SEGA has recently announced that Sonic Mania Plus, the enhanced edition of Sonic Mania that will also have a physical release, will be out simultaneously worldwide. As the game was just formally announced in Japan this week, one of the major Japanese gaming news outlets, Famitsu, has just posted an interview with Mr. Takashi Iizuka, producer of the Sonic series, where he explained the decision to have a physical release of Sonic Mania as well as the addition of two new characters: Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel.
We have translated this interview from the most recent Weekly Famitsu magazine issue, which you can read right below.
Sonic Mania Plus Famitsu interview with Sonic series producer Takashi Iizuka
Famitsu: Please tell us the details on how you get to produce Sonic Mania Plus. Iizuka: Sonic Mania started as a digital-only title at first, but when we tried creating it, we received a lot of requests from both inside and outside the company to ?release it physically as well,? so we decided to release it as a gratitude to everyone.
However, since it would be difficult to sell the physical version with the same price as digital, we?ve prepared something as additional values to compensate the price hike, which turns out to be new characters and the Encore Mode.
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 wou...