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Sonic Mania Plus (Consoles Physical; PC Digital) - Non-Leaks Thread

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Chris Highwind, Mar 16, 2018.

  1. I can sympathize. I too have a daughter, 4 years old, who loves Amy. She likes to play Sonic Advance, and while she does play with other characters, Amy is her favorite. She already asked me why Amy isn't in Mania, and unfortunately it looks like this will continue to be the case.
     
  2. Antheraea

    Antheraea

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    And something I'd like to add to this too, even when I was a kid I never gravitated toward Amy. It was always characters like Samus and even Tikal that made me ridiculously happy.
     
  3. Sparks

    Sparks

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    I dunno about Amy, or even additional Mania DLC, but at some point down the road, I'd like to see the classic Chaotix playable again, be it DLC or a sequel. They already have sprites, movesets and everything to start off with and expand, too. :v:
     
  4. foXcollr

    foXcollr

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    My thoughts exactly! Amy has always felt like a stale character to me. She doesn't have any interesting or compelling qualities as a character, and her design basically dumbs down to "How do we make Minnie Mouse, but if she were a hedgehog?" Then again, I don't really play Sonic games for the plot or the characterization, but if they were to bring her back I just think it'd need to be in a form that drastically changes her character. To be honest personalities aren't really a big deal, and Mighty and Ray hardly have any canon game personality at this point aside from what we can gather from their SegaSonic animations, but I just don't find Amy very interesting from a design perspective.

    But Mighty and Ray lookin CUTE AF LOOK AT EM LOOK AT MIGHTY'S POINTY LIL NOSE
     
  5. Chimera

    Chimera

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    fwiw the chaotix crew in a traditional level environment would be interesting to see, one where the spindash isn't irreparably nerfed and the stage isn't built around the tag ring gimmick.


    Also wanna mention I was just tryna empathize with the people who don't know who Ray is and why they're like "why this over my other characters," and in all fairness the idea of Amy got pretty much ruined exclusively by Dreamcast onward SEGA giving her the one note personality of "fangirl," whereas it seems the people in charge of Archie/IDW have been trying to make her more of an appealing, helpful character, who tries to assist people she cares about rather than latch onto the protagonist's crotch like every token girl.

    I think people are just upset about a missed opportunity to fix amy, or do her right, since she's not inherently flawed as a character (even if at face value shes just "pink sonic"), but hasn't had any time to be someone worth liking. Of course you can argue "well better to start with a blank slate like a new girl character / obscure characters i.e. Ray etc," and I would agree with you to a point, but Amy's been around since the beginning and her original "Rosy" design barely got any time to exist, so shes in a kind of limbo state of being known by everyone but devoid of actually having character; she's effectively a recognized blank slate.


    TLDR im pretty sure most people here just have a more intimate understanding with the series which is having them appreciate obscure references a lot more than just "fixing whats broke" / "muh classic characters," but while winks and nods in level art can only have people like us grin stupidly, the inclusion of characters / the lack of inclusion of a potential character can be a bit more of a hot topic.

    Basically dedicated fan vs arms-length veteran :x its tricky.
     
  6. Dark Sonic

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    They have move sets, but given Mania's art style they'd almost certainly start from scratch with the sprite work. Although at least they'd have a frame of reference for some animations. Speaking of sprite sets I was surprised with what they did with Knuckles. I thought for sure they'd of just beefed up his Sonic 3 sprites similar as to how Sonic and Tails are beefed up versions of their 1 and 3 counterparts, but they just redid him entirely. And I'm glad they did, these are by far my favorite Knuckles sprites
     
  7. Drex

    Drex

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    Start from scratch? They literally just recolored Sonic 2's sprites. I'm sure they would do something similar for the chaotix since their design is already based on Sonic 2.

    And they would have 100% have to fix the bee's play style.

    Yeah. That would be the whole point of their story. Find the one responsible for framing them. Character specific routes and bosses are also a thing in this game. I see absolutely nothing wrong with them figuring their imposter, though.
     
  8. Chimera

    Chimera

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    Ya know that would actually be pretty cool, and the closest to a "knuckles story" this game would get next to, well, the actual Knuckles story. I feel the development resources for that would kind of outweigh the scope of mania, however, as neat as that would be.

    The chaotix would definitely need a sprite overhaul to fit with the Mania aesthetic if Knuckles alone is anything to go by; while Sonic and Tails were basically "better Sonic 2 sprites," Knuckles was converted from S3K artwork to a whole new sprite sheet just to make him consistent, so I've no doubt the out-there design of Chaotix would need a significant rework. Thinking of how Charmy and Vector would look in this style is a bit puzzling.

