Poop jokes enabled
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Glad to see Sega East and West are just as independent of one another as ever.Jim Dyer wrote:Our model has changed drastically over the past decade. We went from a [Japanese] franchise into evolving into a PC, RTS powerhouse.
Ha!Jim Dyer wrote:Twinfinite: Will we see a physical release for Sonic Mania?
Dyer: We would love to do one. We want the community to know that we are listening, and at SXSW they suggested a lot of interest in us following through with a physical release. But we’re also aware that audience approves of anything Sonic related, so while we are listening and it is something we’d like to do, at this stage we are going to see how it goes.
Before March 2016 Iizuka was proposed a project by American side to port 2D Sonic games, but he thought there were enough of them, e.g. ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ alone has multiple platforms already. The opinion of American side and his went parallel. Then he proposed an idea of mixing new stages and remakes from the past to please the mania, which was accepted with great positiveness. In this meeting, he wrote “Sonic Mania” on the white board in order to explain the game concept. To his surprise, these words continued to live through the project development and became more than just a game concept but the official game title.
The word ‘mania', meaning something like ‘enthusiastic’ or ‘being crazy for', fits just right to the concept and catches the target people who are willing to play ‘Classic Sonic’ games of Mega Drive (Genesis) era. It was the perfect choice. Christian Whitehead, the main programmer of this project, is the person who ported ‘Sonic CD’ for Smartphones. “He was not employed at SEGA or something, but he has just done it on his own and brought it to SEGA *lol*. Such ‘maniac’ person joined to our meeting in America all the way from Australia. There, SEGA and the dev team lead by Christian agreed to my proposal for Sonic Mania.”
Before releasing ‘Sonic Forces', the big title by Sonic Team in 2017, SEGA wanted to bring back core fans to Sonic. This is where the idea of 2D Sonic revival came from. 2D Sonic had the Classic Sonic series, Sonic Advance, Sonic Rush, and Sonic the Hedgehog 4. However, this time we create an original game along the line with Sonic 1, 2 and 3. Sonic Mania is a game explicitly for Mega Drive era's Sonic fans. Normally we try to create titles with which as many people as possible can have fun. Sonic Mania is different; it's a success even if it attracts Classic Sonic fans ‘only'.”
Iizuka wants the game to be even more enjoyable if the player already knows the stage well. “For example, the first stage of ‘Sonic the Hedgehog', the ‘Green Hill Zone', has been played hundred times already *lol*. I'd like to put many surprises where those long-time players will say “What, that becomes like this!?”.
It looks like there is already one ‘surprise’ in Green Hill Act 2's Boss Fight! 'Flying Battery Zone’ from Sonic 3&Knuckles will also have changes from original: running outside of the battleship, a room where scrap robots of Eggman are wasted, etc. These surprises made for fans who know past works are what they called ‘Re-imagine’ in the trailer. It's a game made for fans by fans. It's like a Dojin-comic of Comic Market. Parody made by fans to please mania. ‘Wouldn't you be surprised if there was a huge underground lake under Green Hill?’-spirit. On the other hand, there are brand new stages too. All Bosses are completely new too.
The dev team, SOA producer and Iizuka are constantly in contact. The dev team brings up the concept first in texts, then Iizuka corrects them. The dev team then designs the levels based on this correction, and Iizuka looks at it again to add adjustments to such as the places to place rings, the terrain shape etc.
There was no discrepancy between my idea and theirs. On the contrary, since all of the dev team members are the mania of manias, they really know the points well. Creating 2D Sonic's map requires a lot of skills, but to my surprise, they create good maps since they know the past games so well.
(Q: And all of the know-how you accumulated by today are then poured into these maps?): Yeah, that's right. *shy smile* I'm the only one left from the project team from Mega Drive Sonic era, so I think this is the perfect project for me.
The 2D graphics are made almost completely with dotted pixel art. Characters’ movements are made of each movement pattern, and backgrounds are drawn after their BG-rules. More than this wouldn't fit to the concept. Even if using today's technology of polygon is much easier than drawing each pixels. Polygon is only used for a very small part for better expression, but to keep the concept of making the continuation of ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ of that time, we use almost only pixels.
The resolution is set at the level where one can recognize each pixel, and the colors are limited too. Even if it doesn't matter to today's games. The background is also multi-scroll, and even if the A-scroll and B-scroll etc. don't mean anything, we intentionally limit the technology. We put the standard to that similar to ‘Saturn', and the colors are a little more than Mega Drive's 16 colors 4 palettes. However, the character movement patterns are filled to make them look more smoothly, since it would be too sparse if everything is exactly the same as that era.
Kazuyuki Hoshino, who is in the team since Sonic CD as a designer, is supervising the graphic. Each character's action is that of Sonic 3. While playing as Sonic, Tails will follow him; if you have another controller you can also control Tails as 2-player. It's also possible to fly together with Tails. Game system is also similar to Sonic 3; the starting point of the same level will differ according to the character you play. For example when you choose Knuckles then you start from a place where wall-climbing is necessary. The Barrier effects are also the same as Sonic 3. There are 3 of them: Flame, Aqua and Thunder Barriers. Flame and Thunder invalidates fire and thunder attacks respectively, and with Aqua you can breathe underwater. Also, with each Barrier you can perform unique action.
