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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. TailsAddict

    TailsAddict

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    Hopefully sega give sonic maniacs another game. It was good.. This time with all original levels and Amy rose playable.. Would buy 11/10
     
  2. Beltway

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    Weekly Nintendo sales charts came in, and Mania took a big drop in the All Games chart, falling from #16 to #29 on the All Games list. The drop in the Download-Only games list was softer from #8 to #16.

    On the plus side, however, Nintendo revealed the top 30 most-downloaded Switch games in North America for last month-- Sonic Mania ranked #8 on the list, undeniably thanks to the release of the DLC / retail updated re-release. According to Nintendo, the rankings are based on unit sales in July on the eShop. If you ask me, this could be a good signal as to how Mania Plus (on Switch) may have performed in the US last month, although we're still weeks away from obtaining a July NPD report.
     
  3. I would like to see Amy in a possible Sonic Mania sequel.
     
  4. big smile

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    Got to be honest, after playing Ray and Mighty, I hope that a Mania sequel just focuses on Sonic, Tails and Knuckles and leaves the rest of the cast as NPCs. There's nothing wrong with extra characters, and the Mania team were awesome for including them, but I think for the characters to be truly fantastic, they need to have levels that are specifically designed for them. Ray and Mighty were good, but they weren't as interesting to play as Knuckles and Tails who had whole chunks of levels built just for them (And, of course, with the budget Team Mania had, making routes just for Ray and Mighty wouldn't have been possible).

    I don't think any Sonic game would have the budget to make level routes for 4+ characters, so it's better if they focus on the core 3. Perhaps the others could be optional DLC.
     
  5. Jason

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    Mighty and Ray came after the fact. Encore Mode has a few places here and there that make them unique, but I agree not adding any to Mania mode makes them feel lesser. If they were planned from the start, I'd imagine they'd get more bona fide routes. At least to the extent Tails gets.

    http://youtu.be/yLgau37bfrA
    Encore Mode is apparently very speedrun-exploitable.
     
  6. big smile

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    I'm just not sure a (2D) Sonic game would have the budget for 4+ characters to be have the level designed with individual routes to the same extent as Tails and Knuckles. If it does, then more characters would rock!
     
  7. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    ...Plus Amy, maybe? I bet she could easily break all those Mighty-exclusive smashable things with her hammer moves. :v:
     
  8. Beltway

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    It's not even like (2D) Sonic games even need to accommodate for that many playable characters in one game in the first place. Rotating around the cast of playable characters is also an entirely viable option. Knuckles due to his ME guardian duties is arguably the most expendable cast member you can put on the shelf for a game or two. Tails is arguably the one cast member who's a permanent slot on the roster but even that can be ignored in favor of someone else for another game or two.

    It would be even somewhat intriguing to see them tackle another classic Sonic game focused solely on Sonic; although I'm pretty sure the recent spate of Sola Sonica games has probably soured a lot of people on the idea. Especially with Sonic Team in Forces wasting a playable character slot / playstyle on a second Sonic, in a game premise/story that would had made having any other character in the cast to be brought in make complete sense.
     
  9. Pengi

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    I'm all for varying the playable characters from game to game, to keep things fresh and interesting. A Sonic Mania sequel could have a playable cast of Sonic, Amy, Vector and Charmy, for example. I'd be fine with them adding a new girl character to the Classic Sonic cast too.
     
  10. Dark Sonic

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    I'm perfectly fine with all 5 returning. True, Mania wasn't built for Mighty and Ray so you get more of a Knuckles in Sonic 2 or a Tails in Sonic CD vibe, but even a couple more paths or secrets or shortcuts even and Mighty would be good to go. Also Ray doesn't need his own paths. He's basically Tails but with greater risk/reward. Besides it's not like Knuckles had a ton of paths in this game either (MSZ 1 Mania mode aside).

    At least IMO it's nice seeing a classic game with more characters outside of just the original 3. Its because they're so rarely seen that they're fun. In Encore mode I make a point to basically ignore Tails and I almost always want Mighty involved.

    Speaking of Tails, idk why but I've just grown tired of him. Maybe the modern games interpretation of him started to piss me off but eh, if anyone has to take a break make it him.

