Sonic Mania 1st playthrough log

Green Hill Zone
Stayed on the top path as much as possible... Found 1 special stage ring in each of the 2 acts and got the first 2 chaos emeralds easily... I suck at the Blue Spheres stages though. I suppose collecting the silver medals from beating all the different randomized Blue Sphere stages will unlock stuff in the extras, probably.

Chemical Plant Zone
I have no idea where any of the special stage rings are in these 2 acts... especially in the 2nd act, that whole time I had no idea where I was going, so many paths... and the paths twist around so much, like you never know if going down and left will lead you towards up and right, or what...

lol I suck at this block matching puzzle... but Eggman sucks even more. The bosses in this game are all a joke so far.

Studiopolis Zone
The first completely new zone.

Well, I at least found another special stage ring in act 1, but I screwed up too much on the 3rd special stage and didn't win the emerald.

This level isn't as confusing as Chemical Plant, but it is still very sprawling, probably tons of secret 1ups and stuff that I'm missing... I really like the aesthetics in this zone... in Act 2 it started to look like a fancy TV set or something.

Act 2 is really easy... the stage pretty much just plays itself for the most part... I found a couple of special stage rings here, and still failed to get the 3rd emerald... also there seems to be a lot of alternate paths even on the easy stages like this.

At this point I'm doing better at the Blue Sphere stages than I am at the emerald stages lol

Flying Battery Zone
By now I figured out the pattern that Act 1 of every old zone is similar to a classic stage, but still different in a lot of ways, while Act 2 is always a completely different stage that does a ton of new things. Act 1 has you walk upside down on the electrified ceiling when you have electric shield.

Finally, I got the 3rd chaos emerald... I was just playing really badly those last few tries... gotta get good. Also these special stage rings are very cleverly hidden. I almost never come across them on accident, instead they act as rewards for going off the beaten path.

Act 2 of Flying Battery is incredibly fun.

Damn, now I'm failing at the 4th emerald special stage.

Press Garden Zone
This is like, some kinda factory... or... something? What even is this place? Bouncy conveyor belts... alphabet megaman blocks...

And then Act 2 goes mostly outside of the building in a snowy atmosphere, with a lot of stuff that freezes you... I found another special stage ring here, but still failed at the 4th emerald.

I just realized some of these bosses aren't actually Eggman... there's these other enemy robots that are like, working against Eggman or something? and then Eggman uses an emerald to warp you to another area whenever the next zone is a classic zone...

Next is Stardust Speedway. Guess I'll stop here for now...

Are you the fastest thing alive? Time Attack is now unlocked!
Prepare to challenge! Competition is now unlocked!
Super peel-out, Sonic's ability from Sonic CD, is now unlocked!
Insta-shield, Sonic's ability from Sonic 3&K, is now unlocked!

So yeah, those 2 main menu options that were a mystery before are now "Competition" and "Time Attack"
The 5 options in Extras besides "Staff Credits" are still a mystery... and it shows 6 out of 32 silver medals from the Blue Sphere stages that I've gained.

Some time later:

Stardust Speedway
This background art is amazing...

Using Tails to fly, you can get up to a path that seems to be meant for Knuckles, where you go up some of those steep hill pulley things that were in S3... or you can bounce across the upper left and loop around to the other upper path... actually there's like, a whole bunch of upper paths... welp, I just got bounced onto one of the top paths...

omg these teleporting laser firefly things... so annoying when they track directly ontop of you... oh and there's enemies that go in and out of the background... 2.5D gameplay elements like in Kirby's 3DS games.

And armadillo enemies that you bounce off of when they are rolling around in a ball... direct DKC influence.

And... I destroyed some machine, and a beanstalk and a bunch of flowers grew out of where it was... this feels like Yoshi's Island... OMG and there's even a piranha plant at the top of the beanstalk... we Yoshi's Island now.

This is officially my fav level now. and my fav Sonic game... maybe even one of my all time fav platformers.
omg... and then after the easy act 1 boss... that cutscene where you run through a "Present" post and warp to the future like in Sonic CD.

...There are no words for how gorgeous this level it is... only pictures...

That boss cutscene was pretty cool...

Sonic destroys a projector that shows Metal Sonic beating up on some poor bunny... then all the animals escape, and Metal Sonic shows up for real.
Hmm... okay so I can't attack him, I guess it's one of those "race" bosses, like Sonic 1's Labyrinth Zone boss and Sonic CD's Metal Sonic race... but Metal Sonic follows you around and attacks you while you are running through the level... kinda like a Shadow battle.

