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

Pre-ordered for Xbox and the Switch I will eventually buy. So happy for a physical release, I would have bought it even without the extra content.

On the subject of Amy, it would have been nice to have her included but that's simply because I love her classic design so much. Mighty and Ray are far more practical, I'm very excited to see how they are going to play and what their animations are like (seeing how they react to the drip at the start of CHZ for example). I really hope you can play them both similar to Sonic and Tails, Ray's flight/gliding would allow him to spawn back to Mighty like Tails does.

Encore mode sounds interesting, the "fresh look" gets me hopeful for a few nice aesthetic changes (like sunset green hill à la Sonic Advance 3?), and the "challenging new and veteran players like" definitely sounds like this could be something of a hard mode. Can't wait to see it in action!

It all sounds great, the only thing they need to do is put in those missing level transitions and I'll be very, very happy.

 

I personally don't see it as a misstep. I know a lot of people on here are upset about Amy not being playable, but I think it was smart of Sonic Team to acknowledge the vast plurality of the fanbase that just wanted Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles playable again. People were asking for a simplification of the cast and it made sense on their part to keep it simple, and as far as Amy is concerned I've heard more negative feedback than anything on her gameplay until now. I get that Mighty and Ray are weird archaic characters, but the team really isn't overlooking anything by not including Amy in my opinion. It's not like there's this large and VOCAL group of people asking for her inclusion, nor are they obligated to listen to this one very specific group of people and include a character that, up until recently, a large amount of the fambase was begging to not be included.

I do understand that many of the people who begged to have the Amy and the rest of the cast removed are NOT the same people who are asking for Amy right now, but from the DEVS' perspective this fanbase probably seems like it just can't make up its mind. From Sonic Team's perspective, they heard fans wanted less characters, so they gave us less characters. The moment they do that suddenly fans are asking for those characters back, so I can see how they might be overwhelmed by that.

 

In that case, the developers need to understand that the Sonic fanbase isn't this hivemind that keeps changing its demands, it's a split fanbase of warring factions. One side wants more characters, the other wants less. This is a fanbase that can't even agree on how to pronounce Hydrocity Zone, much less agree on how many characters ought to or ought not to appear. Even as a fan of Classic Amy, I can fully understand why some people don't care for her. She's an underutilized character whose only roles as a heroine include a playable role in Fighters, a two-issue comic series that abruptly ended, and some fan hacks.

I personally don't see Amy's omission as an oversight or a wrongdoing. I'm stoked we're getting new content for Sonic Mania, and it's really cool to see Mighty and Ray return too! Mighty and Ray are underutilized characters themselves who have potential, just as it is with Classic Amy. It's basically like expecting to get a slice of cake and instead getting a bowl of ice cream. It's not the thing you were expecting, but the alternative is still good.

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=amy+in+sonic+mania

Looks like there's a ton of amy mods already.

 

I'm generally in the 'more the merrier' camp when it comes to Mania characters, as I'm pretty damn sure the team will make good use of them. That being said, I'm glad Mania's not going to look like another Sonic Advance in regards to it's characters just yet.
If Amy comes in later on then that's awesome and I know she'd play fine. I'm just glad Mighty and FUCKING RAY (just typing this sentence is surreal) are getting the spotlight - Holy crap y'all don't know how happy I am to see the trackball band back together.

 

Personally I'm really glad the announcement was just for a relatively low-scope addition to the first game rather than a sequel already. That would have been a super worrying sign if Sega was already demanding the "Mania" team try to pump out a follow-up and formally announce it this quickly. (As I said in my last post, it's been heavily alluded to since August 15, 2017--look at the newspapers at the top in PGZ Act 1 that seemingly say "Mania II.") "Plus" gives the team breathing room to come up with new ideas and work on "Mania 2" on a preproduction-esque level before fully diving in.

