Yeah this is the best idea right here. We should get on that asap. I would but my Twitter account is pretty much dormant and barely active. I think they must have a release timing announcement planned and one that is forthcoming or Taxman or Stealth would have confirmed it to us by now.
Wow, at first I was pretty annoyed with the voice work -- now I'm thoroughly happy with it. Awesome!! A toggle in the future may be nice though -- not sure if it'll grow on me, or if it'll end up annoying me in the long-term since there's no voicing in the rest of the game (AFAIK)
I would absolutely love it if Green Hill was the second last zone or something, but I doubt they would depart from the 'formula'. Maybe Mania 2 will finally subvert this trope outside of the relatively obscure Game Gear levels.
Here's hoping the game will include an option to disable the voices, for those who don't want to hear it. It doesn't bother me personally, but it is a little... unprecedented.
In terms of the sounds, I'm totally expecting a "GAME OVER YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" at the end of the Game Over jingle. The voices don't bother me one bit and bring a bit more authenticity to the 2p vs. "race" mode. This is why it's Sonic Mania. They added progression here.
No no no, come on kids - the man you want for a voiceover is Hisaki Nimiya of PASSING THE CHECKPOINT fame http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFqB8OJ0h7g TIME IS UP AND YOU DIDN'T FINISH
Now I wonder if the game is going to use the classic Sega chant or Mitsuyoshi's version. It seems really unlikely but a boy can dream.
I wish they didn't use the stretched-style from Sonic 2, it's really ugly to look at. I'd prefer to have black bars on the sides than to look at that.
At least the stretched-style will be able to be corrected so that it looks like the NeoGAF image with something like ReShade.
Like others, I'm a tad disappointed that Sonic 2's 'squished' multiplayer is the mode of choice. I preferred the proportionally-correct, scaled-down widescreen mode of Sonic 3; couldn't the viewport be modified instead of just the resolution? Having a disproportionate screen - ala Sonic 2 - always screwed over my ability to play decently. :/ Still, guess I won't be playing much multiplayer anyway, since it's local only...
Some special stage entrances might be shortcuts too, walling them up might break level flow or routes.
I'll be in the minority and say I liked the squished look, it's very nostalgic to me. All it needs is some jittering horizontal boarder artifacts and some CRT distortion and you'd then hit all the cords on my nostalgia bone. :P But in all seriousness, adding in a VA who's prominence was big during the Saturn era (At least in my eyes)... this game's already sold me 10 fold.
I'm quite curious as there are two special stages, perhaps we are collecting two different sets of emeralds? That or something of importance as I don't think a whole stage of Blue Spheres would just be for a continue. Bonus content perhaps.
I'm guessing one's for emeralds, the other for bonus. Iicr, there was mention that someone (Probably from Polygon?) said that the Blue Spheres rewarded a bronze coin emblem thingie? Not sure about any of it, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. Man, this is gonna be a long week. lol
Its going pretty fast for me to be honest, I'm just distracting myself. Medallions sound like it may be used for unlocking content and such.
Yep, would indeed have been nice if the 1-up jungle had followed suit. Ah well - can't have everything. Seems like the sort of thing the team would have thought of given some of the other little details which have been added - wonder if SEGA mandated the S3 jingle be used for some reason?