Sonic Mania Plus

Sonic Mania Plus (ソニックマニア・プラス) is an expanded version of Sonic Mania. It was released in July 2018 both physically for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and as a digital-only release on Steam for the PC and as downloadable content to digital copies of the original game for all platforms.

This re-release adds two new characters to the game, Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel, as well as a new game mode, Encore Mode, and expands the Competition Mode up to four players.

Around the time of Sonic Mania Plus ' s release, a v1.05.0713 patch was released for the base game which includes many changes and bugfixes from Sonic Mania Plus, but does not grant access to the exclusive content featured in Sonic Mania Plus.

Development
During an interview with Famitsu, Takashi Iizuka explained that Sonic Mania was not intended to have a physical release; Sega staff requested one, but a retail version would have presented a challenge for the production schedule. After the game launched, fans also expressed interest in a physical version. As a retail release would cost more than the downloadable version, the team added value with new content.

When it came to deciding the new content, Sonic Team followed Sonic Mania ' s way of giving stimulus to fans’ curiosities and expectations by adding Ray and Mighty, two highly requested characters, to the game, despite the two characters being considered "sealed characters" by Iizuka; to accommodate them, level designs had to be altered. When the team had to decide on Mighty and Ray's special actions, Mighty received his "Hammer Drop" after the team reflected on his "strong guy" setting and hard shell, while Ray received his "Air Glide" as a callback to his species. Multiplayer was also updated to have up to four players at once because there were more characters to select from.

Hyperkinetic Studios was part of the development of this update. One of the people who are part of Hyperkinetic, Hunter Bridges, worked on the new music tracks while Tee Lopes worked on the soundtrack for Sonic Mania Adventures.

Encore Mode
In the conclusion of the War to Take Back the Planet, Sonic is transported back to Angel Island by the Phantom Ruby. He traverses the land and finds Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel trapped within a capsule. After freeing them, the Heavy Magician reveals herself to have been disguised as one of the prisoners (the one that the player did not select to team up with). She steals the Phantom Ruby, leaving Sonic and his new teammate to chase her down. The Heavy Magician gives the Phantom Ruby to the wrecked remains of the Phantom King, among the other Phantom Heavies. The Phantom King then uses the Ruby to restore the Hard Boiled Heavies, leaving Sonic and his teammate to begin hunting them down in Green Hill Zone.

Making their way back to Titanic Monarch Zone, the heroes once again fight Dr. Eggman in his Phantom Egg. After defeating the doctor, the Phantom Ruby is claimed by the Heavy King as Eggman and the heroes escape. If the player manages to collect all seven Chaos Emeralds, the Phantom Ruby will instead open up a portal that begins to destroy the base. Eggman will escape in a rocket car as the heroes fall behind, the heroes will then activate their Super States and barrel past Eggman, causing him to get sucked up into the portal.

In an end credits scene, the five heroes all meet up one of Mirage Saloon Zone's ice cream parlours to relax. The heroes are then interrupted by the Heavy King, who appears from the behind the bar with a large ice cream sundae. The scene freeze frames on the photo of this moment with the caption "you're too cool!"

New features

 * Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel are featured as playable characters. Like the original playable characters, Mighty and Ray play similarly to Sonic, Tails and Knuckles. They also have moves exclusive to themselves. Mighty has the Hammer Drop, which makes him blast downward in a burst of speed, slamming Badniks and obstacles and making hidden items fall out of trees. Meanwhile, Ray has the Air Glide which lets him glide large distances through midair and even gain altitude. In Mania Mode, they will play the same Acts and bosses as Sonic and Tails.
 * Optimized difficulty for boss fights.
 * A new Metal Sonic boss fight.
 * The unused Sweep badnik from the original version of Sonic Mania has been added as an enemy in Angel Island Zone.

Encore Mode
Encore Mode is a game mode exclusive to Sonic Mania Plus that takes place after the events of the game's Mania Mode and the conclusion of Sonic Forces, and sees the player progressing through altered Zones with new gameplay rules.

Encore Mode includes all the Zones from Mania Mode (except the Egg Reverie Zone) and remixes them with different color palettes. In addition, there are new areas and different object placements that makes Encore Mode appear as an expanded version of Mania Mode. New pathways make use of all of the five characters' abilities. Bosses are also now either easier or harder, and some Giant Rings have been moved to other locations. The Special Stages remain figuratively unchanged from Mania Mode's, but the artistic layouts are in reverse order, and the Stages themselves are more difficult. Also, a brand new Bonus Stage set inside a giant pinball table has been added, and can be accessed from any Star Post with at least fifty Rings. Angel Island Zone has also been added as an introductory Zone; as a result of this, Green Hill Zone is the second level in this mode instead of the first.

Encore Mode also features a new party and lives system. At the beginning, the player starts with Sonic and either Mighty or Ray. The player is in control of one of the characters while the other is controlled by the AI and can be switched by pressing ///[W]. Only the first two characters can be switched between, and only when both are on-screen and not jumping. To get the rest of the playable characters, the player must find a monitor with cycling character faces on it. When they break it, the character shown on the monitor will be added to the player's party. Player Swap monitors from Competition Mode are also used, and breaking one of them will change the player's character to the next one in waiting, and Random monitors will shuffle the character order. Instead of traditional lives, the characters behaves as lives. If the main character dies, that character will be lost and another character in waiting will take his place. If all characters are lost, it will result in a Game Over.