(To the huge pistol Sonic jumps in and gets shot out:) There will be huge objects which were not possible to create with Mega Drive. This part's standard is also ‘higher than Mega Drive, lower than Saturn'.
(To the posters of Espio, Fang, Bark, Bean:) They don't appear in the Classic Sonic series, but they were in the stage when I noticed.*lol* Everyone in the dev team love Sonic too much, and they put these kind of Easter Eggs in every possible places. For example in Studiopolis, a sign on the building in background looks like Club SEGA. *laugh*
When I say mania are the target, it doesn't mean that the game is for professional gamers. The goal is to let every fan of classic Sonic have fun playing it, so it doesn't require any special gaming technique. The difficulty isn't our aim. Because I want people to enjoy every stage, I don't plan to provide settings for changing level difficulty.
The new action “Drop Dash” was prepared for core gamers who want to time attack stages. In Classic series, the character needed to come to a halt before performing Spin Dash, but we thought it is necessary to add an action that works more instantly. We will provide leaderboard for Time Attacking, so that everyone can compete online.
Like in late stage of classic Sonic games, there will be routes only reachable with Tails's flying or Knuckles’ wall-climbing, so the map will be huge. Though we try not to create too complicated and mean routes. The level difficulty is rather low that some team members say they could become a bit more challenging.”
Since this is the Classic series's continuation, the world is set to be after Sonic 1 to 3&Knuckles happened. In these series, Dr. Eggman appeared as the last boss, but this time the ‘Hardboiled Heavies', the new characters created by Eggman, will stand in the way of Sonic and co in the stages. They are robot army based on Eggman Robots of ‘Sonic & Knuckles', and each one has different character. They are Eggman's subordinates, but if they will stay in this position until the end or not… you'll see. *grin*
Although past stages are used, the whole game has one story. This ‘story’ is, like in ‘Sonic 3', made only of character movements like doll theater and without any dialogues from start to end.
Old stages have their original music and its arrangements. New stages have new music. They are made with the same specification as earlier so that the ‘Classic taste’ doesn't fade away.
(On release delay): The dev team members’ commitment is so high that the development is being delayed than originally planned at the beginning. They are also mania, so they want to put many things into it. Normally when we set our schedule we calculate back from the due date to estimate the time available for one stage, but later there were too many things we wanted to add to the original plan. We try our best not to delay the release for example by adding more staffs, but the dev team members are very particular about the game. I'm sorry to make you wait, but please look forward to it.
The core staffs include 2 programmers and 3 graphic designers. This small team was, however, expanded as development is taking too long. The project started out like an indies’ game, thus a small team. This is also the reason why the product will be a digital download, which will be cheaper than normal physical copy. I wish this makes it easier for people to buy the game. Please play it.
Platforms will include PS4, XBOX One, and Nintendo Switch. Switch has two individual controllers, so if you hand one to another person, you can play it as 2-players anywhere.
The collector's edition, for which the pre-order already ended for US and Europe, includes a Classic Sonic statue standing on a base shaped as real-sized Mega Drive. This Mega Drive will call the sound logo ‘SE-GA-♪’ if you switch it on, and the cartridge has a gold ring hidden inside. *laugh* It's not decided yet if Collector's Edition will be sold in Japan, but they are thinking about it.
I find it hilarious that this long-awaited return to 2d console Sonic games, which has evoked huge excitement and is going to sell gangbusters, was conceived as a glorified ad for Sonic Forces, a trainwreck that will probably sell half as much. It shows how out of touch SoJ is.SEGA and the dev team lead by Christian agreed to my proposal for Sonic Mania. Before releasing ‘Sonic Forces', the big title by Sonic Team in 2017, SEGA wanted to bring back core fans to Sonic. This is where the idea of 2D Sonic revival came from.
They are Eggman's subordinates, but if they will stay in this position until the end or not… you'll see. *grin*
While it's a nice sentiment, I can't imagine they gave Taxman much of either. Mania is very clearly not breaking the bank (not that it needs to!), so it's a win-win either way - even if it sells poorly, it'll probably still bring in a profit.Malchik wrote:I'm shocked [SEGA] Allowed for so much development time and resources
I think it's more like damage control after Lost World, the Sonic Boom games, and Sonic Runners. It's like how after the mess of Sonic '06 and Sonic Unleashed's (unfairly earned, in my opinion) bad rep, they suddenly pretended to care about quality and took low-scoring games off retail shelves and churned out two pretty good games. That and as Jingles said, it's probably relatively cheap.Malchik wrote:I'm shocked Allowed for so much development time and resources for what they see as a glorified advertisement. Someone at Sega must have really wanted to see a true to form 2D Sonic game come to fruition.
Hell if I know. They made a big deal about it, and that's about all I know. Of course, I doubt they were putting up many new retail copies of Sonic '06, at least, by that time.Dr. BUGMAN wrote:Wait. They actually followed through with removing low-scoring games of shelves? 'Cause I don't recall them doing that at all.
