The only kind of spoiler I'll probably not look at are gameplay videos (not because I want surprises, I just find it boring to see other people playing), everything else is fair game to me: screenshots, songs, characters, zone lists, animations, etc. I'll not go hunting for any spoilers, but if they show up here (practically the only place I get my Sonic info from), I'll probably check them out.
So yeah I totally caved. I never pre-order games and Sonic Mania is actually my first ever purchase on Steam, but I just couldn't resist. Discount for pre-ordering, the game will pre-load as soon as it's available and I want to send a strong signal to Sega to keep making these kind of games as well as showing my support for Taxman/Stealth. Also thanks sonicblur for the detailed release run-down. Looks like my research is accurate and Steam will be releasing the game at 6pm BST on the 15th. I'm keeping an eye on the Steam discussion forums just in case we get news that indicates otherwise, like a surprise midnight release or something like that. Also yeah, so tempted to look at the zone list when it inevitably leaks before release day. It's going to take all my willpower to not look at it.
So hey, I was viewing the trash thread cause why not, and in one of the topics someone lamented how scores have never really meant anything in the Sonic games. So that got me thinking, would it be cool if mania had an online leaderboard for scores, to incentivise mutiple full playthroughs?
While you would be justified in not liking Steam or Valve for one reason or another, that statement is simply not true. Publishers have full control over whether their games have DRM on Steam, whether it be Steam's own solution or a third-party's. Here's a comprehensive list I almost always refer to when I'm buying things on Steam, it lets me know if I should avoid a game with possibly-hidden third-party DRM, or if it's DRM-free. And as you'll read on the list, some developers provide patches or launch commands to remove Steam dependency. If you're going to be upset at anyone in regards to Mania, it should be SEGA for defaulting to Steam's DRM with all their games. Compared to other games on Steam, I had trouble making a legitimate DRM-free backup of my purchase of Sonic CD Remastered onto a flash drive, so I gave up. One of these days, I want to play it on Wine without a Steam update breaking the Windows version's compatibility on Ubuntu, preventing me from launching Wine-compatible Windows games. :specialed: This is the greatest appeal to digital for me. I've lost so many personal possessions throughout my life, to the point that all I had several years ago was a bag of clothes and a DS to my name. Now, I simply rebuy my old favorite games digitally, knowing I have available backups on either the cloud, a download on Steam/GoG/Humble Bundle, or thumb drives and spare hard drives. I currently have over 60 PC games, which would be an impossible collection for me to maintain if I owned them all physically. Everything I own on a pocket-able thumb drive > huge shelf of retail boxes. And to be honest, I have a much greater fear than DRM itself. DRM on older things we own will almost always be defeated in time, but compatibility is an eternal moving target. Not all games will run on every future release of Windows forever, as-is without update patches. If developers or fans aren't patching it, or the source code isn't available, you're stuck fiddling with placebo workarounds, or the involving, not-so-intuitive process of setting up a Windows 98 virtual machine in DOSBox, to play certain games. Attempts to run Civilization II or EWJ: Special Edition on modern OSes have been heart-breakingly confusing for me. So, yeah, I'm not going to feel a single sting owning Mania on Steam. Would be nice to have it on GoG or something, but I won't be picky as long as this is our only option on PC. At least Switch players get a physical copy.
It's my belief that either SEGA's not giving a straight answer, or everyone's jumping the gun. EB Games Australia cancelled my own pre-order about 7-10 days ago saying "Yeah nah, it's not happening". EDIT: @ .Luke, Skype or PM me. I'm a bit of a CivII nut, and can help getting it running.
I don't know how things work on more modern platforms, but in case with PSP, as far as I know, everything you purchased and installed is yours even if games you own get taken down from the shop, so if you're paranoid about losing them, all you have to do is to backup them manually or with Media Go. I love that system. Pretty much how all of the digital distribution should work.
Just another thought (sorry if this is posted already, I couldn't find any evidence of it.) Could this screen shot we've all seen be evidence of R2 being in Sonic Mania? If I was making an official Sonic game I would make all the missing zones from my childhood.
Death doesn't reset score, extra lives can be re-earned upon death, and that signpost rewards points infinitely for being hit. These things make score irrelevant. Some of us suggested fixing these things, but the rest of Sonic Retro apparently wanted the score to be irrelevant.
The Genesis 360 ports all had online leaderboards for scores (Tax's Sonic 2 port had leaderboards as well but I don't recall if score was on there), so I wouldn't say it's unlikely Mania would do that same. Even with all that put aside though, getting an extra life every 50,000 points was always enough incentive for me to do some score focusing here and there.
On the subject of leaderboards, according to the Sonic Mania Steam store page, it does have some kind of leaderboard, for what parts of the game, like score, lives, time attack stats, ect, is yet to be known.
Famitsu Page detailing a new article that shows some 2 player vs. screenshots. The article image is too small. I wonder if someone has scans of it already?
Split-screen "Vs mode" is in, Sonic 2 style - across entire Acts! Looks like they've squished the screen vertically again too. Vs mode supports all three characters with their full moveset. Also, Time Attack has a character select. Not that there was any cause for concern there. Separate leaderboards for each character aren't explicitly confirmed, but I expect to see them.
As much as I appreciate leaderboards overall, unfortunately, at least on Steam side, there is a great chance they will be filled with cheaters with unrealistic high time/score records. But then again, most people either don't care or don't even realize that they are a thing, anyway.
