Sonic Ready to Take 2018 by Storm at SXSW 2018

IF they explain it at all. Personally, I'm not convinced we're going to get a [satifactory] explanation for this.

It'll probably end up like the unanswered question about Eggman destroying half of the moon, only for it to appear normal every in other game it's in (ignoring Sonic X, of course)

 

Alternately, the water rose.

 

Eggman's next plan, global warming.

 

Nope, and it grinds my fooking gears every day I wake up.

Even just a slip of paper that says "knuckles likes to park angel island in the sea sometimes for shits and chuckles" would be fine.

 

Angel Island was also in the water at the beginning of Sonic 3&K despite the Master Emerald still being in its pedestal. Eggman wouldn't steal the Master Emerald from its pedestal until after the fight with Knuckles towards the end of the game. The reason Angel Island was in the water was because the Death Egg had crashed into Angel Island after the events of Sonic 2. As for why Angel Island is in the water at the beginning of Mania, my guess is there was already Eggman activity in Hidden Palace Zone if that giant machine in the background of Lava Reef Act 2 is anything to go by. It's unknown what its purpose is, so all I can assume is it was used to drain Angel Island of the Master Emerald's energy in an area closest to its shrine. That's probably stretching it though.

 

Stealth said the ruby did it on a stream. Doesn't explain why it's still in the water during Adventures, but that's the “word of god.”

 

Richard Jacques composed Sonic R, and returned for the All Stars Racing games. I'll be thrilled if we get even that much connection again, because ASRT had a wonderful soundtrack including remixes of Back In Time and Super Sonic Racing.

 

have faith

 

Yeah. It's certainly within the Phantom Ruby's scope (in Mania anyway, Forces made the whole thing very inconsistent). The bit that still doesn't add up is how chill Knuckles was about it. Did the Ruby teleport the island to the planet's surface without him noticing?

!

 

I'm super annoyed they don't tell us what the variant cover is going to be for the Sonic comic pack they have on their website. I don't want to buy it for a cover I might not like. I know I'm getting the A,B, and RI (1 in 10) covers from my shop for issue 1, but to not see the cool exclusive cover on Sega's shop is annoying. I know it fits more with the comic topic, but they announced it at the SXSW panel, and I was hoping they were gonna show off the exclusive cover.

 

^^ Thanks for the info, 360--looking forward to it. Really hope a decent amount of footage of the game is shown.

So this discussion was a few pages back and I know everyone's gonna be talking about the new racing game when it's likely shown today, but still wanted to say:

I think "Sonic Mania" is the closest we are ever going to get to a "Sonic 3K" remaster, and that the project likely ended up being an evolved version of a "3K" remaster.

Everyone here knows all this info, but a humble recap: Whitehead first did a remaster of "Sonic CD" in 2011 and then Stealth joined him full-time for the "Sonic 1" and Sonic 2" mobile remasters which released seven months apart from each other in 2013. It makes all the sense in the world that "Sonic 3K" would have been the next logical remaster project for them to do, yet it didn't materialize.

Of course there was the proof-of-concept video that showed the work they'd done on it, Stealth's post signaling his support of the fan petition and his thoughts as to why the project had not been given the green light, and his follow-up post five months later that indicated he had lost hope in the project ever being given the green light. In this interview Taxman likewise said "unfortunately there were circumstances that meant it was not a project we could pursue further."

I think it's fairly obvious "Mania" is what arose from the ashes of the failed "3K" remaster. (The proof of concept video even had a new cutscene and a smoother-looking blue sphere, concepts which carried forward.) In that first post about "3K" Stealth also talked about wanting to pitch Sega on a continuation of 2D Sonic using a modern engine capable of enhancing what could be done on a technical and visual level, while staying true to the original aesthetic. So it's hard to know if Taxman and Stealth received no communication whatsoever regarding "Sonic 3K" and then were told what could and couldn't be included from it after they were successful pitching "Mania" (called "Sonic Discovery" at the time), or if at some point earlier than "Mania" being approved Sega communicated to them that the only way to do anything with "3K" would be with levels and music that weren't currently and couldn't potentially be involved in legal issues. (I know that at the Comic-Con panel last year it was described as Taxman and Stealth showing Sega an early version of Studiopolis and Iizuka coming up with the idea of using elements from 1/2/CD/3K, but considering they had pitched the "Sonic 3K" remaster a couple times before then and either heard nothing back or information indicating they couldn't green light the project, there obviously had to be communication between the dev team and Sega about what they could and couldn't use from "3K" either before or after "Mania" was given the green light.)

