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

Just watched the intro. Gave me real Dragon Ball Kai/"Dragon Soul" vibes. That's not a knock; I just found it amusing. =P

Music is high quality, IMO. If this game had been the Sonic 4 we got in 2010, intro included, I'd have been overjoyed. If Jun truly did work on the intro theme here, then I can hold out a kernel of hope that the beta tracks might be revised for cohesion. Hope, not to be confused with confidence, of course.

What I've seen no one talk about, though, is that this also seems to confirm that the track used for the Nintendo Direct is not for this intro sequence. That's just as well, since I've thought from the get-go that it sounded like a Special Stage track—kinda reminded me of Mania's "Dimension Heist"—but we already heard the track they used for the emerald stages. Of course, could be because it was a beta demo, and the Direct track could always be used for it later; the emerald stage music could end up playing in the maze stages. Still, I am very interested in finding out where that track from the Direct ends up.

 

Or maybe, having spent years reading about the shitty conditions video game developers and animators have to deal with because companies treat them terribly, I'm a little bit tired of people acting like they've burned their crops, fucked their wives, and delivered a plague upon their house when something ends up being not what they wanted. It's not directed at anyone here specifically, but it's a startlingly common sentiment among Sonic fans on the internet, and it should be noted and not handwaved.

 

Once more of the zone art and what's in them is known i think there will be many years of fanmade Superstars animations too!! some of those could certainly be in the Toei/Junio style.

Amy, Tails and Knuckles interacting with environments and Eggman's materials in ways similar to Sonic in the CD credits animation would be amazing to see and so i do think a few fanmade projects will do just that!!

The sense of scale in the intro and credits animations are some of the best of their kind, and again i think fans can recreate that with care and enthusiasm!!

 

"Sonic fans aren't nitpicky!!"

*5 pages since the intro animation dropped of Sonic fans tearing every frame apart until it's left beaten and bloody on the ground*

 

Then why post about it at all? We've all been civil here.

Woah, new content just dropped. Let's NOT talk about it!

 

Also, isn't the anime industry currently collapsing in on itself because studios are making a billion shows a year or something?

 

This is such a massive exaggeration of what's going on here.

Everyone in this thread has been civil thus far. In fact, most people have been quite positive. People are allow to be critical of things and voice those criticisms, which is what people in this thread have been doing.

I have done nothing but kiss this game's ass ever since it was revealed. It's ok to have both.

 

We're complaining about this intro?

Really?

I watched this and not even the tiniest of negative thoughts crossed my mind. I can't even comprehend rationale things to nitpick on that intro.

Not saying that applies to the rest of the game, there will be valid things to nitpick there, but this is exceptionally silly.

 

I'm going to complain about complaining about complaining!

 

I've sent nothing but love to this game and the only thing I pointed out disliking was surface level "kinda boring" critique. Hardly nit picking. We've all just been having fun and bringing up other good intros or talking about the ones we already have that we like.

It's been nothing but good vibes amongst each other.

 

I like animations, so when I see one I don't like I will express why. In my mind, poorly made sequences aren't a nitpick. Especially if it's part of a game that's supposed to impress me or get me excited and I have immediate comparisons to much better directed and animated sequences from CD, Mania and Origins as a point of comparison.

 

If I had to take a shot as the... weird reactions this intro is getting, its probably a combination of:

1) Its definitely rough looking, not egregiously so, but people took notice of it. That by itself probably wouldn't warrant these reactions, but then...

2) Diminishing returns. This is the 3rd Animation in this style since Mania in 2017 (Fourth if you count Plus in 2018), and what we got with Origins. It was special the first few times, but now its become commonplace and no longer feels special as a result. So I guess people are expecting more from these animations now than just a simple, cute showcase.

 

The only appropriate response, obviously.

 

That's... a very interesting comparison! I'm not trying to argue with you or use you as an argument for this, but I wanna talk about this a little more since I think it helps illustrate some of what I'm thinking better.

