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New 2D Sonic Title Sonic Mania Announced

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Published: July 23, 2016 1:39 AM

Sonic Mania is a new title being released by Sega in 2017.

Sega announced the new title during their streamed 25th Anniversary Celebration. The trailer mentions the history of the franchise and how it’s going to move forward. In doing so, however, they need to go back to their roots. The game is being made in collaboration with Christian Whitehead, who ported multiple Sonic titles to mobile devices.

Sonic Mania

Sonic Mania claims that it will have both new stages and reimagined classic ones. On top of that, the game is going back to the classic crew. The three playable characters in Sonic Mania are Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles.

Some of the new stages shown off are bright and colorful. One area seems to show Sonic bouncing around with giant popcorn kernels in what looks like an entertainment fair with a neon skyline in the background. Another zone shows Sonic jumping into the back of what looks like a news van and traveling along the waves being sent from the satellite dish. The trailer also showed a reimagined Green Hill Zone using the game’s new mechanics. Finally, of the new content shown, it appears Sonic plays a minigame with a giant bingo ball.

Sonic Mania

The chief mechanic that the trailer showed off is the drop dash. This is a maneuver that lets Sonic jump and then immediately spin dash away upon landing.

Finally, the end of the trailer shows the logo and some information about the release date. Releasing spring of 2017, Sonic Mania is coming to Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxmtYdEWVzo

 


Quick Take

The idea of mixing both classic and new 2D content is admittedly exciting, but I admit I’m a little wary. Sonic has been extremely hit-or-miss lately and this trailer does look promising, but I want to see more about it before I make a judgment on it.


Connor Foss
| Staff Writer

Former TechRaptor Staff Writer, who also does translation work between English and Spanish. You can usually find me playing horror games or Zelda!