Sonic Mania (August 15th 2017, Christian Whitehead, PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch) - The New Classic

[Jango]

It didn't? O.o But it does flashes when you enter the water, right? I guess the 'killing nearby badniks' part was from some fangame I've played ^^' Oops.

One idea I also saw in a fangame, was the ability to dive into a lava lake, when wearing the fire shield. I thought that was pretty cool. And if a level has an electrified lake, same rules could be applied.

Edited April 22, 2017 by Jango

[FReaK]

the water simply flashes when you enter it. maybe thats one of the things they still have to implement, but i'm sure that'll be adressed.

[Chris Knopps]

I've noticed there is a glitch in the game where, if you have the Electric Shield in Green Hill Zone the ocean/lake in the background flashes the same way the shield does for some reason.

[Multikaris]

On 4/21/2017 at 11:37 AM, VEDJ-F said:

The interviewer mentioned seeing an Espio poster, but I don't think anyone has seen one present yet so I don't know if they were mistaken or not. If they were right, I could see Vector and Charmy getting similar cameos. If not, I can see them justifying the Chaotix not getting cameos due to their modern counterparts existing. In either situation, Mighty (and Ray) could still get cameos. 

But definitely no cameos that have the characters present in-game; as the snippet said, they're not part of the Classic Sonic series, so they wouldn't even be eligible for it. Most old games were omitted from it.  

Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic could because they are in the relevant titles, it's just a matter of whether they would due to the emphasis on the Hard Boiled Heavies. 

Alright, so does that mean we could get cameos of modern characters or those from adaptations in addition to the ex-classic characters? And what will become of the Hard Boiled Heavies after this?

[Psychicmoose103]

51 minutes ago, It's a Very Merry Miru said:

Alright, so does that mean we could get cameos of modern characters or those from adaptations in addition to the ex-classic characters? And what will become of the Hard Boiled Heavies after this?

I hope the Hard Boiled Heavies are either in a Mania sequel, or something else, because I really love their design and the concept of them.

[Indigo Rush]

I know that the "thunder shield hitting water forcing underwater badniks to go 'splodey" myth isn't true, but having seen the fire shield have new elemental properties with the environment (burning that blasted spike log), I would actually love to see that sort of reaction implemented for Mania.

On that note... what are some other environmental effects you can think of for any of the three main shields? One weird thing from Sonic R that I liked was how the bubble shield's tension would let Sonic walk on water, and while that would nullify the point of it's underwater air properties, maybe there are other surfaces (like oil or sand?) that Sonic could walk over while possessing that shield?

And speaking of oil, now I kind of want Oil Ocean or Chemical Plant to return... imagine keeping that fire shield and walking over oil or a mixture of chemicals... causing an explos- actually nevermind that could cause a problem... OOOH UNINTENTIONAL STAGE HAZARD DESIGN! doitdoitdoit

[StaticMania]

The bubble shield could get rid of traction on sand...guessing...and make you move faster underwater.

 

Faster to normal speed, yes.

 

[JezMM]

20 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

I know that the "thunder shield hitting water forcing underwater badniks to go 'splodey" myth isn't true, but having seen the fire shield have new elemental properties with the environment (burning that blasted spike log), I would actually love to see that sort of reaction implemented for Mania.

I kind of love the idea of the lightning shield still being lost when you jump into the water, but it destroys all the on-screen badniks within the pool upon doing so.  Could add a little something to the decision process to sacrifice a lightning shield to dive into the drink during the moments where it's not the only path forward.

 

EDIT: Oh also, I've always wanted water surface skimming from the 8-bit games (most notably Sonic 2) to return.  Making that a bubble shield mechanic could work if making it a permanent part of Sonic's moveset would be considered too detrimental to general level design etc.

[Psychicmoose103]

1 hour ago, StaticMania said:

The bubble shield could get rid of traction on sand...guessing...and make you move faster underwater.

 

Faster to normal speed, yes.

 

Making the bubble shield be able to run fast under water, breath under water, and bounce off of water would make it so good for any stage with it.