(With regards to the pricing discussion--a "Sonic Mania 2" announcement this early would have been a true cash grab, to me, because the quality of the game would have suffered compared to the first by being rushed out and Sega would have been relying on huge fans like us to just buy it sight unseen/regardless of quality like they've been doing with the 3D games. Whereas I genuinely think they only intend the physical release here to be picked up by A) people who haven't gotten "Mania" yet--of course digital is starting to overtake physical in sales, but think of all the parents that will see this in various big-box stores and grab it for their kids, etc. B) Collectors/huge fans that have the disposable income and don't mind paying again for a physical version. I doubt they think they're gonna get that many sales of the digital DLC itself, which is likely why they didn't have firm details on it, but like most people here I think $4.99 sounds like a reasonable price for what's being offered.)

As for further additional characters, I would have rather seen Amy but totally understand how Mighty and Ray fit in even more with the ethos of "Mania" since they're from an obscure Japan-only trackball arcade game from 1993. I do hope Amy gets the playable treatment from the outset for "Sonic Mania 2," though, since she likewise fits in really well having debuted (in video game form) in "Sonic CD" in 1993 (even a couple weeks before Mighty and Ray in Japan--Wikipedia claims "Sonic CD" released on September 23, 1993 and "SegaSonic" sometime in October).

Beyond Amy, I personally think Blaze is the only other character that potentially deserves to be given playable treatment since I think she's the only other well-designed one, but I understand how going beyond any of the classic-era 2D characters leads to a slippery-slope where fans suddenly want to see almost anyone and everyone be included, which sounds like a development nightmare. It'd probably be best if they stopped adding characters after Amy. (And hell, I wouldn't mind if they made Amy a permanent part of the playable roster, considering how much the dev team loves "Sonic CD" and how much the success of "Mania" relies on "CD"--both in terms of the remaster being the first project Whitehead worked with Sega in an official capacity on, and how great the remade stages and music were in "Mania." It really would be fitting/makes total sense for her to become a playable character.)


Edit: Seems like there's some slightly conflicting info about when "SegaSonic the Hedgehog" first released. A basic search brings up June 1993, the Wikipedia page says October 1993 citing an official Sega arcade game history presentation, and its page here on Retro says June 1993 for Japan and September 1993 for U.S./Europe (though it certainly seems like there weren't many cabinets outside Japan). Regardless of its official release date, the point still stands that Amy is the next classic character in a released game that makes sense to have be a playable character, that "Sonic CD" is obviously incredibly important historically, that it eventually led to "Mania" since the remaster was the first project Taxman and Sega collaborated on, and due to how great the remade zones/music in "Mania" were.

 

I'm very confident that the devs understand this clearly, because they've said as much in recent interviews.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-23-sonic-mania-and-its-impact-on-the-future-of-the-sonic-series


The problem is that they have zero idea what they want to do with Modern Sonic because few of the ideas have really stuck with any lasting success. They have no confidence in the Modern style (which is why it is such a nebulous concept to begin with) as a flagship and continually search for new ideas with potential for a stable foundation. This conflicts with the fact that the "classic faction" knows exactly what they want and classic also has historically been popular with critics....but also that 2D titles are not "AAA" big budget titles like they were in 1991-4, even with their recent resurgence in popularity, so they have to equally play both sides.

So they're stuck with a divided fanbase, they certainly know it, but don't know what to do about it.

 

Sprite swaps aren't the same by any stretch.

But to get off the Amy discussion, I'm really looking forward to seeing Mighty and Ray's sprites. There's a lot of character in the animations for Mania, so it'll be really fun to see their personalities. Ray will hopefully be goofy and use his tail for various movements like he did in SSTH, but I'm not sure about Mighty. Is he going to take the cool and stoic approach? I'm not sure how he's going to behave so that he's neither too much like Sonic or Knuckles.

 

Would be interesting if he became a serious "Classic Shadow" of sorts... although he's smiling in the artwork, so probably not.

 

Didn't see Jason's post and will admit i misunderstood the point of your post; I was speaking from the perspective of, again, if Mania Plus was sold wholesale / half off to previous owners. That's the worst case scenario, and if that did happen--and Plus is JUST minor updates to stages + modes (and ofc characters)-- I wouldn't consider half off to be a good price at all.

