When comparing Sonic Mania vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Sonic Mania for most people. In the question“What are the best single player games on PS4?” Sonic Mania is ranked 38th while Dark Souls III is ranked 50th. The most important reason people chose Sonic Mania is:
Sonic Mania has 12 levels, each with unique themes, enemies, and gimmicks. This includes a giant sandstone temple filled with water, presenting the danger of drowning, and even a giant chemical plant filled with jelly that can be used as a trampoline. There are also a multitude of secrets and the collectibles are positioned in a way to help you find them. All of this combined makes exploring each level really enjoyable.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Excellent level design
Sonic Mania has 12 levels, each with unique themes, enemies, and gimmicks. This includes a giant sandstone temple filled with water, presenting the danger of drowning, and even a giant chemical plant filled with jelly that can be used as a trampoline. There are also a multitude of secrets and the collectibles are positioned in a way to help you find them. All of this combined makes exploring each level really enjoyable.
Pro Great replay value
While a single playthrough may take you around 5 hours, Sonic Mania has enough content to keep you going for dozens of hours. This is achieved with a combination of addictive gameplay, tons of collectibles, bonus stages, extra modes, and 3 unique characters that make the levels play differently. Even after beating the game multiple times, it stays as fun as the first time.
Pro Enjoyable and fast platforming gameplay
Sonic Mania is all about running, jumping, and rolling through levels while avoiding obstacles, bumping robots, and collecting rings along the way. What's even better is that you can move at great speeds while doing it, allowing you to perform exciting feats. This can be launching yourself high into the air from a ramp, or rolling upwards around a pillar without losing traction. It simply gives you an exhilarating sense of speed that will keep you wanting more.
Pro Extensive lore that's presented in unconventional ways
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story.
Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you.
Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Pro Stunning environments
The world of Dark Souls 3 looks amazing, so you may often feel the need to stop and take in the beautiful sights. This can be the sheer size of structures, mountains, or caves. It can also be the decorations, inscriptions, or details in a room. There's always so much to look at, allowing you to truly immerse yourself in its world.
Pro Can give a great feeling of accomplishment
The Dark Souls series is known for its difficulty and Dark Souls 3 is no exception. It's filled with difficult enemies and tough boss battles, able to cause you grief on more than one occasion. However, every time you progress to the next safe spot or defeat a boss you'll often be filled with a mix of joy and relief. Beating this game will almost certainly feel like an achievement.
Pro Unpredictable boss battles
The boss battles in Dark Souls 3 consist of several phases, changing up how the bosses fight over the course of the battle. They will gain new abilities, become more aggressive, or reveal various nasty surprises. This creates an enjoyable experience that is different from most modern games where bosses are just glorified pincushions.
Pro A great variety of equipment for almost any playstyle
You'll be finding new pieces of equipment quite often, giving you many options to choose from. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to pick the equipment that best suits your playstyle.
For example, heavy armor will make you move slower, but you'll be better protected. Greatswords have a wide reach, but you swing them really slow. Conversely a dagger is very fast but it has a horrible reach.
Pro Solid controls
This game feels and plays really well. Your character responds to button inputs immediately and it almost never feels like you're losing control over it. The control scheme can also be customized, giving you the option of a more personalized experience.
Pro Great combat system
Dark Souls 3 is a very fast-paced game but it's not just about having quick reflexes. A lot of the combat comes down to exploiting your enemies. To do that, you have to learn their patterns and attack the moment they pause or perform a telegraphed attack. This creates a combat system, which rewards awareness and patience, and is satisfying to master, even if you don't have extraordinary reflexes.
Cons
Con Can be somewhat difficult to beginners
If you're new to platform games or gaming in general, Sonic Mania can feel fairly tricky. Both the levels and the boss fights require accurate jumps and/or split second timing to beat them, which may take more more than a few tries. This is especially the case in the bonus levels where you have to chase a UFO. Fortunately, you can get used to this game after a few play sessions.
Con Poor support for mouse+keyboard control
The default DS3 key/button bindings actually prevent full use of certain weapons by requiring the shift key to be pressed and not-pressed simultaneously. Rebinding is possible, but limited by issues like the left mouse button overriding all others and certain bindings not actually working in game (e.g. Shift+MiddleClick).
Con It's hard
You should try avoiding the trap of great review scores since most of them fail to mention the difficulty. It's simply put - hard. A lot of the combat requires quick reflexes, good mechanics, and the mental fortitude to carry on after failing for hours. If you're new to the Souls-like genre or simply want to enjoy a relaxing evening playing a video game, you most likely won't enjoy Dark Souls III.
Con Poorly tuned dynamic visiblity
You may notice some texture pop in while sharply turning the camera. It can be somewhat distracting if you notice it, but most of the time you won't because it happens in the distance.
Con Occasional performance issues
There are portions of the game that will have noticeable framerate drops, which can negatively affect the gameplay. Most of the fault lies with the game engine, so getting better hardware won't help that much.