• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Sonic Mania |OT| Dreams Come True

Started playing on Steam. Decided to go against the norm and play as Tails. Made it to Flying Battery Zone, which can be tough because of the magnetic platforms that can crush you.
 

Blue-kun

Member
The delay by itself had already made me not want to grab the game at launch because other things are releasing now and I'm prioritizing companies who aren't screwing me over, but to know it even has Denuvo tacked in?

Amazing, SEGA. Guess it's off to wait for a sale somewhere down the line, at this point everyone and their mum has played it, too, so the magic of uncovering the game alongside a bunch of my friends has already been lost, anyhow. Another few months won't do much difference.
 

Sami+

Member
Fuck Denuvo and fuck whoever made that call at SEGA tbh.

Love u Christian and Simon and everyone else who actually made the video game
 
We have a patch for consoles in the pipeline that addresses a lot of egregious stuff like that as well as other general gameplay issues (as well as separate button for Super transformations). The submission process is different for each SKU so I don't have any specifics date wise, but they will be surfacing in the future.

Thanks for the updates!
 

Tain

Member
This is an odd thought but someone brought up the possibility of playing this game on a PVM in the Retro GAF thread and it got me thinking that I'd like to try the game in 4:3.

Maybe it would wreck the game's stage design. All I know is that when I revisited 3&K after beating Mania I found myself having to take things slower (either due to the stage design or aspect ratio or both) and I enjoyed it and would like to give Sonic Mania a shot like that and see how it goes.
 
Man I'm finally happy to play sonic mania on PC, can't wait to-
Sees Denovo on it. Welp I guess getting my money back it still fine. Already bought the game on humble so I wonder if I can get a refund. I'm sorry taxman and everyone who worked on the game, but I don't want to be treated like shit with a delayed release and then this. I know you didn't make this choice so I don't blame you for anything besides making an excellent game.
 

Tizoc

Member
Lol, I'm just trying to help where I can, some things are out of my hands though.
I strongly recommend u pass it on to remove denuvo mate
Until then thanks for making this game despite some gripes it is a lovely game with lots of love put into
 

cireza

Banned
Lol, I'm just trying to help where I can, some things are out of my hands though.
Pretty impressive work you and the team have done on Sonic Mania. Thanks a lot.

Do you think that you will be adding some transitions between acts/stages (when they are missing) ?
 

Atrarock

Member
Think there would be any chance on toggling the Super music? Song is great, but I'd enjoy going through levels while in Super listening to the original level themes.
I can agree with this. Blasting through such a fantastic night time stage like Stardust Speedway while hearing it's song as Super Sonic would be ace.
I strongly recommend u pass it on to remove denuvo mate
This too, what was the point of them (not you taxman) implementing that?
 

13ruce

Banned
We have a patch for consoles in the pipeline that addresses a lot of egregious stuff like that as well as other general gameplay issues (as well as separate button for Super transformations). The submission process is different for each SKU so I don't have any specifics date wise, but they will be surfacing in the future.

Nice that sounds fantastic.

Question: how do you feel about the insane positive reaction of the game? It must feel like a dream came true right?:p

you made a game that rivals all the other classic Sonic games imo.

Seriously i enjoyed the game alot man and i would even put it above S3+K, so thank you and your staff for making such a fantastic classic Sonic sequel!
 

Spade

Member
Chiming in to say whoever pushed for Denuvo.... oh boy.

The game is amazing and my favorite since S3K, but yea that (Denuvo) needs to go lmao. You guys did such a fantastic job and the game doesn't deserve this.
 
I can't believe this is a real game and not something in a dream.

Denuvo is a bummer, but it doesn't really affect me. I don't really fault the developer for using it, or the people refunding to take a stand, both within their right.
 

-Gozer-

Member
I preordered this a few days before the the delay on pc. I certainly wasn't to happy about that but if it was delayed to fix some issues then fine. I thought the people who believed that the delay was due to Sega adding Denuvo to the game a bit paranoid but certainly not out of the realm of possibility. Turns out that's exactly what the delay was for.

I'm not even going to bother downloading this. I'm getting an immediate refund.
 
I don't even know why sega would do this

"Hey, our PC port of Bayonetta and Vanquish did pretty well. Let's add DRM to sonic mania and delay it, the PC community would take this well".
 
Lol, I'm just trying to help where I can, some things are out of my hands though.

Mr Taxman,

Could I make a cheeky request that isn't to do with Sonic Mania?
If you ever do a re-release of the Sonic CD version that you did (for Switch, or anything like that) could you add in a secret option to toggle the "jump sound effect" between the Sonic CD jump sound, and the original (Sonic 1/2/3/K/M) jump sound effect?

Many thanks

Mr Skullomania ! :)
 
I don't know for certain but IIRC the issue was on the side of pulling the names to display rather than submitting scores, so theoretically they should be there. The leaderboards on PS4 worked for the first day (and during our testing), then the issue occurred when the list grew in size due to 'real world' use.

