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

[expansivelovestories]

26 minutes ago, Blue Speedster said:

But my point was that the CD story is done. There would be no reason to go back to it. CD is my second favorite 2D game, but too much of a good thing can be stale

I would say I am a bit curious if there is a 2P competition mode, that it could be set on a peaceful Little Planet, following the Sonic CD good timeline?

I suppose after the mania story has been resolved itself; Sonic, Tails, & Knuckles decide to visit while it is close enough to reach, to explore, celebrate and have some friendly competition and training.

[Jango]

Maybe the delay is in response to the backlash on zone ratio, perhaps they're adding in another new zone or two?

No. That's not happening.

The game isn't going to be finished for a Spring release, so instead of rushing it, they're just going to release it later.

There's nothing more to it. Don't kid yourself into thinking otherwise. 

 

Do you work for SEGA? Do share details about Mania and Forces then!

[Blue Speedster]

25 minutes ago, expansivelovestories said:

I would say I am a bit curious if there is a 2P competition mode, that it could be set on a peaceful Little Planet, following the Sonic CD good timeline?

I suppose after the mania story has been resolved itself; Sonic, Tails, & Knuckles decide to visit while it is close enough to reach, to explore, celebrate and have some friendly competition and training.

Now that i would not have a problem with at all. After all, colours had a decent 2P mode in the virtual world. If there was to be one zone  from CD though, Qurartz Quadrant would be it

[Tenko]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rDCmCd8BVo

We already have answers about the returning locations importance to the plot, and that they will be treated as seperate areas of a wider world. If you skip ahead to the 6:30 mark Christian (Taxman) in the interview explains that all of the old zones aren't just there for nostalgia and Sonic has a reason for revisiting all of the returning locations. That the team wants to create a connected world using the classic locations.

Taxman and Stealth know the lore, the locations, and the cutscenes will likely explain how they get from place to place, even Little Planet. We talked about all this back in August. Have faith in Mania it will provide!!

[Psychicmoose103]

2 minutes ago, Tenko said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rDCmCd8BVo

We already have answers about the returning locations importance to the plot, and that they will be treated as seperate areas of a wider world. If you skip ahead to the 6:30 mark Christian (Taxman) in the interview explains that all of the old zones aren't just there for nostalgia and Sonic has a reason for revisiting all of the returning locations. That the team wants to create a connected world using the classic locations.

Taxman and Stealth know the lore, the locations, and the cutscenes will likely explain how they get from place to place, even Little Planet. We talked about all this back in August. Have faith in Mania it will provide!!

Exactly, and I don't see why Sonic 4 should be any reason for Little Planet to not appear. The story was left unresolved, so i'm hoping they just forget it exists, or just say this game takes place before Sonic 4.

[Blue Speedster]

4 minutes ago, Tenko said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rDCmCd8BVo

We already have answers about the returning locations importance to the plot, and that they will be treated as seperate areas of a wider world. If you skip ahead to the 6:30 mark Christian (Taxman) in the interview explains that all of the old zones aren't just there for nostalgia and Sonic has a reason for revisiting all of the returning locations. That the team wants to create a connected world using the classic locations.

Taxman and Stealth know the lore, the locations, and the cutscenes will likely explain how they get from place to place, even Little Planet. We talked about all this back in August. Have faith in Mania it will provide!!

The reason SEGA hired Taxman and the other dev team members was for thier work on CD and the IOS remakes. The amount of devotion from them is immense. They know more about Sonic than SEGA themselves at times

[Psychicmoose103]

1 minute ago, Blue Speedster said:

The reason SEGA hired Taxman and the other dev team members was for thier work on CD and the IOS remakes. The amount of devotion from them is immense. They know more about Sonic than SEGA themselves at times

This is very true. A lot of my faith for this game comes from the fact of who the developers are.

[Maxtiis]

2 hours ago, Chris Knopps said:

Maybe the delay is in response to the backlash on zone ratio, perhaps they're adding in another new zone or two?

As much as I would love that, you're underestimating just how difficult it is to design a Sonic level. There's a balance that has to be struck between speed, platforming, and whichever gimmick is used for that level in order to ensure the trek through that level is fun with minimal frustration, not to mention the amount of effort that goes into making each level look and sound distinct. Why else are there so few levels in Sonic games compared to its contemporaries?

