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2017/03

Sonic Mania Flying Battery Zone Revealed; Delayed To Summer [Update]

Pagodawest Games and Sega revealed a new trailer for Sonic Mania, unveiling another remastered stage from the classic 16-bit saga. The trailer features Flying Battery Zone from Sonic & Knuckles.

Over on the official Sonic the Hedgehog YouTube channel they uploaded footage of the Flying Battery Zone featuring Sonic and Tails. You can check out the quick promo piece below.

A lot of the stage is still the same. It’s cleaner, some of the sprites have been improved, and the music has been remastered (and remixed) in HD for today’s generation of gaming. Simply put, it looks good.

PagodaWest has managed to capture the old-school 16-bit feeling with the upcoming title by hearkening back to the days of fast-scrolling tiles and challenging platforming, something that’s been sorely missing from a lot of today’s games. It’s really nice to see how far along the game is coming and it’s easily one of the most anticipated titles of 2017.

That wasn’t the only bit of news to surface for Sonic Mania, though.

The game was always scheduled to release this spring for the Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch. However, some rumors began circulating that the Switch version would be delayed to the summer and launch at a higher price due to the “Switch tax”, an extra bit of expense that some publishers are claiming are coming in relation to the higher cost of producing cartridges.

Well, Nintendo Life managed to talk to Sega and get word that Sonic Mania for the Nintendo Switch will launch on the same day and at the same price as its other console brethren.

Sega’s Aaron Weber revealed to them that there will be a simultaneous release for Sonic Mania across all of its announced platforms and that there will not be a “Switch tax”. An actual release date for the game has yet to be revealed but hopefully it’s coming soon.

[Update March 17th, 2017: According to Siliconera, Sega has announced that the spring release window is no longer set in stone and the game has been pushed to a summer release]

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