Sonic Mania (August 15th 2017, Christian Whitehead, PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch) - The New Classic

[TB100]

If Studiopolis is a throwback to Sega in general and Mirage Saloon is a throwback to Dust Hill and Desert Dazzle, I wonder if any of the other new zones will be throwbacks to Sonic's history as well in general, like a zone based off of R2, (The original one, not desert dazzle.) or one based off of Cyber City and What not, i'll make sense considering that this game is practically an anniversary game, and everything else we have see thus far has been full of throwbacks to both Sonic and Sega in general. Though poor Wood Zone has no chance of making it, thanks to Taxman's comments awhile back, Maybe someday. 

[Marcello]

16 minutes ago, BlueBlur91 said:

If Studiopolis is a throwback to Sega in general and Mirage Saloon is a throwback to Dust Hill and Desert Dazzle, I wonder if any of the other new zones will be throwbacks to Sonic's history as well in general, like a zone based off of R2, (The original one, not desert dazzle.) or one based off of Cyber City or What not, i'll make sense considering that this game is practically an anniversary game, and everything else we see has been full of throwbacks to both Sonic and Sega.

 

 

 

I think they said there are no other scrapped levels.

[TB100]

7 minutes ago, Marcello said:

I think they said there are no other scrapped levels.

Oh, I just thought they said no Wood Zone, I didn't know they said no levels based off of scrapped levels in general are being made, oops.

 

 

[JezMM]

More scrapped levels would just be a waste really.  We already know we're getting more retro levels than new ones, and so far the two new ones are a finished version of a stage we've seen in part before, and another that has the majority of it's appeal come from making tons of old references.  They're both awesome and fantastic, but I don't want yet more new levels leaning on nostalgia and references when the retro stages will already be doing that shtick by default.

[Psychicmoose103]

I'm really digging the theme for the chain boss, but for anyone who doesn't, this is probably just the miniboss theme, not the eggman theme. Man, I hope get act remixes too like in 3 and K. Always loved that .    (Hydrocity act 2 is the best theme ever)

[TheOcelot]

1 hour ago, BlueBlur91 said:

If Studiopolis is a throwback to Sega in general and Mirage Saloon is a throwback to Dust Hill and Desert Dazzle, I wonder if any of the other new zones will be throwbacks to Sonic's history as well in general, like a zone based off of R2, (The original one, not desert dazzle.) or one based off of Cyber City and What not, i'll make sense considering that this game is practically an anniversary game, and everything else we have see thus far has been full of throwbacks to both Sonic and Sega in general. Though poor Wood Zone has no chance of making it, thanks to Taxman's comments awhile back, Maybe someday. 

Yeah, what Marcello said.

Taxman said (I can't find his exact tweet for the life of me) that all other new zones will have completely new assets, so there won't be any more based on cancelled stages like R2 or Wood zone. This is a good thing because Mania needs new level tropes to help keep it fresh and the fanbase has been crying out for new levels for god knows how long! Studiopolis was a damn fine start, now lets see what else they can come up with.

Considering how fresh act2 of GH looks compared to act1, I do feel there is scope for the other re-imagined stages to add new gimmicks (as well as keeping old ones) and new level design aesthetics. Therefore, why not add gimmicks and aesthetics from some of the cancelled stages. You know, why not add a bit of Wood zone to a theoretical re-imagined Hill Top or Mystic Cave. Add a bit of Genocide City to a redesigned Metropolis, or a bit of Sonic CD's R2 level to a remade Marble zone. You get the idea...

Also, why not incorporate designs from Sonic 3's two-player stages into the re-imagined stages, like a bit of Azure Lake in Green Hill act 2, a bit of Balloon Park in Casino Night/Carnival Night, a bit of Chrome Gadget in Star Light/Stardust Speedway or bit of Endless Mine in Quadrant Quartz?

So there's still plenty they can do with existing unused content to spice up the remade levels. I want to be surprised just as much by the re-imagined zones as well as the new one's.

[Spooky Mulder]

49 minutes ago, JezMM said:

More scrapped levels would just be a waste really.  We already know we're getting more retro levels than new ones, and so far the two new ones are a finished version of a stage we've seen in part before, and another that has the majority of it's appeal come from making tons of old references.  They're both awesome and fantastic, but I don't want yet more new levels leaning on nostalgia and references when the retro stages will already be doing that shtick by default.

What stage is Studiopolis just a finished version of? Studiopolis seems like a totally original zone to me.

