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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. CollectiveWater

    CollectiveWater

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    We also know there's a banner ad for "Plus," so it's likely there are playable kiosks for it on the show floor.

    I already messaged the Gamexplain folks humbly asking them if they have the time (they're doing a ton of "Smash Bros. Ultimate" coverage of course) to check out Encore in "Mania Plus" to activate a star post to see if the pinball bonus stage is in the E3 demo build, to go into the first special stage just to confirm that yes the background/aesthetic of stage 7 from the main game is now stage 1 in Encore (with the new layout/design), and to play as Mighty and Ray and use their unique abilities (since outside of the official trailer for "Plus" we haven't seen much footage of them in-action yet). Dunno if they'll have time to do so, but here's hoping either they or someone else does and gets a nice direct capture of it.

    Also yeah the stream at 3:30 p.m. PST today is likely going to be multiplayer only. Both it and "Team Sonic Racing" are described as being "gaming battles" whereas "Valkyria Chronicles 4" and other games they're showing off during the stream are described as being "gameplay." That being said, I'm sure they'll play as Mighty and Ray, so it should still be interesting/worthwhile to see more of them in-action. But yeah if we want to see new stuff from Encore we're gonna have to rely on someone attending the show being able to get direct capture from a "Plus" kiosk. Let's hope!
     
  2. So... No gameplay at all for that Mania stream. Complete disappointment. Unless it's to come later but they've seemed to have ended it
     
  3. ICEknight

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    So the Sonic Mania Plus stream at E3 was two guys making toast for a few minutes. Kay.
     
  4. jubbalub

    jubbalub

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    The "Sonic Mania Plus Gaming Battle" was just toast. Good work SEGA
     
  5. CollectiveWater

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    This has been a (hilarious) train wreck--maybe as much as the infamous anniversary party. Played the wrong trailer multiple times, started halfway through when they finally got the right one (with terrible frame rate), then they finally played it normally several minutes after they first said it was going to play. Kept making Sonic toast (the toaster seems terrible/like it's gonna start fires--burns way too much, especially the logo that gets imprinted in the middle of whatever you're toasting) the entire time, and one of the presenters repeatedly referred to Crush 40 as Crash 40.

    And after all that they didn't even play the game, even though it was clearly labelled in their marketing as being "Sonic Mania Plus Gaming Battle." There was zero gaming or battling or multiplayer or anything at all.

    The only positive thing to say about it was: the slipcase for the physical version looks beautiful and the art book looks nicely bound for a small/relatively low page count.

    Anyway, now I *really* hope some kind soul at E3 is able to get direct capture (or decent off camera) footage of Encore mode in "Plus." Especially would like to see them activate a star post/go into the bonus stage (to check if the new pinball bonus stage is in the E3 demo build), go into the first special stage to confirm the order is reversed (with entirely new layouts) like OcelotBot discovered, and just show off Mighty and Ray using their unique abilities. That would make the abysmal horror of this livestream dissipate pretty quickly. Hell, even just written confirmation (anyone on the forum attending E3?) would be nice.
     
  6. Laura

    Laura

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    Considering that the DLC comes next month, we really don't know much about what Encore mode is.

    As much as I love Mania, I get the feeling that they really don't have much to show other than Mighty and Ray to be honest.
     
  7. Beltway

    Beltway

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    "That's it? That's the Mania 'gameplay battle?' That was just a bunch of cheap product shilling!"

    "What a rip!"


    Dohohohoh, typical Sega/Sonic PR strikes again. A Sega/Atlus-scheduled "gameplay battle" that turns out to be a recap of stuff we already know about.

    No gameplay, no screenshots, not even new information, despite the DLC being a month away from release. But hey, at least we got some toast from a Sonic toaster and saw a Sonic-themed shoe!

    Even the one cool thing they actually did have to show--the retail packaging materials--felt like it was done at proverbial gunpoint. It was so painfully obvious that the PR dictating only very specific elements about the retail release could be shown and even for how long. It was almost as if if the streamers saw just one thing that wasn't on the list the poor Sega rep would get abducted by a group of thugs in black and would be last seen on a milk carton.

    And of course there are also technical/broadcasting mishaps, because it wouldn't be a true blue Sonic-themed event if it wasn't.

    If this was all they were going to show, then I have absolutely no idea why they even bothered to host a panel in the first place.
     
  8. Yeah, showing off the packaging during a Sonic stream on Thursday is far better suited there. Doing it during e3 is so far down the list of the mainstream e3 audience
     
  9. CollectiveWater

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    Eh, we've seen there's a lot in Encore mode (for $5 DLC). Fully playable Angel Island Act 1 (with great animation for the plants and a beautiful full rendition of the music by Tee), entirely new Mirage Saloon Act 1 (which looks great), different coloring for each zone (to be fair even though it's subjective I doubt anyone would deny that the color choices are a pretty mixed bag overall--Oil Ocean, Chemical Plant, and Stardust Speedway look beautiful but beyond that it's a lot more baseline good to middling to bad in terms of quality when it comes to the color changes), of course Mighty and Ray with their unique abilities (both abilities look rad to me), entirely new pinball bonus stage (thank god it's not just more Blue Sphere, since we already have the randomly generated mode), and new designs/layouts for all the special stages (yeah they use the same backgrounds/art just in reverse order, but I'm fine with that considering the very high quality of the new designs).