Oh wait that's only the first phase... once you get to the end, there's this big machine with Metal Sonic's face on it, and he uses it to summon a bunch of mini-Mecha-Sonics at you, that act just like the classic S2 boss, but they're really weak normal enemies that die in one hit now... but wait, I just kept on fighting them for a long time, until I slipped up and died... Maybe I'm supposed to hit them in their ball state so that they hit Metal Sonic?

Even knowing that, it's not as easy executing it as I thought... I finally got the timing down for how to knock the little sonic into Metal Sonic, but then Metal Sonic likes to shoot his projectile RIGHT when and where I need to jump.

Okay I got the hang of it, not that hard... but oh wait, that's still not the last phase!

Another run while avoiding his attacks section... Then you run while avoiding a spike wall and here you finally get to attack Metal Sonic directly. This part is pretty tricky, but I found eat easy to always pick a ring back up and outrun the spike wall...

Also I love this... half way through the battle I noticed the background starting to rotate in 3d as the tower in the back was being scaled upward... into the top which had a huge monument of Eggman on it... more Kirby 3DS influence.

Hydrocity Zone

Okay now this is breaking the trend I mentioned earlier... Act 1 is already an entirely different level... there are certain switches that can raise or lower the water level... At first I thought why would you ever want to raise the water back up again? but then I realized the boats can take you to the "higher path" if you raise the water level back up... and you can use those bubble-jet rides (the prominent thing I remember about the 8-bit Sonic games) to possibly get to places you can't when the water is lowered.

Just realized you deflect cannon shots when you're in the bubble... This bubble riding section is reminding me of the 8-bit Sonic games.

lol I got confused at this boss where you actually pilot Eggman's machine and use it against him. It took me a while to figure out the controls, didn't know you could suck stuff up with a whirlwind...

I love that first phase of this fight too... where the ground is moving up toward the ceiling while the water is draining... neat twist on the Sonic 1 Labyrinth Zone boss where the area is filling with water.
Even after knowing the controls, this boss is actually REALLY tricky to figure out at first... It took me a while to realize you don't hurt him with his own bombs, you hurt him by sucking up Eggman alone, when he's not near any bombs... the bombs mostly only hurt you if you suck them up with Eggman.
I should've remembered this because I'm pretty sure it's the exact reverse of a boss battle from the original Hydrocity Zone in Sonic 3.

That was amazing... and again, that was only Act 1. It remixed existing Hydrocity level design into a bunch of new ideas, to the point where it stands on its own as a totally unique level.

Act 2... whoa... suddenly it's castlevania like atmosphere...

Went across some SMW snake blocks to get to a special stage ring... Haven't found many in the past couple zones.

Sweeet... after that tiny break from special stages, I came back to special stage 4 again and beat it this time... It was like something kicked in me and i "got good" and started doing laps at top speed without running into anything... Collectng a surplus of rings was easy and it felt like I had a ton of time now... but it really tests your endurance with this one, not only going top speed without running into anything, but you also gotta take risky shortcuts to gain ground on the emerald... It felt more like a really tough 1-on-1 Sonic R race... except the gameplay and controls are actually good.

This eggman jetstream boss is really fun.

Mirage Saloon Zone

This is instantly my favorite Tails flying stage...

...and then it transitions into a normal platforming stage, ontop of a train with Zelda symbols on it.

Just realized Tails isn't with Sonic on this level... while I guess technically he still is, he's just piloting the tornado off screen.. but I don't know how I can get down to that special stage ring without using Tails to fly down.
(er, no, nevermind, it's actually really easy to jump down into it from the back of the train... you'd think the motion of the train would throw you off whenever you jump, but no. it's really just a normal level that happens to be ontop of a train)
5th Special stage.. I almost got it down, but I let him get way too far ahead by taking the long way too many times and going in the grass too much. might get good on the 2nd try...

lol what... a giant gun shoots you back up into the air... Tails is right there to catch you right away. I wonder how this level would go with Tails...
This weird robot that may or may not (probably is) working for Eggman... sends a giant worm after me... huh... Are those robots actually much farther away... and bigger... than they look from this 2d perspective? maybe they are the giant robot minions from the Sonic Forces trailers...?
This tornado-ride boss is really cool. the worm jumps at you from the background/foreground at different 3D angles, and from the sides at different 2D angles...

lmao.... this scene is great... some Felix the Cat looking character flies by and shoots down the tornado... Sonic and Tails land in the desert... Mirage Saloon Act 2 is a ground level.

lmao... now there's subtle influence from the Metroid series... chozo statue like things...

