Sonic Mania Plus SPOILER THREAD with UNMARKED spoilers!

I saw it just when all of them got caught. That was something completely original, Stealth! You're awesome, in and out of coding!

 

The slipcover should've been the Genesis box, instead of a reversible cover. Missed opportunity. Oh well. I know the console names would've been an issue but still. Could've been on the other side.

 

Gonna be honest, I don't see any feasible way that they could've done that. They could've potentially made it a different front cover on both sides, but that would've been a cluttered mess and not passable by any standard because they still have to include all of the back-of-box information as well on one of the sides.

 

Having had a chance to play through the Plus content on Steam, some initial thoughts:

Mighty is a great addition to the game, but I don't really have much to say beyond "no complaints" - the real gem of this update has turned out to be Ray. He is so, so much fun to play as. I've felt for quite a while that Tails' flight needs some kind of overhaul because "mash button to go higher at a set speed" is quite dull. Ray's glide is dynamic and momentum-based in the same way that Sonic's drop dash is, and as a result is the kind of thing I don't think I'll ever get bored of. Absolutely incredible work with this one, Team Mania.

Encore Special Stage 6 has the same problem as the original Special Stage 7 - the route the UFO takes around all the acute corners makes it far too easy to catch at Mach 1, just by cutting the corners. Otherwise I really appreciate the difficulty and size of these new special stages - for some it feels like one lap is three or four times as long as the old courses. I'm a little surprised they haven't got different palettes like the rest of Encore, but otherwise these are exactly what I wanted, just like the S&K Blue Sphere stages.

Something that all three bonus stages in S3&K had in common was a form of 'time limit' imposed by the stage design - the gumball bumpers breaking, the slot machine wall tiles becoming 'goal' tiles, and the rising beam in the magnetic ball stage. The new pinball bonus stage has nothing like this, and without that element of tension gets dull quite quickly. I started a Mania save as Ray, entered a pinball stage in GHZ1 and went from 6 lives to 24, also earning five continues. The only reason I left was because I was bored, otherwise I don't see a reason I couldn't have continued indefinitely. It's useful to have for grabbing a shield you want or an extra life in a pinch, the same reasons the bonus stages were good in S3&K, but unfortunately while Dimension Heist is easily my favourite special stage, this pinball board doesn't even come close to unseating the magnetic ball stage as my favourite bonus.

The new competition screen option, and support for three or four players are excellent to have. It's a shame that still only half of the Mania levels are available to play. I thought I saw footage or screenshots of competition Encore stages, but I can't seem to access those so I might be imagining it? Regardless, once I get the Switch version tomorrow I'll be sure to drag all my family and friends into playing it. The new time attack features are excellent, as expected. Especially being able to freely play the Encore stages without the character swapping gimmick.

Encore itself is a neat idea, and I don't mind the new colours and stage layouts for the most part (some of them feel more substantial than others, though). I would've preferred a more developed Angel Island stage, and new boss variants along the lines of what Knuckles got for many of the S3&K bosses, but taken to the next level, but I understand that development time was short and it was an even smaller team than before. At the very least, some kind of new final boss would've been nice. After Doomsday and Egg Reverie, simply having a different ending cutscene that still leaves unanswered questions is both anticlimactic and unsatisfying. Why have Heavy King take the Phantom Ruby in the bad ending if he's not going to do anything with it?

I'm happy with the changes/additions to Mania Mode, especially the new level cutscenes (except Hydrocity to Mirage Saloon, as others have said) but I'm a little disappointed there aren't more partner options. & Mighty and & Ray modes would've been nice, or at least a Mighty + Ray co-op option. Encore not supporting two players is also pretty surprising and I don't really understand why.

Now the main thing I want is a mod to play the Encore stages in Mania Mode.

 

Standard? You act like there's graphic design police that shuts down bad packaging. You also have no imagination. https://i.imgur.com/ngJGyHY.jpg

 

This pretty much sums up my thoughts after playing through Mania Mode as Ray, and through Encore Mode.

From the trailers I thought "Mighty looks cool, Ray looks janky". Mighty is certainly playable and fun but doesn't bring much new to the table; as I previously said, it's basically Sonic with a permanent bubble shield (bounce attack, projectile deflection, spike protection), except elemental dangers still make you lose rings, and you can make monitors fall out of trees. I thought he'd be able to break walls like Knuckles does (and maybe access Knuckles-only routes too) but apparently he's not as Mighty as his name suggests. A bit underwhelming, but I'd rather Mighty than no Mighty (a certain rosy rascal might've been more interesting in this instance).

However, after learning how he works, Ray is absolutely my favourite character to play as. It can be used to gain a short boost in jump height, or dive to dodge attacks, or a long range half-flight half-glide that done right can get really far without losing height. It's a great variation on a flying character, and being able to attack from it adds a ton of options.

The levels in Encore Mode are... well, they're generally just better. Less automation, more variation. Later stages have more changes than earlier stages, and they're both refreshing to play through as well as more enjoyable. Especially Mirage Saloon, which has gone from the worst zone to one of the best thanks to a brand new act which is incredibly fun to play through.

