The highly-respected media outlet known as, erm, "The Greek Critique...?" also chose Sonic Mania as the Game of the Year: [YouTube]http://youtu.be/M3EOBo0TN_A[/YouTube]
Yeah it's probably nothing and I'm probably reading in to things, it's just that "super 2018" made me think he was referring to a "super" version of Mania i.e. Project Plus. Probably nothing though and we should wait for more concrete news. Happy to see Mania become such a critically admired, commercially successful amazing release. Reinvigorated Sonic, in my opinion.
I hope SEGA and Sonic Team are embarrassed and ashamed of their own efforts over the past decade and a half in light of the accolades that Mania is getting.
Over the last game? Most likely. A decade worth of games? Nah, why would they be? They made at least one good and one great game within this time interval.
Small reminder that since its August release, Mania managed to stay within the weekly Top 20 Switch charts on the (NA) Nintendo eShop for the rest of the previous year. As of the final (full) week of 2017 (12/29/17), Mania charted at #15. In light of the pile of subpar-to-wretched games surrounding those two good games, that's not really something to be proud of. In my opinion, anyway. That said, I also don't think Sonic Team really cares either way about Mania's performance regardless. (Or Sonic in general at this point, if Forces is anything to go by.)
They're also probably patting themselves on the back for being able to recognize talent within the fan community, and being smart enough to pay them to make a game.
Just hope to God the "Sonic Mania's reception will determine the future of the series" which Sonic Team (Iizuka?) said a while back in that interview wasn't hollow intention. Mania's reception has been stellar as the best reviewed Sonic game in 15 years with insanely strong sales. Determine the future of the series with that Sonic Team.
Don't forget that for only today, you can vote for Mania in the 2017 Steam Awards' "Even Better Than I Expected" category.
I'm curious to know the composition order of the music. We know that Studiopolis Act 1 and Mirage Saloon Act 2 were revised at some point, but I'm more curious as to how it was all put together. For instance, was the call back to Sky Chase something Tee had always known, therefore hinted at it even in the music? The Knuckles mix for Act 1, Wildstyle Pistolero, sounds the most detailed and polished of the trio (and I call it Act 3 personally), so I'm wondering if it was one of the last tracks composed for the game. Act 1 is action packed, while Act 2 sounds the most “plain” of the three....leading me to believe it was one of the first to be worked on, hence that later revision. There's a story of composition here that I wish we could get some tid bits on. Maybe Falk can give a morsel of insight?
I'm late to the Project Plus party, but here are my thoughts on it anyway: It has to be something. This wasn't just a change number, like what happens whenever the "Great Soundtrack" and "2D" tags overtake each other as the game's most applied tag. After three months of inactivity, someone with developer access to Sonic Mania on Steam created a new private branch called "plus", deleted the old private branch called "beta", and then uploaded two different new builds of the game in rapid succession. It's not just bugfixes, we haven't seen any of those since September, the old "beta" branch was for those anyway, and the game hasn't been review bombed for being buggy so SEGA would have no reason to pay for that now. I think it's safe to rule out it having anything to do with Denuvo, as well. So, why would SEGA greenlight additional work on the game months after a successful launch? Well, I'm certain someone at SEGA is kicking themselves for not organising a physical release prior to launch. We don't know the exact sales figures or profit margins but we do know that Mania has significantly outsold Forces and been much better received by both fans and critics. I think the market for Mania was underestimated, and a physical release of the game is being prepared for some time in the coming months. Producing new content for the game would allow them to re-ignite the marketing fire rather than just have a quiet "oh it's the game you've already played but in stores now" release. When Generations was quite successful, there was a solid demand for more levels as DLC, but that never happened (and as it turns out, that would've been preferable to what we've actually got since then) which is understandable when DLC released months after a game's initial release will only be bought by a relatively small percentage of owners. Unlike Generations, while I don't necessarily think Mania's Plus update will involve new levels, I think it's a distinct possibility. The time and cost of producing a new Mania level is nothing compared to a game like Generations or Forces. The entire development team is roughly fifteen people. They could fund another few months of development on the game, release it as an update alongside a physical release and rake in enough sales to make another significant profit.
I'm getting into comparing the alpha and final part of the music. Mirage Saloon Act 2 Alpha: [youtube]http://youtu.be/nW7bunHrdLQ[/youtube] Mirage Saloon Act 2 Final: [youtube]http://youtu.be/HqD4zftv99M[/youtube]
You're absolutely right. The final product was much better, but it was strange how Act 1 initially had the Act 2 style intro from the teaser vids. Has anyone been able to place that blurred zone image Aaron presented?
The branch hasn't updated in 20 days, at the time of this writing, so I'm wary of jumping to conclusions. With all the press and forum buzz that "Project Plus" got, it would not surprise me if they decided to continue this branch on a different platform until there's something to announce, or it was nothing of any significance that the fandom was hoping for. At the moment, it could be anything. I'd rather not set myself up for disappointment again.
I've been trying to figure this out myself. The blurred image doesn't look like anything in the final game. None of the zones really looked like it or it's color scheme so it always had me confused. It almost looks like yellow-ish orange corkscrews with a blue looking background. I used to wonder if it was Ice Cap Zone or a completely new snow themed level or something. I bet it's not even a picture from Sonic Mania at all and Aaron was just trying to trick us with it.
