Are the original level designers of the cyberspace stages (who aren’t directly involved with frontiers) going to be credited? What’s the industry standard here? Like were the level designers of the genesis trilogy credited in Mania for the reused first acts?
For those that plan to buy the game on or soon after release, I’m curious, at what point are you planning on turning away from these forums and Twitter and such to avoid any more story and/or gameplay spoilers? We’re about 2.5 months out now, and personally I think we’re approaching the first of two points where a cascade of information is gonna come out, leaked or official. The second wave will undoubtedly occur in the 48 hours prior to launch, and I think a lot of people are gonna stay away then, but given the time between mainline releases, especially given the fact I never played Forces, I kind of feel like I want to start avoiding anything that’s not another 1 minute trailer from official SEGA accounts. Is anyone else thinking this way?
I want to know as much as possible tbh, I want to have a really good idea of the game so I can justify getting it day 1 (or at all). I'm thinking of playing it at EGX as I'm gonna be in London anyway for family stuff, hopefully that'll give me a decent idea if I like it or not. If i do go I'll voice my opinions on it here, and I'll also potentially post low quality footage that I'll film using my iphone 4S' front camera after having 69,420 coffees. Although, now that I think about it... Going to EGX just for frontiers is kinda silly considering I may as well not go and spend that money preordering frontiers instead.
Tweet elaborating on the cyberspace stages from someone at Gamescom So there's at LEAST eight cyberspace levels on Kronos Island, likely more.
Not sure if anyone has shared this but here are all stages so far, the only one that seems to be missing is the 3D highway stage. In the order they show up in the video: Green Hill Zone is Windmill Isle Act 1. Sky Sanctuary is very similar to Windmill Isle Act 2 but with the 2D sections cut. Unsure about highway level due to it being entirely 2D. Abridged Generations Chemical Plant with 2D sections removed. Abridged Generations Green Hill with 2D sections also removed. This is a new low for Sonic Team, and it's honestly very impressive. I'm interested in seeing how far they'll take this and what other level design they will recycle. Glad I waited 5 years for this.
I am still not a fan of the reused level tropes and level designs, but maybe I'll be more forgiving of it if there's just a fuckton of them. The open zone and combat is what interests me the most regardless.
Interesting analysis by TSS: https://twitter.com/sonicstadium/status/1562907925957341184 MAJOR disclaimer: as usual, this is all speculation/guesswork, but if TSS's estimations are correct, we could be looking at 24-30 acts on just Kronos Island. If this is distributed throughout the game, we could be looking at over 100 acts in the game. Granted, from what we've seen so far, a majority of them are ports or recreations (e.g. City Escape being directly from SA2 and not Generations), but some are original, though we've only seen 2 original acts being the 3D highway act in the trailers (that we haven't seen gameplay of outside of those yet) and Sky Sanctuary. Speaking of Kronos, its Wikipedia page is quite interesting (emphasis mine) (Kronos is also known as Cronus):
If there’s really such a large quantity of cyberspace levels I’d be okay with them reusing some level designs IF there are also completely new levels later on AND Sega had shown off the new levels in detail. I mean there’s a reason the Sonic Mania trailer showed off studiopolis. And, no: the cyberspace highway stage doesn’t count. It’s reusing level design from SA2. Since Sega has not shown off completely new cyberspace levels: I am not happy about this. MAYBE there are original cyberspace levels later in the game. But to that I say: why isn’t sega showing them off? It’s their job to make me want to buy the game. I get that the open zone is the main attraction, but if ALL the cyberspace levels reuse level designs then I won’t see them as fun extras. They’d be filler.
If there really are 100 cyberspace levels then I wonder why the marketing is being so conservative about showing any of them. We have about 10 seconds (maybe even less) of official cyberspace footage.
Because Sega doesn't want to give the impression that the open world stuff is simply shit you have to wade through to get to the "good stuff" that is the linear, classic Sonic levels, as has been the case for several past Sonic games. I respect that there are apparently a shitload of cyberspace levels, and that in theory could make up for some level design recycling, but if it's all the same generic stuff you'd find in any tutorial without specific gimmicks or challenges to make them feel more interesting, they're going to get boring real fast.
These reused cyberspace levels are starting to sound exactly like the kind of shit critics are gonna just rave over while the hardcore community is never gonna get past and likely detest the fact that almost all of them reuse level themes and/or design of previous titles. But the ordinary player’s not gonna realize that, hence the praise from the critics. New Super Sonic Bros., if you will.
Oh lordy, Sonic has no momentum in air. You have to air boost to really go forwards, judging by that footage, because every time they jumped from a land boost they just slow down to a crawl. That, or you lose all additional boost speed the moment it lets go.
I don't know, but I don't think that's a legitimate reason because we've known for a while the marketing for this game is just gonna be awful. At this point I'm personally more interested in an estimate from TSS than whatever SEGA shows bc SEGA didn't even want us to SEE Cyberspace until like 2 months ago, before July I wasn't even sure if Sonic would be in this game.
The highway level using some of SA2’s layout makes me think that the level reuse is meant to be nostalgic rather than lazy, kind of like the Sonic 1 levels in Colors’ simulator stages. Maybe Kronos island has the throwback layouts and the rest are original? I dunno.
Also this is the first game in this style, and SEGA is still being stingy with the budget because it isn't tried and tested yet. If the game does well and is still fun, I can almost put money on the next game having all original Cyberspace levels. It's a compromise I'm willing to forgive given context and the fact the rest of the game still looks fantastic.
Tbh what bothers me a LOT more than the reused layouts (especially if they're just the first few stages out of 80-100) is the 2D. I'm really not sure why we're still playing these 2D throwback stages in what is supposed to be the first fully 3D Sonic game since Sonic 06. It's nice that they are their own levels and the camera isn't constantly shifting between 2D and 3D, but that just brings us right back to Colors territory. I doubt the game will have as much 2D as Colors, but I just don't get why we're still doing this. The impressions made it seem like it would only be like... 1 level, but we've already seen several. Might be in the minority here though.
I really like the blending of City Escape and Radical Highway designs there. The abstraction makes the combinatory nature a lot cooler, too. This is what I want to see from a game that's based on older stages.