I mean, 3 of the 12 zones in "Mania" are from "3K." The bonus stages are a revamped, smoother-running version of blue sphere. The elemental shields are all in and slightly improved. Even many of the zones that aren't from "3K" use the same or similar elements. Chemical Plant has Catakillers now, Press Garden Act 2 has elements from Mushroom Hill and of course more noticeably Ice Cap (and is the 5th zone of the game, just like Ice Cap is the 5th zone in "3K"), Stardust has elements from Marble Garden, Oil Ocean Act 2 has many elements from Sandopolis (and again, is the 9th zone in "Mania" just like Sandopolis is the 9th zone in "3K"), Lava Reef comes right after the Sandopolis-inspired Oil Ocean Act 2 just like it comes right after Sandopolis in "3K" proper, and Titanic Monarch is heavily inspired by Chrome Gadget, Death Egg, and glowing sphere.

Don't get me wrong, of course "Mania" has many callbacks to/elements from the other classic games (mostly "2" and "CD"), but I think it's most similar to "3K." In essence, I think "Sonic Mania" *is* the "Sonic 3K" remaster, just more evolved and with more new material. And honestly I'm personally fine with that, considering the circumstances.

But yeah with everything I just said in mind combined with the awkward "answer" about why the music was changed in "Sonic 3K" for PC in 1997 from the SXSW panel, as well as the fact whenever a "3K" remaster is brought up to Webber he always answers by saying they made "Mania" instead of doing that and hopefully people are happy they made that decision, I think it's high time we all read between the lines and accept that a "3K" remaster is not going to happen, that "Mania" essentially is a greatly evolved "3K" remake, etc.

Yeah it's a bummer we aren't getting a faithful 1:1 remaster, and I'm just as disappointed as everyone else that "Mania" didn't have complete transitions like "3K" and narratively makes less sense (though that seems to be the fault of a hard ship deadline more than anything else), but I think this is just the reality of the situation that we have to accept. There is the barebones emulated version of "3K" on Steam, it's pretty cheap to get original hardware and the cartridges if you don't already have them, etc. I'm also hopeful that Analogue will release a beautifully-designed Genesis FPGA system like they have with the Super Nt so that all Genesis cartridges (including "3K") can be easily and (relatively) inexpensively played in 1080p.

And honestly I'm more looking forward to what the dev team do with "Mania 2" and the prospect of that game being all new zones (of course taking inspiration/elements from the past just like the new ones in the first did) than anything else when it comes to 2D Sonic. Even if magically the issues preventing a Taxman, Stealth, PGW, et al. remaster of "3K" vanished and they could do it, I'd much rather they be given the proper time, money, and resources to make an even better new 2D Sonic that goes down in history as being not just the greatest Sonic game ever made but one of if not the best 2D platformers of all-time. That seems like the bar to aim for now after "Mania," and they've more than proven they're capable of doing it.

 

^^No worries, 360--you weren't the only person expecting something due to the tease. Bit of a weird choice if they hold showing the game until E3; hopefully it doesn't get drowned out/overlooked by everything else that'll be shown there.

If it's coming to Switch, best thing they could do would be to have the trailer be shown during Nintendo's E3 Showcase/Direct. It'd get a more positive reception if shown during that than at Sony or Microsoft's conference. (It's good timing for it to come out on Switch, too--enough distance from "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe" and it'll be years before we hear about "Mario Kart 9"/"Double Dash 2.") But who knows, maybe they'll show it beforehand--we'll just have to wait and see.

 

oh, whoops sorry we were not talking about the same thing here. Didn't mean to give you a wrong impression.