    Give me a reimagined classic version of SegaSonic Arcade with its level themes but completely redesigned levels :v:
     
  11. ICEknight

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  12. Beltway

    Beltway

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  13. Jason

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    The UK charts are physical only, so DLC or new digital purchase not even included, a year old game cracking the Top 20 is great.

    That orange marsupial is killing it across the pond. I didn't think he had that kind of staying power, but I guess mid-90s are en vogue, and he dominated that time in terms of mascot platformers.
     
  14. CollectiveWater

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    "Sonic Mania Plus" sadly did not make the top 20 for July in the U.S.

    I'm surprised--would have thought it would have made it on there. Guess it only got picked up by fans/collectors and some amount of newcomers. But the amount of newcomers must not have been much bigger than us fans double/triple/quadruple+ dipping for it to not even make it in the #11-20 range.

    One silver lining is that the Switch absolutely crushed it in July, both in software and hardware sales, and most of the software sales are older titles that have already sold incredibly well. Switch was the best-selling hardware in the U.S. for the month of July, and it was the best July Nintendo has had in the U.S. since 2009. 5 of the top 10 best-selling games of the month in the U.S. are Switch titles, and NPD only tracks physical sales for Nintendo (they do not have access to the digital numbers), whereas they track both physical and digital for the other platforms. Meaning although their games took the #1, 3, 5, 7, 10, and 14 spots on the list, the games in the #3-14 region likely would have charted even higher if the digital sales were included.

    Which is all to say the Switch is clearly demonstrating it is going to have legs/not slow down any time soon. (With "Pokemon" and "Smash Bros. Ultimate" on the way it is clearly going to continue having an incredible rest of 2018, and likely an even better 2019.) It also demonstrates that major games for the platform are continuing to sell well long after their initial release. Granted, most of those titles are Nintendo first-party games, but "Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle" and "Skyrim" amongst others have shown the same can happen, albeit it to a lesser degree, for third-party software on the platform as well.

    So the silver lining/hope being that "Sonic Mania Plus" will see continual sales instead of a massive drop-off over the course of the next couple years since that platform is going to continue to be incredibly popular, with an ever-increasing userbase. Hope Sega tries to advertise the existence of the physical version of "Plus" on Switch, particularly to young kids/parents. Do they do game adverts at the beginning/end of "Sonic Boom" episodes, or pay for commercial advertising during commercial breaks when the show is on-air? Would make sense to advertise it there. But surely there's other avenues. If another mainline 2D Sonic game is made I really hope they try to make its release date a huge event like they did "Sonic 2sday" back in 1992. Try to spread the word to as many kids/parents as possible that a great new Sonic game is on the way.
     
  15. Beltway

    Beltway

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    It didn't even make it in the Switch charts, which is a bit shocking given how that platform was where the game saw the most success and just how quiet July was concerning releases. If it isn't obvious, I'm also disappointed by these results. It bombed in Japan as usual, but from what the weekly/monthly charts we have, Europe was receptive enough to give it a modest performance, and Mania did chart in the top 10
    rankings for the NA eShop charts for last month as it is.

    I personally think it could sold more if Sega spent more coin on marketing this to a general audience. These results would had been fine if this was treated a la the Mania's Collector's Edition --an product with limited availability / premium price / restricted distribution, a product specifically intended for a niche audience. But Sega gave Mania Plus a standard wide release, and even spent money to give every copy special packaging and bonus physical materials. It was clearly being sold to to the mass market.

    The Mania Adventures tie-in shorts and 1991 throwback commercial are great, but they weren't promotions pushed through mainstream avenues, and likely were only been seen with people who already had some vested interest in the game. You'd think they would had been more vocal about the best-reviewed/critically praised Sonic game in decades (and as of the Mania Plus re-release on Switch, arguably of all time). You can't even make the case that Mania's retro-presentation would had turned people away--almost everyone is genuinely stupefied at Octopath Traveler (a classic/SNES JRPG throwback, which mixes retraux sprites with modern graphics) knocking away GTA V to become the best-selling game of July (even without digital sales counted). And Minecraft is still a sales juggernaut (that game itself still made it into the overall Top 20 list).

