Sonic Superstars Ultra Mega Spoiler Containment Thread for Spoilers [SPOILERS]

The only one of these that are in any way automated are the dash pads, and they are only ever in the loops that get you from the background to the foreground; if those weren't automated, you'd die in the empty plane between backgrounds if you weren't fast enough.

Grinding rails literally requires speed, as in, if you're not fast enough, you won't grind at all. You are also free to jump, and it has the same slope mechanics as any other, which means you go faster downhill and can launch yourself to higher levels, which the level design absolutely expects you to do.

The tunnels are the exact same mechanic as the ones in Stardust Speedway, including how you can influence where Sonic goes by moving in that direction.

Even the quarter pipe boosters aren't automated because you can choose when you jump into them and depending on how you jump into them, you can avoid the other pipes and just go flying.

There is very little automation in this game. The game trusts you to understand the physics and gameplay like any Classic Sonic game.

 

Oh please. This is all automation. In what world is "you can choose when to enter automation" not automation nevertheless? The pipes even sometimes break the normal game's physics rules by having you go through a chain of rings to end a setpiece. And why would you not do that? Grinding rails requires speed, right, but once you're grinding, you're bound to the speed the rails gave you and can't influence it with your input. You're as free to jump as you are free to jump after a dash pad. That means very, very little. Besides, once again, why would you? I love the rocket badniks that chase you on the rails, but that's about it. Same goes for the water slides in Lagoon City. Where else would you even go?

You say you've had plenty of moments in which you saw something the game was doing and said, "hey what the game did there is pretty cool". How many times, by comparison, did you do anything that made you go, "holy shit what I did there was pretty cool"? That's what this is about.

How are the tunnels not automation, by the way? Just because they exist in Stardust Speedway, a stage built on automation as a defining factor, am I supposed not to believe it is? The counterpoint is that automation isn't some sort of inherent evil or unwanted artifact in Sonic gameplay, and that's not what's at stake here. It's always been there in some way. The point is that when you have zip lines, tunnels, rails and quarter pipe boosters in basically every stage, and they're very prevalent gimmicks at that, you'll often default to the speed they're supposed to go with and will never have to "break" the level with Sonic's speed in any way or be ingenuous about it. Sonic fans will assume bad faith on the IGN reviewer's part, or that they don't "get" Sonic (as if they have an obligatin to do so?), but it's just a normal complaint to have. People who are bad at playing Sonic are still Sonic players.

 

Because not doing that can lead to an entirely different section of the level? You acknowledge that this is only a setpiece. It's not a required one. You'll likely run into it, but not doing so will give you a different route.

EDIT: I replayed Bridge Island Act 1 and entirely skipped the boosters and actually beat the level faster. You can also straight up jump out of them entirely and THAT can get you to entirely different sections of the level. "There's no reason to not do it", yeah, okay.

I was going to say that Act 2 has them required, but no, you can find a route that skips that too.

If you're running and especially rolling down a steep hill, you can't influence your speed with your input. Is that automation? I'm not sure what your point here is. Grinding here works marginally different from how moving at high speeds normally, and you can use the same understanding there to influence your momentum going in or out, break the sequence and get into entirely different parts of the stage. Not even the speed in which you grind is binary or static.

I find it very difficult to believe you really think vine grinding and dash pads are the exact same, especially when you haven't played the former and it sounds like your impressions

Because you get into entirely different sections of the level? To get to the higher vines that require either having already gone on the higher route or can only ever be accessed by jumping off the vines in the first place?

I played Speed Jungle Act 1 four times and experienced four different routes in the game using this technique, or going to a different tunnel, or even using the Emerald Powers. These levels are big, spacious, with little alcoves and secret passages that you will never see on a random person's off-screen stage demo playthrough.

Several times. Including in those segments. Including on those rails, and in the pipes, and even in background loop things.

I didn't point those out because that's standard for classic Sonic, which itself shows how much of a Classic Sonic game this is. I point out the new things because they're new and shake up the experience.

Weren't you talking about how the other games don't have elements like this?

Anyway, in Stardust Speedway, you had to choose the tunnels you go through to go the right way or risk being stuck in a loop. Same in Speed Jungle, and the level is much less focused on them.

No they're not prominent??? Why are you just lying, lmao? The rails and tunnels only appear in Speed Jungle. The quarter pipe boosters appear only in Bridge Island and Sky Temple, and maybe 3 times at most for the former. These are rare gimmicks. They don't appear after the beginning. I have no idea why you assume they're "prevalent" and "in basically every stage".

