SEGA News Bits: Sonic Mania Hands On Impressions

We played Sonic Mania, and now we’re going to tell you what we think! In this SEGA News Bits, George and I (Barry) rest our aching feet just hours after the Sonic the Hedgehog 25th Anniversary Party in San Diego to share our reaction to the Sonic Mania reveal and give our thoughts on how the game plays. Do we have another Sonic 4 on our hands or is Sonic Mania the true successor to Sonic 3 & Knuckles? The answers are obviously “nope!” and “hell yes!” in that order.

Special thanks to Neo Hazard for letting us use his footage, you can check out his channel here! Also, thanks to Bartman for being the one to play the game in our footage. You can find Bartman’s YouTube channel here!

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Take a look at SEGA’s Sonic Mania press materials

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Friday night in San Diego at Sonic the Hedgehog’s 25th Anniversary Party saw several reveals, most notably being a brand new 2D Sonic game titled Sonic Mania. George and I were there, and we shared our thoughts on the event itself in a recent SEGA News Bits, with more videos from the event to come. Unfortunately, as is the case with being on location, it’s tricky to news things immediately. Thankfully, we had our website designer Will on writing duty posting up stories as soon as they hit.

Now that the dust has settled, I managed to obtain SEGA’s press materials for Sonic Mania to offer our readers some more details on the game. Per the press release, seen in full after the break, the game is confirmed to have select returning zones from Sonic, Sonic 2, Sonic CD, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. This is excellent news, as fans of Taxman and Stealth know full well that Sonic 3 & Knuckles has been a tricky title, likely due in large part to rights disputes over the game’s music. But given that these reimagined stages will have newly composed music by Tee Lopes, new music means no issues.

While we knew who was developing the game, the press release also lays things out in a more official capacity stating that SEGA of America is developing the game in collaboration with PagodaWest Games, Christian “Taxman” Whitehead and Simon “Stealth” Thomley (of Headcannon). Also confirmed is that this will only be a digital release, and will hit PS4, Xbox One and PC. While at the event, we did ask if a physical release was in the cards but SEGA representatives sounded very iffy. Perhaps if fans make some noise we might see one? Also, additional platforms are also possible, but none are being talked about at this time.

Check out the press release and screens after the break!

Taxman and Stealth celebrate Sonic & Knuckles’ 20th anniversary with a Sonic 3 & Knuckles proof of concept

Today marks the 20th anniversary of SEGA’s Sonic & Knuckles, and to celebrate, Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 remastered developer Christian Whitehead shared a proof of concept prototype from the Taxman & Stealth personal vaults featuring Sonic 3 & Knuckles running on the Retro Engine. Of course, this is presented unofficially, so don’t jump to the conclusion that a Sonic 3 & Knuckles remastered is on the way anytime soon. Still, awesome to see that they’ve done work on the much requested title, even in an unofficial capacity. The Taxman himself shared this link in Sonic Retro’s forums, stating that “this isn’t an official announcement of any Sega project, nor to we intend to work on this as a fan-project. It’s simply a proof of concept from our vaults that has been kept to our chests for some time.”

You can learn more about the technical side of the project in Stealth’s latest blog post!

Watch Vidya Retro’s Recorded Sonic 2 Livestream

When Sonic the Hedgehog 2 came out on iOS and Android, we hosted a livestream showing off the game for a whole four hours showing off the the new features. Obviously there are spoilers present in these videos, so watch at your own risk. We get the emeralds, stumble upon Hidden Palace, look at unused content and run a few races online.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Debug Mode] [2 Player Mode]

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Sonic CD is out, it’s cheap and it’s really, really good!

SEGA have done something fantastic today, something you don’t see big publishers doing very often. They have chosen to reach out to the community and nabbed themselves Christian Whitehead aka ‘Taxman’ and his quite marvelous ‘Retro Engine’. It’s my understanding that Whitehead has been developing his ‘Retro Engine’ for quite some time now and gained a name for himself in the Sonic Community, and I can see why. His re-master release of Sonic CD for XBLA, PSN, iOS, Android, Windows Phone and of course PC is really, really good!

Unlike Backbone’s rather poor and often botched efforts at updating SEGA classics, Christian Whitehead’s ‘Retro Engine’ has given us Sonic CD locked at 60fps on every platform, both Euro/Japan and US sound tracks, new features, playable Tails, a choice of filters and modes, achievements and more… It really boasts the lot!

Hit the jump to find out why I think SEGA should snap up Whitehead and his engine!