    On the topic of this, I wonder how redesigned Mighty is going to be; his sprite set was based off a Sonic 2 style artwork, so unless they wanted to adjust him further to differentiate him from Sonic in some way, it might be the case that he's not too far off from his Chaotix design / looking like a Sonic sprite edit more often than not.
     
  9. Dark Sonic

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    Even still, by default the sprites don't have arms, and look at the direction they went with Knuckles. On top of that though, Chaotix has a very limited sprite set that has a lot of irrelevant animations. So you'd end up with like, idk the base for 20 usable sprites? And actually for Sonic I think they used Sonic 1/CD's sprites as a base since they used Sonic's jog animation from those game.

    But yes they'd have to fix the bee :v: Or they could have just nixed the Bee and added Mighty, Espio, and Vector and I don't think anyone would have complained, because no one likes Charmy. Hell no one likes Charmy even ironically like how people like Big and Tails Doll. Even the in game characters don't like Charmy. But I'm excited to see Ray. It's different, obscure, and it gives them a total blank slate to play with. As nice as it'd be to see Espio and Vector again, their classic movesets basically boiled down to awkward Knuckles (Same with Mighty, but if all 3 were in the game then yea, 3 awkward Knuckleses and Knuckles).
     
  10. Antheraea

    Antheraea

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    Not even the devs like Charmy :v:
     
  11. Dark Sonic

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    The bee could have been Sonic Mania's Funky mode

    Have a chill time dudes and fly all over the place forever with virtually no way to die.

    Then if you got all 7 emeralds you can be Super Charmy and kill all bosses in 1 hit and get an instant 8 combo on the Mean Bean boss :v:
     
  12. LukyHRE

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    I like the ideas this fanbase has.
     
  13. Boxer Hockey

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    I'm not a girl, but I agree with all of this. In order for Classic Amy to be relevant she needs a bit of development. IMO the path moving forward with Amy shouldn't be "She's worthless, forget about her" but rather "give her character worth".
     
  14. ICEknight

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    Didn't the Japanese Sonic CD manual give her some more personality than "she likes Sonic", though? I remember that she was supposed to be into Tarot cards or something.

    Also, she's a pretty cool character in the Sonic Mega Drive comics, but you should know that already. ;P
     
  15. Drex

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    The arm thing is irrelevant since you can easily rip the sprites from screen grabs and erase the ring like 123-Psi and others have done before. The characters already use nearly the same number of colors as Mania too. Sonic 1 / 2 / CD combined definitely have more animations than Chaotix, but I don't see that as a major reason to not using them at all.

    Now if they wanted to revamp the sprites because they are ugly, well, I can't argue with that. Knuckles and Espio always stuck out as the ugly ones to me, but I never saw much wrong with Charmy and especially Vector (he's my fav). If they did decide to revamp those guys I wouldn't complain if they ended up looking anything like this.

    As far as movesets go, there's always room to expand no matter who the character is. I've always thought that Espio could use his tongue as a mid air move. It would work like the avatar character's grappling hook to attack enemies and would similarly pull Espio towards walls and ceilings that he can run on. Not sure what more can be done with Vector right off, but I'm at least down for having the 8-way flame shield boost 24/7

    @Chillmode Charmy: just ban him from competition mode then you can do whatever you want with him for all I care.
     
  16. Lilly

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    Seconding this. When I replayed Sonic Adventure 1 on Steam recently, now age 28 instead of 16, I realized for the first time how great Amy's story was in that game. She learned to be independent from Sonic, and selflessly helped others in the process. For all of SA1's cheese, Amy's story was fairly wholesome. And I still enjoy her levels as much as I do Sonic's.

    Knowing that, I doubt I could play Sonic Heroes again, since she regressed to being clingy with Sonic. Amy shouting "MARRY ME" while also swinging a hammer at him in battle- one thing here is not like the other. :psyduck:

    So technically, Amy was already "fixed" at some point, but later iterations decided to exaggerate her personality again. It's a shame, because the character design in itself is still great.
     
  17. CollectiveWater

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    I wouldn't be too worried about the involvement of HyperKinetic. Humble reminder that although "Mania" had a fairly small team size, it was comprised of people from several different companies and individuals who worked on a contract basis. Of course everyone here knows Taxman, Stealth, PagodaWest (Tom, Taryn, Jared, Tee, et al.), Slingerland, Veer, Midio, Hunter, Kieran, Falk, et al. worked on it, but so did a small 4-person studio called Picomy (who prior to "Mania" had only worked on a mobile game). And that team from Picomy primarily helped with level design. I'm guessing HyperKinetic is simply taking Picomy's place on the "Plus" project since Picomy has a new mobile game releasing this year and are therefore probably currently too busy to have helped with it.

