Is Sonic Mania really only a 4 out of 10 in difficulty?

[ShianKiri]

I didn't realize that this game was so hard for players. Thinking about it, veteran players will definitely demolish this game. I blasted through this game in 3 days or so with little to no help so I didn't find it that hard.

 

Looking at the trophy list, I can definitely agree with the 4 / 10.
Namely, the Blue Sphere maps can be hard if you're not sure how to navigate the map and some of them were definitely designed to be hard. Namely, the one where you have lines of spheres on the outside of an empty box of red spheres with a grid in it. You would have to spin the map to the right and jump into it. That would be hard for a lot of players to wrap their heads around.

 

And Professional Hedgehog would be a nightmare for people who are not great at old school platformers.

[EcoShifter]

2 hours ago, Spinosaurus Rex said:

@Spaz, you actually need to be a veteran of StH 3 to have an easy time with Sphere Stages, the only difficult thing here, as it was an optional minigame not required to beat the game. I don't think main stages of SM were hard many here can agree with that, no need to trigger your "gamers nowadays sucks" spiel.

 

The fact that you cannot replay them immediately after screwing just screams cheap difficulty and isn't particulary fun. You've collected 105/106 spheres and was killed? Bad luck, try again after trying 10 another stages. Just don't forget which sphere killed you. Not mentioning the fact the way to get few gold medals is ridiculously hard to discover without a guide. I understand in SNES/Genesis era it was a cheap way to increase longetivity, but why they didn't give an option to replay particular stages as with Mean Bean Machine in Extras?

 

Yes. I've managed to adapt pretty well to every other classic Sonic game's mini-game. This one in the Sonic 3 games/Sonic Mania is just exceptionally difficult, for multiple reasons.

 

You named one of at least three core issues that makes the mini-game non-arguably difficult. This obviously isn't a normal case where you can exploit trial and error immediately after or upon failing, which is why people like Spaz are wrong. 

[Spinosaurus Rex]

On 27.12.2019 at 3:57 AM, Spaz said:

The Sphere stages are much easier than the Special Stages from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. If you screwed up on one of the Special Stages you have to restart over from the beginning. They were hard. The Sphere stages at least you can see ahead and spot the red and blue balls.

 

Your statement is like "anything having harder equivalent automatically requires little effort only because something harder exist". Sonic 3 Blue Spheres stages aren't hard because Sonic 2 extra stages were harder, Crushing difficulty in Uncharted isn't hard because Brutal exists, most 2D platformers aren't too difficult because Super Meat Boy is harder etc. It just sounds kinda unfair for people who struggle against "easier" equivalents.

 

If you want a small comparison in difficulty from me: I see you put trophy from 10 Second Ninja X into your trophy cabinet, so I assume you must be proud from achieving this (understandably, as it was pretty damn hard). Believe me, I had EASIER time doing X marathons than doing Blue Sphere stages legitimatelly, without RNG exploit. You may think this is April Fool's Joke, but I'm dead serious. Blue Sphere stages' increasing speed and rotating levels' order felt WAY MORE frustrating than doing any of X marathons.

 

So yeah, I think it's a good example that difficulty is a subjective thing. And while I wouldn't care about anybody finding these stages easy (good for them), your "[Sonic Mania] requires a skill and focus that most of today's gamers lack" attitude sounds very unfair again, so this is why I posted here again.

 

On top of that, rising rarity percentages of SM trophies (actually it's kinda ridiculous that something easy like Secret Sub slowly goes into UR territory) just confirms the fact a lot of people who picked this game on PS+ have problem with 100% it.

 

Quote

Yes. I've managed to adapt pretty well to every other classic Sonic game's mini-game. This one in the Sonic 3 games/Sonic Mania is just exceptionally difficult, for multiple reasons.

 

You named one of at least three core issues that makes the mini-game non-arguably difficult. This obviously isn't a normal case where you can exploit trial and error immediately after or upon failing, which is why people like Spaz are wrong. 

 

Outside of rougelikes which are designed to be this way, I've never seen such a thing. Imagine playing something like Super Meat Boy blind and after every death, you'd be warped to another of chapter's 20 stages and you'd not be able to learn it until you "draw" it again. Old games just don't stop surprising me.

 

If you or anybody else still have problem with these BS stages in Sonic Mania (which actually are bs), I'd recommend this RNG trick to make this more fair. SM is still a good game worth doing 100% and struggling against. It's not mentioned in the guide of course, but is mentioned in video in Full Medal Jacket.

