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Sonic Mania Plus SPOILER THREAD with UNMARKED spoilers!

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Harmony Friends, Apr 25, 2018.

  1. Tiller

    Tiller

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    Real talk the gameplay showcase in the new trailer is terrible and doesn't really do the game justice. It doesn't match up as nicely as the original preorder trailer but they at least bothered to record in a higher framerate than 30. Hesse and his partner are still the best thing since Toei in making those classic designs pop. I'm still in shock that this was ever allowed to happen at all.

    I still wish a new zone or two could have happened so each heavy got their own stage, but I imagine it was more cost effective and time efficient to tweak the existing layouts and construct two characters that don't break the mold too much among the rest of the tweaks. Angel Island looks set to be Mania's Isolated Island where you come across characters in the pod and play around with the swap mechanic and their abilities to get through part of the original AI stage. Mighty looks to be required to break down where the original special stage ring was for Act 2, and Ray might have to glide over something later on. It's a great throwback but I still would like more.
     
  2. Dissent

    Dissent

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    I think it's purposely designed to be a more slow-paced trailer given the general audience is apparently grade schoolers and people that grew up with 2D Sonic but may have forgotten what it was like. Instead of it being a blistering visual showcase that is unwelcoming to those age groups, it's a casual-speed look at some of the levels you might remember and some you may not, plus some surprises where there's a new mode with even more different layouts and palette swaps.
     
  3. XCubed

    XCubed

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    But wasn't it the other way around? He recycled these into DCT songs. Is it that hard to pay out royalties? I get it that SEGA made a mistake in not owning the rights up front (which I guess was the down side with casting a renowned musician to get the ball rolling). SEGA isn't hurting for money either anymore. Half of the reason we love Sonic is for the music! Why is it so difficult to always get a decent soundtrack? Yet they still wonder why we are ripping songs left and right on our own. Luckily I found Green Hill Act 2 on my own to listen whenever I want, but I have the $$$$$ to buy something official. Hell, what came out for Mania on iTunes/Apple Music is still not available in the US.
     
  4. Brainulator

    Brainulator

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    Google Play Music, though?
     
  5. Sappharad

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    I don't understand this comment. I bought the Mania "Selected" soundtrack from the US iTunes store the day it was released. It launched in the US the same time as it did in Europe.
     
  6. Linkabel

    Linkabel

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    Yeah, I'm not sure where that came from since it's right here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sonic-mania-original-soundtrack-selected-edition/1333856904
     
  7. foXcollr

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    “The item you've requested is not currently available in Apple Music in the United States.”
    (I would post a screencap of the error but I can't upload images)
    I'm guessing maybe the iOS link is just broken? By every time I've tried to search for it in the US on mobile I've not had any luck.
     
  8. XCubed

    XCubed

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    I get the same message directly from the store.
     
  9. Sappharad

    Sappharad

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    Both that link and "Open in iTunes" work for me. Is it possible you have Apple Music and are trying to view it via that instead of buying it from the iTunes Store?
    I don't have or want anything to do with Apple Music, so I'm just purely going to iTunes. (And I'm signed in on the app itself, and it remembers that I purchased it already)
    Edit: Also works when searching on my phone.
     
  10. CollectiveWater

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    Ha, thanks Sir_mihael!

    The link for the soundtrack and going directly to it on the iTunes Store both work for me. Like sonicblur just said, we're talking about buying the album on the iTunes Store, not streaming it via Apple Music. Also like others pointed out the selected digital soundtrack is on Google Play and Amazon. Honestly Google Play is probably the best one to go with (if you haven't already gotten it and aren't planning on importing the boxed JP copy of "Plus" for the OST on CD); lowest price of the three, 320 kbps MP3 (definitely better quality than the 256 kbps vbr MP3 from Amazon; about the same in quality as the 256 kbps vbr AAC from iTunes), and the tracks will play/work with essentially any device you put 'em on.


    Yeah, Sega's relationship with Nakamura seems weird. From what's been published before I think Nakamura owns all rights to the music from 1 & 2, so Sega has to license them from him any time they use them. Which they've done in the past for "Generations," etc. They must have licensed them in order to use them in "Mania" itself, too, just not again for the digital soundtrack release.

    You would think whatever they would have needed to pay to Nakamura for 6 out of 53 tracks on the digital release would not have been enough to significantly dent their margins on it across the three platforms they released it on, but who knows, Nakamura probably does command a high fee. (He was already a successful musician prior to making video game music, and of course continued to be successful afterwards. Dreams Come True is one of the most commercially successful musical groups in Japanese history--at around 45 million total copies sold of all their albums. I mean, that probably puts them in the top 200 most commercially successful musicians globally all-time. Video game musicians rarely see anything like that kind of commercial success, and the rates paid by companies for their work is probably much lower than if they were working in the broader music album or even movie soundtrack industries.)

    That said, Nakamura has also made clear he is proud of his work on the first two games and has in the past stated an interest in making more for the series. And since he has been so financially successful with his band, you'd think he'd maybe be all right with lowering the licensing fee out of goodwill. I dunno, might just be a case of the two sides failing to communicate well--Nakamura hasn't been actively involved with them for decades. Might not even be anyone at the company still that communicated with him when he worked on those first two games. And if the licensing fee arrangement they've been using with him is such that including those 6 tracks would have cost them more than 20% of what they expected to make off the digital soundtrack, then I'd understand choosing to just leave them off. Probably difficult if not impossible to add them to it after-the-fact (if the digital soundtrack ended up selling better than they thought it would), since they've already made the majority of the sales on it that they ever will. So yeah, if they aren't on the OST CD in the boxed JP copy of "Plus" (which by all indications they will not be), highly likely we ain't ever getting them in higher quality than the ogg files you can easily extract from your PC copy. Oh well!

