Sonic Mania Plus Announcement Trailer, My Thoughts

In June of last year, I gave my thoughts on the announcement of SEGA's Sonic Mania, Sonic the Hedgehog's Nintendo Switch debut. It sold over a million units. Critics had praised the game for its faithfulness to the original Sega Genesis (Mega Drive in Europe) Sonic Trilogy, but it was given some criticism for lack of any real originality (Eight of the game's twelve levels are redesigns of levels from the original Sonic Trilogy).

Well, the fan and critical praise must have inspired Sega to pump this game up a bit more. As such, they announced Sonic Mania Plus, an expansion of Sonic Mania. Yeah, I'm late on this, and I am sorry. Anyway, here's the trailer!

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are three happenin' animal dudes who are going to take this here elevator to adventure. Hey! Who's messing with the doors?!

Hey, it's Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel! Wait, who are these guys? Well, Mighty and Ray come from the 1993 arcade game SegaSonic the Hedgehog. It was an arcade game that was released only in Japan, and it had never been ported or released anywhere. Mighty would go on to appear in the 1995 Sega 32X game Knuckles' Chaotix, a spin-off of the Sonic series. The Choatix (mainly Vector the Crocodile, Charmy Bee, and Espio the Chameleon) would go on to appear in other Sonic games, but Mighty would be left behind and forgotten.

I like Ray and Mighty appearing as just pencil lines. It's rather symbolic. It's like their falling into obscurity has caused them to "fade away" into their current state. A little bit of character in there, too. Ray is happy to see Sonic again, and Mighty is like "What the deal, man!? You forgot about us!"

I love that Sonic takes a moment to recognize them, then offers them a chance to join him, Tails, and Knuckles. You'd think Knuckles would recognize Mighty, considering they were in a game together, but Knuckles has been shown to be a bit dim, so...yeah.

The little detail of the color returning to Mighty upon taking Sonic's hand is a great touch. Again, more symbolism can be seen here. Mighty and Ray are been given spotlight again for the first time in decades, so they're revitalized.

I do hope this update gives out more original zones. From what I heard, the game does need more new zones. I want to see the game makers go nuts and make some crazy new zones.

Mighty can slam into the ground really hard. I wonder how that can be useful. Maybe in a situation where he needs to clear out a lot of enemies? Or if you need some spikes broken. ;)

Ray can glide endlessly. I fear that has some game-breaking potential. He could potentially make some zones a breeze by just flying over everything.

Hey, Knuckles remembered Mighty after all!

I have wanted to play this game, having played the original Sonic games growing up, but considering this expansion...I think I will pick it up as soon as I can. I've never played a game with Mighty and Ray in it, so I am admittedly curious as to what they can do.