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

I wonder if Tyson was the first one to draw him with these two-striped blue shoes?


To those asking against Amy's inclusion: lol party poopers :v:

 

When the "two new playable characters" were being announced, I have to admit I was on the edge of my seat hoping for Amy and Metal Sonic. I really like Amy's classic design as well as her as a character in the Sonic Mega Drive comics, so I was really hoping to see more of that in the Sonic Mania sub-franchise. I also really like her moveset in the Advance series as well as those hacks she's in. All of that aside, I can understand the complications that would come with adding that moveset to Mania, so I really can't fault the development team for not adding her. As for Metal Sonic, he's a cool character, but I've honestly never seen him playable with a moveset that fully emphasizes the fact he's a robot version of Sonic. I'd give some suggestions, but any ideas I can come up with would boil down to him being a 2D version of Modern Sonic with classic physics. For example, one of Metal Sonic's moves in the Mania boss fight resembles boosting, but then you're left wondering how to incorporate that in a way that would feel organic to the classic formula.

That being said, I'm happy with Mighty and Ray's inclusion. As much as I would've loved to see Classic Amy, Mighty and Ray haven't been in literally anything outside of the comics for over two decades. It's nice to see them get some spotlight, and it will be very interesting to see how different they play from Sonic, Tails and Knuckles.

 

Tyson's model sheets were the highlight of the presentation. His treatment of these characters makes me giddy as fuck.

 

I couldn't agree with you more Ritz. It's refreshing in the nicest possible way.
Hyped for Mighty and Ray; looking forward to seeing their sprite-sets and their super forms.

 

I am most excited to hopefully see Egg Reverie Pinch Mode! Make Egg Panicky happen!

 

I didn't feel any kind of hype before the news because we had no clue about it, so, as I usually do with foggy announcements, I ignored it. "Project plus" were only words, and Sega promising things about Sonic has rarely been something to take seriously. Now, once I read what they had announced, when I saw the ad of the physical release and the new characters on it, I regained all the hype I had for Mania the first time I knew about it.

Now it's time to twist your minds with my thoughts:

- Physical release:
I want it for PC, but, as long as the console release is the "Plus" edition, I'd buy a copy for Switch in case I can have one someday. I had that somehow planned when they said the new Pokémon games would be releases for that console and not 3DS, anyway. I'll upgrade my Steam version anyway, of course, specially if doing so they remove Denuvo. :v:

- Encore Mode:
It sounds to me like the story mode for plus edition, being mania mode the original story mode preserved. I somehow see Plus as a "sequel-but-not", a lock-on that, while this time doesn't really add new zones, makes the experience as if it was a totally different game. See "Knuckles in Sonic 2" or the plot for Knuckles in S3&K as references of what I want to say.

- New characters added, Mightty and Ray.
Well, this is the point I really wanted to talk about, so here we go:

I'm hyped about having new playable characters in a classic playstyle, no matter who they are. The rubber band mechanic made the characters in Chaotix feel samey, and, of course, Chaotix hasn't a standard classic gameplay or level design (*cough* bland *cough*), so I wouldn't say Mighty's been on a classic game before. With that in mind, two new playable characters, no matter who they are, is the kind of thing we wanted when we complined about too much reused content. Ok, there's nostalgia pandering in this too, but Mania was the kind of nostalgia pandering we were asking for, so everything's great about this.

About Mighty and Ray themselves, I love them, had them always in mind when theirs was one of the latest released games and Sonic 3 didn't exist (publicly) yet. Mighty looking too similar to Sonic is something I liked because he looked to my like he was the older brother of Sonic, or his childhood friend... I don't know! Something like that. Ray, on the other hand, looked like a good person, a reliable one, not in terms of heroism, but in terms of relationship and daily life. And he looks so huggable...

Now, making those two the new characters for classic gameplay, well, I want to be caught by surprise and impressed with how they come out, as I trust the talent of Mania team to make them unique and fun. That being said, is time for the mind-twisting thought I promised before, this ones based on what we already know:

· While we have two new characters, they might as well be played as a single one, having some kind of team mechanic that would make them really unique in the game, for better or worse depending on the result.

· Rubber band was a two-character mechanic, and putting Ray alongside Mighty would avoid involving the modern team Chaotix in that mechanic again. It also gives Ray the chance to be a new character using an old mechanic.

· Even if not rubber-banded, if Mighty kept the wall jump skill, and considering a flying squirrel should glide, we could have some sort of weird spin-off of the standalone Knuckles gameplay.

· I'm not saying either of these ones is good news, unless Mania Team make them work fine and be fun (it would be the first time for the rubber band). An on-the-run lead character swap and teamed-up skills could be there too.

