Two stages from Sega’s upcoming 2017 release of Sonic Mania for the PS4, Xbox One and PC have been revealed courtesy of a new gameplay trailer for the side-scrolling platformer. The trailer is just under two minutes long and reveals some classic, side-scrolling action that helped make Sonic a household name back in the 1990s.
While the trailer is short and to the point, it’s also filled with a lot of promise and the revival of nostalgia lost. The controls, the frame-rate and the music are absolutely all pitch perfect… especially the music. The sub-boss theme sounds a lot like it’s drawing inspiration from Sonic 3 and that’s definitely a good thing. You can check out the trailer below, courtesy of Gamespot.
Sega recently announced both Sonic Mania and another unnamed Sonic project, both of which are due for release next year.
The game hearkens back to the days of the Sega Genesis, giving gamers a straight side-scrolling experience with all the challenges, speed and nostalgic stages that helped make the blue hedgehog famous. Some of the stages in Sonic Mania will be remixes of the Genesis classics, such as Green Hill Zone that you see above. Other stages will be brand new, like the one you see at the end of the trailer called Studiopolis Zone, which is based on a media news theme. You have to give the developers props for getting creative.
The actual gameplay still maintains a lot of the basics from the 16-bit era, but there are also a few new features as well, such as the diving dash. It will be interesting to see what other new stages and gameplay mechanics they’ve implemented to help make Sonic Mania feel fresh. It would also be pretty cool if drop-in co-op was still a thing, sort of like in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3.
We do know that you can select between Sonic, Tails and Knuckles to play through each of the levels, so there’s going to be plenty of replayability present. You can look for more info to go public leading up to the game’s spring, 2017 release on the Xbox One, PS4 and PC.