Sonic Mania Plus: How to Play as Ray

How to Play as Ray in Sonic Mania Plus

The Sonic Mania Plus add-on is finally out, and as advertised, two new characters join the big three of Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails. Mighty the Armadillo, and Ray the Flying Squirrel from SegaSonic the Hedgehog fame join the fray. They aren’t exactly household names to the casual & average Sonic fan though. Outside of appearing in SegaSonic the Hedgehog, an arcade game from the early 90s, they have only made very sporadic appearances. That said, not only are they back, they returned to what is arguably the best Sonic game ever made.

In Sonic Mania Plus, Ray is playable in every mode. In Mania mode, you can select Ray just as you would any of the other playable characters. Just scroll the options you have until you reach Ray —easy!

Encore mode is a little different. Here, you technically only have one life, but you can rescue lost characters and add them to your bench of available characters as you play. To get Ray in Encore Mode, find 1UP boxes to add a missing character to your roster, or go to the new special stages found at the checkpoints when you pass them with at least 25 rings. If he’s not currently active, look for the new character swap boxes which will mix up your team. If he’s one of your two that are active, press Triangle/X/Y (PS4, Switch, Xbox One) to switch to him and control him if you aren’t already.

Finally, in competitive mode, you can, of course, play with Ray as well. Simply make sure that you or your friend pick him.

Ray’s special ability is that he can glide; however, instead of a sustained glide that slowly drops off over time, Ray can use his wings to glide for longer distances. He can reach greater heights than Knuckles as long as he has room to drop down, pick up speed, and swoop back up. If you’re familiar with the cape from Super Mario World, it functions very similarly to that. Just keep in mind that if you hit the ceiling of a map, you will return back into ball form and come crashing down, same with making contact with a surface, so keep that in mind. Ray’s weakness is that unlike Tails, he has a hard time just go straight up into the air, as he needs some room to get some speed first. He also, of course, lacks abilities that help him while he’s grounded like Sonic and Mighty.

That does it for how to play as Ray in Sonic Mania Plus. Be sure to search Twinfinite for more game guides.