Sonic Generations Classic Knuckles
Overall Sonic Mania, but 3 & Knuckles is a close second.I agree with Dusk in that S3K does the cutscenes better and feels more consistent overall. Like, there's no moment to be found in Mania that felt as impressive as the interactive cutscene in hidden palaceSonic Mania does the best it can to bring all the classics together into one package though. The overall mechanics are refined, level collision feels more polished, rolling up into a ball feels more reliable because of that. The remixed stages all ended up being more enjoyable and interesting for me.
Sonic Generations Classic Knuckles
The elemental shields interacting with the environment is awesome and should be expanded on further. Drop dash is great.The soundtrack in both games. Damn, just fantastic stuff. I was never a fan of CD's JP/EU soundtrack but absolutely love the Mania tracks for those stages. To build a bit more off of this, Angel Island often gets shifted when it comes to talk of good first Sonic levels, but the shift from tropical paradise to the place ravaged with fire and then being bombed on all has a certain feel to it which I find appealing. And of course, the end of Sonic & Knuckles from Lava Reef to Doomsday just has some amazing build-up and interconnected final-ness that gives both a certain feeling and coherence naturally told in the levels which I think is also unmatched in the series. There's a great build-up and execution between Lava Reef, Hidden Palace, Sky Sanctuary, Death Egg & Doomsday which I honestly don't think the series has ever been able to match, and I don't think Mania matches it either, but it completely exemplifies the best parts of Sonic 3 & Knuckles world building and storytelling through level design and subtle details included with a certain atmosphere it emits.However, Mania does have a benefit that some of its best stages are among the best in the series(though not all are winners I feel), I do think it gets points for how many ideas is on display.
Sonic & Knuckles Online
Sonic 3 & Knuckles has a few week points in levels and sections as well, but I do think there's a charm to how it builds off it's stage-to-stage mechanics. Mania has more and overall I prefer it, but it could also be argued it in some ways has too many mechanics in each level.
I don't really hold that as a negative, but sometimes it does feel like there's a lot going on in each stage.Anyways, Mania had to balance being the team's first original game with all of them together while also being sorta' a love letter to the classic series and having mostly revisited stages. I think it's very, very good for what it is. Though I hope the team gets an opportunity and takes it to make an original game with it's own story, one thing I am under the impression of is they've probably learned a few things from Mania, and if allowed creative freedom to just do their own original levels and story, it could end up being a top tier Sonic game unquestionably. And some of what S3&K has over Mania I think comes to its world building, but Mania was always made to be a game of returning stages so it'd obviously have a harder time than a game which is set in one location (though admittedly that location is stretched a bit with what feasibly is there at times, but whatever level variety). I replayed Sonic 3 & Knuckles like 5 times back to back recently.I love Mania a lot, I'm sure it would've toppled S3&K if they had let Taxman, Stealth and crew do exactly what they wanted.Only 4 stages out of 12 here were original though and regardless of everything else they added, characters, bosses, bonus stages and bringing the physics as close to perfection as it's ever been that's always gonna be what cuts it off from being the greatest.I don't think you can take that much content from the classics and also take the crown but even still it ranks very high. It'll have to settle for second best Sonic game of all time.
Option for asav gns3. We use a generic switch between the cloud and the ASAv vm because a qemu limitation of the current version of GNS3 prevent a direct link between qemu and a cloud. Our cloud configuration: The ASA is connected to the switch via is Management 0/0 interface. After that boot the ASAv it will take a long time with a reboot the first time. The ASAv image file is added to GNS3 as a QEMU VM Template, this is where I ran into my first issue, evidently for best performance I need to download GNS3 VM, it is recommended to run this within VMware Workstation rather than VirtualBox. Download the Cisco ASAv hda image file (asav952.qcow2) from the Cisco website.
Not too shabby. They are both amazing but I must give it to S3&K.Mania can't win for me purely because most of its stages are from other games, but I don't think any of the stages in either game are bad. Mania's bosses are almost universally weak imo. I also prefer the level design a bit more in 3&K. I haven't actually studied the layouts or anything, but Mania felt more 'rollercoaster-y' to me while 3&K feels a bit slower paced and methodical (I could be wrong).Oh nevermind I forgot about Oil Ocean. I do not like Oil Ocean in 2 or Mania.
