Using Debug Mode and the signboard trick, I moved past the boundary after the Knuckles boss fight in Lava Reef 2, and found an oddly-miscolored Sky Sanctuary-style transport pad. There's plenty of evidence that they ran out of time to make some of these act transitions.
It makes me wonder if they changed up the level order during development. It might be expecting a bit too much, but I really, really, really, really hope they patch the missing transitions in with the upcoming bug-fix update.
Knuckles does use that Sky Sanctuary-style transport pad after he beats Heavy King though. He uses it as a Zone Transition. I actually did try to use the debug mode signpost glitch to find any cut zone transitions and couldn't find anything. I could only find the edges of blocks such as in Flying Battery, but that doesn't mean anything since they are probably just how those tiles end. I think the team actually cut hardly anything from the game. All I could find through messing around in debug is the now well-known Lava Reef 3 mural and cliffside. That could have been a cut zone transition, but it could also have been anything for either Sonic, Tails or Knuckles. It could also just have been moved around and be dummied level geometry. I think it was either a zone transition or boss though, since the camera centers on the screen during the cliffside. In my opinion, they probably decided to stop zone transitions at some point because they had more important things to prioritise. I think it's very unlikely that they started work on some and then had to cut them out. I think there's zero evidence that zone transitions were cut due to level reordering either. I just can't find evidence of any cut zone transitions via using debug mode.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQAx6lKBciE[/video] Finally found the best (original composition) rip. Love it.
I feel like such a doofus for only now realizing you can scroll through item monitors in debug. I wanted to goof around with Super Sonic with the peelout, so I placed special rings and reran through the special stages when I could have just plopped down a bunch of S monitors. :X Speaking of, I am now officially good at the special stages. This time I blitzed through them like they were nothing on my first attempts.
Hey, now that the game is out on consoles, is a mobile port of the game being considered for those that don't have a console? Come to think of it, would the game even run on a phone? I know the other Sonic games used the Retro engine, but is Mania too much for phones?
A couple of bugs that happened to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ph8Qfzz6CE The game assumed I fell out of the Special Stage and the camera zoomed out infinitely. You can still hear me running into things until I eventually fall for real. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AKolNNFSPs I couldn't shake off a gas puff in Lava Reef no matter what I did. Not sure how that happened. Also, I'm not sure if this is intended behavior, but getting hit while you have the blue combine ring makes it so that you can earn extra lives from recovering the big rings. I once got two extra lives out of that because I had over 200 rings in hand. And while I'm at it, the last mini-boss gets really annoying with its random nature. One time I had the elevator going up roughly 10 times in succession, to the point where I thought there was something wrong. I know it's possible to hit the boss if the elevator is going up, but it's kind of tough, especially with Knuckles.
The Beta64 video was good overall. He missed the Lava Reef 3 unused mural and cliffside and he somehow credited the art guys for designing the levels though :v:
Ooh, you're right. I didn't notice because I was playing Sonic, and I debug'd into Knuckles' section. Sonic, on the other hand, does NOT have a transition out of Lava Reef. And neither has a cutscene where the actually enter Metallic Madness. So strange. All right, here's something I'm right about. If you debug up and to the right at the start of Lava Reef 1, you'll find a chasm with the same geometry as S3&K's intro, where Sonic falls into the Zone. There are no crumbling platforms in there, however, and it's blocked off from the rest of the stage.
It did occur to me that if you move Hydrocity in between Flying Battery and Press Garden, then the missing transitions would be much easier to explain.
Yo did anyone closely inspect the metal card in the collectors edition box? It says "Fun is infinite" in one of the corners. Shit, that ruby thing really is Infinite isn't it.
That happened to me too in the exact same spot. I've basically decided that my route for that stage requires getting that ring box on the second lap instead of the first because it's possible to miss when you jump too early.
Nice find Josh, I believe that unused geometry in Lava Reef 1 was definitely intended to be used for a level transition, ala Sonic 3's intro of the level. So there's some evidence for cut level transitions. I still don't believe level transitions were removed due to level reordering though. Aaron Webber said Studiopolis was a later zone initially and that still has full zone transitions. So that was clearly a reordered zone but it still had zone transitions. Unless Webber was incorrect about it being initially moved. There's simply no evidence, aside from Studiopolis, that levels were reordered. I think it's far more likely they just abandoned the concept of zone transitions to prioritise the game's development, rather than having to cut them due to reordering levels. Lava Reef was probably the last zone they attempted transitions with during development, with the unused opening of Lava Reef 1 and the unused murals and cliffside of Lava Reef 3.
And the fact that Knuckles has a transition cutscene for leaving Lava Reef, but not the matching one for entering Metallic Madness.
anyone know if we were suppose to be able to break the boxes in press garden? one of the orange ones near the start looks like it contains an item box.
I've beaten Mania, got the good-ending will all characters, unlocked all extras and unlocked all PSN trophies etc. If I purely rated Mania on the 32-bit pixel, opening animation, physics, playable characters, unlockables, special stages, references to previous games, unused beta ideas implemented, 2-player competition, boss-fight creativity and soundtrack then Mania would deserve 10/10. It's just such a shame we only have like "half" a story, because aside from some poor level design (especially towards the end), some poor boss design, numerous glitches and some small things; like not mapping the super transformation to another button (and not adding an option to de-morph back to normal Sonic) Mania is just about perfect. Not having a complete story is really disappointing as I think it needed a good story being an anniversary game and to explain how Sonic transitions from one zone to another (moving from a S&K zone to a Sonic CD stage doesn't feel right without a cutscene showing how it happens). The scenes we do have are pretty fun. I'd really like it if they could patch in some of the missing cutscenes, otherwise I won't be remembering Mania fondly for it's story in years to come. When you think of how epic it feels when you start Death Egg zone in 3&K and then in comparison when you start the final zone it Mania it just feels...completely flat. Such a shame. If it's a case that they had to cut-content to meet the release schedule then I'd rather the game had been delayed a little longer to finish the story.
I was just about to mention this. Yeah, it's evident that that transitions were cut due to time constraints. It would be great to see them patched in, but the game is hardly a lesser experience for lacking them. It's just so confusing for anyone with knowledge of the original games to see things like Stardust Speedway on Little Planet suddenly go to Hydrocity on Angel Island to Mirage Saloon which is presumably on Westside Island and eventually back to Lava Reef on Angel Island directly from Oil Ocean. This game's island/Little Planet hopping is all over the place.