Thanks for the quick responses! I was too busy playing through the game over and over again like a madman to even bother with Time Attack on the first day. Curious to see what kinds of exploits you'll be fixing, if any, since some of them greatly affect the Time Attack mode.
 

MetalSlug

Member
Already played though it on the Switch and just bought it an hour before the release on Steam. Just back from the gym and I notice that the delay was in fact for DRM.

I'll keep it because the game is fantastic, but I'll be leaving a negative review to let Sega (or who ever wanted DRM) know that I don't fancy having Denuvo in games I purchase.

EDIT : Can't get all the Chaos emerald from one ring like I could on the Switch version. Must have patched it :(
 

Zelias

Banned
So it was delayed for Denuvo. What a slap in the face. Won't be buying this until it's on sale.

Sorry Taxman, by all accounts you did a great job with this game and it's a real shame Sega had to make such a stupid decision.
 
Mr Taxman,

Could I make a cheeky request that isn't to do with Sonic Mania?
If you ever do a re-release of the Sonic CD version that you did (for Switch, or anything like that) could you add in a secret option to toggle the "jump sound effect" between the Sonic CD jump sound, and the original (Sonic 1/2/3/K/M) jump sound effect?

Many thanks

Mr Skullomania ! :)

Dude you read my mind I was thinking that the other day how annoying CDs jump sound is!
 

Finalizer

Member
No achievements on the PC version?

Also just learned that transforming into super during a boss fight cancels the boss music for the super track... Unless that's just a bug particular to this instance that I'm playing, heh.
 

Arkanius

Member
Man something feels extremely off in the controls.
I have Vsync off and I feel that I have a severe case of input lag...

(PC version)
 

Paragon

Member
If anyone is wondering about the PC version:
It's locked to 16:9 (technically narrower than 16:9) and does not support 4:3 like Sonic CD did. Anything taller than 16:9 is letterboxed.
Ultrawide displays are pillarboxed now, which is better than Sonic CD stretching the image, but disappointing as 2D games look amazing in ultrawide. That extra width would be really good in a Sonic game - we've already seen people turn their opinion around on Sonic after playing it in 16:9 rather than 4:3.

Scaling is handled much better than Sonic CD. The Sonic CD port was really blurry.
However, if you select a 16:9 resolution the image is scaled from 424x240 to fill the screen.
Here's a comparison between 2560x1440 (16:9) and 3440x1440 (24:10):
2560x1440fwsor.png

3440x1440rfsqt.png
You can see that the image is slightly wider in 16:9, and if you look close, the image is slightly softer due to the scaling.
I'd prefer that the game output a pillarboxed 2544x1440 image than a scaled 2560x1440 one. At least it displays correctly when outputting 3440x1440 though.
It seems to pre-scale using nearest neighbor and only do the final scaling with bilinear, so the result is still relatively sharp, compared to only using bilinear scaling.

The game has its own framerate limiter now, so it's capped to 60 FPS. Sonic CD was unlocked, and you had to use a tool like RTSS to cap the framerate to 60 or else it would run too fast. (speed linked to framerate)
The framerate limiter is not disabled when you enable V-Sync. That will ensure the game runs at the correct speed, but the two may conflict on a 60Hz display since they will never be perfectly in sync with the limiter. Some games disable their framerate limiter when you enable V-Sync to prevent that conflict.
If my display is running at 60Hz, I see disruptions in the frametime graph every second or two.
frametimezss4r.png

That's not a problem for my G-Sync display, but would probably be slight stutters on a fixed refresh rate display.

Selecting a resolution other than "default" (i.e. desktop resolution) sets the display to 60Hz.
That's how I noticed the frame limiter issue above. If I keep the resolution at "default" where the display is at 100Hz, the frame-time graph is perfect since it's not conflicting with V-Sync at the refresh rate.
I also noticed it get really laggy when it set the display to 60Hz since that was causing V-Sync to be enabled, rather than G-Sync. At least I think that's why the controls felt really laggy. I'd need to play more to be sure.

The game seems to support Steam Input. When I go to the controller section, it brings up the Steam Overlay and binds actions instead of keys.
Doesn't support glyphs though, so my DualShock 4 displays Xbox prompts. Obviously that's an extremely minor issue though, just a slight lack of polish.

The game generally doesn't seem super stable. I haven't had it crash during gameplay, but four times out of five, if I make a change to the video settings the game will crash.
It doesn't seem to recover well from pausing the game and alt-tabbing away to something else. Most of the times I've done that, I hear the music but the game never appears back on-screen again and I have to close it, losing any progress.

It's a 2D sprite game. Pretty much all of the animations have to be locked at that speed or else it'd look weird.
Animations don't have to be locked to the same framerate that the camera and objects move/rotate at.
It can look out of place sometimes, but a higher framerate for the camera would make things much clearer at high speeds if you're playing on a non-CRT display.
 

KodaRuss

Member
I just finished the game today and I loved it. First Sonic game for me to spend any time with since the Genesis.

Ill keep my eye on Sonic Forces but this game was just pure bliss the entire way. Great package and great price. Excellent game.
 