[CleverSonicUsername]

 

3 hours ago, Indigo Rush said:

I know that the "thunder shield hitting water forcing underwater badniks to go 'splodey" myth isn't true, but having seen the fire shield have new elemental properties with the environment (burning that blasted spike log), I would actually love to see that sort of reaction implemented for Mania.

On that note... what are some other environmental effects you can think of for any of the three main shields?

Well we already know the lightning shield does have an environmental property in Flying Battery, in that it magnetizes you to the electrical ceilings. I'd say there's a good chance the water shield will interact with something in another level too.

[Tenko]

7 hours ago, Psychicmoose103 said:

I hope the Hard Boiled Heavies are either in a Mania sequel, or something else, because I really love their design and the concept of them.

Hard Boiled Heavies for ASR3? If it wasn't for the fact Mecha Sonic destroyed that Egg Robo that harassed Knux all the way through Sonic 3 & Knuckles, I would have loved some kind of reveal that the Hard Boiled King (Emperor, Commander, General, whatever he ends up being) was made from the parts of that original Egg Robo making use of all the data he had gathered etc.

[Spooky Mulder]

What if the Hard Boiled Heavies don't betray Eggman, but instead follow flawed programming which leads them to turn Eggman into a badnik out of respect?

Eggman could be the final boss of the game but still need rescuing from the Heavies.

[CleverSonicUsername]

I was thinking earlier how cool it'd be if the collectors edition came with the game manual. Like one of the ones from the Genesis games, where they explained what was going on in all the zones, the story up until before the game began, and named all the badniks.

[YuTwo]

7 hours ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

 

I was thinking earlier how cool it'd be if the collectors edition came with the game manual. Like one of the ones from the Genesis games, where they explained what was going on in all the zones, the story up until before the game began, and named all the badniks.

 

The other thing I want from the manual is those sketches of Sonic and Tails interacting with the zones as seen in the Japanese manuals.

Here's one example:

I really love how colorful and full of sketches the Japanese manuals are. There so good that I tend to take a look at them from time to time just to admire the art. It really shows how much care was given to something like the manual from what I'm seeing. Compare it to the US or European manuals were they were just simple and in black and white.

If they won't give us a physical manual I'm at least hoping there will be a digital manual within the game that contains some similar looking sketches.

I also just found out that it was Hirokazu Yasuhara that drew them:

I loved how he drew Sonic,Tails (Miles), and Knuckles:

As a bonus here's a picture of a long board Yasuhara signed on back in February of 2016 with the sketch characters:

 

[Tracker_TD]

50 minutes ago, YuTwo said:

The other thing I want from the manual is those sketches of Sonic and Tails interacting with the zones as seen in the Japanese manuals.

Here's one example:

I really love how colorful and full of sketches the Japanese manuals are. There so good that I tend to take a look at them from time to time just to admire the art. It really shows how much care was given to something like the manual from what I'm seeing. Compare it to the US or European manuals were they were just simple and in black and white.

 

Funny you should mention that...

I should actually get back to working on this, huh. I'll likely release the .pdf for printing purposes, once it's all done and dusted. 

[Jango]

I know that the "thunder shield hitting water forcing underwater badniks to go 'splodey" myth isn't true, but having seen the fire shield have new elemental properties with the environment (burning that blasted spike log), I would actually love to see that sort of reaction implemented for Mania.

I kind of love the idea of the lightning shield still being lost when you jump into the water, but it destroys all the on-screen badniks within the pool upon doing so.  Could add a little something to the decision process to sacrifice a lightning shield to dive into the drink during the moments where it's not the only path forward.

 

EDIT: Oh also, I've always wanted water surface skimming from the 8-bit games (most notably Sonic 2) to return.  Making that a bubble shield mechanic could work if making it a permanent part of Sonic's moveset would be considered too detrimental to general level design etc.

 

You're absolutely right man, I would love the return of water skimming like in the 8-bit Sonic 2, I think there's a whole zone dedicated to this mechanic, Aqua Lake, right? That mechanic was actually considered for the very first Sonic, you can see it in some old concept arts.

[expansivelovestories]

It would be quite unusual for there to not be a manual!!   Maybe it will be available universally through the Sonic Mania website?  Yet that seems a bit tangential; it must be directly connected to the game somehow.

