#Sonic mania plus xbox one gameplay series#

Item boxes will swap in-play characters with benched characters or add characters to the lineup, while the pinball machine rescues characters not on your lineup from a combi catcher prize prison not unlike the one seen in Knuckles’ Chaotix. You’ll see the lead characters as their face icons, and “benched” characters as circles with their first initial.

Additional characters are added to the lineup through item boxes and a pinball machine mini-game accessible from the signposts. Rather than earning lives the old fashioned way, players begin with Sonic and Mighty or Ray and have the ability to swap between the two characters on the fly as long as both are on screen and are standing on the ground. Zones have new color palettes, harder to reach special stage rings and more difficult special stages, but what really sets Encore Mode apart is how lives are handled.

#Sonic mania plus xbox one gameplay series#

Ray plays similarly to Cape Mario from the Super Mario series and has a bit of a learning curve to his wingsuit-like ability. Mighty and Ray have their own distinct abilities, with Mighty having a supercharged equivalent of the bubble shield attack and invulnerability to spikes. This time, however, players are treated to a brief Angel Island stage and the return of Mighty and Ray. Encore kicks off with Sonic seemingly returning from the end of Mania mode with the story starting all over again. As the name implies, the mode takes you through an encore performance of Sonic Mania with some distinct differences. After the break, read about the new additions and enhancements, as well as the contents of the physical release.Įncore Mode is the star addition to Sonic Mania Plus. If you’d like to read our initial review, click here. Sonic Mania Plus is everything that made the original Sonic Mania great, and more.

Typically a reviewer would take this moment to pose the question: “So does Sonic Mania stand up one year later and are the new additions worthy of a double dip or DLC download?”, but I’ll just let you know right now that the answers are “yes” and “yes”. This definitive edition answers fan demand for a physical release while adding gameplay tweaks, expanded multiplayer, a new mode and two additional playable characters. Now, a year later, SEGA is releasing a new version of the game dubbed Sonic Mania Plus.

When I reviewed 2017’s Sonic Mania, I praised it as being the best 2D Sonic game in decades.