Edited December 28, 2019 by Spinosaurus Rex

[AJ_Radio]

22 hours ago, EcoShifter said:

 

Yes. I've managed to adapt pretty well to every other classic Sonic game's mini-game. This one in the Sonic 3 games/Sonic Mania is just exceptionally difficult, for multiple reasons.

 

You named one of at least three core issues that makes the mini-game non-arguably difficult. This obviously isn't a normal case where you can exploit trial and error immediately after or upon failing, which is why people like Spaz are wrong. 

 

I played the shit out of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 back in the day. So I knew how the Sphere stages worked before I even played Sonic Mania. There were less Sphere stages in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, doesn't mean they weren't hard but because I played them so many times, they weren't as difficult for me.

 

Yes, they are hard for people who aren't well adapted to old school 2-D platformers, particularly Sonic. You can practice over and over, which is key to any video game really but that's especially true for this game. I'm not perfect, I failed on a few Sphere stages several times before I finally got a pattern down and beat them. I failed a few times on some of the other trophies as well. Started over and tried again until I got them to pop.

 

Sonic Mania is basically a retro Sonic game catered to people like myself who grew up on the Sega Genesis era of gaming. I feel in many ways it's much better than the old Sonic games because it combines elements from the four classics (1, 2, 3 & Sonic and Knuckles) to make one package worth getting. Sonic Mania Plus adds even more neat features. It's a great game and does something Sonic Team has failed to do in many years.

 

46 minutes ago, Spinosaurus Rex said:

 

Your statement is like "anything having harder equivalent automatically requires little effort only because something harder exist". Sonic 3 Blue Spheres stages aren't hard because Sonic 2 extra stages were harder, Crushing difficulty in Uncharted isn't hard because Brutal exists, most 2D platformers aren't too difficult because Super Meat Boy is harder etc. It just sounds kinda unfair for people who struggle against "easier" equivalents.

 

If you want a small comparison in difficulty from me: I see you put trophy from 10 Second Ninja X into your trophy cabinet, so I assume you must be proud from achieving this (understandably, as it was pretty damn hard). Believe me, I had EASIER time doing X marathons than doing Blue Sphere stages legitimatelly, without RNG exploit. You may think this is April Fool's Joke, but I'm dead serious. Blue Sphere stages' increasing speed and rotating levels' order felt WAY MORE frustrating than doing any of X marathons.

 

So yeah, I think it's a good example that difficulty is a subjective thing. And while I wouldn't care about anybody finding these stages easy (good for them), your "[Sonic Mania] requires a skill and focus that most of today's gamers lack" attitude sounds very unfair again, so this is why I posted here again.

 

On top of that, rising rarity percentages of SM trophies (actually it's kinda ridiculous that something easy like Secret Sub slowly goes into UR territory) just confirms the fact a lot of people who picked this game on PS+ have problem with 100% it.

 

I basically said the Special Stages in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 were harder than the Sphere stages in Sonic the Hedgehog 3/Sonic Mania, for me. That's subjective. That's an opinion. If that sounds unfair to people then they need to stop thinking that others opinions are facts.

 

You're trying to say that because I said something was harder, it obviously must be a lot harder than something else that people here have struggled with.

 

Crushing in the Uncharted games was considered hard, and this was years before the remasters got released. Brutal difficulty is very unfair, but then you might just go and say Crushing difficulty was unfair. Especially if you did the "water room" legit in Uncharted 1, which I myself struggled with over a dozen times before I beat it.

 

Super Meat Boy is harder than a LOT of 2-D platformers out there, trust me. Cloudberry Kingdom and VVVVVV are probably both harder, I can agree with that. Crypt of the Necrodancer still remains as one of the most difficult platinum trophies to get on PSN. There are other platformers on Steam that never really got onto PSN that people may argue are just as hard as Super Meat Boy. So why are you telling me that because I played a hard platformer, it sounds unfair for people who struggle against "easier" equivalents?

 

This is just like the morons who bitch about the Flappy Goat mini-game from Goat Simulator, then feeling offended when somebody comes in and says Flappy Goat isn't that hard.

 

10 Second Ninja X is hard to 3-star all the stages in an area in succession. You can't die, restart or take too long. That's not the same as the Sphere stages in Sonic Mania. I 100 percented the game in under a week. It took me over 100 attempts to X rank some areas but with the levels being so short, I didn't find it too horrible. It's a 6 or 7 out of 10 in difficulty, hard for many people but definitely doable if you put in the time and practice.

 

All I'm saying is I've played platformers for a very long time, so I felt Sonic Mania wasn't that bad and it fits around a 4 out of 10 in difficulty. You're saying those Blue Sphere stages are hard? Fine by me. I've played games people have said were fairly easy for them when I found them to be rather frustrating and difficult. It's completely subjective.

