Can't accuse me if they put it in.

I have returned to Sonic Mania to finish the job and defeat Eggman! I was getting very close to the end so I imagined it wouldn't take me long to do so.

So apparently if you quit out when you're in Act 2 of a stage, when you load back in, it dumps you back to Act 1. No matter, Sonic levels don't take long to beat. This would be a breeze!... okay well it took me about 10 minutes but I did beat the level. I wanted to defeat the boss with Super Sonic but I didn't have enough rings. And even when I did, my rings ran out when I did turn into Super Sonic. And every chance I got to turn Super again, I'd get plucked by an enemy, making me lose a shit load of my rings. Either way, I made it to Titanic Monarch Zone Act 2! Also known as, holy shit that's a lot of portals. Because there was a lot of portals in this stage that zipped you all around! I ended up getting 50 rings, but I wanted to save them until I got to the boss... that was a bad idea. I lost the rings very quickly after. Once again, every time I got close to 50 rings for Super Sonic, I would fucking lose them! But I did get 50 rings and wasted no time. So that was a plus. What was not a plus was that of course there were like no rings after I turned Super and by the time I reached the boss, I had 29 rings but my Super powers already ran out. So I had to face Eggman powerless.

Eggman ain't messing around. He's got like 4 tentacle legs attached to him and you have to wait until he turns the electricity on them. Of course when he has all 4 legs attached, it's impossible not to get hit. Thankfully I have my safety ring... one... one safety ring to help me. And then Eggman also has an attack where he grabs you with a hologramic hand and takes you to face an enemy for like... 15 seconds. You don't actually have to defeat it. Just survive the attacks. Of course on the 2nd one where I faced this... spike wheel where the spikes shoot out, I lost my safety ring so I just took a death. On my 2nd go this time, I did make it through and defeated Eggman. But the battle wasn't done yet. I turned into Super Sonic and took on the... I don't actually know the name of it. But for those who played Sonic Mania, you know what I'm talking about. I guess given this thing uses chaos energy, it can get though my super powers and actually attack me and make me lose rings. Because of that, I actually lost the fight my first go at the boss and had to redo it. This time, I made sure to be careful. I stayed towards the ground where I could collect rings and keep my chaos powers and defeat the final boss!

Eggman's Death Star was exploded and I got the good ending! At least I'm assuming I did. I mean I got all the chaos emeralds. Anyways, I had plenty of stream left so I decided to go ahead and start the Encore mode! This was similar to the main story. But with slightly altered levels. Plus the new addition of 2 new characters. Mighty with a forceful ground pound. And Ray with a gliding flying ability! Of course, I and probably along with many others, picked Ray! In Encore mode, you actually start out in Angel Island Zone from Sonic 3. You unlock a capsule at the end to free Ray and Mighty. And you choose who joins you. But uh oh, the one you don't choose is an impostor! After that, it's on to Green Hill Zone where now it's in a beautiful sunset! I figured I'd be able to find the big rings easily. Pretty sure I did in the main mode. But I think they may have moved the rings in Encore mode because I couldn't even find the big ring originally in Act 1. Despite looking all around. And it was just as hard in Act 2 that I had to do what I did before and look up a level map. To where I still didn't understand how to get to the big ring in Act 2. It was under the spinning spike bridge but I didn't know how to get under there. Turns out you had to use the fire shield to burn it. And when I did play the special stage... oooh boy was it hard.

On my first go at the special stage, I easily failed it. I could not catch up to that damn UFO. And once that big ring is gone, it's gone. Even if you restart the stage. No matter what you do, that ring is gone. So I quit out so I could go back to Act 1 and find the big ring there. Which I eventually did. When I got back to the special stage? Yeah... I still failed. So I literally deleted my save file and started over. I blasted through Angel Island, picked Ray, and set on adventure. I got back to the big ring and... failed. Even when I exited before the special stage ended, that big ring was still gone. Yep, I was not about to go through the whole game, struggling on the first fucking special stage. So... as ashamed I was to do this... I had to do it... as much as I didn't want to. I activated the Sonic Mania Developer Menu. Hey, it's programmed into the game. So I wouldn't call it cheating. It's just... an easy way of being able to be sure I could collect the emeralds. Now I'm still going to have to find the big rings. I don't want to just select the stage in the dev menu. I want to earn my damn emeralds. After... a fuck ton of tries, I got the emerald and finished Act 1.

Moving on to Act 2, I got back to the ring there and started the 2nd special stage. Holy hell that one was probably... no... it just... was harder. Maybe the psychedelic background made me lose some concentration. I mean just one too many mistakes and you ain't catching up to that UFO. It took me... TWENTY-TWO minutes to finally catch the damn UFO. By that point, I had been streaming for nearly 2 hours so I absolutely had to end the stream. Of course I finished Act 2 first.

Don't call me a cheater. It's in the damn game.