This red... spiky armadillo robot thing... is that the unkillable security robot from the 3rd zone in Sonic 1?

OMG WAT
slanted chozo beaks act as pinball things... I wasn't expecting a casino night style level in a desert.

I really love this level... the whole zone is great... but Act 2 especially... The upper paths are where most of the bird beaks are... it's really easy to stay on this safe upper path if you keep the lightning shield which gives you double jump...
But then I did fall down to the bottom path a bit later...

Also I'm getting a LOT better at those Blue Sphere stages now.

Okay I was wrong about that giant robot theory... these robots are actually piloted by those felix the cat looking characters

This boss is pretty hard... for some of the characters I figured out the best strategy was just stay at the sides and spin dash them when they're open, but then the big yellow guy comes and starts hammering in front of him, making the spin dash strategy really bad... and jumping behind him is not easy...

2nd try... wasn't that hard.
This game so far has never gotten me close to a game over yet... the amount of exploring I do for rings/lives I'm doing keeps my lives in the double digits the whole way through so far.

Next, a chozo gun shoots Sonic & Tails over to a big factory looking area...

Oil Ocean Zone

Fell down to a bottom path after getting a flame shield. uh... woops... now the ocean is on fire... at least I got to a special stage ring lol

Jeez... the 5th special stage isn't messing around... still didn't beat it.
I even found a 2nd special stage ring in Act 1... nope still playing way too sloppy.

I'm liking this stage a lot so far... though not too sure how much of this stage is taken straight from S2, I have to refresh my memory on that.
I just realized... all these Silver Medals I'm getting on the Blue Sphere stages... I bet you get a Gold medal for collecting as many rings as possible before getting all the blue spheres... so I really haven't been acing them all yet after all.

Wait wtf is that "Cool Bonus" anyway... I know it's probably just for points, but that might be a fun extra challenge if there's some incentive to get high scores at all.

Act 2... now the place has really blown up... smoke everywhere... low visibility...

Just realized when the smog is covering the level... your rings are like an air meter... there are switches to make the fog go away and traps to make it come back. (oh wait nevermind, it just comes back on its own in time)

This level design reminds me a lot of Sandopolis.

Woah... we got some Mario style warp pipe gameplay now... at least that's what it felt like, going down into this submarine where you're safe from the fog...

This level design inside the sub is like, little Megaman hallways...

That Oil Ocean boss took me a few tries. It's like a harder version of the original Oil Ocean boss from Sonic 2.

Lava Reef Zone
Wow, this is actually taking a bunch of elements from Sonic 1's Marble Sone... and other levels from the past games as well...

That drilling boss was kinda hard... in the last phase he started destroying parts of the floor and making lava geysers come up... but still it was easy to always keep some rings.

Act 2... This level takes some of the other aspects of Marble Zone... like using lava shield to make exploring the lava sections a lot easier.

The platforming in this stage is extremely tight and focused, kinda like a DKC level... while still making great use of Sonic and Tails's abilities.
Although the thing about using flame shield, you can't catch onto Tails to fly... at least not easily.

Lost the fire shield there for a bit, but it was really easy to just switch to playing carefully and slowly until finding another fire shield.

The fire shield makes you mostly invincible in this level, with the exception of the moving walls that crush you.

This boss is really hard though... I have to admit Tails mostly helps out a lot when following Sonic in this game... He's not at all a nuisance like he sometimes is in the older games... This boss would be WAY harder with just a solo character.

It took me a little bit to realize he goes up the unicycle rails in the background... that's how you avoid him and get hits in.

Metallic Madness Zone

...This seems to be the last "full" zone in the game... or I could be wrong... The last 2 zones may or may not just be boss fight zones.

Later on in this level, I noticed a zoomed out part of the level in the background... we DKCR now.

omg I love that catapult device that throws you into the background/foreground.

This is a boss I recognize from at/near the end of Sonic 1... pathetically easy... but then it has a 2nd phase, where all the thrusters come down at random, and Eggman shows up in a random one sometimes. Beat it first try.

