IGN's bonus stage video shows Sonic 3's fourth special stage, and the reveal trailer showed Sonic 3's first special stage. The picture from ages back with Blue Spheres running on a monitor in the background showed the start of Sonic & Knuckles' second special stage (albeit with the ground colors from Sonic 3's first stage), and here's a screenshot of Sonic 3's second special stage. I wonder how many stages are direct ports and how many are new…?
I genuinely don't understand why any of the old Blue Sphere layouts would be returning for Mania. As if we haven't played through them dozens if not hundreds of times, and will continue to play them again in the future because S3&K still exists? As if we're not completely sick of those fourteen layouts that we have perfectly memorised and want something new like Stealth's Blue Sphere 2? What the hell.
Absolutely accurate, I just feel it has to be pointed out, and yes most have been involved in commercial games before, some perhaps not, but at the end of the day we can at least agree it's going to be a better effort than what happened in 2010. I will say this though...that special stage ring looks rather wonky to me. Other than that, no real complaints in what I've seen in that video today.
As much as I love the Saturn models being used in the special stages, I have to wonder how different these new special stages will really be in comparison to CD's. They seem to be a bit more linear, but that's it. Maybe we'll see more features in them once we see the entire thing.
The YouTube video claims 720p60, but none of the footage is running above 30. Do the new Special Stages run at 60 or 30?
I'm not really upset to see them back, assuming that we also get a wide variety of new stages as well. It does fit with the trend of Mania having a significant number of returning stages as well. It's possible they only wanted to show the familiar ones? There might be something like a Blue Sphere mode as well. However, I am a little sad that it looks like the stages aren't being upgraded at all. So far we've only seen the same 4 spheres from the original. It would've been great to see new mechanics like Stealth showed in his demo, such as teleporting spheres or spheres that need to be hit twice.
Uh-oh. I was really hoping only the first layout was recycled. What's the point? From the looks of it, these reused layouts don't add anything new, unlike the recycled acts. IKR? It's especially jarring how Knuckles' new sprite looks like it uses sprite art, making it stick out like a sore thumb next to Sonic and Tails' prerendered sprites.
Since S3+K got a standalone Blue Sphere mode, am I the only person hoping that we get something similar for the Special Stages here? I mean, they look pretty fun, and I'd love to see a sort of Sonic R meets Super Mario Kart sort of Time Attack mode for it where you do three laps, or even get to race against the other playable characters. Heck, if the engine allows a bit of platforming and changes in elevation, and if it's not "run forward automatically" and you have to press "up" to go forward, you could even do some basic 3D levels similar to Sonic Robo Blast 2 with it. Either approach (or both!) would make an amazing successor to S3+K's Blue Sphere mode.
Yeah this is my number one question and curiosity at the moment. Super interested to see reviews even if it's just early ones. That YouTube video indicates certain members of the press and notable YouTubers have review code already so when can we expect reviews going up? Wonder when the embargo for reviews is or even if the game has one.
Pick a different colour scheme and I might not even notice! He lied. Although you could flip the stage or change the starting position or something to make it not play like the first special stage in Sonic 3. It's just odd because the only people who are going to get a nostalgia trip from the precise layouts are those who are sick of that layout because they've played it 48039248039248 times before.
You don't need to flip stages to get new layouts. Sonic Team managed to cram a whopping 128 different layouts into chunks of only 1/4 the size of Blue Sphere stages.
Well this is interesting. The official Sonic YouTube account started streaming 4 minutes ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q23cNxnnaPw Anyone know what they're up to?
Ah, thanks! Wasn't aware of that. I watched it for a little bit and they're just discussing the recent bonus stage/time attack news. Guess we shouldn't expect any additional major reveals since Gene already ruled that out. Wish time would skip forward to August 15 already.
From the stream, it sounds like we'll be getting one more Mania OST upload before the game's release. So that's something to look forward to.
Yeah just read that on NeoGAF and was about to post it here. They said a new track sometime next week. Awesome.