    Even if HyperKinetic are handling the bulk of dev on "Plus," I personally don't mind that so much. The majority of the work on "Plus" would be whatever new abilities the two new characters have and the Encore Mode. We haven't really gotten a full description of what exactly Encore Mode is, but it sounds like the same 12 zones with some slight alterations to level design and color palette/art assets, to give those of us who have played through the game countless times a slightly new route to explore. Even if the primary folks that were on "Mania" were entirely handling the Encore Mode (which certainly doesn't seem to be the case, though I imagine Taxman, Stealth, and some of the original design folks are working on it at least to some degree and/or at least overseeing it), I still wouldn't expect that much from it, considering it's only been seven months since the main game launched. "Sonic Mania Plus" is clearly mostly just a way for Sega to give all the fans that wanted a true physical release what they were asking for. The fact we're getting any additional stuff in the game itself just seems like icing on top to me. (All that said, though, of course I'd love for Encore Mode to at least be good enough to make it worth playing through a couple times. Considering it's the same zones with likely a lot of the original design intact, seems like it'd be difficult for it not to be.)

    Totally agree with you though that for the proper "Sonic Mania 2" sequel Sega needs to try to get most if not all the folks that worked on the first game (and make the folks that were previously contract-only full-time; this seems especially necessary since the sequel would need to have many more original zones/art assets than the first), and if they're smart should let the team add a couple more people they want to the team.

    As you say, dramatically changing the dev team nearly always makes the quality go down. But not only that, even keeping mostly or exactly the same dev team is not a guarantee if they don't give the team enough time, money, and resources. Look at what happened to mainline "Mega Man." 9 was a brilliant revival of the series (it's the third-best classic "Mega Man" game of all-time, after 2 and 3, in my opinion), and while 10 was still good it wasn't quite as good as 9. The slightly lower quality of 10 was reflected both critically and commercially, and then Capcom had the series go dormant for 7 years before announcing a new installment. And they only had themselves to blame, since the entire reason 10 wasn't as good as 9 was that they didn't give the dev team enough time and resources--10 released only a year and five months after 9 (meaning it was probably only in full-time dev for a year). Only a year--or even a year and half--just isn't enough time for these small teams that are trying to not only return a game series to former glory but iterate and evolve on top of what came before to make them feel fresh and exciting.

    The fact Sega gave the greenlight and put the right people (Tyson, Tee, and a bunch of other great artists/animators) in charge of "Sonic Mania Adventures" is an early, strong indication they're on the right path with 2D Sonic. Considering "Sonic Mania 2" was announced on August 15th, 2017 (look at the newspapers in the background of PGZ Act 1--surely this has been pointed out many times already), is likely in early preproduction, and Taxman, Stealth, Tom, Brad, Hunter, Lola, et al. are currently at GDC, things already look promising for the future. Let's just hope they give them the right amount of time and money to make an even better sequel that will further cement that 2D Sonic is one of if not the best platformers of all-time.
     
  18. Gestalt

    Gestalt

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    I guess the main reason why people don't get overly excited about the addition of Ray and Mighty is because they expect Mania to celebrate only the games Sonic was best known for. I think we already have the perfect mix of playstyles with Sonic, Tails and Knuckles.

    But wouldn't it be cool if Ray & Mighty mode was about the events between the endings of Mania and Forces?
     
  19. Hez

    Hez

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    My only problem with this, is that it seems like a cash grab. Go back to when Sonic 3 was released, and you got essentially a "plus" that added a new character, and a handful of new levels for the price of a new game. Here, you will likely have to pay for the game again, with two new characters. That's it. NOW if they add a handful of levels as well, then I'll eat my words and cough up the money. I'm just hoping this isn't an EA tactic where we pay a lot more, for just a bit more.
     
  20. Jason

    Jason

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    It's paid DLC if you already have the game. You're not (likely) buying a Part II of an epic. It's (so far) shown to be bonus content. If they add one or two more zones, that'd be enough for me to break out the old Fry.jpg. But just on what's shown is the potential for a more refined package, and that's completely fine for DLC content. If you don't have the game already + - (WTF are you doing here)   you're getting a GOTY version for your patience. Don't really see a cash grab mentality from this at all.