Sonic Mania Plus SPOILER THREAD with UNMARKED spoilers!

Act 1 and 2 of SS had different palettes already though. Would be strange for them to go back ob that. Alternating palettes are still a possibilty though.

I actually like the tmz palette. Its grim and oppressive without looking too dark and "metal". I would like to see how it'd look with a palette closer to Chrome Gadget though.

 

I love the way TMZ looks, to be honest. I loved the way the zone is dressed up with Eggman color schemes and imagery.

 

The checkpoint in Green Hill Encore mode (which you can see when the GHZ footage starts, when Tails goes through the two S-bends) credits has a gray head when unactivated, rather than the standard blue. Wonder if that's a mere color change to match changed zone palettes in the Encore Mode, or if there's more to it than this.

 

Thanks for the info! Yeah definitely seems minor--hoping for some nice surprises other than new color palettes (even if it is mostly just objects/enemies placed differently) when it's released.

Something similar to the "3K" Death Egg palette would definitely look better for Titanic Monarch.

PGZ Act 2 at night with a Japanese Lantern Festival look could be cool. They already have giant lit lanterns in the background--have them glow more to allow the foreground to still be very visible. You'd still want the beautiful foliage to pop!

Launch Base palette for PGZ Act 1 makes sense in the same way Wing Fortress for FBZ does, but then you'd have a brown and purple and yellow and purple aesthetic in back-to-back zones. Would be a bit too same-y for my taste. Changing the foreground green and orange in PGZ Act 1 to almost anything else (other than shades of brown/yellow/purple) would be an improvement to me.

Unfortunately don't think that will be the case. The "Plus" trailer shows footage of the Encore version of Studiopolis Act 1 and Act 2 with the same purple color palette--Act 1 is at 0:53 and Act 2 is at 1:08. There's also this screenshot of Act 2. So zones in the main game that had similar color palettes across both Acts probably still will in Encore. I'm hoping Metallic Madness will be an exception to this since it didn't make much sense for both Acts to use the same primary green (Present) for the foreground in both Acts. (Though the backgrounds did change and of course each Act had different gimmicks and the zone as a whole was probably the most interesting/fun gimmick-wise in the whole game so hard to knock 'em for that.) Like I said earlier, hoping they go with the beautiful blue Good Future aesthetic in MMZ, at least for Act 2.

 

...That's color loss from exporting a GIF out of shrunken footage from a YouTube video.¹ Which you'd know if you had taken five seconds to check said YouTube video.

¹ I can't fathom why the OP ever thought that doing so would be a good idea.

 

I was just trying to spot out anything new that hadn't been spotted yet. ¯\_(?)_/¯

Carry on.

 

New interview with our main man Iizuka via Famitsu here. New screenshots at the link. He says that Mania is super popular amongst young children of primary school age and at the moment he "hasn't thought about" the future of Sonic or Sonic Mania following the release of Sonic Mania Plus saying plans haven't been made yet. We might need to get a more accurate translation before we speculate - as I'm going from ResetERA's rough translation here. If it is an accurate translation it looks like Mania 2 hasn't been green-lit just yet - which would explain Team Mania being released from their contracts and being idle for the moment. At a guess they're waiting on Sonic Mania Plus' sales performance? Seeing if it does another cool million like Mania did?

They'd be insane not to green light Mania 2 by at the very latest the end of this year. Can anyone accurately translate the entire interview?

 

The Sonic 2 HD crew has just released some info on their Super Sonic idle animation and its simplicity and coolness made me hope again that the weird new poses he makes in the Mania leak were just tests that have been discarded by now. =|

 

I learned my lesson with early translations of this kinda stuff a while back on Twitter, so I know better than to comment on something where a lot of these things could be getting a little lost in translation. That said, I couldn't shake a little bit of a sinking feeling with how he's regarding Mania's success here. It feels reductive.

Hopefully a stronger translation will abate my worry. But as of now I still wonder if the depth of factors behind Mania's success have been fully grasped by Sonic Team and SoJ. I just don't want it to be a "Classic Sonic sells" conclusion. If that's the lesson they're running with as opposed to "It's a great, well-made game," we're in for more problems.

I'm going to angle towards the optimistic viewpoint though: they see that Classic appeals to young kids, not just ye olde Classic fans. That's worth something.

 

Iizuka's at SoA now surrounded by people who I think “get it.” I wouldn't worry. And of course as is usually the case with him, take what the man says in interviews with a grain of salt.

 

All I'll say regarding a sequel is I think there's a 99.99% chance it gets the green-light, and I hope Sega gives the dev team more money, time, and resources so that it can have 100% new zones (taking inspiration and elements like badniks, objects, and gimmicks from the past is fine, just like they did with the four new zones in "Mania," though they less they lean on that the better).

As well as "Mania" did critically, there's room for improvement, and the #1 criticism both by critics and huge fans on forums like this was that there were too many returning zones and not enough new ones. I don't think having any more returning zones in the sequel would go over well, and that it'd all but guarantee the game would do worse critically--to me it seems obvious it's gotta be 100% new zones. Let's hope Sega understands this and allows the sequel to have the proper scope: bigger budget, make the artists and animators that were part-time contractors full-time on it for asset creation of the new zones, allow them to push the pixel art and animation even further so it's the most gorgeous pixel art game ever made, give them at least 2 years to make it, etc. Announce it at a future Nintendo E3 Direct (since that's the platform the game will do the best on) to build excitement/awareness, and make sure you've got a $30 physical version ready to go out the gate. Such a game could go down as the greatest 2D platformer ever made, and would do incredibly well for Sega. Let's hope it happens.