 

For the record, if Sony allowed more of those old NES and SNES games to be released and every one had a trophy for beating them the "old school" way, then I can take that quote and apply that to every game. Trophies shouldn't be easily obtainable for everyone. They should provide a degree of challenge, otherwise what's the point of trophy hunting?

 

To be frank, most games on PlayStation Plus have lower rarity for most trophies. It basically means most people tried out the games, quit and moved on to other stuff.

Edited December 28, 2019 by Spaz

[dieselmanchild]

The comments in this thread have me both curious and cautious about starting this game on my profile. It’s interesting how widely the opinions of difficulty vary from person to person!

 

I am wondering how bad this game would kick my ass? I know it’s totally different, but I had an absolute blast playing Sonic Forces this month and have been itching to play some more. I vaguely remember playing the old classic Sonic games on SEGA/Gamegear as a kid, but I didn’t own any of the consoles so my experience was limited mostly to playing at friends houses. Good times. ?

[charxsetsuna]

I had a hard time with this but when I play 2d sonic games I need a death counter so I'm a poor example.

[IantoEvs]

The hardest part is most certainly the Blue Sphere stages, which isn't helped by the continuos rotation of levels and no ability (I believe) to pick and choose which stages to go at. It took me a long time to get used to the speed and movement, but once I got my eye in and cleared some of the stages I started making progress. I also found the stages easier using the D-pad rather than the thumbstick, which I guess is how it was originally intended. Unfortunately, I only managed 5 Gold medallions, so will eventually need to go back to try again and 100% the game.

 

I cleared the rest of the trophies in about 4/5 days, with Professional Hedgehog and Gotta Catch Them All being the ones that gave me the most trouble. There are plenty of guides out there to help out.

[Segimon]

I personally would give it a 6. 

[Xugoshi]

On 8/23/2019 at 11:22 PM, Maahniac said:

Trophy guides put the game at a 4/10 difficulty, but there are lots of threads all over the net, with people complaining about the game being hard. So is the 4/10 difficulty really realistic? 

 

It's not hard, quite easy in fact! 

[rdhight]

It's a 4/10 if the blue sphere stages don't increase difficulty for you. If you're really good at them, or if you're young and have good reflexes and a guide/videos, that's accurate. If the blue spheres make it harder for you, that 4 is gonna go up.

[IantoEvs]

The blue sphere stages take a lot of practice. The first few days I couldn't get close to finishing even one stage, but once I got my eye in, and started clearing stages, it became more manageable.

 

Just keep practising and don't get frustrated.

[Ninjise]

For new players that never played Sonic before, it can be rather difficult if we're being honest, however most veteran Sonic players will probably find this game alrightish, the only troublesome part would be the blue spheres, which does requires lot of practice and patience.

Edited March 11, 2021 by Ninjise

[Lianco]

I wouldn't say it was a 4/10. Someone asked me why I rated Sonic Forces a 5/10 and gave it a 15 hour time span and that's to do with the time trials and all the little challenges the game gives you. Most Sonic game trophies ask you to speedrun one level but this asks you to do quite a few and they aren't easy. I've been playing Sonic since forever so to me they were a bit easier. I haven't met a person alive that didn't hate Titanic Monarch the first time they played it, though. It's like Planet Wisp in Generations, it's just a huge difficulty spike out of nowhere and it just isn't fun, with a final boss that just kinda flops. On repeat tries, sure, but first? Nah. Just leaves bad taste in your mouth. And Blue Sphere, OF ALL SPECIAL STAGES, isn't particularly easy. You can make mistakes so suddenly in that special stage and you won't even know what you did until it's over. Emerald stage 5 is a bit annoying but the final is really easy, it's like a reward for you getting that far. The final two stages are where the difficulty comes in. I think it just depends on who you talk to when it comes to special stages. I'd do Sonic 1 and 2 way before 3. All the practice in Sonic 4 Ep 2 helped as well lmao.

 

It's like when I ranted about Sly only being rated as a 3/10. To me, a 3 is something you don't really need to try at but Sly 1, especially, has multiple instant deaths and very annoying minigames. Sly 3's trophy list actively requires you to do EXTRA minigames, which ironically, I didn't really have an issue with but those aren't easy either. I do wonder what a trophy rating is in relation to the game vs what the trophy list asks you to do. Sometimes they coincide, like Dark Souls or WipEout but other times they're up in the air and Sly was the first game to make me think about that.