 

There's something really odd about this video. It looks to be a full asset rip of audio from the game, including asset filenames, and it's a right muddle. I know this could but just any random Youtuber with any random content, however, it's got drips of the beta versions of songs (Jun's Bridge Zone), but even more suspicious is "00:32:28 - 45. Fang Battle" being Sonic 4 ep 2's Metal Sonic theme. Like, in the assets for this game. It's a placeholder sure, but if that ain't any indication on what the sound design direction Jun was going for, then I don't know what is.

 

People have noticed very much that the oldest versions of the tracks are arranged by Senoue in that style, even the ones made by other composers in different styles. Bridge Island is explicitly confirmed to be Senoue's composition but arranged by Tee Lopes/

It's speculated that most if not all of the music was supposed to be recomposed using Senoue's arrangement and composition as the base.

 

Keep in mind that some of those may be from the credits medley that uses the "Mega Drive" synth.

 

While this topic is still useful - did we work out of this patch changed anything?

There are wiki jobs to collect unused content and make a note of the credits - if these are changing, we need to make a note.


I don't really want to be typing out the credits by hand - I've done this for modern games before, and it's not much fun.

 

I'm just going to say that even if I respect Jun asa person and as a composer, his work in Superstars is very disrespectful and any more instance of him using the same soundfont will be a slap in the face to me.

 

He should stick to modern Sonic and SEGA should let someone else be in charge of the music direction with classic Sonic.

 

He composed Bridge Island Zone, the game's main theme, and apparently more. Seems to be doing a fine job with that, he's just not good at the 16bit instrumentation.

 

Using the word soundfont like that is a slap in the face to me. anyway his S4 like stuff in this game, based on the beta files seems to be demos for other people to expand on, so thats the main reason why its so weird that the game has several of them.

 

Jesus christ this fight drags on way too long and takes FOREVER.

 

Honestly I can't even call it 16-bit instrumentation. A couple songs like the first Press Factory definitely have some Genesis grit in there, but for the most part it's all really crappy and tinny synths trying to evoke nostalgia with Sonic 1/2 drums on top and it never actually manages to get that feeling.

I'd rather just straight up take a 100% accurate Genesis arrangement set at this rate, drums or not, than this fake in-between wannabe stuff we've had to suffer for 13 years.

 

That's true for several bosses in the game. I'd say this is my biggest criticism. Boss fights were always my least favorite part of classic Sonic, and this game doubles-down on them. It's Sonic, not Cuphead.

 

Have this downloading now, very excited to play it! Haven't read any of the posts in this thread to save me from major spoilers but had a listen to the OST on Youtube and, umm, inconsistent it is...

It seems to go from Sonic 4 style, to Mania style, to 16-bit like, to more modern Sonic style... Some of the tunes have a pop to them and are well mixed while others sound like they haven't been mastered properly and are very flat. A bit disappointing to be honest on the music front. Maybe I'll change my mind after a playthrough or 10.

Update: Played through the first few levels there, pleasantly surprised with how it plays and the stage layout so far reminds me very much of Sonic CD. Bosses feel a bit cheap compared to Mega Drive era but so far so good for me. Will be waiting until later for my buddy to arrive for some co-op then I'll get stuck into it... can't wait!

 

Suggestion: the comic book skins are better.

Granted it draws more attention to Knuckles' permanently oblivious, happy expression, but this should work a lot less well than it does.

 

I have this filter. It's the better looking version of all characters, and actually should've been the default style. The cartoony look actually feels like a natural evolution of the 2D sprites somehow, and it's honestly very annoying that these are region locked and paywalled in various places.

SEGA is really, really bad at handling launch day DLC. The game itself doesn't have a lot of bugs in single player (unlike Origins did at launch), so I'll give praise where its due, but this aspect is just irritating.

 

This is what I've been saying. I have a strong feeling that cel shading would both look better and be less resource-intensive (both for machines and for production) on basically every Sonic product until the sun explodes. Why they haven't made it a main part of the games' artstyle despite it bringing the 2D and 3D visuals way closer to each other, I have no idea.

 

I've insisted Sonic should go cel-shaded, at least Modern Sonic, since Shuffle. Good to see it confirmed

 

So … does the release version have a final soundtrack with the Sonic 4-esque instrumentation replaced?