I'd call it "better" because the value of added stages, which effectively make the game when it comes to Sonic, is greatly higher than added modes and content, at least to me. This is again assuming Plus is sold half price if people own the game, or (hopefully not) full. A $5 upgrade would be fine for what we're getting, $10 would be pushing it if the upgrades weren't substantial enough. We don't exactly know what "encore mode" is yet outside of "visual changes," but taking out that and the new characters, we only get an updated Competition mode, and I would argue that should be a free update, not $5. So, based on what was said, it's likely Encore is just going to be:

• very few new art assets if they aren't palette swaps,
• the same core structure of levels
• Mostly the same gimmicks with maaaybe one or two new ones (ideally one per stage)
• the same / slightly remixed music. (considering Tee already made the songs, it's probably easier for him to swap some patters and instruments/samples instead of compose a whole new melody, which I doubt is what he'll be doing)

So assuming encore mode doesn't actually change anything substantial, and is just a "new way to see the stages," then yeah I'd say that's about worth $5 with the new characters. If there's enough stage upgrades, to the point where Encore Mode's stages are as alien as any given Mania zone is to its original, that'd be a whole other story and I'd be happy paying more. We don't know that's the case yet, though.

Its worth noting that as other people said, Mighty and Ray are likely gonna be sprite edits of Sonic and Tails(?) so resources will be cut, significantly saving money; there'll still be a good amount of work done, but the bones of their work are already present. In all fairness, Ray will likely be the much harder project as he has noprecedent in the sonic 2 / sidescroller style, and at worst will need to be designed from scratch like Knuckles. Unlike him, though, they don't have any official sprite sheet to pull from that isn't the SegaSonic arcade machine or fan sprites on MFZ. I can see that being a legitimate problem/reason for cost, but even then that's like 1.5 characters in art assets.

Admittedly I assign much more value to added stages/stage content than anything else, as to me, in a single player game and Sonic especially, that is the game. In a fighting game, or other character-based multiplayer game, the character's playstyle adds a whole new dimension to play, so a new character is a big deal, much more than stages (with some expections i.e. Tekken and Smash). In single player games, I feel anyway, the levels themselves are the added dimension. Unless Mighty and Ray are built to where they compliment the stage design differently, there's new routes for them or otherwise, they'll feel more like cosmetic differences than anything, so I wouldn't say their inclusion + changes to stage aesthetics would warrant anything more than $5.

If people find what they're seeing for Mania + to be content they're willing to pay $15 or even $30 then that's on them, it's just not something I agree with. That's all I was saying, but ofc that being in response to what you were saying was kinda missing the point and i apologize


side note:

Spoiler

fwiw Sonic 3 and SnK came out during a time where cartridge and development costs spiked the production of any game, and something like S3nK was the best you could get on that hardware; games like Assassins Creed or Mario Odyssey werent even close to possible in conception, and those games are $50-60 more often than not. The value of games like S3nK dropped hard because of this, but back then the value of a new game did warrant $50, even if SnK was short enough to be closer to a $40 price IMO. Even if they're $5 on any given eShop today, S3 / S3nK would probably sell for $30-20 if it was developed by Sega today, though would probably have a bit more polish put into it.

This is what I mean when I say "they did better before." From the perspective of 1994, SnK WAS its own game, even if it was just Sonic and 3 part 2. It functioned as much like a Sonic entry as Sonic 2 did, except this time you could combine the sequel with the original!!! This, to me, is inherently different than what the Plus DLC is doing, which is doing a cosmetic change to the stages and simply adding characters. Like I said, to me a new world is more significant than a new character in a single player game, and justifies a higher price; this is especially true if said character(s), take elements/the entire framework of a pre-existing character to be made. As mentioned, this is likely 100% going to happen with Mighty, and Ray will take more development resources.