    You're right that in terms of changed design (differently placed badniks/objects/etc.) we haven't seen that much (Chemical Plant had the most changes in the accidentally pushed PS4 beta build, but the changes were more minimal for most of the other zones). I'm sure the final build will have more changes than we've seen, but honestly that's not really all that exciting anyway. Just a subtle thing to make playthroughs feel a bit different from what we've done already.

    We've pretty much seen everything except for Mighty and Ray playing through an entire act or zone, and the pinball bonus stage. (There might be some other surprises in the final build but I wouldn't expect much else.) I'm super onboard with everything we've seen--just wanted to see some gameplay of Mighty and Ray and for someone to check if the pinball bonus stage is in the E3 demo build. Was hoping to get some of the former from what we all assumed was going to be a stream of people playing some multiplayer, but oh well. Like I said, hopefully some kind person at E3 can get footage from one of the "Plus" kiosks. We'll see. (Maybe there aren't any/it isn't playable there, which would be weird. I've tried asking whether it is or not from some people attending but haven't gotten an answer yet.)
     
  10. foXcollr

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    I don't think it's playable, or else don't you think somebody would've posted off-camera footage by now? My guess is they're saving most of the Encore gameplay and any footage of Mighty and Ray for the birthday stream.

    Gotta say, however, that this whole toaster fiasco has been really genuinely disappointing. I didn't mind last year's stream at all because, even with some hitched along the way, they still showed us everything we were expecting them to show us, and more when you consider how much of a surprise the first Mania trailer was. I love the toaster gag and all, but with this stream we really didn't get anything they promised, and they didn't promise much. The schedule only said that there would be a gameplay battle, and there was no gameplay shown and no battle to be had. :/ I don't doubt that Plus is gonna be a good buy. I'm still planning on buying it day one. But this is just one of those little things that makes your day a little worse, yknow?
     
  11. Turbohog

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    They made toast? Is this supposed to be a meme or aomething? I'm really sick of the memes. They need to cool it.
     
  12. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    They made some really burnt toast that I don't think is either tasty nor healthy.
     
  13. CollectiveWater

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    Yeah, there probably aren't kiosks of it there for some reason. (Seems bizarre that it isn't since it's a fairly big release coming out in a month that surely has already gone gold considering the time needed to manufacture all those discs and cartridges for the physical version.)

    It seemed like not all kiosks/demo stations were available on Tuesday (show floor is open for slightly less time on day 1 and non-industry attendees only had 5 hours to see stuff on the first day, whereas they got 7 today and 9 tomorrow). I think the first day is mostly private demo sessions for industry attendees/games press and more limited in terms of the kiosks on the show floor being on/available. But yeah if there were any "Mania Plus" kiosks in Sega's booth or anywhere else on the show floor surely people would have had access to it today. I kind of assumed if it was there it'd probably get overlooked by most if not all games press since they have tons of appointments to see higher-profile upcoming releases in behind-closed-doors demo sessions, plus interviews with high-profile creators, etcetera. (That isn't to say "Mania" isn't high profile--but it is mainly DLC to a game that already released nearly a year ago. Obviously games being revealed for the first time are going to take precedence/be more exciting to many in the games press.) But yeah you'd think there'd be off-camera footage by a non-industry attendee if it was playable there today, so it probably is not.

    Hopefully Aaron and co. play some of it during one of the streams before release day. If not, guess we just got to wait until release to get our "Plus"/Encore fix. Can't wait!


    Edit: Ah, thanks Jason for the confirmation below. How bizarre. Maybe they didn't think it was a big enough deal or just wanted to focus entirely on "Team Sonic Racing." ("Mania Plus" looks a lot better/more interesting to me than the new racing game.) Oh well.

    Also doesn't it seem weird that they would announce "Mania Plus" months in advance of E3, have a gorgeous new trailer for it, green-light and release a short 5-episode animated promotional series for it, all while barely giving any information whatsoever on "Team Sonic Racing" to only spit out a minute and a half gameplay trailer on Monday (the busiest day of E3 when almost all of the press conferences happen, therefore it got totally buried in all the other news), but then at the show itself only show the latter game ("Team Sonic Racing") and not have even a single kiosk for "Plus"? And promote as part of your livestream at the show a "multiplayer battle" look at the game to then not showing anything new of it/related to multiplayer whatsoever? Just utterly bewildering.
     
  14. Jason

    Jason

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  15. TheKazeblade

    TheKazeblade

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  16. Fadaway

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    I think this was a strategic move in light of the leak. However, it does cost it some hype. Yet, there are other ways to hype this type of thing right now without spoiling much. Hmmmm. Maybe they didn't want to run the risk of appearing to beat a dead horse. Play it cool, minimalist, shrewd, and suave, you know? Either that or just laziness. And, all things considered, it just may be cost-effective laziness.
     
  17. CollectiveWater

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    Hmm, so there was a Puma + Sonic launch party for those new shoes they're putting out at a shoe store called Nice Kicks in L.A. earlier tonight, and "Mania" was playable at the event (looked like there were a handful of kiosks). Wonder if it was a recent "Plus" build or an older vanilla "Mania" build. Probably the latter. Still find it pretty bizarre "Mania Plus" seemingly isn't playable on the show floor at the convention center. Oh well; one month to go!
     
  18. Dark Sonic

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    I do kinda wish the PR team would be a little more serious sometimes. It can't all just be memeing.
     
  19. hey now, that's dangerous thinking
     
  20. Jason

    Jason

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