[expansivelovestories]

2 hours ago, BlueBlur91 said:

If Studiopolis is a throwback to Sega in general and Mirage Saloon is a throwback to Dust Hill and Desert Dazzle, I wonder if any of the other new zones will be throwbacks to Sonic's history as well in general, like a zone based off of R2, (The original one, not desert dazzle.) or one based off of Cyber City and What not, i'll make sense considering that this game is practically an anniversary game, and everything else we have see thus far has been full of throwbacks to both Sonic and Sega in general. Though poor Wood Zone has no chance of making it, thanks to Taxman's comments awhile back, Maybe someday. 

Yes, "R2", the animated sequence is simply so inspiring!  Perhaps the overall idea, even with new additions from the team, may not be fully expandable to a complete two act zone, but there are other options!!

Depending on what the bonus stages are, if similar to S3K, different amounts of rings would result in different stage formats, there could be one with 2d platforming allowing many otherwise unusable zones to be present in the game in some form! 

[FriendBot]

We interrupt your weekly level wishlist for Mania to provide you breaking news on BIG NEWS on Sonic Mania!

The Taxman has officially confirmed one of the badnik names in Studiopolis Zone.

This is Soni, owner of Soni's Pointless News Updates Channel! Like, comment and subslib to get more revolutionary news!

@Cyrus asked the question, I vanished in a second.

[Jango]

I've just remembered one thing regarding the Michael Jackson's music controversy. We know for a few years that Ice Cap zone was actually composed by Brad Buxer and the Jetzons.

Ice Cap MAY be possible after all.

[CleverSonicUsername]

31 minutes ago, Jango said:

I've just remembered one thing regarding the Michael Jackson's music controversy. We know for a few years that Ice Cap zone was actually composed by Brad Buxer and the Jetzons.

Ice Cap MAY be possible after all.

I disagree. Ice Cap's theme is straight up Hard Times with very little changed, much in the same way the credits theme in 3 is Stranger in Moscow (although Stranger came out after the fact, unlike Hard Times.) That means the song rights are definitely tied up. Stuff Michael Jackson may have produced for the game gets more murky, because none of us really know what kind of agreement SEGA and Jackson worked out.

Edit: Keep in mind though that Ice Cap was in Sonic Adventure, so if they went with that stage and can't use the original theme, they could always opt for interpretations of the music from Adventure. That's part of why I was wishing they chose it for Generations, since the classic stage could pull from the original while the modern stage pulled from Adventure, but oh well.

[JezMM]

2 hours ago, Spooky Mulder said:

What stage is Studiopolis just a finished version of? Studiopolis seems like a totally original zone to me.

"so far the two new ones are a finished version of a stage we've seen in part before, and another that has the majority of it's appeal come from making tons of old references"

I could have worded it better but the first half of the sentence described Mirage Saloon, the second (bolded) Studiopolis.  Studiopolis is creative even as is, but it's still the case where a lot of the scenery is just "hey look it's that thing from that other thing!" (Pink Bot, the Popcorn Maker, the Hornet Vans etc).  I'm hoping not every "new" stage will rely on old references or cameos to be appealing, that's all (stuff like the animated old-timey Eggmans, the clipperboard springs, etc, are great examples of cool original stuff Studiopolis does).

[Zippo]

Some quotes i dug up. Most of the statements I've seen from Sonic 3 composers such as Drossin and Buxer are very non specific about what was composed and who it was composed by, all of the explainations seem to conflict with one another. Hector claims all of the music was taken out. Does anyone know which zones sound most similar to Jackson's songs, besides Carnival Night and Launch Base? Gamatrailers apparently had an inside source from Sega who said MJ just wasn't happy with the Mega Drive's sound clip, so he left, but what was already composed was left into the game unaltered and the big court case that happened before Sonic 3's release was just bad timing. This whole thing is a mess and don't just don't see Sega even bothering with the music controversy. It's going to be Hydro City and/or Marble Garden. I'm not the hugest fan of those stages but I've already accepted it.

[Jango]

I've just remembered one thing regarding the Michael Jackson's music controversy. We know for a few years that Ice Cap zone was actually composed by Brad Buxer and the Jetzons.

Ice Cap MAY be possible after all.

I disagree. Ice Cap's theme is straight up Hard Times with very little changed, much in the same way the credits theme in 3 is Stranger in Moscow (although Stranger came out after the fact, unlike Hard Times.) That means the song rights are definitely tied up. Stuff Michael Jackson may have produced for the game gets more murky, because none of us really know what kind of agreement SEGA and Jackson worked out.