- For standard, separate treatments, Ray is promising because it has many ways to fly in a different way than tails propels or knux glides. Just remember Aero the acro-bat and Zero the kamikaze squirrel, they could maneuver while gliding, and giving Ray that kind of skill (improved, if possible) could give him routes where obstacles and distance could prevent Tails and Knuckles from getting thorugh. There's also the glider from Sky High as a precedent for a more standard gliding still allowing for maneuvering and influenced by wind. Don't think Ray can do nothing of your interest just by gliding.

- In all honesty, I'm more puzzled about what could he do without being a clone character or a mixture of two existing ones. Well, I know what he could do, but I'm not working on Mania Plus and I still want to do my fan games some day, so mine it's a secret and theirs still a mystery.

***

Two posts in one, just to not double post. Let's talk about Amy. I'm not worried if she's added to the Mania brand before or after other characters, I'm not worried about her having ther hammer or not. However, please don't add her Advance playstyle as it was. It's ok if it serves as inspiration, but that has to turn more classic, and that's easier said than done. The further I've reached about that is following that path of making her similar to Sonic but different through balanced tweaking, because, as people said before, there's no real balance between Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, and Sonic needs more access to the elemental shields to feel really special. A moveset for Amy on the level of the easily shielded Sonic from S3&K just through tweaks would be great; just imagine having elemental hammers, for example (umm, I should have kept this one as a secret too).

Either way, Amy should appear on Mania Plus even if it's just to be kidnapped by Metal Sonic again, just because she should be there. Yeah, I know, we have hugging explosive animatronics in Metallic Madness, and that was a really good cameo, but we want the real Amy in the game.

That's all, I think.

 

Why not Amy in a ball though? Just have it that she can't do damage and just bounces off enemies like a pinball because she's too small so uses a hammer to compensate. Never liked Sonic characters jumping like Mario, just looks out of place.

 

I'm not too sure it would take much to make her work.

Don't get me wrong, their inclusion is welcome. There's potential for the team to play with some fairly blank-slate characters in terms of movesets and character personality (canonically). I'm just surprised that Amy, a character just as old, but more memorable, wasn't taken instead. I say this as someone who doesn't like her post-Adventure 1/Advance 1 at all. Maybe she's still too much of a damsel at this point canonically to be doing her own platforming ???.

 

It's easier to recolor Sonic 2 times than to make an entire new sprite set for one character.

 

And the silence is broken! This is really awesome news, and I'm glad that the team gets to work on this game a little bit more and that the Classic branch is going to stick around past it.

I was totally not expecting two extra characters! It also makes perfect sense when you consider the new 4-player mode they mentioned - If Mighty and Ray's movesets are close enough to the other characters, this could have been for balancing reasons for said mode, such that we now have two speedy characters with Sonic and Mighty and two flying characters with Tails and Ray.

Funnily enough, that reminds me of the interview I was a part of about a year ago here on Retro. Scroll to the bottom. :v:

 

Finally, someone who gets it. It's no accident that the placeholder end signs are copied from Sonic's.

 

Although I hate DLC, this is really cool stuff. I know it will be worth it, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but hopefully we see a couple more bits of extra content made for Mania.

 

Wasn't Amy like, the first Sonic recolour? In the games at least.

 

Amy being Sonic in drag confirmed!

 

I gladly welcome trans girl Amy Rose.

(Also, hi. Resident Mighty the Armadillo fanby here, and this announcement killed me and brought me back to life in the same instant. I could not be more ecstatic.)

 

http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=35709&view=findpost&p=923418


I can't understand why if a fox can curl into a ball and defeat robots with its fur Amy can't do the same being an hedgehog like Sonic (her quills do look more rigid in her classic design too). I can see her as a slower version of Sonic with a spindash replacement.

 

Are we really going to debate for pages on end about Amy's moveset as if Sonic Advance 2 and 3 didn't exist? They updated her abilities quite a bit after the first game. Who Says anyone even has to base Classic Amy off of her modern redesign in Sonic Advance anyway? Geez...


About Mighty's moveset, what if he took a page from Sonic in Smash Bros and had complete control of his spindash? While spinning he could keep pressing down+jump to keep dashing forward. He could even turn around and dash other direction. Heck, give him Smash Sonic's up+B because why not?

I still have no idea what airborne move he would have, if any. Drop Dash would have been perfect, but, you know...

 

Yes the Amy not curling argument is stupid. Strange how the same crowd aren't lobbying for her to be super slow as well.

But this comes from the Adventure era so you can toss logic and civility out of the window.

 

Giving Mighty the instant shield actually makes more sense than anything given his armadillo shell. He'll obviously also get his walljump when you double jump on a wall. It will probably be a bit smoother of a maneuver and won't be nearly as powerful as in Chaotix.