Sonic Mania Plus SPOILER THREAD with UNMARKED spoilers!

In today's stream Aaron is going to show the beginning of Encore Mode in Mania Plus!!!

https://twitter.com/RubyEclipse/status/1012436091129905153

 

Who care about that, when are they showing the toaster :v:
(But for real, ‘bout fucking time they acknowledged Mania Plus. It's releasing so soon, but they showed almost nothing since the trailer)

 

Encore mode doesn't look much different than the main game if we are being honest. The palette swaps seem to be the most significant changes.

Aaron also said on the stream that Mighty and Ray may be restricted to Encore mode.

 

I'd honestly be surprised if that's the case - they've released a lot of screenshots and snippets of footage of the two in Mania Mode stages, and a screenshot of Mighty's Mania Mode intro even turned up on the official Japanese PlayStation blog (I think - need to double check whether it was there or somewhere else. I definitely posted about it in this topic at the time - will go back and check when I'm able).

Not saying its impossible as that will have all been taken from in-development versions, but it'd certainly seem like a decision made very late in development given what's been shown in promo materials so far.

 

Here's the finished stream. Encore mode begins at 34:45




As expected there is no lives system for Encore mode.

You can change you?r character to a different one (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Mighty or Ray), the AI characte?r following to a different character or both to a different character depending on which item-box you chose. The change is random.

 

Interesting that Mighty made hidden item boxes fall from behind the palmtrees. Encore mode itself doesn't look that interesting, but at least it's different enough to play the game a bit more, and has those additional special stages. The winning animation for Ray is funny as hell, and I can't remember where did his waiting animation come from, but I've seen Sonic do that before the squirrel. I love the menu scenes, specially the one for competition mode. 3 weeks to go, I guess.

 

I look forward to an Encore playthrough, but is it sad that I'm just most excited for completed stage transitions?

Hoping they did something a bit more for Hydrocity...

 

Hate to be a downer but count me among those who feel that Encore Mode really feels too similar to Mania Mode. The level layouts, bosses, and level assets have already been covered by others, so I'm going to jump on a different topic of presentation--the narrative. Encore Mode is being billed as some sort of post-game story following Mania Mode, and the Angel Island tutorial stage with Mighty/Ray trapped does a good job of setting that up--but the moment Sonic and Mighty/Ray are warped back to Green Hill by the HBH, that seems to have been left at the wayside. Eggman is still in the Death Egg mech boss in Green Hill, and he still has his feud with the HBH over the Phantom Ruby as in Mania Mode. Moreover, there doesn't seem to be any palette color changes to the bosses (the miniboss and the boss) themselves, despite the palette changes to the zones themselves.

I would be fine with Encore Mode having minimal level design changes if there was significant presentation changes--either significant changes like having Eggman replaced with a different character (a la S&K when Eggrobo was piloting the mechs in Knuckles' story), or smaller changes like some glitching elements or slightly-tweaking the color palettes for the bosses to make people think twice if they feel they aren't just playing the same campaign again. Granted, it goes without saying that things may change in the later zone; and from the very little I've seen of the leaks, I can't ignore the new Metal Sonic boss; but I'm not really expecting much based off of what was shown off of Green Hill. I'm not seeing much that qualifies billing the levels in Encore Mode as a separate campaign to Mania Mode at all.

I will however admit that when Mania Plus was announced, I originally did consider Mania Plus DLC as just gravy on top of the retail release (which I wanted above all else), and felt any leftover/new ideas should be saved for a sequel rather than added as DLC, so I hope the developers don't take this critique too close to heart. I will also say on a positive note, I am genuinely excited for the new Special Stages, and I'm really supportive of the multiplayer expanded to supporting four players--I really enjoyed the SoA team's competition playthrough.

 

...Yeah, I also feel that they missed an opportunity by not replacing Eggman with somebody else. Even a regular Eggrobo (controlled by the Heavies?) could have worked with a few changes in the cutscenes.

 

It's still a bonus. They could have just re-released the normal game and call it a day.
Knuckles in Sonic 2 had far less changes. For the small price, there's already a good amount of work done for this DLC.