The version of the intro I'm personally using for reference:


One of my biggest problems with the animation + how the sound accompanies it for the Superstars intro is that there's nothing that FEELS like it's getting punctuated by the music, like the first "Don't stop, don't stop, we're in luck now" in Dragon Soul having shots of punches hit in time with each "STOP" with actions transitioning into a new scene, for Amy and Knuckles hitting enemies in their intro, they're kind of "too early" for anything like that, like the whole song feels truncated to fit an intro it wasn't made for, but then they also cut more parts of the video. It even seems like putting the part of the music that starts after Sonic makes all the clones with the emerald power matches MUCH better with Amy + Knuckles' movements, but of course then the whole song ends before there's any more payoff, which of course would just be a matter of scoring it so that there is a payoff. But if you have problems visualizing that, i quickly cut something to show the difference it makes:



Even Dragon Soul isn't constant about how it lines up but it still makes more attempts than it does let the music "rest" even while there's action on screen (or the other way around)

 

Wow... I honestly did not intend for the topic to veer so much into the animation style in use here...

To be perfectly clear, I think it's a fine animation all things considered. The fact that it's apparently Japanese animated makes a whole lot more sense, since (generally speaking) the "more movement on less frames" thing seems to crop up a lot more for anime than it does for Western animation (granted, outsourced to Korean animators). While I'm an animation graduate, I'm by no means an expert though and it's a really really nitpicky thing honestly. Hope I didn't contribute to any negative backlash here or on Twitter...

 

I am always critical because I want Sonic to be as good as I know it can be, but I’m also fair (I think). I said it’s good, I said it gets a 7/10… Does anyone really think it goes beyond that though? I think Sonic5339 is correct about the “diminishing returns” statement. The animations were remarkable when they first started, but at this point I expect them to dial it up a notch, at least to 1993 levels. At this point they are starting to feel same-y. I’m honestly getting GHZ repetition vibes, which becomes tiresome unless you are a new fan. All I’m asking is that they stop phoning it in… I want them to consider this animation to be PART of the overall product, not just a overused promotional ploy that fans should consider themselves lucky to get. That intro to CD is so memorable because it feels integral to the game. You can’t say that about this animation though, and because of that it isn’t building the game up, it isn’t creating a legacy or lore. We need this sort of depth for Sonic to rise to its former glory (especially as adults, and to to turn children into life-long fans - like many of us got to experience) and you don’t get that by repeating yourself over and over again with shallow offerings. Again, it’s “good” but I’m not going to remember anything about it 1 year from now, and the same probably applies to 90% of us.

 

Vector put it better than I could. It's not a bad animation but it does feel like they did it only out of obligation after seeing how well Sonic Mania's was received.

To me it also feels more generic than before? You could remove Fang and Trip, then replace the robot shark with a whale and use it for some other classic-style Sonic game.

We've had intro videos like what Sonic Heroes and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle did years ago that do a better job at integrating what the game is into them.

 

The intro looks good to me, and I'm still pleased that SEGA are continuing to produce them. However, the shortcomings are pretty evident and it's a cut below the similar animations we've seen in recent years. I tire of seeing SEGA do things poorly when others have demonstrated how to do it right.

Whether or not this will apply to Superstars as a whole has yet to be seen. I think that the gameplay looks great, and it's certainly not going to be a bad game by any stretch. But we'll have to wait and see how much Superstars is standing on its own to feet versus riding the Mania coattails.

 

If anyone is at SDCC this week, Superstars has a playable demo. I don't know if it's different from the last one.

 

One thing I haven't really seen brought up is the land mass floating above the island in the intro. I'm not sure if that was cropped out of the still frame I previously saw from SGF, or if it was just not in that particular frame, but the biome on that sky Island looks really interesting.

It reminds me a little bit of Sonic Advance's Angel Island, but it's got these windmill-looking things on it as well. Makes me think we might get some really cool zone themes in this game outside of the standard fare we're used to.