TLDR i sure hope this is a $5 upgrade because anything more than that wouldnt make any damn sense lol

yeah this is basically what gave me my mentality. The ambiguity isn't fun; it would make SENSE for Plus to be a $5 upgrade to previous buyers, but they didn't say that, and I'm just hoping they DON'T upcharge it for no reason. That'd be shitty.

- Should happen, probably might happen if they have time, at the very least should fix the parts that obviously looked like they were rushed i.e. Tails in CPZ, how the hell SSZ -> Mirage Saloon works, etc.

-Eh, would be nice, doubt it's going to happen. Maybe in Encore..? Something like that would be significant but I doubt that's within the scope of Encore mode. Would be nice!
(If I had my way Saloon Act 1 would be a hell of a lot more canyon-hopping and trains than flying)

-Would be cool if this was how blue sphere worked in Encore mode actually. The data's there so it'd be neat.

-Not gonna happen my guy lol

-Ok honestly SSZ2's biggest issue is the stage devotes so much time to Metal Sonic. This is the same issue I had with stages in Sonic Generations that had "a cool part" which end up eating into the substance of the level design, i.e. the point of playing the stage, for the worse. Yes, metal is cool and all, but he's the boss of SSZ, not the STAGE SSZ. Apart from the fact I think Metal needs a complete rework, if SSZ would just get extended the slightest amount, to make it that yes, the level's fast, but not completable faster than fucking Green Hill, that'd be the ideal scenario.

Also lol the 90 degree ramps in the Metal fight. Those gotta go. Cutting your speed in half when there's no actual stakes (no laser????) doesnt induce stress/fear, it just stops your horizontal movement and makes you upset. I mean it makes me upset. Its just frustrating :/

 

$20 7 zone Sonic Mania + $20 7 zone SegaSonic Mania standalone DLC/disc would've been the better old-school approach. Gotcha. [Inspoiler](j/k I'd probably still buy it if all of the stages were 100% new)[/Inspoiler]

In all seriousness, I hear you for some of your points. +2 stages > 1 character for me. $10 DLC is very unlikely. It's going to be somewhere in the $4 - $6 range.

I'd rather go back to talking about potential moves for Ray and Mighty. Even talking about how Fang and the Gang could play would be good.

 

Figures that the Switch version would be more expensive than the others. And that the price would be literally just the US price but with a £ instead of $.

It's slightly cheaper on ShopTo:
XBox 1 - £27.85
Playstation 4 - £27.85
Switch - £29.86

 

Preorders have been up in the U.S., as well. Here they are on Amazon for Switch, PS4, and Xbox One.

For the U.S. release I think the Switch looks like the nicest version. (The PS4 Mega Drive reversible cover does look real nice for other territories, though, like 360 said.) The red Switch logo in the upper-left for the main side of the cover art isn't as intrusive as how much space the PS4 and Xbox One logos take up at the top of their boxes (plus it also calls to mind the red Genesis logo strip which of course is on the reversible side of the cover), the "Sonic Mania Plus" logo isn't smushing Sonic's pointer finger and Tails's head like it is on the PS4 cover art, and it's also the only way to play "Sonic Mania" with a cartridge. (And of course the Switch is a great version of the game to have since you then have a version to play in 1080p on a TV/monitor *and* a portable version to play anywhere. Think of it like the ultimate Nomad version of the game or the greatest Game Gear version of the game, only with proper aspect ratio/being the full proper game this time, ha.)

The only thing I wonder about with the Switch version of the physical "Plus" release is how they're gonna fit the 32 page art book into the case. It'll either be a smaller/more narrow version of it compared to PS4 and Xbox One, which would make it inferior, or maybe the holographic slipcase will be the same size as the others and it will be in-between that holographic slipcase and the game case itself. (I guess it could also be folded in half in the case to fit--again, not a great solution since yeah it'd be the same size but it'd also have an additional crease down the middle.)

