type level since Advance 2/3.

I’m suddenly way less mad that Mania seemingly never got a follow-up title when it was begging for one. I want to see 2D and 3D Sonic co-exist alongside each other, alternating releases.

[Dave]

Yeah this looks alright. I’m still not 100% sold on the physics but the art style looks nice.

[Jenuall]

Looks like a step up from Sonic 4 for sure, but it’s still in that awkward uncanny valley “lets try and push the 2D aesthetic into some more modernised polygonal graphics” territory that just really doesn’t sit right with me…

Might be the visuals putting me off as well but the physics looked ass on first watch.

I’m not completely tapped out on it, but my hype levels are about a million times lower than they would have been for a Mania 2 announcement.

[Moonlight]

Might be the visuals putting me off as well but the physics looked ass on first watch.

Definitely is the visuals throwing you off, because I’ve seen someone else call it “Generations physics” when it most definitely does not move the same way. Somebody did a demonstration on Twitter illustrating that the physics are at least super accurate to the Genesis games as far as slopes are handled, and none of the jumps in the trailer looked super off to what I would expect from something like Sonic 2. Nothing felt sluggish like Generations or weightless like Sonic 4. Or the not-momentummy like both of them. And trust me, I know how the classics look when they move. I’ve played through just Sonic 2 alone so many times in the last few years I think I might have a serious problem.

Not to mention one of the leaks that predicted a Sonic Team-led new 2D game claimed this is operating off the Retro Engine, and whether or not that’s accurate nothing I’ve seen is screaming that it’s false.

[Niki Hutchinson]

I read an interview that said Sonic Team has about 900 employees working at SEGA… (Presumably most of them work on different games for SEGA as a whole) So they may have an A and B team for the Japanese crew to work from. But will have to see how they handle a 2D based game within 3D… Also this WILL play differently from Mania so it going to do it’s own thing.

[Jenuall]

More than happy for it to do its own thing, new experiences are always to be encouraged, but with that many people is it too much to ask for a semi-regular stream of pixel art Mania-like games to go alongside? 

[Moonlight]

The real question is whether this game is (the real) Sonic 4, Sonic 5, or Sonic 6. Depending on how you count them.

[Dave]

Sonic Mania is the real Sonic 4, obviously.

[Jonathan Capps]

Yeah, this is Sonic 5.

[Ridley]

Sonic 3D 2.5D

[Moonlight]

3D Blast only gets acknowledged if you want to remind people of their suffering.

[Flap Jack]

I’m pretty sure Sonic 4 was called “& Knuckles”.

[Dave]

[Niki Hutchinson]

[Warbodog]

Sonic 3D was so bad, I started playing Mario.

[Dave]

[Dave]

[Jenuall]

[Niki Hutchinson]

[Author]

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