    Anyway, going back to "Mania Plus": just realized that hopefully 1 of those 7 additional tracks on the CD OST in the JP boxed copy of "Plus" is a full "Angel Island Act 1" from Tee. Considering all the new screenshots we've seen of Angel Island in "Plus" there's no way the 14 seconds of the song from the intro to the main game loop the entire time. I guess maybe one of the HBH themes could play at some point but if you gain control of characters and play through some amount of the zone--which we have confirmation is going to happen from the screenshots and what Aaron said--then I don't see how anything other than the full "Angel Island Act 1" could play. So yeah, hopefully it's on that CD version of the soundtrack.
     
  11. foXcollr

    foXcollr

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    Well, everybody.
    Flying Battery is very, VERY orange.

    Mania Adventures: Part 2 is out today and the credits reel shows footage of a few stages from Mania plus. Not entirely sure how I feel about all the palette swaps, but new FBZ looks pretty neat.
     
  12. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    Ya Mania Plus seems to be filled with Purple and Orange palettes. Interesting color choice, I'm surprised they didn't just go the Sonic 3 Complete palette route for FBZ though. It'd of been a nice throw back and it changes the time of day.
     
  13. foXcollr

    foXcollr

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    It's also worth noting that the original FBZ already had a good amount of orange in its palette. I'm interested to see if there are some other visual changes on the interior or in Act 2 that do a little more to change up the aesthetic. It's a nice change of scenery and all but I just hope there's a little more to differentiate it from vanilla FBZ.
     
  14. Jayextee

    Jayextee

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    Yeah but.

    That fucking gorgeous Stardust Speedway Past/Act 1 though. <3
     
  15. CollectiveWater

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    Ha, hadn't even considered they'd sneak some new footage of "Plus" into the credits for "Adventures." (Loved the animation in the new episode, too.)

    So far when it comes to the new color palettes I like GHZ, CPZ, SSZ (especially Act 2--always liked Bad Future more than Good Future aesthetically), and MSZ the most. Studiopolis and Flying Battery are a bit too garish for my taste, though I like the cold metal in FBZ.

    So that just leaves Press Garden, Hydrocity, Oil Ocean, Lava Reef, Metallic Madness, and Titanic Monarch as the zones we haven't seen new color palettes for, right? Would be great if they could make PGZ Act 1 and Titanic Monarch look better, since I thought those were kinda the two weakest in terms of color palette in the original game--definitely room for improvement there. Lava Reef is already so beautiful that I don't know what they could do with that. Really hope for Metallic Madness they go with the beautiful blue Good Future look for at least Act 2 of that zone. The one I'm most interested in seeing is Hydrocity since that was probably the most faithful to the original (both in terms of palette and level design) in the main game. Love how it looks originally, but could definitely see it being improved--in particular I'm personally not big on the sand colored bricks when you're in dry portions of the zone. Already a beautiful zone, but it could be even more beautiful. We'll see!

    Aside from color palette, has anyone noticed any major changes in terms of object/enemy placement yet? Nothing has stood out to me so far, but I've been focusing way more on the visual differences.
     
  16. Diablohead

    Diablohead

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    It seems a few of the new colours for stages right now all fall into the orange/brown theme, I hope some stages have more bright colours, I'd love to see a blue titanic monarch.
     
  17. RikohZX

    RikohZX

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    Flying Battery's golden-brown feels like a Wing Fortress reference.
     
  18. TheOcelot

    TheOcelot

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    I've done two gifs of the Sonic Mania Adventure Ep2 end-credits:

    It of course has the sunset Green Hill design shown-off in the Mania Plus trailer.
    [​IMG]

    The Stardust Speedway change seems interesting because we already know act2 is getting a bad-future make-over:

    [​IMG]

    So the alternative green-ish color in the end-credits is for SS act1 in Encore mode.

    It's very likely that each act for every zone will have a new color palette.

    The Flying Battery color change looks nice. I think they're going for a Wing Fortress vibe:

    [​IMG]

    Completely agree.

    I don't like the red color in TM. I think a color change more akin to Death Egg zone from Sonic 2 or Death Egg from S&K would look better.

    Act2 of Press Garden already looks amazing, so perhaps a night theme? As for PG act1, I think Launch Base could be a good choice.
     
  19. McAleeCh

    McAleeCh

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    Was literally thinking the same thing, but you already beat me to posting it, haha. Makes a lot of sense - also explains why the new palette doesn't mess with the sky colour significantly, as Wing Fortress also had clear blue skies.
     
  20. RikohZX

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    In the Flying Battery 1 Encore footage, there's one extra TechnoSqueek, and the Trailer footage may not of been Encore but it did seem like more of them were on the external support beams too. Maybe my memory is foggy, but the Green Hill 1 Encore looked like it added an extra Buzz Bomber or two, and I think some rings for Chemical Plant 2 Encore were missing. Maybe they've only just begun mixing up placements but it seems fairly minor so far.