 

A few thoughts now I've had a chance to watch the video:

• Mighty and Ray's animations are wonderful and full of character. Love how enthusiastic and energetic Ray is - his double-thumbs-up victory pose, coupled with the exact same pose on the sign behind him, really drove home what an excitable fella he is. = )
• I like that they've thought about how Mighty's species would affect his gameplay - the ability to take an initial hit from spikes due to his hard shell is an interesting addition. How long d'you reckon it'll be until someone makes a Chaotix hack giving Mighty his Mania Plus moveset and properties, haha? XD
• Encore Mode looks like pretty much what I expected in terms of changes so far, albeit I was expecting permanent character unlocks after certain stages which could then be swapped using the monitors rather than unlocking characters through the monitors themselves. They talk about the characters you've unlocked being lost in lieu of lives when you die, which sounds like an interesting system - the "golden goal" for an Encore Mode save slot seems to be finishing with all five characters unlocked, plus the usual goal of all Chaos Emeralds.
• Interesting that they comment that they "don't know" whether there's a Super Mighty or Super Ray - it shows the hosts either haven't had the chance to explore this yet, or aren't allowed to say whether or not they're in. Personally, since every other character has a Super form, I reckon the new additions will get one too - otherwise getting all Emeralds with a Mighty/Ray team would be a bit lacking compared to other combinations.

 

Ducking in quickly to ask: do we know if Mighty and Ray will be playable in Mania mode after beating Encore mode? Encore mode seems super interesting, sure, but I'd like to do Mighty and Ray solo playthroughs of the vanilla levels too.

 

It's not been confirmed, and apparently on the stream it was mentioned at one point that there's a chance they may be restricted to Encore Mode (though if someone could provide a rough timing for that comment it'd be appreciated - I've only had time to watch the actual gameplay portion of the stream, and didn't catch it during that part).

However, given that screenshots and footage of Mighty and Ray in the normal Mania Mode levels have turned up frequently in promotional materials (including a shot of what appears to be Mighty's Mania Mode intro) I'm still betting they'll be selectable in that mode somehow, even if you have to complete Encore Mode to unlock them or something. I certainly hope they are, anyway, since like you I'm itching to complete some new Mania Mode save files for each additional character...!

 

I mean, the way Aaron said that sounded pretty tongue-in-cheek to me, lol; I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be there, especially since they allowed Tails to transform with just the Chaos Emeralds.

I do also hope Mighty and Ray will be playable in Mania Mode, even if their progression is just similar to Sonic/Tails'. Like someone else mentioned earlier, it could just be like a "Knuckles in Sonic 2" style bonus. They are selectable in Competition after all, so it would make sense to me.

I imagine we'll probably get a bit more context for Encore Mode (like maybe why Mighty & Ray are trapped, why the Phantom Ruby is doing more Phantom Ruby things, resolution of Knuckles not trusting Sonic/Tails/Ray, etc.) through Mania Adventures part 5.

Also, random thing I've been meaning to point out for a while, but in OcelotBot's Time Attack showcase of version 1.04, you can see that the bar that displays your Act and character now also says "Mania". Might this suggest that you can select Encore stages in Time Attack mode? I think that would be pretty cool.

Anyway, Encore Mode sounds and looks super fun, and now that I'm seeing it in action and thinking about it in context, it's pretty surprising to me that we haven't had a main game feature this type of character switching mechanic since, what, Sonic Heroes? (I mean there was Forces too, but they handled that a bit differently.) Also, Mighty and Ray's animations look amazing. In general, it's so awesome how much love and attention they're getting; they could've just put them in the game and called it a day (not that I'd expect that from the mania team of course!), but their personalities are really shining through Plus itself and the likes of Mania Adventures and the Plus trailer. It's almost like they haven't been gone!

 

Nope, this is what I've wanted from the updates from Day 1 and my body is ready for it

 

Even if Encore mode is pretty similar to the main game, the fact that you can play as all the characters and switch between them is just lovely. No more will I have to rely on mods to make Sonic follow Knuckles, and now there will be plenty of new combos I can play with, all while switching back and forth between them.