I am not sure that a full manual would appear on screen via a menu selection; but. certainly a series of quick info screens is possibly going to be in the menu somewhere. 

[Ajavalo]

Nice response from the (Tax)man himself we've got here to someone asking about the Death Egg in Mania:

What could this mean? It seems 'buttnik was unable to salvage his space station after the third assault in Sonic & Knuckles destroyed it. Or...?

[FReaK]

i guess that means no death egg this time around.

[Jango]

Well, Taxman don't usually plays the "find the hidden meaning in my post" game like Aaron, so I guess the Death Egg is dead for good this time. Which I'm fine with, TBH.

[CleverSonicUsername]

Barf. I thought the Death Egg was the strongest final level out of the classic games. Of course, it's not too much of a surprise. Everything lead to the Death Egg in Sonic 2, 3, and Knuckles, even in Sonic 4. It's not only overplayed, but it would be odd to visit it when we'll almost certainly get an all new level for the finale.

 

[Indigo Rush]

I feel like doing some math. Let's find out how long Sonic Mania could be.

Here's what we know. 

- Sonic Mania will be longer/bigger than Sonic Generations
  Sonic Generations had 9 full-fledged Zones, not counting boss acts. This guarantees at least 10 Zones for Mania.

- Sonic Mania will have more Remixed levels than new ones
  The ratio could be anywhere between 60-40 to 90-10; but we know of at least 3 "new" Zones (Studiopolis, Mirage Saloon, the blurred out one from SXSW '17)

Since we know there are at least 10 Zones, and more than half of them are Classic, let's plug some numbers.

3 New Zones with 7 Classic Zones is a great first start, but we may be able to stretch the 'New Zone' count thanks to these images:

The Hard Boiled Heavies. There appear to be at least 4, as many as 5 of them, and of the ones we've seen, they've all been associated with new levels, rather than old ones. Green Hill's Act 1 boss is not a Hard Boiled Heavy, and with the limited amount of info we have, we can reasonably assume the case will be the same with the rest of the remixed levels. That said, given the teaser image, I'm pretty sure there are 5 Heavies; that's at least 5 New Zones. 

If there are 5 New Zones, and there are more Classic than New, then there'd need to be at least 1 Remix Zone more, that gives us 6 Classic Zones at least, making 11 Zones. So far, we've seen one level from Sonic 1, and one level from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, or just Sonic & Knuckles if they don't group it with Sonic 3. What we don't know is what the ratio of Classic Zones are for each game. If it's one Zone per game representation ala Generations, that's 5 Zones, 4 if you count S3K as a single game, but either way we have strong reason to believe there's more than 5. 

Here's where we start making assumptions. Theory time! If one from each game won't fit the quota of 6, then at the very least, there would need to be one more Classic Zone from Sonic 1, 2, 3K and CD. If they're going for equal representation, then let's make a jump and assume that there are two levels per Classic game. Let's go on the conservative side and group 3&K together (as Generations did) and that number becomes 8. If there are 5 New Zones and 8 Classic Zones, the ratio of Classic to New still meets the quorum of 60-40, making a minimum of 13 Zones. If we count S3 and SK as separate games, that's 10 Classic Zones, bumping that up to 15.

But lets be as conservative as possible. If we tear down the assumption that there'll be a consistent two-level representation per Classic game, that's 6 Classic to 5 New, and that's 11 2-act Zones, which is more than Generations, right? But how does this compare to other Classic Sonic games? Remember, there are a fair number of Zones that only have a single act, so let's break it down not by Zones, but by level count.

Sonic 1 has 6 3-act Zones with a final Zone, making 19 levels (Acts). 
Sonic 2 has 11 Zones, with 3 of them being single act Zones and one of them being a 3 act Zone, making 20 levels.
Sonic CD has a clean 7 3-act Zone count, not counting the past, good and bad future versions, making 21 levels. 
Sonic 3 alone has 6 2-act Zones, making 12 levels.
Sonic & Knuckles alone has 8 Zones, most of which are 2-acts, 3 of which are single acts, making 13 levels. 
S3&K combined make 25 levels. 
Sonic Generations, though not strictly a Classic game, does have relevance since it's going to be shorter than Mania, has 9 2-act Zones, making 18 regular levels.
If we count the boss levels for Generations (as we have for the Classics), that's an added 7, making 25 levels. 

