Have A Look At Sonic Mania's Version Of Green Hill Zone

Sonic Mania is coming up later on this year, and it has Sonic fans excited. That's because Sonic Mania represents a return to form for the Sonic the Hedgehog series, bringing the blur blur back to his 2D sidescrolling days. Besides a few gameplay trailers here and there, we really haven't seen too much of Sonic Mania, but that all changes today as Sega has posted a video that walks us through Sonic Mania's Green Hill Zone.

Yes, Sonic Mania will indeed recreate the very first level from Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis. The aesthetic itself looks a lot like Green Hill Zone – so much so that at first you might be wondering what's changed. Watch a little longer, though, and you'll see that the paths through the level, the locations of power-ups, and the type of enemies you encounter have all changed.

Sometimes these changes are small and simple, but other times they're pretty big. Since Sonic the Hedgehog was the very first video game I ever played, I've played Green Hill Zone hundreds of times throughout the years, and some areas of Sonic Mania's version look completely different, especially Act 2.

Sega has produced two versions of the video. One has commentary from Sega's Aaron Webber, who spends the entirety of the video talking about new mechanics and what's changed as Sega brings Green Hill Zone from 1991 to 2017. Both versions of the video are posted below.

Here's the version without commentary, just in case you want to listen to that wonderful Green Hill Zone chiptune. It should be noted that this version only shows us Act 2, and as a result, it's quite a bit shorter. Have a look:

While Webber takes us through both of Green Hill Zone's two acts, he stops just short of showing us the boss, which suggests that it'll be different from the one we're used to seeing at the end of the zone. He also notes that Sonic Mania will run at 60 frames per second, giving 2D Sonic a certain fluidity that was missing in the old school Genesis games, which ran at 30 fps.

Sonic Mania still doesn't have a release date, but with these new videos and a special live stream scheduled for March 16, Sega's marketing machine certainly is warming up. That suggests we may see a launch sometime within the next couple of months. When it does eventually release, Sonic Mania will be available on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.