Sonic Superstars: A New 2D Sonic Game (Fall 2023)

I miss the chuckling Knuckles reaction
He rolls at random when you walk.

Anyway I don't know if he can be a playable character.... either they will make him look clumsy through animations but still give him a normal moveset, or he's canonically too clumsy to do anything.

I think that maybe it's another character on the heroes' side that will be revealed later. If playable Trip is a surprise reward, I doubt they would put him in the title screen because it would ruin the surprise; the title screen definitely has a gap, I expect the gap to be filled by the release day (worst case they will just rearrange the characters).

If it's a different character completely, I'm not sure if it will be a new one, a known face (Mighty, Ray, one of the Chaotix...) or just Fang, that maybe was left out because the trailer still didn't show his 3D model yet (even though we've seen it in a cutscene). I still lowkey hope that they will screw the canon and put a classicized modern character in there, but I know that it will never happen.

There seem to be a little gap even in the final scene of the intro cutscene... maybe the character is there but the layer got disabled so we can't see it? I don't know.

 

So you're saying he's some kind of sniper...wolf?

 

I haven't seen a primary source for the Half-wolf thing, so afaik he's a Jerboa. Fits more since the Japanese name for the thing lines up with the Japanese name for Hedgehogs.

 

The wolf part maybe to justify his size, since jerboae are tiny and would conventionally fall into the same kind of size category as Charmy and Cream, which would play poorly on a Game Gear screen. Of course, the jerboa influences are easy to see, given his big ears and long, skinny tail. I think his using it as a spring to jump with in certain appearances is almost meant to reflect jerboa activity in an abstract manner.

 

I'm curious to see how far they'll go with unlockable/purchasable skins. Since modern Amy's dress is the newsletter bonus skin, it makes me wonder if that is opening the door to classic redesigns of modern characters as skins (Shadow over Sonic) or alternate characters in general (Metal Sonic over Sonic). Though I suppose it's just as likely they'll just stick to costumes.

 

Ahhh, that makes sense. I completely missed that, ignore me then.

 

Sorta? His name was changed from Nack to Fang during the game's development to avoid confusion with Knuckles. "Nakku" is awfully close to "Nakkuruzu". Localization didn't get the memo and used the early name a couple times.

 

These pop-up objects sometimes visibly clip into the terrain. Just like Sonic Mania :^)

 

That's an awfully missed opportunity for not using "Nack is Back" in their marketing.

 

[referencing smoke] But what does it add? It looks awful. It makes it harder to see. The butterfly gets no explanation (at least nothing yet). It makes it harder to see what coming ahead. It's just a very non-Sonic mechanic, and sort of reminds me of those boring mechanics from the labyrinth level of Sonic 4.

Also, since it was mentioned again above. I also find that Sonic 4 music to be AWFUL. It is so bad that it makes this game seem bad too - just hearing it. I'm assuming they must have something pretty amazing to replace it and wanted to maximize the juxtaposition.

 

"Sonic 4 music in B-roll footage makes the game seem bad" sure is a take. It's been almost 15 years, my dudes. Like, yeah, the game was awful, but you gotta let go at some point. God bless the poor SEGA employee who chose the track, blissfully unaware of the kerfuffle its presence would cause on Sonic Retro.

 

It's not just Retro, everyone seems to hate it. But I agree with you nonetheless.

 

If it were me working at Sega I would've done it just to screw with people.

 

If only they'd let us?

 

Do you realise how conspiratorial that sounds? Not just aimed at you, but some people on this site will swear up and down that SEGA’s out to get them because they’re promoting the game in a way not laser focused on pleasing diehards and physics gurus. First it was somebody thinking they didn’t show Sonic bouncing on a Bat Brain because it’d look bad because the physics aren’t right, now it’s that they’re using Sonic 4 music to subliminally warp our expectations. Most casuals probably don’t even know where the music is from and, honestly, won’t think twice about it because it really ain’t that bad in a vacuum. I completely understand some very valid concerns and questions people have, but this idea that SEGA is playing 4D chess to sucker us into buying Superstars when most of us are going to buy it anyway (due to sunk cost fallacy if nothing else) is absurd.

 

Did I miss something - it's not "disingenuous" or "b-roll" music - they've clearly not finished the final tracks (or they don't want you to hear them yet), so have coded up some placeholders to get the jist of the game across. It's an unfinished game several months before launch - the final version will be better.

(also, the exact same thing happened with Sonic 2 thirty years ago. p.s. I hope someone's documenting all of this)


That being said,

using Sonic 4 music a choice. I'd have kept the game silent (did they do that with Frontiers? There was talk about MUSIC COMING SOON but did it actually happen?), but others might see that as even worse. Not sure why you would prioritise showcasing several unfinished levels over one complete one, mind you - if there's a community dissecting the game's development in x years time perhaps it'll be interesting, but I still lack the confidence that it'll be a game worth dissecting.

Fixing the physics in Sonic 4/Generations/Forces solves one problem, but there's graphics, level design, audio, the incessant recycling of old ideas and general tone, which I'm not convinced are being fully addressed here. It could all change, but there's a lot worth changing, and not much time to change it.

 

SEGA isn't even capable of a stunt like that anyway. They're very straightforward, as large companies are.

...Which is why, by the way, I also don't buy "the final music will have absolutely nothing to do with this" claims. Because it's what we have, and SEGA being straightforward as it is with its publicity, we ought to believe it's there for a very normal reason: it's somehow representative of someone's vision of the final product. They could've used absolutely anything else. And yet, they didn't. So alright, we can very much stay neutral about this, but we don't really have any evidence that it won't be Sonic 4-inspired musical tomfoolery, something everyone had already actually forgotten about and wouldn't really bring up unprovoked.

(Of course, best not to think much of B-roll footage. But it is pretty bad in a vacuum too, I think.)

 

I was right about hearing of an online mode


$60 bros, were gonna make it...

 

Unlike you, I do actually like Jun Senoue but his production on Sonic 4 and Origins was awful. It's not just him either. The music for Forces was made by Ohtani and Hataya. Hataya is an incredible composer but his 'modern' classic inspired music is dreadful in terms of production. Classics such as Sugar Lane from Sonic Lost World. Lol.

I think it must be a general attitude in SEGA and Sonic Team that classic Sonic must must have these kind of synths. God knows why.

I think it's very possible they will butcher Tee Lopes compositions too unless Tee gives them the finished music track.

 

Sounds like Sonic Superstars could end up becoming an amazing competitive speedrun game. Awesome. Honestly, I think this game could end up being the best Sonic game ever made. I'm hearing literally nothing, but wonderful things about this game.