Yesterday I was thinking about how every returning zone in Sonic Mania has a main gimmick to differentiate it from the original level. That's usually more pronounced in the second act of each zone, of course. Anyway, while trying to think of what makes Hidrocity unique, I came to this conclusion: the level is backwards. I mean, not literally, of course. What I'm trying to say is that act 1 of Mania mirrors act 2 of 3K and act 2 of Mania mirrors act 1 of 3K. That's true for the bosses and overall level design. I think that's interesting because, essentially, what Sonic and Tails are trying to do is get back to Angel Island, so they can recover the Tornado, which was left there when they were teleported to Green Hill. That's why in the beginning of the next zone, Mirage Saloon, the two are boarding the airplane. It's a cool detail and I don't know if many have noticed it. They probably did, but I never saw anyone talking about it. So here's a post on the subject XD
Hydrocity is backwards in terms of its layout compared to all of the returning stages. For the rest of them, Act 1 is a fairly vanilla recreation the original layout(s) with maybe a couple of twists, whilst Act 2 throws many more new ideas into the mix and has a new layout. For whatever reason, this is reversed in the case of Hydrocity, where Act 1 is most completely new and its Act 2 that is instead almost a complete remake of Act 2 from S3. And on a similar note, the background art is swapped too. What was once the Act 1 background in S3 is now the Act 2 background in Mania, and vice versa. I don't buy the idea that this is because Sonic's trying to get back to the Tornado in Angel Island Zone though. Had that been the case, I think that the devs would have made it more obvious, because as it stands Act 1 in both games starts exactly the same and the Act 2 transition to Mirage Saloon has no rhyme or reason (post-patch, because pre-patch Mania didn't have an intro or outro for the level at all). You kind of have to squint and fill in the blanks yourself to reason that it's supposed to be a backwards trip through the level narratively. I think that a more likely explanation is that Hydrocity Act 2 from S3 is simply one of the most fun levels from all of the Classic games and the devs chose to recreate that instead of the much less exciting Act 1. And why did they keep it as Act 2 in Mania? Maybe just to shake things up a little bit? I dunno. The latter half of Mania, especially Hydrocity itself, feels like it was subject to a bit of rushing.
Eh. Why couldn't the reversal be just be something the devs did because they though it would be a fun twist on the level? The whole thing strikes me like something deliberate they planned since the beginning, especially considering they implemented reversed bosses.
Isn't that basically what I said? I don't think there's anything to support the idea that narratively Sonic is going through HCZ backwards to get to AIZ, but can believe the level bucks the usual "old act 1, new act 2" trend of Mania because it was just an opportunity to go things slightly differently.
I just didn't want to commit to either side (just kidding, I was thinking in Portuguese for a second there XD). @Blue Blood, I get what you're saying. But for me it just makes sense. Hydrocity is the only level to have a "meh" zone transition right now. Mirage Saloon is right there and they are boarding the Tornado at the start of it. So they had to go get it one way or another. It can't be a coincidence that the zone closer to Angel Island than any other comes just before they retrieve their plane... Or maybe it is, I don't know. I think that twisting things up was also a great way for the developers to subvert expectations. I mean, it was fair to assume that players would already be expecting every returning zone to follow the formula "act 1 remix + completely new thing" at this point in the game. The bosses are what makes me think that it was a creative decision first and foremost, rather than a simple level design thing. They knew clearly that they were changing the order they themselves had established.
Doesn't make sense to me. Act 1 is a remix of Act 1. Act 2 is almost exactly Act 2. If we follow your interpretation then Act 2 should be a remix of Act 1.
