The bullshit metal sonic fight is the only thing stopping me from regularly replaying this
having not played sonics 1-3 in any serious capacity since i was a kid, i decided to go through sonic 2 and 3 to see if i would actually enjoy playing mania, and man sonic 2 is a cool game. the first few acts are way easier than i remember them being, but everything after metropolis zone or whatever itās called is so hard. those fucking grasshopper assholes. Also I was playing through as knuckles, who apparently canāt jump as high as sonic and that made the last boss fight very difficult. there is like a very tiny area beneath the claws of mecha robotnik that afaik is the only vulnerable area. luckily i have ārewindā mapped to a button on my controller so i was eventually able to get through it butā¦ i donāt think they really fully thought through how one would actually complete the game as knuckles. it makes most of the rest of the game a lot easier, but there is one platform in one of the later levels that you just canāt reach with knucklesās weak jump. iām pretty sure thatās the only part of sonic 2 where the wall climb is necessary.
well those are my sonic (2) thoughts. iāll probably get mania soon as it seems like it will be worth it for the music alone.
i bet sega are really pissed they already wasted the name Sonic the Hedgehog 4 on a shitty game no one remembers anything about.
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man felix i donāt know what to tell you, i beat the final boss after a couple tries. now metal sonic, he can bugger off.
iām near the end of my second run now, only one emerald to go, will i get it in time??
this is an even better game on the second playthrough
Agreed about the final bosses! Neither the normal final boss or the secret final boss are particularly tough for me. I agree that the secret one isnāt great, but I think itās at least in the upper tier of sonic final bosses (which are basically all bad except for S3&K andā¦ Sonic Adventure 1 I guess). The plot setup works really well dramatically, and the music is rad, and it only took me like 3 tries so eh, itās fine.
@Sykel, the final emerald stage is not too hard! I got it in only two tries I think, whereas 5 and 6 took many more. Good luck!
the only really good sonic final boss is, ironically, when sonic 3 is played alone
i really like doomsday zone
just beat it with all Chaos Emeralds, this game really is everything i thought itād be. the final boss was just a little less bullshit than Doomsday Zone and holy hell, the 5th special stage really took me a while. i wish there was more new zones but i like what they did with the old ones, a lot of levels really feel huge and iām gonna just explore more when i do a Knuckles (& Knuckles) run
iād currently rank it:
2 > Mania > 3/K > CD > Chaotix > 1
I think I failed the 5th and 6th special stage twice each but I nailed the 7th on my first try
really enjoyed that part, difficulty spikes are underrated
i got all the special stages immediately until the 5th one, which i had to replay a whole bunch of times, i just couldnāt get it for a bit. the last two werenāt that bad.
probably my favorite special stages in a game, has a bit of finesse to them that 2 and CD felt like it lacked
i really like this game a lot
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i know this question is going to out me as a non ātru sonic fanā, but does Mania have as many of those trademark āsonic jump scareā type moments where you are running along and a spring sending you back in the opposite direction into a spike pit just comes up outta nowhere, or thereās like an evil enemy with fangs of steel that is nearly impossible to kill without careful planning just pops up
cosā¦ those are coolā¦ but they also kind of suck, right?
the eternal quicksand at the center of Sonic design
true zen is accepting that rings are fleeting, live and groove forward
although the Sonic CD stages are obvious in how much time you spend bouncing back and forth; itās the padded cell Sonic
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there are quite a few of those but they donāt really send you into as many spikes or spiked enemies. thereās even some āfake outsā where you think that might happen, but doesnāt and keeps you rolling along. as far as i can tell itās fairly good about this.
you know how you can run off screen in Chemical Plant Zone in Sonic 2? you can do that in pretty much every level and it is both terrifying and exhilarating
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Yeah, I wasnāt sure if Iām better at this than I used to be or the level design is better but it feels like itās roughly half as many cheap hits as 3/K.
This has been excellent on the Switch where a screen 6 inches from my face hammers the impact of tubes tubes tubes
i think the only reason that i donāt like Mania the best is simply because the music and general style in 2 has been elevated in my head as way beyond the point of āreasonable nostalgic feelingsā
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the most magical thing about 2 that i had either forgotten or never noticed before is how the casino night music feels like a totally different song when its sped up after getting the boots
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gah, i just want this game to come out already!
going through the second playthrough with Knuckles, it didnāt even dawn on me that Mirage Saloon Act 1 would be totally different (and have a real jamminā tune), with a differently structured boss battle and man is it better than the friggin plane level.
also the Super Sonic song sounds like the only āModern Sonicā thing in this game and i love it, perhaps the most triumphant blue skies track of the year
Iām still beating my head against the Studiopolis miniboss. I know what to do, Iām just not having any fun
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yeah i struggled with this one too and it was still a pain in the ass my second time through. the bosses in the game really are the low point.