Now I'm at 17 lives... I'm definitely not gonna get the all emeralds ending, but I'll likely beat it without a single game over unless the bosses coming up are just crazy.

Act 2

Oh yeah... I recall this gimmick from an older Sonic level but I don't remember where... You go through a rotating door and now you're in the deeper layer of the level behind the partially visible stuff...

Well, this gimmick is completely different.

Wow this boss is awesome... mini sonic vs a bunch of classic boss capsule enemies... and Amy dolls...

Titanic Monarch Zone

Oops I was wrong, this seems to be a full level as well.

This level design is pretty confusing... I can see little bits and pieces of influence from older Sonic levels in this, including Starlight Zone, and some Sonic 3 stuff... but it's still mixed up enough to feel new.

Sweet, got my first Gold on a Blue Spheres stage near the end of Act 1.

Act 2 kinda pushes you around on boost springs and bounce walls a lot... it's really hard to find the hidden secrets in this level.
Actually it gets kinda confusing later on... I can't figure out which way is forward. There's all these weird warp clouds that teleport you to some other room... I have no idea where I'm going.
omg... the environments later on in this level look incredible...

All that dimension warping going on in this level... and now it's a dimension-warping boss battle...
Wow... so I just realized, all those times you encounted Eggman and he used an emerald to warp you to another dimension... there's some other dimension where Eggman has taken over and everyone is robots...
on one side of this fight you're fighting Eggman who's holding an emerald, on the other side your fighting some giant missile-throwing robot enemy in the background.
I'm not sure what you're supposed to do to avoid Eggman's electric tentacles at first, besides just tanking the hits until you can destroy some of the tentacles...

lmao... are you kidding me... Tails got caught in both of Eggman's purple dimension warping hands, and it soft-locked the game... I can't do anything now except wait for the time out death.

I don't really care for this boss fight... all those weird phases in the other dimension always catch me off guard... That 2nd other dimension phase with the spikey thing that rolls across the room... you can't even see where he's coming from most of the time.

Beat it on the 4th try...

Only 4 emeralds on my first playthrough... got the Try Again screen after the credits. Still had 13 lives left after finishing the game. Also I now have 19/32 silver medals just from this first playthrough alone (but only 2/32 of them are gold)

Knock Knock! & Knuckles mode is now unlocked!
You can now do anything! Debug mode is now unlocked!

Debug mode is hidden in the menu somewhere, idk...

To use cheats such as alternate modes, And Knuckles and Debug, you must go into Mania Mode and hover over the 'No Save' icon on the right. Next, press Triangle (or Y on Xbox, or X on Switch) to activate these options.

Oh, that's easy... It's even mentioned right there on the screen when you hover over the No Save file...

The Secrets menu has:
- Debug Mode on/off toggle
- Sonic Ability toggle between Mania and CD. Mania means you have the drop-dash ability by holding jump after you hear a ring noise in the air... CD means you have the peel-out ability by holding up and jump on the ground, similar to spin-dash... I dunno why you can't just have both...
- & Knuckles on/off toggle

All of these toggles only take affect when you start a new game on the "No Save" file, so it's not at all a legit way of playing through the game... also the & Knuckles mode replaces Tails when you choose a Sonic & Tails game... damn, I was hoping you could go through the game with all 3 characters.

When playing with Debug Mode on, you can press X to turn Sonic into an object placement cursor, and you can cycle through the objects with the jump button, and place them onto the level with the Y button... I wonder if doing Blue Sphere stages in this mode will count all the medals you get? If so, this is very useful... otherwise I guess it's only useful for practicing Blue Sphere and UFO special stages in order to get good enough to clear them in the main game.

There's also the Level Select mode.

PS4: Select the No Save option on the far right of Mania Mode with Debug Mode enabled, and press Options, Triangle and Square.
Switch: On the title screen, press Y + B buttons together.
Xbone: Select the No Save option on the far right of Mania Mode with Debug Mode enabled, and press the Menu button, Y and X together.

If you've already beaten the game though, you already have instant access to every level through Time Attack mode or by choosing the starting zone in your completed file in Mania mode.
Actually, this is also where the Sound Test is hidden.
You also get instant access to the first UFO and Blue Sphere special stages in the Level Select... but ONLY the first for some reason? Whenever you beat a level through Level Select mode, it just puts you back out to the title screen.