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

Remember how the leaked early Forces script had that "Valtron" thing as Infinite's power source? I figure Iizuka saw they were doing something similar with the Phantom Ruby and proposed merging the two items. Frankly, that would explain why the Ruby's powers are so consistent within Mania while Forces fucks it all up.

 

I will confess: my brother in law handed me cpy's version of mania and I had to play it regardless I said to myself that I wouldn't do it.

This game is excellent and I really want to get the Plus version of it, as if I need it. But please, sega, get the fuck out with that denuvo shit. I can not buy a game with shit like this. Get rid of it and I will mindlessy get my copy of it (it's the reason why I didn't get Mania in first place).

And I certainly don't want to buy the game to play a pirated version of it, especially because that doesn't send the message at all.

 

To be fair neither of them give a damn about the Phantom Ruby's origins. Just an irrational gem without a backstory.

 

Iizuka said in the Famitsu interview back from Spring 2017 that he also personally supervised the layout/design of the level maps and gave notes to the team for changes/corrections, IIRC. Can't find the (translated) source right now as of this writing.

 

I think that I remember this too. Makes you wonder if he was more hands on or hands off with Mania compared to other games like S4. Mania was such a passion project and nothing else has been for many, many years. Even Generations feels disingenuous by comparison.

 

Call it what it is: Lightning in a bottle.

I may talk shit about the state of things but I do believe Sonic Team wants to make good games. They just don't have the talent anymore.

Right now, with Taxman's engine they have the physics/feel near genesis perfect. Unfortunately, level design isn't tech dependant. Without talented designers, the best you'll get is forgettable games like the 3ds generations.

 

Sonic Team's next moves here might be the most important for the franchise thus far. Do they speedily approve a new Mania-style project with the original team? Do they produce something themselves in-house but take on-board the feedback and glowing reception from Mania? It'll be super interesting to see their future decisions for the Sonic franchise moving forward.

Last thing Iizuka said was that the future is still up in the air and undecided - so I do hope they think long and hard and make the right decisions for the next games.

 

According to himself, more hands off:

I don't really know how hands on he was involved with Sonic 4, though. Has that been documented?

 

I can only speak from memory so take it how you will, but I recall that in an interview he said that he showed the dev team videos of parts of Sonic 2 and said how he wanted it to play. This was in between a lot of his usual PR speak and half-answers though.

 

I have a vague recollection of Iizuka saying he gave notes/advice on things like ring placement... but I can't for the life of me remember the source.

 

Finally found the Famitsu interview in which Iizuka talked about supervising the level design. You can read the --translated-- entire thing back at the original Mania thread here.

Check the quote above.

---

Aside from his official credentials as the producer for both episodes of Sonic 4; we do know he's responsible for adding the homing attack and dash panels...

...so I'd say compared to Mania, he was definitely more hands-on in the development of Sonic 4 in comparison.

 

Iizuka had some involvement yes though it does seem limited to oversight and approval whilst the Mania team were primarily left to their own devices - which to be honest speaks volumes of their creative capability versus in-house Sonic Team. It is however interesting to learn the details of that oversight via these interviews and Sonic Team seem to be have been more involved than I previously thought.

 

Dash panels and homing attack to replace the mishap with momentum implementation.

In Sonic Rush, you can maintain classic like momentum while rolling if you hold forward on the control pad (you don't keep momentum if neutral). I can't remember if this was the same in Sonic 4 though.

 

So, you know that awesome artwork of the main characters going through Press Garden Zone featured on the soundtrack bundled with the Japanese release of Sonic Mania Plus? SEGA just released a clean version of the artwork over on the official Sonic Twitter and Facebook accounts. Both were uploaded at 1875x1284 - the Facebook version seems to have less visible compression artefacts, but has also lost some subtle detail such as the grain; on the other hand the Twitter version has more visible artefacts and seems slightly oversharpened. It's not possible to eliminate these problems fully, but I've found it's possible to combine the two in Photoshop to lessen them to some degree. Don't have my wiki details to hand at the mo, but if nobody else has done so before I get the chance to check them I'll upload the combined version to the wiki tomorrow for preservation purposes and add it to the Sonic Mania Plus page.

Funny thing - if the clean version's anything to go by, turns out it's mirrored on the soundtrack cover! Seeing it the 'right' way around will take some getting used to, haha. XD

On an unrelated note; cross-posting a non-spoiler query from the spoiler thread - anyone know what the max amount of replays you can save in Time Attack is? I seem to have hit the limit at 14 - just curious if this is a hard limit or there's any way of saving more. Playing the Steam version if that makes any difference.

 

Wow I hadn't seen that artwork. I love it! It reminds me of all the art on the Sonic and Knuckles screensaver.

 

Weekly sales update time.

In its third week, Mania Plus came in at #13 on the UK charts (all formats), dropping five slots from last week. Pretty steady drops so far. Curious if there's any possibility of it actually rising in the charts at some point.

Meanwhile, Mania Plus slid from #3 to #7 in Australia, and #5 to #10 in New Zealand. Italy's individual format charts saw steeper drops, with Mania Plus PS4 slipping from #29 to #42, and Mania Plus Switch having a softer drop from #18 to #27.

Moreover, on the weekly Switch eShop charts, Mania ranked #17 on the All Games list and #8 on the Download Only games list. This is again a slight improvement over its previous placements the preceding week (#19 on All Games list, #9 on Download Only list). Seems the Plus re-release has netted Mania a good amount of extra weeks back on the eShop.

Final minor note: the Xbox One version of Mania Plus on Metacritic finally received a fourth review, which officially gives it a metascore of 88 (games on MC need at least four reviews to have a metascore). For reference, the original Mania on Xbox One sits at 83, based on 17 reviews.

 

Casual reminder that one week from now, it will be the first anniversary of the original Mania's release. Anyone think Sega might have anything special to say in light of Mania's anniversary?

(sorry for double post)

 

With its success, you'd think they'd green light another project. Or let Sonic Team continue to run the series into the ground...whichever they decide I'm fine with.

 

Hoping for this too. Team Mania being speedily given a new project. In reality it'll probably be a little from columns A and B - as in we'll get another (hopefully all-original) Mania-style game from the original team as Sega can't be oblivious to Mania's overwhelming success and reinvigoration of the brand whilst Sonic Team works on their Sonic Forces successor. Anything could happen so I guess we'll see.

 

Even if we never get another game from this team, I really hope Sonic Team proper learned something from all this. Like a group of fans produced something better than anything you've made in the 3D era, maybe they're onto something.