You know, in light of the new information given by Aaron in the hands-on preview, I just realized this odd bit--so far, we don't have any press announcements for Mania from Sega themselves. Even though it's been over a month since they were both announced, and we've had multiple gameplay previews for the game. All of the announcements / info we know are from are from third-party sites, interviews during hands-on impressions, or the Sonic-specific Twitter handle. Nothing on the Sega website or Sonic website (unless you include the Sonic Twitter feed of the latter). No dedicated sub-forum on the official forums either. Not even a post about the game in the official blog yet. Save for the debut trailer (which isn't even label as such--the title is "Sonic Mania - 25th Anniversary Debut") I don't think we've had much of official PR marketing materials either (in-game screenshots, artwork aside from the logo, etc.).
any word on if the 8-bit zones are getting even touched upon? Like Turquoise Hill or Great Turquoise?
Jungle Zone would be amazing. Such a pure raw-green zone, and a very pretty one! How to see it in the psudo-Saturn style they got going on? I'd love to see it.
I agree. If the walls offered no actual obstacle though, they'd be pointless. But if they were done in a way that did work as an obstacle, but not a barrier, in reverse then I'd prefer that.
Jungle Sone or Bridge Zone would be really amazing to see in a Saturn-y style. However, I highly doubt it'd be ingame because of the requirement for all new assets to be made, almost to the point where it'd be basically a brand new zone. We can always hope though.
If we are really going to have lots of old zones then the 8bit ones are quite frankly some of the best to go for. Remember that 8bit Sonic did not have 16bit physics so this basically creates a totally different feel when playing them. Fuck Crystal Egg Zone though. Whoever thought that was good art direction needs a good slap.
Maybe the 8-bit levels could be in Act 2? For example, you could have Underground Zone as Mystic Cave's Act 2. You could have Sky High for Hill Top's Act 2. Jungle in Angel Island. I'm sure there's more possibilities, but those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. We'd probably only be getting 8-bit Silver Sonic if they added in Scrambled Egg Zone anyway. But I certainly wouldn't mind seeing the 8-bit levels in a Mega Drive-esque engine. That'd certainly be fun.
Dude... I already knew Green Hill would have new sutff and all in this game, but didn't expected how expansive it get in many details, the underground path is really well made, so good that seens to be a new stage for me, the mini-boss theme is also a pleasure to my ears. Pretty dope. Well, I don't think I need tell something about Studiopolis, we all already know how amazing this stage is, but personally, in this video, I was more impressed with what they did to Green Hill. I want to see a Knuckles gameplay so bady as well.
Something I just realized – though I'm sure others have already put this together – the presence of items like ring boxes and shields popping up when you bump the sign post ala Sonic 3 basically confirms there will be seamless act transitions like S3&K; it wouldn't make a ton of sense for there to be shields popping up otherwise. It's about time that made a return!!
I've noticed that there are a couple one-way walls throughout Green Hill Zone. I don't understand why they would do this unless the section was completely automated, thus preventing the player from getting stuck in an area. This just limits exploration and doesn't really fit in with how the past games were. The other thing I noticed is during the Twitch stream, Aaron tried to go back up the S-tubes, but it seemed the middle section was still an auto-roll section, forcing him back down the tubes. I just don't understand why this was done. -Edit- New Gameplay. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiElIdC97kE
Game isn't finished, that's basically the best explanation :v: This is the same build from the July party, think of it like the Sonic 2 Nick Arcade build. There's lots of further tuning that goes on behind the scenes as we continue development. You can have fun cataloguing all the various changes when the full game comes out!
Everything about this has been amazing so far. Only nitpick but doesn't matter much is I would have preferred the Sonic 3 jump sound over the Sonic 1 version. I played it at the 25th party and I never wanted it to end.
The Sonic Mania t-shirts are still available at RedBubble! Well at least the Studiopolis one is: http://www.redbubble.com/people/burnbot/works/23017703-studiopolis?grid_pos=9&p=t-shirt I've ordered from them before and they're really high quality. Probably higher quality than the official ones. Thought I'd give you a heads up!