4-Player Competition Mode
The Competition Mode is expanded to allow up to four players simultaneously. When playing with two or three players, player 1 can customize the screen division.

Replays
Sonic Mania Plus adds the option to save replays of completed Time Attack attempts. Once a replay has been saved, the player can play back the replay, or challenge it. When challenging a replay, the player's previous attempt will be shown as a ghost during gameplay.

Changes from the original version
Sonic Mania Plus includes some of the changes made to Sonic Mania. Changes include: Some new cheat codes have been added to "No Save Mode" which can be activated with the sound test in the level select. The previously unused "I'm Outta Here" animation from Sonic the Hedgehog CD is now used for the Exit Game option in the PC version.
 * In the opening for Sonic Mania Plus, the word "Plus" transitions under the logo while Eggman can be seen in the background flying with a chained Combi Catcher containing Mighty and Ray.
 * The drowning theme music in Encore Mode was replaced with a remixed version of the drowning theme from Sonic the Hedgehog CD.
 * If the player chooses to play as Mighty or Ray in Mania Mode, Sonic will be the one to fly the Tornado for them.
 * Additionally, the variation of the normal ending plays in which Mighty and Ray appear alongside Sonic instead of Tails and Knuckles.
 * When exiting from a level in Mania Mode, the player is brought back to the save file screen instead of the main menu.
 * 04, 01, 02, 06 - Obtain All Emeralds
 * 06, 02, 01, 04 - Disable Super Form music
 * 01, 09, 09, 02, 01, 01, 02, 04 - Infinite Continues
 * 09, 00, 00, 01 - Max Control for Sonic (Insta-Shield, Drop Dash & Super Peel Out)
 * 02, 00, 01, 07, 00, 08, 01, 05 - Egg Reverie Super Form
 * 02, 00, 01, 08, 00, 06, 02, 03 - Force Encore Mode.

Promotion
With the announcement of Sonic Mania Plus, a wave of promotional material was announced. Those buying the physical version of Sonic Mania Plus received a holographic slip cover, a reversible SEGA Genesis or Sega Mega Drive-themed sleeve (for the United States and Europe, respectively), and a 32-page art book.

Exclusive to Japan, the physical release of Sonic Mania Plus included limited edition packages that featured artbooks and the game's soundtrack on CDs. The soundtrack was a double disk album with fifty-four tracks, which included all Sonic Mania tracks (excluding compositions by Masato Nakamura), all Hyper Potions tracks (including "Time Trials Plus") and all Sonic Mania Plus songs, including "Time Trial Plus" with Crush 40’s Jun Senoue on guitar.

There was also a SEGA Shop Japan exclusive Deluxe package containing physical goodies like a t-shirt, canvas purse, and stickers.

Trivia

 * This is the first game that Mighty returns as a playable character since Knuckles' Chaotix in 1995, while Ray has not been playable in any game since his debut in SegaSonic the Hedgehog in 1993.
 * In addition, this is the first 2D sidescroller Sonic game that Ray appears in.
 * On the back of the artbook, there is a Morse Code message near the top. It reads "TOGETHER, WE ARE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF OUR PARTS."
 * Some players accidentally got an unintended patch for Sonic Mania for PlayStation 4 in the UK on 17 April 2018. The patch added transitions to stages that lacked them in the original (such as going from Flying Battery Zone to Press Garden Zone), options to use the No Save mode special abilities, a no time limit mode, a completely redesigned Metal Sonic boss, new menus, and the option to download the Encore DLC (which was not able to function properly at the time until the the v1.04 update.)
 * Sonic Mania Plus ' official trailer theme song ("Time Trial Plus") is a modification of "Time Trials" by Hyper Potions featuring Jun Senoue on guitars. This is the second time the trio have performed together, if including a live performance at Magfest 2018.
 * The mock infomercial for Sonic Mania Plus is a reference to the humorous television infomercial that debuted in 1991 for the original Sonic the Hedgehog. It even uses the line "a whole lot more for less".
 * The salesman in the infomercial is while Aaron Webber played the customer.
 * The "SEGA!" line that Kazuyuki Hoshino apparently screams at the end of the infomercial is a reference to the former commercials for both Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, where someone would look as if they are screaming "SEGA!" at the end.
 * The fake shooter game prototype that played alongside Sonic Mania Plus was a prototype game that the Sega team created and titled "Finger GunZ".
 * Mighty and Ray's high speed running animations resemble the ones they performed in SegaSonic the Hedgehog.
 * Ray uses his tail as well as his hands when moving across bars. This is a technique that he could perform in SegaSonic the Hedgehog.
 * One of Ray's idle animations depicts him looking out into the distance in a pose similar to a piece of [[media:Sonic-I-JP-Art-XII.png|artwork]] from the original Sonic the Hedgehog. One of Mighty's idle animations has him holding out his hands and looking at the player in an impatient tone, similar to Sonic's idle animation in the 8-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
 * A hidden cheat can be found in Encore Mode called "Vape Mode". In this mode, all the music is slowed down as a reference to vaporwave music genre.

Videos
Trailer = Dev Diary 1 (Art and Design) = Dev Diary 2 (Game Design) = Infomercial =