And if you've played any fan games you can see just how easily that balance can be thrown off and make for a less than stellar experience. Sonic Before and After the Sequel are good examples of this because goddamn I can't count how many times I was blind-sided by enemies that blended in perfectly with the background and the very stop and go nature of a lot of the level design for those games (love that soundtrack though).

[Blue Speedster]

10 minutes ago, Psychicmoose103 said:

This is very true. A lot of my faith for this game comes from the fact of who the developers are.

I think Iizuka-san said that they were chosen for that reason. I know the game wont be anything short of stunning. The delay might be for the team to fine tune the switch version to run the same as the PS4 and PC

[Psychicmoose103]

Just now, Blue Speedster said:

I think Iizuka-san said that they were chosen for that reason. I know the game wont be anything short of stunning. The delay might be for the team to fine tune the switch version to run the same as the PS4 and PC

It could very well be this.

Also, for people who are upset about the delay, fear not. We will probably be getting a release date around April or May, as I would expect to get one before summer, as the games release right now is just summer, which could mean as early as June or as late as August (Although i'm expecting a early-mid july release myself.)

[Blue Speedster]

2 minutes ago, Psychicmoose103 said:

It could very well be this.

Also, for people who are upset about the delay, fear not. We will probably be getting a release date around April or May, as I would expect to get one before summer, as the games release right now is just summer, which could mean as early as June or as late as August (Although i'm expecting a early-mid july release myself.)

It will most likely be mid July for the reason of fine tuning might not amount to much other than frame rate and maybe texture smoothness. When SEGA delayed Fire and Ice that was for nearly a year with nothing to show. Mania is a love child for fans, as Iizuka-san said in an interview 

[TB100]

I'm honestly expecting a June release at this point.

Because not only is it not too far from it's presumed original date. (April or May.) But at the same time giving it some polish and refinement for release, but it'll be a good time considering that it'll be Sonic's birthday that month. (It's not the first time a Sonic game has been released around that time. *Cough* Sonic Adventure 2 *Cough*) and it'll also allow Sega to give all their attention and focus to Sonic Forces throughout the rest of summer/fall 2017 after it's released.

But that's just me and my mindless speculation.

[CleverSonicUsername]

I doubt they're adding more levels or anything like that, seems late in the game to start working on something from the ground up. Most likely they're trying to refine what they have, fix what they've been given feedback on, and finalize content. Most of the demos they've shown have been buggy, and while they're likely older builds, it's clear that even what they're comfortable showing has some work left to be done. I can only imagine there's a bit of road left on the stages they aren't showing before they're ready for release.

Edit: Actually I dunno, not sure how long it takes them to make a stage from concept, to drawing art, to assembly. I suppose it's possible some stages are still early in, or special stages are still being tinkered with. Who knows!

Video games!

[Chris Knopps]

2 hours ago, Tenko said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rDCmCd8BVo

We already have answers about the returning locations importance to the plot, and that they will be treated as seperate areas of a wider world. If you skip ahead to the 6:30 mark Christian (Taxman) in the interview explains that all of the old zones aren't just there for nostalgia and Sonic has a reason for revisiting all of the returning locations. That the team wants to create a connected world using the classic locations.

Taxman and Stealth know the lore, the locations, and the cutscenes will likely explain how they get from place to place, even Little Planet. We talked about all this back in August. Have faith in Mania it will provide!!

(Reads comment)

Tenko... Just STOP...

...You're making Sonic Team look worse. lol

 

[Blue Speedster]

42 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

(Reads comment)

Tenko... Just STOP...

...You're making Sonic Team look worse. lol

 

To be fair the core group of Sonic Team USA left in 2006 with Yuji Naka to form Prope  join other companies. 

[The drunkard from space!]

Tenko isn't making Sonic Team look worse, Sonic Team is making Sonic Team look worse.

jokes aside Forces looks awesome.

 

A shame that Mania had to get delayed but If the game needs more time to get that added polish then I agree with Team Mania's decision.

[Blue Speedster]

3 hours ago, Psychicmoose103 said:

It could very well be this.

Also, for people who are upset about the delay, fear not. We will probably be getting a release date around April or May, as I would expect to get one before summer, as the games release right now is just summer, which could mean as early as June or as late as August (Although i'm expecting a early-mid july release myself.)

When Aaron gets the A-OK to give us details he will do via twitter or a twitch stream. I agree with you on the news update, though

[CleverSonicUsername]

I think a release date in April is doubtful. Too soon after announcing the delay. If they needed to buy more time with a broad Summer window then they're not close enough to be considering a specific launch day. I'd think May or June for a release date reveal is more likely.

