Sonic Mania/Hidden Areas
This is a sub-page of Sonic Mania.
Using Debug Mode, you can go out of bounds and find hidden areas and objects.
Contents
Studiopolis Zone Act 1
| Mania Mode | Encore Mode |
|---|---|
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A small area near the start of Act 1. This could be accessed in pre-release demos via a spring, but the spring was removed in the final. You can still reach it with Tails and Ray by flying, Knuckles by climbing, and Mighty and Sonic with their Super Transformations.
In Encore Mode, this area is re-purposed to contain a special ring and is now accessible via an extending director chair.
Press Garden Zone Act 1
Use Debug Mode near the first giant ring and move down to discover an unused area with letter blocks spelling "OLLEH" (backwards for "HELLO"). This is very likely an Easter egg for curious players. In Encore Mode, this area is also re-purposed to contain a special ring.
Stardust Speedway Zone Act 1
 | To do: The game's update fixed the floating sprite on the robot teleporter after it's destroyed. |
The robot teleporter destroyed during the transition to Act 2 has a "destroyed" sprite, as you'd probably expect, but due to the nature of the cutscene it goes offscreen before the sprite can be seen. It is possible to see the sprite in normal gameplay by flying over the boss arena with Tails and destroying the teleporter, but all other characters must use Debug Mode.
For some reason, it is floating, probably because the devs didn't see it during the cutscene.
Hydrocity Zone Act 1
A secret area planned for Knuckles is at coordinate 25FB 00C7, though it can only be seen if the high layer is removed. Unfortunately, the collision was also removed, leaving only abandoned graphics behind the scenes.
Mirage Saloon Zone Act 1 (Sonic & Tails)
Using Debug Mode during the train sequence, if going to the right far enough correctly, Fang, Bark, and Bean can be found flying in the sky. They are stored here for the Act 2 transition cutscene, where one of the three is selected at random to destroy the Tornado.
Lava Reef Zone Act 1
| RAW | Used |
|---|---|
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There is a pool of lava hidden to the left of the starting point, and can only be seen by placing signposts to force the camera to move left. This area resembles the opening section seen in the early version of Act 1 (see below). The lava works as intended, but there's not much else here. This area is later used in Version 1.04 as a transition from Oil Ocean Zone.
Also found near the starting point is the shaft that Sonic falls down at the start of Lava Reef in Sonic & Knuckles, which remains as a leftover and was blocked off with new path. Strangely, this is not present in the earlier version of Act 1.
A large chunk of stage found to the left of the rising lava section. Unlike the previous two areas, there are a few objects here - a single Iwamodoki on the left, a couple of invisible Eggman blocks in the middle (these would be used in conjuction with a crushing object to kill the player), and a single rock barrier with a switch to open it up. This is similar to a Knuckles-only section seen in the original Lava Reef, though the original section didn't have a set of stairs leading into a pit. This area is altered and repurposed in Sonic Mania Plus as a Mighty-exclusive route.
An area intended for Knuckles, formerly used in Sonic & Knuckles. You can see this area by removing the High graphics layer, but the area cannot be accessed because collision walls block off the entire area.
A set of fences below the beginning of the Act were forgotten. Perhaps the level would have begun a little lower?
Lava Reef Zone Act 2
A corrupted platform conveyor. Remains of it can be found in the low layer in Knuckles' area.
Act 2's boss area (technically Lava Reef Act 3), this game's version of Hidden Palace Zone, has the greatest amount of unused content. According to developer Simon "Stealth" Thomley, part of the development for old Zones involved copying the layouts from their original games and working around them, adding new tiles and altering the level layouts. Sonic Mania only uses a small part of Hidden Palace's level layout, leaving the rest unused.
This hidden area was originally part of Sonic and/or Tails' path in the original Hidden Palace. In Sonic Mania, this is part of Knuckles' path, but there's no way for him to get up here without Debug Mode.
(Not that it matters, anyway, since the assortment of monitors seen in Sonic & Knuckles are absent in Sonic Mania.)
It's now possible to get to this area in Encore Mode because Tails can fly up to this area, but there's still no monitors, so there's very little point.
There's a long teleporter tube above the capsule in Knuckles' path. It's possible that this is where the exit teleporter would have originally appeared. Instead, the teleporter was moved further right in the final game, creating space for the Capsule.
A section taken directly from Sonic & Knuckles, though the gap in the floor is new, likely for accommodating the teleporter in the area below. The murals still use their old tileset definitions, so they appear as corrupt tiles in Sonic Mania. The mural tiles aren't in the new tileset, either.
The original Master Emerald shrine from Sonic & Knuckles. This section seems to have served as a scratch area for the Heavy Rider fight, experimenting with how the ramp tiles would be set up for the boss area proper. Interestingly, the Super Emeralds aren't present here, though even in the used version they're actually map tiles rather than sprite objects.
The last unused area. This was the exit point for Sonic and Tails in the original Hidden Palace. Some of the tiles are using their original definitions; this is easiest to see with the curved ceiling blocks and the top of the teleporter chamber.
Titanic Monarch Zone Act 1
A tunnel just beyond the screen lock for the Crimson Eye miniboss. It looks like, after defeating the miniboss, it was used by the act transition, as it's at the end of the tunnel and is a non-solid wall. An identical wall also matches with the collision lacking wall at the start of Act 2, revealing why that specific chunk is missing collision.
Titanic Monarch Zone Act 2
| Star Post | Animal Capsule |
|---|---|
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This area itself isn't unused, as it's used in Time Attack; but if you visit this area in Mania Mode, you'll find a Capsule and a Star Post. This may indicate that the final boss was once intended to be fought at some point after Titanic Monarch Act 2, with Act 2 itself ending with a standard stage boss.
This room also contains a Giant Ring in Encore Mode, however there's no access to the area's left side.
Egg Reverie Zone
Another instance of the developers using empty space in the level as a scratch pad. The area seen is directly under the main boss arena and features slopes, crystallized and otherwise, that don't appear anywhere else.
The section is off to the right of the main boss area. Largely the same content as the previous section, but the lights and quarter-pipes are new.
Some of these pieces can be seen in Debug Mode by placing signposts to force the camera to go out of bounds. Everything below that long chunk of black rectangle is below the camera bounds, though.
Pinball Stage
Above the Pinball bonus stage, you can find a large room holding 4 bumpers. Maybe the pinball stage was going to be longer?
You can also find a platform below the bonus stage.