OK, finally found a decent signal in the convention hall. I don't know if it's because of how familiar I am with S3K zones, but Studiopolis feels even larger than those. I played through it twice and found completely different paths, while missing a think literally a couple dozen detours. It's fucking massive. You'll be doing a lot of precise bumper hits to maneuver the upper paths, at least as Sonic. As for GHZ, I tried the new upper path. It felt like there were a couple near blind jumps when moving at a decent clip, and some of the sawtoothing was a bit overkill. There were some places that Sonic couldn't reach without the electric double jump, so I guess there are some more Tails-accessible, rather than exclusive sections, at least in this build. I'll probably get in line several more times tomorrow. Expo is closed now. Sergio, Matt, and Aaron were all there, and during a presentation, they gave away some of the USB sticks they had at the 25th party when the crowd answered some trivia. Matt snuck me one when the guy next to me gave a more specific answer to a question than I did . Oh, and the Power Sneakers are not a sped up version of the stage, it's its own jingle, like Sonic CD, Adventure, etc.
I was originally feeling kinda "eh" about the game revisiting old zones since I would rather just have a game with all new zones, but after seeing the gameplay videos of the re-imagined S3&K-sized Green Hill Zone, I say bring it on, and can't wait to visit gigantic versions of zones from the classic games. I watched the video of Studiopolis on full-screen and noticed tons of details, and good God I want this game NOW!!!! It looks fucking amazing. Like the glass panels having a cool magnifying-like effect on the background buildings, the extra frames in the spring animation so that you can literally see it 'bouncing', Orbinaut (or whatever this variation will be called) getting progressively more 'sad' as Sonic destroys its orbs, how massively detailed and large the background is giving a feeling of really moving through the zone... and this is just one freaking Act. Also loving the music, I'm getting a very strong Sonic CD and Sonic Adventure vibe from it, which is perfect for the colorful wacky style visuals that this game embraces.
I might be in the minority about this (and I know it's not finished), but the newly shown bottom path of Green Hill Zone Act 1 has many layout issues that I don't like the look of. From small things (like the rocks not matching up with the grass tiles all, inconsistent corners or questionable use of tiles on corners and slightly off ring/monitor/lamppost etc. placement) to larger sections of layout with custom chunks that look janky and unfitting. There's also a lack of consistency with walls and what is/what is not solid, as is obvious in the video linked previously. This same sort of janky feeling was apparent in some of the extra sections that were added to Sonic 1 2013's layouts, if I'm being honest. Now, before someone jumps down my throat, hear my out: I know it's not finished. I know it's a demo. I know there's a lot of time before it comes out. That's fine, and I can accept that. But, when everything else I've seen oozes quality (The music, the improved artwork, the new gimmicks, extra animations, et. al), it's hard for me to be too overly excited when the one thing I am really looking forward to doesn't look up to scratch right now. And can you blame me; it's been since 2001 with Sonic Advance that I've been looking for decent new 2D layouts form an official product. It's the one thing I'm looking forward to the most, and is incredibly important, in my opinion. I hope other people get where I'm coming from, or else I'll just get a wash of criticism instead. Also, that was mostly referring to Green Hill Zone Act 1. I love Studiopolis Zone Act 1's layout for the most part. There are some questionable placement with regard to objects (in particular spikes and moving spikes) and a few strange layout choices whereby the player is 'forced' a certain route when I feel they shouldn't be, but on the whole, it has a very solid layout that has good flow, and is crammed with secret rooms and alternate paths. I look forward to playing it properly when it's released.
Surreal. I was in line watching them record this near the end of the day, like an hour before my post. The line wrapped around a couple other games so we didn't block the aisles (nobody seemed to get Motorsport Manager, and were as meh about F&I as we seem to be). I like how on the booths it said "No photography or video recording", but I guess that's just for us plebs with low subscriber counts :specialed:. Looking at the footage again, the biggest complaint I have about Studiopolis is the projector sections. The Paparazzi (Aaron said that's the name of the camera badniks) are approriately annoying, but there's so little solid ground to keep you from having to start over again. At least make the projector solid. All the other floor sections in the stage are blue, and it really confused me the first couple times why I couldn't land on the also blue flat projector surface. Made those sections extremely frustrating, and saw many people give up and find other paths.