I just finished the game today and I loved it. First Sonic game for me to spend any time with since the Genesis.

Ill keep my eye on Sonic Forces but this game was just pure bliss the entire way. Great package and great price. Excellent game.

If you want more Classic Sonic gameplay, I recommend Sonic CD. I have issues with the level design but the game is still fun and it has it's fans for a reason. You could also check out the Sonic Advance games on Gameboy Advance, especially Advance 1. None of them can really compare to the classics, but they're as close of a continuation as we got until Mania.

If you're willing to keep an eye out for Forces, then I'd recommend you give Sonic Colors/Generations a try since Forces will use a similar style of gameplay to those 2 for Modern Sonic so it'll give you a taste for Forces.
Also, while I'm looking forward to Forces, I think don't think it'll be as good of a game as Colors or Generations.
 

Bakercat

Member
We have a patch for consoles in the pipeline that addresses a lot of egregious stuff like that as well as other general gameplay issues (as well as separate button for Super transformations). The submission process is different for each SKU so I don't have any specifics date wise, but they will be surfacing in the future.

Cool, I've been seeing a lot of gameplay glitches happening, mostly with Knuckles and collision while climbing. However, I do hope you don't patch out the super sonic glitch where he stays blue as super sonic. I think it's pretty cool to look at and it reminds me up super sayian blue from dragon ball super lol.
 

Ryu1999

Member
So I bought the game for PC, but for some reason it won't recognize my USB Saturn pad. Do I have to use one of the joy2key type programs to get it to work?
 

Paragon

Member
So I bought the game for PC, but for some reason it won't recognize my USB Saturn pad. Do I have to use one of the joy2key type programs to get it to work?
I'd assume that your Saturn pad is DirectInput, and a lot of new games don't support that any more.
However, you might be able to use Steam Input with it if you go to the Big Picture Mode controller settings and enable Generic Gamepad Configuration Support. (may require that you restart Steam after enabling for it to work correctly)
 

Haganeren

Member
If you want more Classic Sonic gameplay, I recommend Sonic CD. I have issues with the level design but the game is still fun and it has it's fans for a reason. You could also check out the Sonic Advance games on Gameboy Advance, especially Advance 1. None of them can really compare to the classics, but they're as close of a continuation as we got until Mania.

If you're willing to keep an eye out for Forces, then I'd recommend you give Sonic Colors/Generations a try since Forces will use a similar style of gameplay to those 2 for Modern Sonic so it'll give you a taste for Forces.
Also, while I'm looking forward to Forces, I think don't think it'll be as good of a game as Colors or Generations.

I was doing that BEFORE Sonic Mania was out. Sonic CD have a Level Design so bad i just don't understand the game. That being said the worst run was without a doubt the one where i tried to get all chaos emerald and all good future, the time travel mechanic is just totally broken and it was one of the worst experience i ever had in a 2D Plateformer.

Sonic Advance is... Well we can see the whole concept is to have the most "Sonicish Sonic" ever which was excusable since it was the first (not really but still) Sonic on portable... Soo yeah, that being said the game doesn't have nearly as much generosity with its mechanics and everyzone seems far duller as a result... But hey, it's still Sonic indeed. (The special stages are complete bullshit though...)

Sonic Advance 2 is very interesting, it completely dish the Sonic formula in order to make the player feel like he always have to go fast. I actually wonder if that's when the misconception of Sonic all being about being fast have been consolidated. Now the stages don't really have a lot to differenciate each other but they are far more of them now. Also there is a focus on different characters which always felt like strange with the Sonic Formula. (Why would you NOT want to take the quickest character in the kind of Level Design of Sonic ?)

I think that's the premise of the boost formula and even if i liked the game enough at the time, now i really don't like the direction it was taking.

That was interesting to play though... Maybe the Sonic Master System would be cool enough for me ?
 

Slaythe

Member
So it was delayed for Denuvo. What a slap in the face. Won't be buying this until it's on sale.

Sorry Taxman, by all accounts you did a great job with this game and it's a real shame Sega had to make such a stupid decision.

My exact thoughts.
 

Ryu1999

Member
I'd assume that your Saturn pad is DirectInput, and a lot of new games don't support that any more.
However, you might be able to use Steam Input with it if you go to the Big Picture Mode controller settings and enable Generic Gamepad Configuration Support. (may require that you restart Steam after enabling for it to work correctly)

Hey thanks for responding to my question - I tried what you suggested and while the rest of the buttons work, the D-Pad doesn't seem to work. Guess I'll try to use X360ce or something. :(
 

RowdyReverb

Member
How does the chaos emerald system work? I got 3 on my first playthrough because I kept screwing up the 3rd UFO stage. Do I need to start a new game from the beginning and try again to collect all 7 in one playthrough, or is there an easier way to try and get the 4 that I missed?
 
Anybody know how to activate Super Sonic in the PC version? None of the buttons seem to work for me.

Edit: Ah, figured it out. it's the 'W' key.
 
Top Bottom