It would be absolutely boneheaded for Sega to not pursue a Sonic Mania sequel. It's worth it for the goodwill value alone.
Can you elaborate on your thinking here? I am sort of confused on two counts: A) Confused by your opinion: how exactly does Ruby magic shenannegains "hinder" the plot? B) Confused by the facts of the matter: do we really KNOW they're bouncing through time in Mania? I mean, aside from that one cut-and-dried case where you actually use the Future Post in Stardust Speedway (and it would be profoundly odd if you didn't have some of these on the Miracle Planet), how do you know any of the other Phantom Ruby transitions are time-based rather than teleports/illusions/dimension hops? I mean, Mania seems to have a coherent NARRATIVE timeline (that being "follow the HBHs wherever they send you, be that past/future/different planets/whatever"), and so it makes internal sense at least.
I actually hope they wouldn't. I think a big element of Sonic Team's stagnation as a developer is that it doesn't have a chance to venture past the Sonic series anymore. I want to see Taxman, Stealth and Pagoda West return, but I want them to be able to do so fresh and from a place of creative energy, not feeling an obligation to drop everything for Sonic. Provided of course Sonic Team didn't get jealous of their success and deciding to attempt their own fully classic game instead of bringing them back due to not actually understanding why we liked it so much in the first place.
not only would I buy that, I'd pre-purchase it! It sounds like a good idea so long as it's based on the TV series.
This. Beyond the fact that they're vision may be stifled, I think the burnout they'd have following working on yet another Sonic game would start to get to them. It's spoiled the creative drive of the series greats, and I'd rather history not repeat itself. I'd like to see any new game from these guys. I mean, look what we got when Sonic Team of old moved away from Sonic (NiGHTS, Chu Chu Rocket, Burning Rangers).
SEGA does like to be boneheaded though, so... Honestly, Forces has undone all the goodwill of SEGA's words about not compromising quality and understanding that they betrayed the trust of fans. It even kind of undermines the brilliant social media, because that team and Sonic Team/SEGA at large are on completely different pages.
Weren't Taxman and Stealth both working (separately) on original games after Sonic 2 Remastered? I remember Taxman talking about one which had a PSOne style. I wouldn't want the Mania Team to be pushed on a new game if they aren't ready for it (although I am sure they must have lots of ideas from working on the first game). However, it would be nice if Sega could port the existing remastered titles to other platforms. They could use other developers for that (like with the Switch version of Mania) and so the Mania Team wouldn't have to be so heavily involved (but I'd still want them to supervise it) freeing them up for Mania 2 or other projects. I'd imagine Sonic 3 remastered would also be easier now as a lot of the obstacles from that game were included in Mania. Bringing the remastered titles to other platforms would probably be an easy money maker for Sega, which they could use to give Mania 2 a bigger budget. It would also take the pressure off from doing a Mania 2 so quickly, because they'll have a stream of quality Sonic titles to tie them over for 2018 & 2019, which means they could leave Mania 2 for 2020. It would be nice if they could add some of Mania's features to the remasters of older titles (such as Knuckles in Sonic CD and 2P split screen for all stages), but that might be too complicated to be viable. (Although of course I have no idea how budgets and things work, so what seems visible/easy to me might be complex).
Don't know what Stealth was working on (maybe his open-source game engine), but before Mania Taxman had been creating a new 3d engine for a new IP inspired by Dreamcast. So perhaps he'll want to go back to that. Would certainly be interesting to see what a Taxman 3d game would play like! I guess there's no rush for a Mania 2, but another new 2d game would be awesome. I'm not sure it would be any easier to get a Sonic 3 Remaster green-lit. None of the Sonic 3&K stages chosen for Mania (correct me if I'm wrong) contain music which the fanbase believes has caused legal issues due to MJ's involvement (i.e. Carnival Night, Ice Cap & Launch Base etc). At this point it's anyone's guess what's happening with Sonic 3. I'd imagine most fans would prefer a "Mania 2" over Sonic 3 Remastered. I'd like both!
Amen to that. Who knows the direction of Sonic moving forward but Iizuka/Sonic Team did say that Mania's reception, which both critically and commercially has been super successful and positive, would steer the direction of Sonic as we progress, so that says to me Sonic Mania 2 and potentially more 2D efforts like a Sonic 3K remaster in the future. At least one would hope.
Does it really count as episodic when it would have been the same game were it not for time and budget? =P
Yes, sorry I wasn't clear. When I said easier I meant in terms of development. Obviously whatever legal issues stopped it, will still have to be cleared. If I had to pick, I'd definitely want Mania 2 over Sonic 3 Remastered, but I also would love to see both.
Let's get a Taxman Jam complete with the remastered of Sonic 1, 2, and CD along with Mania, and a modern Sonic World in the style of Mania's special stages :v:
A console/Steam compilation of the "remastered" Sonic 1/2/CD would be a good way of drumming up hype for a Sonic Mania 2 and maintaining the momentum, especially if they include promo material for it in the extras (trailer, concept art, maybe a demo). It'd be nice if they added a few extra bells and whistles at the same time. I still want Sonic CD to have a Time Attack for every time zone.
I remember pages ago, someone commented that Eggman's boss theme "Ruby Delusions" reminded them of something else. It was bugging me too, but when I tried to recall the tune to Ruby Delusions this morning in my head, this is what my brain actually settled on. They seem similar in style to me, even though they aren't similar at all really. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd3rae4074s[/youtube]
I don't know if these have been reported before, but I found a couple of bugs. First, in FBZ2, if you get hit by spikes and get thrown into a grabber, it doesn't 'drop' you, it seems to launch or teleport you instead. This could be reproduced... ...but this one is hard to do so. I hit the SSZ1 boss almost immediately on spawn (like I always do now I know it's behaviour), except it disappeared as normal, then nothing happened. The music continued to play, the palette remained 'lit' and I had to restart/quit. Absolutely no idea what caused this one to happen, I fight this boss the same way every time I play.
While it's just confirming what we already know, it's still cool to see confirmation of Mania's popularity in an official report from Sega.
That's great news, surely they'll get Taxman, Stealth and Team Mania onto another project. I hope Brad Flick has a large role in the level design. I don't know what other levels he designed, but I know he designed Chemical Plant Act 2, which was one of the best levels in the game.
