Adding these would mean more debugging to be made. It'd have to be implemented on every version available. The unique chance for Sonic Mania to gain new features is like a DX release in 5 years or so for Playstation 5/Xbox Two/Nintendo Switch 2.
Well, yeah, he seems to be making some good points sandwiched between the heated hateful hatred... The way you activate the Sonic +Tails flight is not as intuitive as it could be, as I believe I've been saying since it was first implemented in the remakes. Why not just Up+Jump while airborne and have Tails immediately start flying towards Sonic so that he'll grab him in his jump? Blue Spheres is annoying as a checkpoint Bonus Stage and even plain useless once you got all the emblems. Unfair bosses are unfair. Sonic betatesters should be able to beat the game in "no rings" mode without having seizures. Not sure about which assets with confusing collision he's talking about, but there's stuff like the projectors in Studiopolis which indeed look like you can stand on them, and that can be a problem until you've played enough times. Simple transparency may have worked here. Knuckles' recovery time may be useful for careful platforming but it can be a little bit annoying, so perhaps he could come to a not-complete-yet-almost-full stop if you're pressing a direction.
I like a lot of these suggestions, and I'm torn between thinking we'll see either a DLC pack with more stages, or simply an enhancement patch with some QoL things added. Adding things like level transitions wouldn't necessarily warrant a "plus" tag in my mind, so I'm going to let myself dream and think that it is level DLC for Ice Cap Zone
It sounds like a "Plus" or enhanced edition of the game which is almost certainly a planned re-release probably to capitalise on the insane sales the game has seen. So it would have to be something substantial enough to justify purchasing the entire game again which makes my mind shift to new stages whether they be remixed or entirely original. It's a little frustrating waiting for the full reveal on this as we haven't had an update since the project branch was leaked/spotted. Wonder how long we'll be waiting.
If "Project Plus" ends up being an enhanced version of the game, one thing I'd love to see would be a fully playable version of the Angel Island intro, even if it's just one act. You'd basically play up to the point where Angel Island would catch on fire, but instead of that happening, you come across the Hard-Boiled Heavies pulling out the Phantom Ruby. More levels in general would be nice, but I'd be pretty content with just that too. I'd also love to see playable Amy or Metal Sonic, but that's getting way too ahead of myself.
I always imagined a return to angel island would be neat if you wandered into the regrowing brush from the fires in Sonic 3. /blog No idea what this plus business is, but if SEGA is going to bank on a new enhanced edition it better offer something interesting. It makes sense to capitalize on a smash hit and all the good will generated by Sonic Mania's...well, Mania, given the reception of Forces. They need to be careful that they don't just go out and burn it all down. My expectation would have been a push towards a physical release 2 pack of sorts, but why list a special version on Steam if that is the case? If it is some Sanic-of-the-decade version of the game they better offer a way for current owners to grab the enhancements without getting screwed over. Any extra content I would like to see has already been covered: Finished stage transitions to provide a bit more context even if it is a crapshoot, bug fixes, clean up the final boss gauntlet with a stage and all the heavies which seemed to be the intention, fix the checkpoint bonus stages with a new mini game so they are worthwhile after you beat blue spheres, and add as many new stages as possible. Oh and it better be called Sonic Mania & Knuckles. :specialed:
I really hope that we do get some kind of Sonic Mania Extended Edition/Directors Cut/whatever, and that this hype doesn't turn out to be nothing.
Yeah, none of my suggestions are really selling points (except maybe online VS), but would be nice bonus additions. Kind of like the Super Sonic transformation button they added in with the bug fix update. They really didn't need to add that, but they could and they did and it was appreciated. A snowboard race against Bark would be dope. Now that I think about it, they could slot new levels into the game between zones that didn't have level transitions. (Which would have new level transitions themselves, of course.) For extra replay value in the existing zones, a Red Star Ring system (that unlocks concept art?) would be nice. Or a mission mode - finish level with X amount of rings, get X amount of rings in X amount of time, defeat boss without taking damage (!), and so on. I always thought a return to Green Hill Zone would be neat if it had the funky flowers from the good ending. :o
Just hope we hear something soon. Don't want us to be in the dark for weeks and weeks without finding out the core of their plans. Wouldn't have thought we'd be waiting too long. And yeah if Taxman/Stealth could pop in to give us a vague hint if they have the freedom to do so that'd be awesome too.
Right? Relax, you all are going to over-hype yourselves. Just chill out and know that good things bode for our boy in blue.
Keep in mind Aaron said there would be no DLC in Mania The phrase plus makes me believe a compilation since its previous context, or something related to the Steam Workshop
Promises of what a product will or won't do, on the PR side, aren't always Word of God. The scope of a project and number of features can change even up to the release date, as I've learned the hard way from Mania's rocky PC launch. Remember when we were promised full controller support, and there was no sign of Denuvo on the store page? :v: So I'm keeping an open mind until we have official word on this. Some DLC for Mania would be great, if not an ideal opportunity to sneak in more improvements and bugfixes across all four platforms, as already mentioned.
I believe we've established before that at times Aaron knows just about as much as us (see no Review copies of Forces) though as things stand, this isn't DLC but a content update so that still holds. Now if a DLC branch opens up on Steamdb, it could simply be Sega changing their minds. Considering the original pitch was to bundle the remasters of Sonic 1 & 2, they could go the Sonic 4 route and have the remasters unlock in Mania if you own the originals via Sega classics. Keep in mind, I'm not taking in account how this would work on Consoles outside of them popping up as digital downloads on the eshop,PSN, etc.
Do we have any concrete numbers on how the game has sold? I've heard that the game broke a million sales early on, but other than that, I have no idea how well it did, especially against Forces.
We know it's multiple millions. We don't have a hard and exact number but we do have a recent Sega Sammy financial report that indicated their game sales jumped from ~4 million to ~8 million recently with Sonic Mania cited as the primary reason for the massive jump so we can therefore extrapolate it's multiple millions of copies sold and far beyond one million. I would have thought when Mania hits a milestone number or something to shout about Sega will probably issue PR. Probably early next year once the holiday sales are in. Mania has done extremely well. Even if we just compare the chart positions Mania destroyed Forces (sustained high placement for Mania, Forces barely charting at all).
What's odd it's that the buzz is definitely on; everyone is asking Ruby and the Sonic account about Project Plus on Twitter, but there's still no official denial about it's implications. It's still early, anyways, this thing got uncovered this weekend, but if we get no confirmation this week about the veracity or not of that new branch, well, I would get even more excited. We can only speculate about that's inside that branch! EDIT: I was checking the history page on SteamDB and the same day that the Plus branch was added, the QA branch (internal name "beta") was deleted. There's definitely something going on. Can anyone with Steam experience guess?