[molul]

I bet for a June announcement and release day on August. 

Speaking about Naka and the people from Sonic Team that left with him... Prope's games are a bit of a let down for me. I mean, they made Sonic! Can you imagine Miyamoto making small mobile games? 

[Sephy]

It seems that even if you're a great/famous dev, if you're not in a great company, it's no that easy to get financial aid. Sakaguchi's (Final Fantasy's father) latest game, a mobile one launched in 2014 (Terra Battle) and Suzuki's Shenmue 3 kickstarter campaigns come to my mind.

[Blue Speedster]

16 hours ago, Sephy said:

It seems that even if you're a great/famous dev, if you're not in a great company, it's no that easy to get financial aid. Sakaguchi's (Final Fantasy's father) latest game, a mobile one launched in 2014 (Terra Battle) and Suzuki's Shenmue 3 kickstarter campaigns come to my mind.

But SEGA hired Taxman for the IOS ports of Sonic 1&2 then CD, so that says something about being a good company. Shenmue 3 is being licesenced off to Suzuki-san by SEGA as they still hold the IP rights. Mania is no different to what the remake of CD was like. SEGA know this team sells games

[TB100]

On Yuji Naka, for some reason I feel like he's gonna come back to SEGA/Sonic Team someday.

Considering that Prope hasn't been the most sucessful thing as of late (Correct me if I'm wrong about that.) And that he has expressed some interest in returning to Sonic someday a couple of times in the past, I don't know, It just feels inevitable that he'll return to SEGA/Sonic Team someday, and that it's not so much a matter of if he'll return, but when he'll return?

But that's just how I look at it personally. (And feel free to correct me if I'm wrong which I'm most likely am.)

[molul]

Maybe Naka-san could come to Sonic Mania Team

[JezMM]

On 21/03/2017 at 10:57 PM, Jango said:

 

Do you work for SEGA? Do share details about Mania and Forces then!

You don't have to work for a video game company to understand the general process of making a game.  It takes more than a few months to construct even one entire new zone, they wouldn't add stuff like Chris Knopps was suggesting/Blue Blood was arguing against.  With only a few months to go, the game is very likely content-complete at this point.  Everything else from here is adding finishing touches and polishing it to the standard one would expect from a product you pay money for.  If they're adding anything new, it'll be bonus, easy to integrate stuff, like a time attack mode or something (I'm sure there's already a time attack mode but that's just an example of SOMETHING that wouldn't be unreasonable to add in the last few months of development).  Maybe, MAYBE they could have added another familiar zone due to the decreased workload on art but... honestly looking at Green Hill Act 2, if that's their standard of quality, probably not.

If they had delayed it until like autumn, yeah adding another zone might have been a feasible concept, but they seem pretty confident in the selection of stages they planned out.

 

 

Regarding "how many returning zones will we get?", if the game did have the current predicted minimum of 5 new, 6 old zones, my estimation would go to 1 from Sonic 1, 2 from Sonic 2, 1 from CD, 1 from Sonic 3 and 1 from Sonic & Knuckles.  Sonic 2 is the most popular game in the series, so it'd make sense to give it an extra one.

But I really am hoping for 2 zones from each... I'm kind of expecting only 1 from CD though since it's a significantly less popular game than the others and IF they include any time travel gimmick, it'd be weird to have that as a gimmick on two stages rather than just one (with that like, BEING the main shtick of that stage).  That'd make 9 old stages, and if we have at least 5 definite new ones for the hard-boiled heavies, plus a 6th "final stage" that either omits or reprises all of them for the penultimate boss etc... that'd make for an overall of 15 zones, which I think I'd be very satisfied with even if it's a more dramatic ratio of old to new than we initially predicted.

[Blue Blood]

On 21/03/2017 at 10:57 PM, Jango said:

Do you work for SEGA? Do share details about Mania and Forces then!

I honestly missed this post until JezMM quoted it just now. 

To clear up any confusion you seem to have about my job - no, I do not work for SEGA. Sorry to disappoint you. I get all of my intel from an oft-forgotten source called "common sense". PM and we can go over the details. Don't want to let all my secrets out in public, you know?

And as he already explained exactly why I said that, I'll just reiterate. The game hasn't had a huge delay, they've not announced any content addition/changes and only the smallest handful of fans are butthurt and petty enough about the old levels that they would write the game of because of them. Games are more often delayed so that they can be finished to an acceptable standard than to change the scope of the project.