One other thing I've been surprised to not see many people mention: it's kinda weird they went to the trouble of making this really nice physical copy of the game and it seemingly won't have that Introduction Manual they gave out at events before "Mania" released. Seems like a no-brainer to include here, especially considering it seemed like they had a decent amount of extra copies, but maybe the 32 page art book includes the same info/is acting as a new, better replacement for it. Will be nice to get more details, both about the physical package itself and of course a better look at what the new additions to the main game are like.


Edit: And yeah, if the "Plus" physical version gets a release in Japan and either has unique Japanese Saturn (which would make more sense since Saturn did a lot better there than Mega Drive did) or Mega Drive reversible cover art, I'd be mighty tempted to import that, as well.

 

Amazon or bust for me I reckon!
GAME gave me a near heart attack when they (almost) cocked up a pre-order of mine once, sent me a "Sorry, we won't be able to honour this Pre-order", then sent a "whoops, don't worry you're actually fine lol" email after. Took me a few weeks to recover from that one...

 

I was surprised and disappointed to hear Amy Rose wasn't playable, but I'm just thrilled Mighty and Ray are going to return in playable form. Sonic Mania had no additional playable characters compared to S3&K, but now we have two additional characters. This seemed like Ray's and Mighty's future a decade ago. Sonic Mania Plus is probably the closest we've had to Sega doing something that greatly pleases the fanbase, but not every decision to the game is going to please everyone. Worst case scenario, this game should have a healthy future with its modding community.

That mockup looks rad af. If they do something like that for the Japanese release, I might import the game for collector's reasons despite not owning a current gen system. I haven't been too impressed with Nintendo or Sony in recent years, so the physical copy of Sonic Mania is probably the biggest incentive I have to getting a Switch this year. lol I really enjoyed playing that game on a friend's Switch. Sonic Mania works fantastic as a handheld game.

 

I've seen some people complain that the price of the game is too much for just 2 characters and one new mode, but are people forgetting you're getting a physical copy of the game with holographic cover, a custom Genesis/Mega Drive slip cover and a 32-page artbook? The price seems like a good deal to me.

I imagine that if you don't care about that then the DLC price is not going to cost $30 since they're trying to keep the physical copy of the game as cheap as possible.

 

It would be even cooler if the Blue Spheres "Special Stages acting as Bonus Stages" were entirely left out of the main game and there were actual Bonus Stages in its place. =P

 

why the fuck does everyone in tech companies screw over europe thats so dumb (probably a question you all are asking yourselves of course)

normally I'd say don't preorder but given that this is likely going to be a limited supply, then preordering seems justified, and I'll likely do it when there's an amazon listing myself wait its available in the US fuck yea. Will need to wait for the next paycheck though :v
Didn't get Mania on the Switch because I figured that'd be silly if I have it on my laptop (also didnt get a switch until Xmas and had ZeldOdyssey to be playing), but will be supporting the physical copy this way as that just seems like the right thing to do~

Wonder if they'll function as install disks/cards :thinking: I know the switch at least so far requires all cards to run the game off them, and would kinda go against the idea of a physical release, but still.


@Drex Mighty will probably be kinda simple, i could see him having a wall jump and maayybe a double jump, which would be a neat way of having him scale vertically different than Tails/Knuckles. Like usual Ray seems to be the enigma. What can you do with him? Glide? Knuckles already does that + climbs, so unless he just has better glide controls than knuckles while sacrificing going up, or his glide functions as a sort of hop -> glide, wouldn't make sense. We already have 2 "flying" characters, and I'd hope the team wouldn't be redundant with their abilities, else... what's the point? @_@

they're of course not gonna be anything crazy like the shit we got in Megamix since Mania's whole thing is keeping with the simplicity of the classics in core design, while amplifying the details. Any ability we'd get would have to be as simple as described, and if they're new I don't know if they'd be as elegant a fit as the drop dash. I'm excited to see what they think though; even if they do a "boring" double jump for one of them, it shouldn't be a problem.

inb4 they bring back chaotix rings for mighty + ray oh geez