This boss is a nice update over the Mania version-an interesting spin on usual Sonic boss mechanics, honestly-but dying this way chews through all five Encore characters almost instantly. Like other Sonic boss fights, players have to jump at this boss' body when it's exposed, but failing to bounce off the body (which can happen thanks to its moving arm) will get characters stuck beneath him, where they'll consequently die almost immediately. One phase of this boss encounter combines a brief vulnerability window with constant movement and an insta-death pit beneath the boss' body. I'm writing this part of the review while taking a break from a ridiculous challenge spike, courtesy of a brand-new boss in the game's tribute to Sonic CD. This is the one I got hung up on during testing. You'll start the game with Sonic and one of the two new heroes, and you can tag the other hero in at any time when both characters are standing still and next to each other (think Donkey Kong Country). You can tuck the other hero characters into your back pocket by finding hidden boxes in levels (or playing a new pinball-themed challenge), and those extra allies remain inaccessible until you either find an arrow-swap box or die.Įnlarge / The Encore mode has a few brand-new bosses. Instead of letting players accumulate extra lives, Encore's players are limited to however many heroes are accumulated at a given time. The worst is thanks to a new take on the genre convention of "lives." I should emphasize "pro players" because of a few frustrating peaks in the Encore mode. His tricky, floaty movement is going to be a treat to watch pro players get a handle on. Ray is clearly meant for expert players and speedrunners, and his inclusion honestly seems like it was made for the game-streaming world. Tightly wound, shortcut-filled Sonic levels aren't built the same as their counterparts from Super Mario World-meaning, you're always a few pixels away from a surface, a curve, or an enemy. Doing this correctly leads to a ton of speed and height, but there's a catch. At any time, Ray players can start a float-and-dive flight pattern, which requires speed and momentum to remain airborne. Ray, on the other hand, shamelessly lifts the cape power-up from Super Mario World. This replicates Sonic's water-shield ground-pound, only faster, so it's a familiar-and-fun option for damage and speed. (Sonic's perk, compared to the other characters, is that he can trigger any shield's special moves.) Mighty's twist, as mentioned above, lets him slam directly down as both an attack and a high-speed maneuver (and break open destructible surfaces below). Like Tails and Knuckles, they differ from Sonic by having a special move, which is triggered by tapping the jump button in mid-air. Two of the game's characters, Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel, have never been in a side-scrolling Sonic game before, and they can be used in both the Encore campaign and the standard one. So this content definitely doesn't qualify as a must-buy if you weren't entirely swayed by what Mania had to offer last year. More importantly, the remixed levels rarely feel better than the original campaign, with very little in the way of brand-new mechanics. This amount of new content is nothing to scoff at, but it lands somewhere in the space between "wholly new campaign" and "slightly tweaked stuff you already played." The best you'll find in some cases is an occasion to take advantage of a particular character-Tails' free flight, Mighty's ground-pound-to pick out a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shortcut or power-up. But many levels are only marginally remixed. Some levels have remarkably different paths, particularly the Mirage Saloon Zone, while a few include wholly new bosses. New enemies and transversal paths are immediately apparent in this level, and you'd be forgiven for thinking you're getting an entirely new Sonic game for a tiny upgrade price.īut Encore is funny about if, when, and how it doles out new terrain and content. This mode starts off on an interesting foot, because it opens with a radically remixed version of Mania's Green Hill Zone (the sunny, checkerboard-ground world that has been in approximately 4,000 Sonic games). The biggest addition is "Encore," a new single-player mode that asks players to swap between five characters on the fly while playing through remixed versions of the original game's levels.
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