- 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