- for Sonic's 25th anniversary
last year, Iizuka received a task to deliver some sort of product - the target was «dormant fans» who used to play the SEGA Genesis, but haven't really played any
games since - Iizuka met Christian Whitehead, which lead to the creation of Sonic Mania - there was talk of another port, but Iizuka thought fans would desire something new from the old
games - this is the first time Iizuka partnered with a team of devs spread across various countries - Iizuka said this team had a greater passion to create - this was in comparison to companies that set decisions on a pre-determined schedule (in meetings, etc)- the team had so many
features they still wanted to add after the beta version was complete - since there were only a
few spots with text that needed to be localized, they could bring the
game to more places quicker - the
game has Japanese, English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish support - the Studiopolis stage is included due to receiving the most requests from the Sonic Mania development team - Iizuka actually considered reducing the amount of stages at one point in order to meet the development schedule - Sonic Mania doesn't really have much in the way of cut content like scrapped stages - since Sonic Mania was only distributed digitally, the team was able to continue working very close leading up to launch - this let them put in practically all ideas, and there are currently no plans for DLC - Iizuka recommended Flying Battery Zone for inclusion becaues he likes the music - he also likes when the player goes inside and outside the ship - Iizuka likes Mirage Saloon because the stage structure will be different depending on the player character chosen - Puyo Puyo gameplay was added because there was a Puyo Puyo
game released in the west for the SEGA Genesis - this
game was originally called «Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine», and the team thought it would make a fun boss battle - Iizuka didn't have plans to
feature Blue Sphere in the special stages - the Blue Sphere special stages were brought
over to Mania as a test, but ended up staying for the final
game - the team felt the need to continuously connect stages from various eras, which is doe with the Phantom Ruby story - for Sonic Mania, it was decided that the technological limit would be set at SEGA CD, - this is higher than the Genesis but lower than Saturn - in creating a SEGA CD - grade special stage, they would intentionally make SEGA CD - grade polygons
Get comfortable because today's moment of pinball involves the Fantastic Four table from Zen Pinball 2, and unlike the past
few video
features that
last five minutes or so before I reach
Game Over, I rally and keep the action going here for fifteen minutes.