Also I find it funny that this was sorta hinted at in the leak. It makes sense that they fixed things like Knuckles' Hidden Palace cutscene and character return animations for other characters.

 

Yeah, was honestly expecting an EggRobo to appear instead. I'm sure someone will mod that in eventually though.

 

Just over two weeks now until release, I'm getting excited. The fact that I've played the leaked 1.04 version (and thus been spoiled with a lot of the new content) hasn't diminished my excitement.

Looking forward to seeing if the final Mania update has any other additional tweaks (as I said previously I'm expecting the final update to be 1.05 or 1.06 etc).

The footage in the stream looked excellent. It's nice that we've now seen the intro-cutscene to Encore mode and the full-cutscene of Sonic freeing Ray/Mighty. It's arguably a better-more exciting intro than Mania mode, especially being able to play through half of Angel Island act1. Even the Encore (purple) menu looks good.

When I think of Mania mode & Encore mode, I get the impression that; Mania mode is essentially "we can't give you Sonic 3 Remastered, so how about a new game with the same standard of high quality gameplay" and Encore mode is "Chaotix done right".

There's a lot of references to Chaotix in Mania mode (let alone Encore) which I appreciate because as flawed as (Knuckles) Chaotix is, it definitely had some interesting ideas. Essentially Encore mode is taking the Chaotix gameplay idea of playing with two characters, being able to switch to others, but allowing the player to playthrough much better level design. Using the established level design of Mania mode, add some tweaks and you end up with a much better experience than playing through the confusing messy level-design in Chaotix.

Encore mode may not be seen as particularly important by some fans, but I think it is because it's essentially Team Mania showing Iizuka-san & SEGA a way of evolving the 2d classic formula without moving too far from the core-gameplay and risk alienating the fanbase. Removing the extra-lives system just like in Chaotix could be seen as a risky move, because it does take away an element of replay-value/exploration. Once you have all the chaos emeralds in Encore mode there won't be much incentive for you to search for other special stage rings with an extra-life no longer being a reward. However, it's still essentially the same gameplay, but with new playable characters with new move-sets which offer different ways to traverse the zones and the tweaked level design.

I know some of you have expressed concerns as to the level design not being different enough, but having played the 1.04 version I can see that Team Mania has done a good job in subtly altering the layout in places (which is evident, especially in Chemical Plant act2 and Studipolis) to keep it fresh and interesting. Some new routes have been added and some existing ones altered (including Knuckles-only routes from Mania mode) to accommodate new special stage rings locations which require skill to navigate. I reckon you guys will have a much harder time locating special stage rings than in Mania mode. Trust me, some are really well hidden. I've found a fair few by exploring like crazy. A lot of the item-boxes have been changed (you will often find a different elemental-shield box in the same location compared to what you had in Mania mode).

You'll be required to use Mighty and/or Ray to access some routes, so you'll need to plan your playthrough carefully, trying to get the right combination of characters you need. So Encore mode will certainly provide an interest challenge. I wouldn't say it's hard mode. The difficulty seems about the same as Mania mode.

We haven't been shown the new bonus stage yet and we don't know how the story for Encore mode will end. We know it takes place after Mania mode so it can't end with the Phantom Ruby and Sonic disappearing again into that portal Sonic Team better not being making Sonic Fucking Forces 2 XD.

I can see Encore mode being a lot of fun, at least for the short-term.


As for the 1.04 version of Mania, there isn't anything else to show-off as far as I'm aware. I did upload a video a few days before Thursday's stream which showed Sonic choosing Mighty instead of Ray. Due to the glitched nature of the 1.04 version you always end up choosing Mighty as your partner. In this short video I showed how you can select Ray (instead of Mighty) using debug mode.


Naturally the footage in this video became obsolete after Aaron showed-off Angel Island and the completed cutscenes in Encore mode.

 

So apparently a guy named LDrifter posted on Garrulous64's Discord server that he has a review copy of Sonic Mania Plus, he posted the following in the chat. These are all seperate messages sent at different times.

Spoiler

EDIT: Here are some other things he said in the Cyber's Hell discord:

Spoiler

 

Well, any improvements to + - the final battle   will be a good thing. I really wasn't impressed by that one.