Edit: Keep in mind though that Ice Cap was in Sonic Adventure, so if they went with that stage and can't use the original theme, they could always opt for interpretations of the music from Adventure. That's part of why I was wishing they chose it for Generations, since the classic stage could pull from the original while the modern stage pulled from Adventure, but oh well.

Erm... Bro. Hard Times isn't a Michael Jackson's song... It's from a band called The Jetzons, in which Brad Buxer played. Keyboard I think.

[CleverSonicUsername]

38 minutes ago, Zippo said:

Does anyone know which zones sound most similar to Jackson's songs? 

 

 

Carnival Night, it uses the same six note progression from Jam and samples from it as well. The mid-boss theme seems to use samples of Jackson's voice, but those could very well be stock voice effects that just happen to sound a lot like him. I've seen arguments that the drum tracks in the mid-boss and Knuckles theme is similar to those in Blood on the Dance Floor. Either way, that track was cut for Sonic and Knuckles. The end credits theme to 3 is pretty much just Strange in Moscow, though Moscow came out some time after the fact. The final boss theme bears similarities to the credits theme and by extension Stranger in Moscow.

As far as Buxer goes, we know Ice Cap is hard times, and he worked with Scirocco Jones on a track listed on Scirocco's website as "stage 2, the water." Scirocco says he worked on stages 2 and 3 with buxer, so assuming the level order maintained Marble Garden as the third zone, then Buxer and Scirocco did that too.

I think people often point to what didn't make the cut in Sonic and Knuckles, and what was removed from the PC version. It could be due to the issues with Jackson's contribution, or hardware difficulties seeing as computers at the time did not agree well with some of the sounds used in those tracks.

19 minutes ago, Jango said:

Erm... Bro. Hard Times isn't a Michael Jackson's song... It's from a band called The Jetzons, in which Brad Buxer played. Keyboard I think.

 

I know it's not a Jackson song (I made that distinction by following up with "stuff Michael Jackson produced..."). It's owned by a record label, though. My point is the rights for that song are very likely tied up, and it's possible SEGA could now need approval. The song never went on a record until recently, but the record label undoubtedly owned the song once it was produced for them.

[Jango]

My point is, if you're saying these rights are tied up to a record label, how SEGA still used the Angel Island, Hidrocity and Marble Garden themes, plus the jingles, with no problem? Michael was called to compose the whole soundtrack, but since he left mid project, only a few songs were made 100% by him (if even). And since HE left, he couldn't claim the rights anymore, it's just like when you quit a job. If SEGA fired him, THEN it's ANOTHER story...

But basically, due to MJ leaving halfway through, each song has a different person attached to it. Gotta know which, but IceCap's rights 100% belong to, and only to, Brad Buxer/The Jetzons... Just ask him for permission.

[CleverSonicUsername]

They still used those themes because, presumably, they aren't previously released songs that a composer just tossed into the game. How much input Jackson had is debatable, not a whole lot has been confirmed, and most of it is just speculation based on errant similarities. None of us have any idea what Jackson's agreement with SEGA looked like, and Buxer has not confirmed what music made it into the game versus what was scrapped.

Edit: Personally I still side on hardware issues being the chief reason for the cut and that his contributions aren't really a legal issue as others believe, though I suppose it's possible. Ice Cap/Hard Times seems a bit more problematic considering that's straight up a song owned by someone else, be it a label or just the band, which was created prior to the game's release.

[Jango]

But he doesn't even NEED TO confirm! Hard Times IS IceCap with lyrics! lol Remember when people made videos saying it was Michael Jackson's Who is It? THAT was speculation. If Hard Times was never uploaded on YouTube, people would still think it was Michael's work. It was indeed scrapped! By the Jetzons! Hard Times is an unreleased song that one day Brad decided "-eh, OK, since I don't have much time to compose for this game, I'll just use this record we never released anyways lol".

[CleverSonicUsername]

Just now, Jango said:

But he doesn't even NEED TO confirm! Hard Times IS IceCap with lyrics! lol Remember when people made videos saying it was Michael Jackson's Who is It? THAT was speculation. If Hard Times was never uploaded on YouTube, people would still think it was Michael's work.

I don't think you're quite comprehending my posts, I apologize if they're poorly written and if the details are getting lost.

