It's so weird to me when people say that Sonic had a golden age of 2D games back in the 90s, and yet every time I try to pick up one of them I'm never able to stomach getting more than an hour or two in before putting it down for good. It's been a good several years since I've tried to play one, and I'd since forgotten what irked me about my previous attempts to play, but after an hour and a half of playing Mania I've completely remembered what about these games leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
On a surface level, Sonic games are all about "going fast", but in reality, on a blind playthrough, it feels like anything but. You've got momentum you have to build up to go at any sort of moderate speed, and you've got tons of obstacles in the way that impede that. That's fine and all, but with how fast you can end up going and how zoomed in the camera is (relative to the speed), pretty much every obstacle is basically not telegraphed at all until you've already been hit or reached a spring at the end of a path. In addition, basically every level past Green Hill Zone is a confusing mess of walls and paths you can easily get stuck on that only go backwards, making each level feel more like a maze than anything else. 2D Sonic games reward level memorization over any other skillset, which is kind of disappointing to be honest?
In that sense, Mania reminds me a lot of the early Marble Blast games. If you're not aware of the "racing line" of the level (which you won't be when playing it for the first time), certain levels in Marble Blast can feel like aimless wandering trying to find where that damn last gem you have to collect is. The difference is that aside from Green Hill, Every act in Mania feels like that, instead of just the small subset of "gem collection" stages that sometimes get thrown in the mix of things. In both Marble Blast and in Mania, the level design often feels like it's actively fighting against the gravity and design of the movement of the player. The second you build up enough speed to finally start going fast, the game will immediately invent a reason for you to stop.
Anyways if you wanna play a game where you go fast WarioWare and Ultrakill are better and if you INSIST on playing a momentum-based platformer Marble It Up is pretty aight. But when you crank up the speed on these platformers there's an incredibly fine line you have to tow (that you don't have to at lower speeds) between the game being dead easy and too frustrating to even bother with. Based on how much praise this game gets, clearly other people don't get as frustrated as I do when they run into a spring for the 20th time in 5 minutes, but I guess that's just a matter of personal taste. I would rather, yknow, go fast in my video games about going fast.
On a surface level, Sonic games are all about "going fast", but in reality, on a blind playthrough, it feels like anything but. You've got momentum you have to build up to go at any sort of moderate speed, and you've got tons of obstacles in the way that impede that. That's fine and all, but with how fast you can end up going and how zoomed in the camera is (relative to the speed), pretty much every obstacle is basically not telegraphed at all until you've already been hit or reached a spring at the end of a path. In addition, basically every level past Green Hill Zone is a confusing mess of walls and paths you can easily get stuck on that only go backwards, making each level feel more like a maze than anything else. 2D Sonic games reward level memorization over any other skillset, which is kind of disappointing to be honest?
In that sense, Mania reminds me a lot of the early Marble Blast games. If you're not aware of the "racing line" of the level (which you won't be when playing it for the first time), certain levels in Marble Blast can feel like aimless wandering trying to find where that damn last gem you have to collect is. The difference is that aside from Green Hill, Every act in Mania feels like that, instead of just the small subset of "gem collection" stages that sometimes get thrown in the mix of things. In both Marble Blast and in Mania, the level design often feels like it's actively fighting against the gravity and design of the movement of the player. The second you build up enough speed to finally start going fast, the game will immediately invent a reason for you to stop.
Anyways if you wanna play a game where you go fast WarioWare and Ultrakill are better and if you INSIST on playing a momentum-based platformer Marble It Up is pretty aight. But when you crank up the speed on these platformers there's an incredibly fine line you have to tow (that you don't have to at lower speeds) between the game being dead easy and too frustrating to even bother with. Based on how much praise this game gets, clearly other people don't get as frustrated as I do when they run into a spring for the 20th time in 5 minutes, but I guess that's just a matter of personal taste. I would rather, yknow, go fast in my video games about going fast.