Regarding "Mania Plus": looks like PGZ Act 2 is indeed set at night based on this screenshot. Smart move since they already had the lit lanterns in the background, though I don't understand what's going on with the colors. Seems like they made the green and orange less vibrant and turned the foliage from red and purple to pink and purple. Looks fine, but man I was hoping they'd replace the primary green and orange in the foreground with different colors altogether.

We are still two and half months away from release, so hopefully there will be further color tweaking done. Personally I think the Encore versions of Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Stardust Speedway, and Mirage Saloon look great as-is. The purple Studiopolis is starting to grow on me a bit (looks better in screenshots especially), though I do still think the green in the background is pretty garish.

Aside from the cold metal in FBZ which I like, that honestly looks the worst out of what they've shown so far to me. If they're going for a Wing Fortress aesthetic, which they likely are, the shade of brown they're currently using ain't anywhere close to what it is in Wing Fortress--in a lot of sections it looks more orange than brown. (Though I should note for me personally even if they got it close to the correct shade I still don't think it'd look good--Wing Fortress is aesthetically the worst-looking zone in 2, in my opinion. But I get it makes sense to go with that since FBZ Act 2 has so many Wing Fortress elements in it.) And yeah setting Press Garden Act 2 at night is a great call, but leaving that green and orange intact and just making them a less vibrant shade is a bummer. On board with pink and purple for the foliage, though!

Them's my honest feedback. Not trying to be too nit-picky/harsh--overall I think most of it looks good and the team's done a great job. Really looking forward to seeing what Hydrocity, Oil Ocean, Lava Reef, Metallic Madness, and Titanic Monarch look like. July 17th can't get here soon enough!

 

You know, minor curiosity, but I wonder if you'll be able to play Encore mode from the get go or will you have to beat the main game first.

Of course for most of us here that won't be a thing, since we've all beaten the game. But when I get the physical version on the Switch for example I don't have a save file for that console.

 

To be honest, with the new updates to the main game (stage transitions, boss, etc) - first thing I'll be doing is a standard Sonic & Tails run to see what's been changed before jumping into Encore mode.

 

My guess is you'll be able to jump right into Encore without having beaten the main mode, if you're playing on a version with no save data. The way the new menu is set-up (as seen in the leaked 1.04 patch) makes it seem like Encore mode will be a separate clearly demarcated option to select from Mania mode, making it clear to new players that it's different from the main game. And Mania mode is still gonna be the first option to select, making it clear that's the primary one to select for people that have never played before.

I really like the new menu in the 1.04 patch--less busy/much easier to immediately grok what each option is for/takes you to. (The video that plays to the left of each one is cute and a nice touch to further make clear what each option is for.) Great work whoever came up with and implemented the changes.

 

First thing I'm doing is a Mighty and Ray run through the main game.

 

I'm gonna do a standard Sonic & Tails run through the main game for the new stuff added to that and then do Encore with Mighty first, then Ray. (I'm actually looking forward to playing with Ray more but since Mighty's ability is the only one to access the newly placed sections he can drill down into I want to play with him first to experience those/see what they're like.)

It'll be interesting to see what Mighty and Ray are like when played with in Mania mode. People have already noticed there was a section added/changed to Lava Reef in the leaked 1.04 patch for Mighty to break down into, but I think that's the only one spotted in the leaked patch. They probably don't want to add too many new unique Mighty-only sections in Mania mode since A) it'd be a decent amount of work to do so and kind of a bigger alteration to the game as it was originally made than adding the missing transitions and B) new players playing as Sonic & Tails through Mania mode for the first time might be confused what they're for until they play Encore mode with Mighty. Also I wonder if the changes they made to upper regions of zones in Encore mode to prevent Ray from easily flying over/bypassing most of the level (the classic "SMW" cape problem) are going to be applied to Mania mode. (If not, speedrunners are gonna love playing through Mania mode with Ray.)

In any case, my guess is that Mighty and Ray will obviously be more fun to play with in Encore mode than Mania mode--Mighty especially. And between the two, Ray will probably be more fun to play through Mania mode with, since his ability more naturally fits in/doesn't need new sections added to enjoy as much.

 

Also they haven't showed it yet, but will Mighty & Ray be a combo like Sonic & Tails? Or will they just be separate characters.

 

This has me wondering how much work it would take to turn Green Hill into Mecha Green Hill. It'd need more than just palette swaps, of course. It would make for an interesting secret final zone.

Since Encore Mode's story seems to take place after the main game (and Forces, and Mania Adventures), I'm expecting a new final boss at the very least. Like how Knuckles' adventure in S3&K had a powered up Mecha Sonic.

 

Wait hol' up, did this get confirmed somewhere? I was under the impression that Encore mode was just re-arranged gameplay without story. If it has it's own seperate plot then hells yeah I'm all down for a new final boss fight.

At the very least, let us fight the Powered Up Heavies as proper bosses.

 

It seems to be suggested by some of the screenshots, particularly this one:



All of the Heavies are out of commission except for the Magician. I'm guessing she'll either use the Phantom Ruby to bring the other ones back or she'll be like Eggrobo from S3&K and replace Eggman as the villain. Or maybe both?