Zippo posted an image above where Buxer is quoted as saying "I've never played Sonic 3 and I do not know what the developers have kept from the tracks on which Michael and I have worked." This means we don't know concretely which songs remained in the soundtrack that had Jackson's input. Yes, we know Hard Times, a Jetzon's song that was previously unreleased, did get put in there. I assume Buxer said "hey we never used this, so whatever." I don't know if the label it was produced for owns the rights, or if the rights are with The Jetzons, but it did get published eventually so, someone owns it. That could be problematic. But maybe not.

As far as the whole Michael Jackson, musical fiasco thing goes, there's still a lot that just isn't known, so it's hard to say how much of an impact it really has. All I'm saying is, in my eyes, were there any track that could theoretically cause some problems due to rights issues, it would be Ice Cap.

[Zippo]

12 minutes ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

They still used those themes because, presumably, they aren't previously licensed songs that a composer just tossed into the game. How much input Jackson had is debatable, not a whole lot has been confirmed, and most of it is just speculation based on errant similarities. None of us have any idea what Jackson's agreement with SEGA looked like, and Buxer has not confirmed what music made it into the game versus what was scrapped.

This is where I stand. Hector claims it was all redone out of respect for MJ in a hurry and that any similarity is just a coincidence, every composer has a different story, so this situation could go either way. I don't see Sega mentioning any of this in a legal capacity, ever.  I think they'll just avoid it entirely by going with the former three stages, rather than the latter.

[Jango]

Well, couldn't SEGA e-mail Buxer a video of Sonic 3's Ice Cap and say: "-yeah so, this song made it into the game after all, you give a fuck or not? If yes, how much do you want? Also, did you know this is one of the most remixed VGM EVER?"

With love,

SEGA

[emoji14]

[CleverSonicUsername]

10 minutes ago, Zippo said:

This is where I stand. Hector claims it was all redone out of respect for MJ in a hurry and that any similarity is just a coincidence, every composer has a different story, so this situation could go either way. I don't see Sega mentioning any of this in a legal capacity, ever. 

 

For sure, there's just so much we don't know, and we'll likely never have a full picture. It's been a long time, for a lot of those composers it was just another gig, so I don't doubt that conflicting recollections are born from it just being ages since they've thought about it. We know nothing about the agreements made between Jackson, the other composers, and SEGA, so it's really hard to say if there is any issue with reusing music or not. Mania may very well clear some of that up depending on what zone they pull.

Hard Times is the only thing I see being a problem. It could easily be resolved, though. Again, we just don't know. But on face value, the fact that song exists as it does appears more concerning than all this dubious stuff about which track had a little Jackson in it.

6 minutes ago, Jango said:

 

Well, couldn't SEGA e-mail Buxer a video of Sonic 3's Ice Cap and say: "-yeah so, this song made it into the game after all, you give a fuck or not? If yes, how much do you want? Also, did you know this is one of the most remixed VGM EVER?"

 

?!

 

So for the record, there may be zero issue with using it at all, I really don't know how or where the rights are tied up, and whether or not SEGA would be in the clear to continue using it. All I'm saying is, you can point to Hard Times and say "this was made before Sonic 3, and it's the same song," which is a lot more than you can say about the music people speculate to be Jackson's. On face value that seems like a bigger issue to me. Assuming they do need to work something out, then yes. They could reach out to the rights holder and make a deal.

[Jango]

Another thing since we are at it: do we have the names of who made the S&K PC Collection songs? What if the people called to compose the "replacement" songs, did started composing for the Genesis version, BUT due to the game's deadline approaching, SEGA decided to just use what they (MJ, Buxer, Scirocco, Senoue, etc) had finished and roll with it?

And then, couple years later, use the replacement songs, because they had a contract? Or simply to avoid a BIGGER legal problem, I mean, SEGA probably didn't knew that Buxer dug up an unused record from his band instead of creating new stuff, in their mind, it was -probably- all Jackson's or Brad's, so better not take the risk with these. Except with, of course, the songs they indeed kept on the PC version, like Angel Island, Hidrocity... these songs SEGA definitely have a "friendly" deal with the composers.

[Falcon]

The only genuine problem we know of lies with Buxer. There's absolutely no concrete evidence that Jackson wrote any of the final Sonic 3's music. The only real clue is the jam sound in Carnival Night, which Buxer could have easily made (especially considering Buxer credits himself with the ending credits theme and Stranger in Moscow).

There could be other problems outside of Buxer, but it probably has nothing to do with Jackson. The reality is probably far less romantic and the real problem are record labels and contracts xD

 

[molul]

Is Buxer on Twitter? I can totally see a campaign here xD