Sonic Mania Plus (Consoles Physical; PC Digital) - Non-Leaks Thread

Such as Eggman Nega and Blaze. Because they're from the future, right?

Basically, they care about continuity as much as the average fan. Not particularly.

Anyway, shall we shift back over to Mania Plus discussion? I recall mention of DLC, was that for Sonic Mania into Plus or are we getting more Mania stuff? And what do you think we'll get?

 

It's a bit of a stretch, but I'd love to see Angel Island Zone brought into Sonic Mania, so we can see what happened after the fire. Assuming Mania is built on the same engine the Sonic 3K proposed port is made on, the gimmicks are already programmed, and the intro cutscene has Mania-ified tiles to work with. It'd be the easiest zone to add in, I feel like. It'd work even better if Encore mode takes place after the main story, and like in Mania Adventures, we can assume the story would resume right on Angel Island.

On that note, Encore mode could even shake up the level order by having previously harder zones occur earlier in the game with easier layouts, and previously earlier and easier levels have new, more difficult layouts (and if AIZ does occur, could smoothly segway into Hydrocity).

 

I hope we don't have to wait too long for Mania Plus. If by "Summer 2018" it's another end-of-season August release; then this was announced way too early.

Both this year and last year's SXSW panel both suffered from a significant lack of screenshots/gameplay footage for (then-)upcoming Sonic products. If there's another Sonic game slated for release next year I hope they don't schedule another SXSW panel around it, because it's only going to be small tidbits again at the rate things are going.

 

well, unfortunately there was a leak on amazon that mania plus would come out in august (on the 28th i think) and they have 5 episodes of mania adventures coming out each month leading into august, so it seems at least mildly likely that that's the case

 

If they cared about keeping the hardcore anything peeps happy, wouldn't they start by making good games? :v:/>

I don't even have to check to know that will just be a placeholder date. It happened for Mania, it happens for every other game. It's not a "leak".

 

So, while we're waiting for more solid Mania Plus news:

We know the Competition Mode is being upgraded to support up to four players, which is pretty awesome. If any of the other existing modes were to receive updates, what added features would you like to see? Personally, along with the already announced ability to save replays in Time Attack mode, I'd love to see Ghost playback of your best time added too so you could race against your previous best. Being able to unlock Staff Ghosts you could race by getting below a certain time could be fun, too! = )

Bonus points if the Staff Ghosts were reskinned with an alternate graphics set to look like the Metal versions of the characters (Metal Sonic/Tails Doll/Metal Knuckles). That's purely a pipe-dream, I know - it'd be a hell of a lot of work creating complete alternative graphics sets for each character that you'd never see outside of Time Attack (maybe a new No Save mode cheat could be added allowing the player to use the "Metal" sprite swaps if they'd beaten at least one Staff Ghost for each character?), plus presumably Mighty and Ray would also need to have Metal counterparts designed - a lot of work for a minor cosmetic feature!

 

-Split screen Co-op
-Option to keep bosses in competition mode, with whoever lands the most hits wins
-Super forms in competition mode (Sonic 2 had this and it made for some very fun games of "Super Sonic tag" where you could use the teleport to steal the super powers from other players).
-All stages in competition mode (e.g. if both players select Knuckles, the Knuckles' Mirage Saloon becomes selectable).

And as has been discussed before '& Knuckles' being replaced with the ability to select any 3 characters. Plus the Medals system being updated to unlock concept art for every medal collected and then the Sonic 3 & Knuckles Bonus stages replacing Blue Spheres as a bonus stage once all the medals are collected.

The time attack modes you listed would be awesome.

 

Some great suggestions there! For the one I've quoted in particular, even if the dev team didn't want to go that far, it'd be great if "& Knuckles" mode could at least be updated so that selecting Sonic & Tails gives you Sonic, Tails & Knuckles together - especially as the game will already be supporting more than two players in the updated Competition Mode! This plus the split-screen Co-Op mode you've suggested would be an amazing combination. = )

I'm guessing if there was anything as substantial as a split-screen Co-Op mode being added that they'd have used it as a selling point, but who knows? Either way, it's fun to speculate while we wait for more solid info on what Mania Plus will bring.

 

I think we discussed this in the previous Mania thread, but split screen co-Op would be wonderful! When I was a kid, my sister and I both loved Sonic. But the classic games offered a terrible 2 Player experience, especially with the broken 'play-as-Tails' mode. Sonic 2's competition option was good, but also limited (although Super Sonic Tag was a wonderful extension to it). Sonic R was the only game that did it properly, but that isn't exactly a true classic Sonic experience.

It would be awesome if Mania Plus could offer a new generation of kids a chance to share their love for Sonic with a sibling. Mania actually did do this with its existing competition mode, but it was missing some of the best content in the game such as the bosses.

 

An August release is exactly what I'm expecting. An enhanced version of a game releasing nearly a year after the original is quite common. I think the fifth and final episode of Mania Adventures will be released in August around the same time as Mania Plus.

We have no idea how long Mania Plus has been in development, but the last thing I want is for it to be rushed out feeling incomplete like the original version did with the missing transitions and bugs (like the sound glitches) not being ironed out etc.

I'm so looking forward to playing the new version and getting my hands on the physical edition (which I've pre-ordered for Switch & PS4), but I'm happy to wait that bit longer so that the dev-team have the maximum amount of time to make Mania Plus the best it can possibly be.

 

I want Competition mode to be playable online just for the sheer comedy value of seeing folk rage quit because they reached the goal first and still lost overall :p

 

I am surprised though that pure race mode isn't an option in competition to be honest. You'd think that'd be a given.

 

Id kill for a split screen co-op mode.

 

I rarely ever get the chance to play games in local multiplayer these days, and when I do it's never Sonic. I don't know anyone locally who would enjoy playing Mania multiplayer even if a there was a proper co-op or pure race mode. And more than two players? Never going to happen. For that reason, the expansions to competition mode are completely lost on me. While they're nice in theory, I'm never going to be able to try them out for myself. As far as I'm concerned, there might as well not be any multiplayer in the game if it's not online.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

 

I'd kill for a co-op online mode as well. I know a few buddies that would play with me non-stop.

 

Yup. I've played the game co-op just once, and only for a few levels. Other than that I'm on my own. Local multiplayer means nothing to me without online play unfortunately.

 

It was a really big disappointment to me as well that Mania didn't get a great co-op mode. Understandable knowing how under-the-gun it's initial development was, but I really do hope Plus makes things right. Split-screen would be okay, but getting combi-mode in there would be just stellar.

 

I've used Parsec to play this game online. It does require good connections for every player, but it's the lowest latency game streaming solution I've seen thanks to its UDP-based protocol, and it's fantastic for both online multiplayer and nonlocal single player.

 

Did they add a button to make 2P Tails instantly fly to where Sonic is or anything? Or is it still impossible for player 2 to keep up? I don't have anyone to play with either so I don't know if they made any improvements to the "co-op".

 

Nope, no button. It's exactly like the Mega Drive. Mania's stages do an excellent job of working in more speed sections, which unfortunately makes playing as Tails even more broken.