This is Sonic Mania as I truly imagined it. :v: (well, it's a lot closer)

 

No, standard as in that would look awful by any standard. What is that image supposed to prove? Putting two separate cover designs on the cover slip is different from putting one design on the cover slip and another design on the game case. Only one of those gets seen on a store shelf.

Seems like a huge nitpick to me, can't really solve everyone's complaints with one release and I don't think they should've tried.

 

Not sure everybody noticed but, you can choose to fight Heavy Rider or Heavy King depending on the path chosen on Lava Reef Act 2 in Encore Mode (You don't need Knuckles by the way).
It was a nice touch.

 

I just happened to be visiting Japan when Mania plus dropped..I picked up my copy which includes the soundtrack....once im back in the state's I will upload some photos

 

Hanging Waters is right. Not only they'd make the distinction between platforms really bad with a big red strip on every box with Genesis written all over it, but they would probably have to remove the lamicoat (metallic finish) inorder to make it work better with the non-metallic strip. Mania is not a Genesis game, so it makes sense to have that as a reversible cover, because it's what it is. Just a what if situation.

 

Upload a FLAC rip instead mate (the Plus tracks, anyway)

 

I'm going to sound like a moaning old fart here but only because I love mania and want to see it at it's best, but anyway:

I'm personally not fond of encore, I can see what they are going for and the concept is cool but in practice I'm not enjoying it, I'm going out of my way to avoid random boxes and sometimes when paired up with sonic and knuckles/tails I feel like I should just be playing mania mode.

Some of the remixed acts are good while others feel pretty much the same, the best remix so far has to be flying battery act 2 but I still need to complete encore mode, just not felt the need to do so yet.

Mighty and Ray are cool, Ray's flying is really nice to have and makes playing mania mode refreshing after a year of STK, I love mighty's design but I feel his slam move is a bit eh, would have been nice if he could launch players into the sky like in the adventures cartoon when he throws Ray into the tree top.

Now, I love the pinball bonus but at the same time it feels rushed and jank, the flippers don't launch you correctly and physics are out of the window, for a game designed around rolling about you would think the pinball table would feel good like the bonuses in Spinball but they really don't here.

Oddly I'm going to miss the old menu layout.

 

Personally I found the stages seemed more different the further along I got (aside from the obvious exception of Mirage Saloon Act 1, which I think qualifies as the ultimate example, haha). There were sections in Lava Reef and Titanic Monarch I didn't recognise at all, and was struggling to remember what the object layout for them was like originally - in particular, a section almost entirely constructed out of collapsing platforms in Lava Reef and a section where you're having to use the plasma spheres to throw yourself through small gaps between various obstacles in Titanic Monarch Act 2 have stuck in memory the most. Be interested to get back to those Zones in my Mighty/Ray Mania Mode playthroughs and refresh my memory on what they were originally like.

Colour pallet wise, I liked most of the changes - the only ones which didn't really work for me were Hydrocity (which I felt made it a little harder to distinguish things visually than the original) and Act 1 of Titanic Monarch (with that weird vomit-coloured background at the beginning... once you get higher up in the stage it's fine, as is Act 2). Favourites are probably Chemical Plant, Flying Battery, Oil Ocean (which I felt looked too bright and gaudy in screenshot form, but it really grew on me once I was actually playing it) and Mirage Saloon Act 2. Stardust Speedway Act 2 and Metallic Madness were also great - nice to see them taking inspiration from the Bad Future versions of each stage, and great to see the pallet bug visible in the initial screenshots of Stardust Speedway (where a shade of pale green was being used as a highlight in the otherwise red lower portion of the background) has been fixed for the final version.

 

Really great points about the bonus stage. I've been disappointed that Mania's bonus stages can last so long compared to 3&K. Also the fact that each mode only has one bonus stage means they get old really fast. Magnetic ball bonus stage for life.

 

the biggest thing im disappointed about is that we can not roll back the update, and lose some of the original content like Metal sonic's boss fight. ( its pretty much lost )

 

I'm sure someone will mod the original Metal Sonic fight back into the game at some point.

 

Actually, you can roll back the update, at least on Steam.

Also Dark Sonic I think you may be overestimating people's modding abilities with this game.

 

That very well may be the case, I have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to this stuff. I have no idea how porting something from an older version of the game to the newer version of the game would work.

But at least one modder has done stuff beyond the scope of the original game (adding more characters, adding the boost power, new menus, stuff like that), so maybe it's possible.

 

Didn't think about this. A Metal Sonic 'legacy' toggle would be a nice little feature.

Is there anything else that gets changed in such a way? I'm talking subjective changes where people might want to have the old option - rather than obvious upgrades.

Similar example is Street Fighter V > Arcade Edition. Despite the huge upgrade, you lose some of the original menus and music. I really liked the old Versus and Character Select screen (and victory theme), but those have been completely replaced with Arcade Edition's new background and music.

Of course, games will always continue to evolve, and people will always prefer different iterations and updates over others, or at least aspects of those updates.