Waste of a zone to remix. Sonic and Knuckles (choosing S3&K always felt like cheating to me) is my all time favorite game, and I don’t really like Sonic Mania.It’s awkward because all the bits and pieces are clearly made with tons of love and care, and the core concept (if 2D Sonic went 32-bit) is a great one. On paper this thing was made specifically for me and only me. Hell, the ninja boss throws shurikens that make the little “ching!” noise from Shinobi.There are a billion things I love in and about Mania, but the level layouts all feel directionless and meandering—reminding me mostly of Sonic CD, my least favorite classic Sonic game. A number of the bosses are super dull—take that saw robot from Press Garden, for example: it isn’t remotely challenging, but you can’t just fuck it up in five seconds like your typical “this is totally beneath me” mid-level boss. You have to just sit there as it takes its sweet, sweet time to hover across the arena and break its arms at you, over and over. And it has a preoccupation with little gimmicks or asides that are just not any fun (like floating around in those bubbles in Hydrocity).I’m in this weird position where I’m super happy for all the people who finally got the Sonic game they’ve been wanting for like 8,000 years, but I just keep running my fingers across my copy of Sonic Generations and sighing.Also the conflicting building perspectives in Studiopolis bug the hell outta me.
I remember Sonic 2's day well, as the hype for a 10 year old who loved Sonic 1 was high - I just want to say continually that whilst it was fun enough and had some great aesthetics, I still to this day fucking hate the sprite for 2 and 3 to an extent in comparison to 1, CD and now Mania.Big downgrade for me personally.Anyway, Mania Plus probably wins for meMania PlusSonic 3 and K CompleteSonic CD (god tier soundtrack and was a big fan of the original)Sonic 1Sonic 2There was no Sonic 4. First of all, fuck all you who said Sonic was never good and then flip your shit over Sonic mania.Second, the widescreen presentation in Sonic mania is a pretty big advantage over the originals. That alone swings it pretty hard.And thirdly, I feel like Sonic 3 & knuckles is a substantially better game when you could turn the timer off. This is the only Sonic game where I would run up against the 10 minute timer because I would be having so much fun poking around the huge levels. Not all versions allow you to do this.
I love them all almost equally for different reasons. I supposed Mania Plus has the most going for it overall but it also had the most time to develop and they had over 20 years to figure out why everything worked so good in the originals.Sonic 1 is not mentioned much in a positive light by many around here, but it is my most replayed game in the series even though growing up I was not especially fond of it. I think the balance between zones is incredible and I love the special stages.CD is kind of a mess, but it is the boldest game of the bunch so it gets extra credit.
I think this game has the coolest style of the series, but the weak bosses and level designs really hold it back from being my favorite. The special stages are fantastic in this game as well.Sonic 2 is kind of the most pure game in the series. My only real complaint is that the special stages are kind of annoying. I think the spindash was a huge mistake too but that is more of a longterm franchise thing.3K is just endless brilliance.
I have a few nitpicky issues but nothing like the other games. I also love the individual games split apart too.Mania I think is a bit too long. I do not really mind the lack of original levels, but I think Hydrocity Zone and Flying Battery Zone are fairly weak and overlong.
Beyond that though it has my new favorite special stages and I think the drop dash is the best ability Sonic has EVER gotten. Mighty and Ray are incredible too but Ray's sprite feels kinda sloppy to me. He is too big and I think his tail should follow him while curled up like Tails' does. Beyond that, most of my issues with the base game were fixed with Plus. It is up there with Breath of the Wild and Yakuza 6 as my favorite games this gen.tl;dr I give them all two thumbs up! Sonic CD is my fav, and 2 is my least fav, after that choosing between 1,3 and Mania is really hard.3 is the longest but a little too long, but the end is so damn epic.1 is slower and more platform heavy and it has excellent pacing and variety between stages but it's rough in some parts and the speed cap sucks.Mania seems the most refined and some level design is damn good but it's part a greatest hits so it never feels as original as the others.
It does have the higher highs in the series though.CD is 1 improved and I loved it for it, so many variety in stages art, level layout, bosses are a bit weak though.2 is good but it's the one that has more bad stages, game needed some stages out. OG Sonic for me.Sonic 1 has the right amount of speed but also slower platforming sections - that’s why I originally enjoyed the game.Sonic 3 has way too many cheap hits to be enjoyable for an amateur like me. And Sonic 2 is alright, but I never enjoyed it as much as the first.Mania never clicked with me.