If Sonic Mania has 11 2-act Zones, that's 22 levels. If Sonic Mania has 15, then that's 30 levels. 

We can't know for sure how this will pan out exactly as Sonic Mania could have a single-act Zone or two in there ala Sky Chase or Hidden Palace, so these numbers are most certainly not exact. What we can safely assume though is a ballpark estimate of at least 22 levels, and as many as 30. If we're going for a level by level breakdown (boss acts included) regarding the size of Mania vs Generations, then it'll need at least 26 levels. Divide that into 2-act Zones (assuming there aren't any single-act Zones), that's 12 Zones, 7 of which are Classic, 5 of which are New.

*puts calculator away*

That's all I got for today.

[JezMM]

2 hours ago, Jango said:

Well, Taxman don't usually plays the "find the hidden meaning in my post" game like Aaron, so I guess the Death Egg is dead for good this time. Which I'm fine with, TBH.

I agree with the first half, but for that reason I'd say we can't even draw the conclusion of the 2nd half.  Literally until further notice we can only take it as a joke response.  After all if you wanted to you could interpret it as "sure all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't... but Eggman could".

[Gemster312]

14 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

I feel like doing some math. Let's find out how long Sonic Mania could be.

Here's what we know. 

- Sonic Mania will be longer/bigger than Sonic Generation

*puts calculator away*

That's all I got for today.

*Fixed

In all seriousness though, this theory of yours is really good, but only if 1 detail is true: The comparison of game length between Sonic Mania and Sonic Generations is purely based off of ZONE COUNT.

They claimed that Sonic Mania is longer than Sonic Generations, but people often mis-read that as "Sonic Mania will have more zones than Sonic Generations"

Although it is very possible, I believe they were referring to game length via TIME. Like, how long the experience is.

If Sonic Generations can be beat in approximately 2 hours on average, Sonic Mania could take 3 hours to beat (but does NOT necessarily mean its zone count has to be larger).

Also, I think calling "boss stages" as actual levels inside of Sonic Generations is just trying to squeeze that number higher. 9 zones, 2 acts per zone = 18 acts.

Yes technically the bosses occur in a "separate level", but for being a quick like 2 minute battle that really takes place in a very caged limited space, i don't think that should count as a "whole level" towards your act counter.

I really wish we could get clarification whether the Sonic Generations comparison was zone count, playtime length, or general experience (as Sonic Mania will have a plethora of replayability thanks to the multiple characters).

[TheOcelot]

4 hours ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

Barf. I thought the Death Egg was the strongest final level out of the classic games. Of course, it's not too much of a surprise. Everything lead to the Death Egg in Sonic 2, 3, and Knuckles, even in Sonic 4. It's not only overplayed, but it would be odd to visit it when we'll almost certainly get an all new level for the finale.

Yeah, agreed. DE is an awesome final level in S&K and at the very least I hope the final zone/Eggman base in Mania can live up to DE.

To be honest I'd prefer Mania's story to not include Death Egg or Doomsday zone. It's been done to death. Countless Sonic games have copied the Super Sonic in space formula and DE appeared in Gens & Sonic 4. Hell, even Sonic 2 to S&K is nicknamed the "Death Egg Saga". A reference to DE would be nice but I want Mania to climb out of DE's shadow. Lets have an original story which a unique climax. Afterall not every classic game ends in space.

6 hours ago, Ajavalo said:

 

What could this mean?

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again

 

I'm sure Taxman was just teasing/having a bit of fun. Of course you could interpret this as; Death Egg was too damaged to be put back together so Eggman has decided to build an even better one which he will name:

Spoiler

"DEATH EGG MKIII & KNUCKLES

...well, the name Death Egg MKII is already taken 

 

The Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme makes me think of Egg Robo. Perhaps Egg-Robo was too broken to be put back together so Eggman decided to make even better versions, hence the HARD BOILED HEAVIES!