Sonic Mania Plus is coming to the Nintendo Switch on July 17th and will be available as a standalone retail edition or DLC for existing owners of the excellent Sonic Mania. Japanese magazine Famitsu spoke to Sonic Team boss Takashi Iizuka and one of the questions put to him by the publication was why the team decided to add both Ray and Mighty to the game. Iizuka explained that they had been widely requested by fans and so naturally they thought about adding them in. Here’s what he said:
Famitsu: How did you decide on the additional features?
Iizuka: Sonic Mania’s lifeline is giving stimulus to fans’ curiosities and expectations, so we thought of something that if added would make it the most exciting, and the results were Ray and Mighty. There were people requesting them, who appeared in the arcade version, to appear again. Personally to me, they were supposed to be “sealed characters” that would never be planned to be added to games. But in this title we are squeezing in all series materials aimed for specific manias, so the stage for them to appear has already been prepared. In that case, we should unlock that seal (laughs).
Famitsu: How did you decide on the two’s unique actions?
Iizuka: Mighty the Armadillo has a trait of being a strong guy, and he has a hard shell on his back. By making use of that, we made it into a technique to drop vertically to the ground and make it shake. Also, he can repel enemy bullets with the shell, and when he’s curled up he can prevent damage once. Doing a sudden drop to the ground is a rare action in the classic series indeed.
Famitsu: What about Ray?
Iizuka: Since he’s a flying squirrel, we instantly decided on a gliding action. Although it may be similar to Knuckles’ gliding, Ray can raise up with effort. Depending on the [player’s] technique, he can fly for very long.
That’s pretty interesting.
Suddenly dropping to the ground is the Sonic 3 bubble shield though
“And make it shake”
Bubble never made it shake, so it’s all good.
And the Bounce Bracelet Sonic gets in Adventure 2.
I have to admit I’m not that big on Ray’s design but he seems really fun to play.
I like how they are asking the head of Sonic Team when it was probably really Christian Whitehead’s idea. I hope Mighty comes to future games. Also I wish Amy was in this
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So apart from this game, iizuka still doesn’t give a damn about them. Someone should replace Iizuka, or at least stand up to him (like Furukawa is planning to do with Miyamoto), because it does not look good several years down the line if this is Iizuka’s attitude.
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I am curious to how one can make Ray fly longer. Are they going to copy the flying cape of Super Mario World?
That’s what it sounded like to me.
If that’s the case, it’ll be pretty easy to break the game lol.
It looks like Ray’s flight ability functions *exactly* like Mario when he has the cape in World.
I can’t be the only one who wants Mighty, Ray, and Team Hooligan (Fang the Sniper/Knack the Weasel, Bean the Dynamite, and Bark the Polar Bear) to start appearing regularly again, am I? Sonic Mania shows they clearly still have a following.