    That aside, I also believe Mania Plus' lack of impact in sales is also a result of Sonic sales and reputation going off a cliff this generation. Mania for all of its praise has still only sold over one million worldwide one year after release--and that's still the best sales a Sonic game has gotten since Generations from seven years ago. To say nothing of Mania being sandwiched between critical and commercial bombs/underperformers that were the Boom games and Forces (which despite actually being promoted as the big Sonic title for 2017 only performed barely better in its NPD month--it opened at #7 on the Top 10 Switch games, but that's about it).

    Pretty much agreed with this. Mania as I just mentioned is still appearing on eShop charts months after its release, the game is well-received by Nintendo audiences enough to have some surprisingly tall legs on the digital platform, far longer than any other Sonic game. I just hope Mania Plus' quality quietly shines through to general audiences eventually and the game can silently start establishing its own evergreen status.

    Hopefully if/when Mania gets a followup, Sega is willing to spend more money on it in both production values as well as advertising. But given recent events signaling the Sonic brand undergoing a significant pullback on resources, I'm honestly somewhat worried Sega might force the developers to adhere to a tight budget and commit mistakes in the design process almost nobody is asking for (namely another game of mostly-remixed zones, and not giving the development team enough time to polish the game and/or round out the package with QoL materials).
     
  16. 360

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    So yeah to weigh in on all this sales talk: It is a disappointing performance. I mean I wasn't expecting another cool million or anything given it's a re-release with modestly updated content with none of the overwhelming hype or promotion the original Mania had - but I had hoped it would at least chart in the US which historically has been one of Sonic's strongest markets outside of the UK/Europe. I think Yeow's prognosis that Sonic's significance has fallen off the face of the planet because of a string of let-down games (and that might be even being too kind there - some are outright disasters) that may as he says be depleting Sonic's pull somewhat relative to the glory days.

    Some news I noticed on ResetERA. Cumulative sales in Spain:

    Decent-ish performance given this is Spain and not say the UK where Sonic is still a popular icon. ~11K for one country in Europe (thus far) is well, okay I guess. Keeping in mind Sonic Mania's sales (and that's the original Mania and not Plus) hovered around 100K on Steam worldwide for the longest time (I think when tracking ended it was closer to ~170K or around that). So you multiply that 11K as a loose average across the European continent with a spike factored in for the UK and you have solid sales there. Still mostly disappointing but it is shifting some degree of units here. That platform split is eye-opening too. It's all-round Switch domination. Not sure if that performance on Xbox signifies anything given Xbox is mostly dead in Europe anyway.

    Switch will probably carry the game and I do think Mania/Mania Plus does have that Nintendo-like ever-green quality to it that'll see it sell steadily over time. A slow burner if you will. If it eventually clears 500K lifetime (all platforms worldwide including Steam) I'd say that's a solid success given the entire (and to note: extremely low budget) Mania project would stand at 1.5 million - which with the odds against Sonic as a brand at every turn is very decent. I mean it's not far off what Generations sold and that's widely considered to be the last major Sonic success - and it was made for a budget that was orders of magnitude greater.

    Also of note: even in the range of 1.0 to 1.5 million sales - Mania had extremely low development costs. No way near the level of a mainline game meaning its profit margin and break even point is going to be vastly different to something like Forces or Generations. Or even Colours. Odds are it did generate a lot of revenue for Sega - I mean they even said so a while back in that financial report and that was quite early on. Sega have indicated they consider Mania a huge success. Both critically and commercially. Though with these sales revelations perhaps Mania Plus less so.

    I just hope all this eventually leads to another similar Mania-like project at some point. Then again Sonic 4: Episode 1 sold a million and did get an expanded/higher budget sequel.
     
  17. Dark Sonic

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    The physical copies def help in the long run. A friend of mine who used to love Sonic only picked up Mania plus after seeing it on a shelf at a store.
     
  18. muteKi

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    I'm not surprised. Figure if people wanted it they would have gotten it already, and while I enjoy playing as Ray a lot my thoughts on Encore mode, the main new addition, are mixed.
     
  19. HEDGESMFG

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    Remember that DLC can be purchased for only 5$, as opposed to 30$.

    Those sales won't factor in at all, but still generate lots of revenue.
     
  20. McAleeCh

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    Welp, doing my bit for UK sales - finally investing in a Switch, so made sure Mania Plus was one of the games I got from the get-go. Looking forward to being able to play it on the go (and finally getting my hands on that artbook)...!