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

Sold out? Now it can't sell anymore copies. What a disaster.

 

Welp. If no one can buy it, Sega can't make money. Pack it up fellas, I guess it's bombing

 

This thread is proving itself truly worthy of Sonic Retro by dragging out the same arguments over and over across two pages and devolving into petty gotcha's.

This game is performing relatively well, and is not "bombing" by any stretch of the imagination. It's not blowing anything out of the park either. How can we make any clear determination of the game's success yet? It's way too early to tell.

 

It's funnier to react to people who come barging in trying to downplay the game success based entirely around their personal bias. It's funny that it happened 3 times already despite the data we have so far proving otherwise. I don't think anyone has made the argument that Superstars is a smash hit either, just that it's doing well enough.
If SEGA doesn't spit out actual numbers anytime soon, I'll revisit the topic once their next quarterly report comes out. Game absolutely bombed in Japan though. SEGA's numbers in Japan have been pretty bad overall thanks to bone headed like releasing P5T against Mario RPG when that game's target audience clearly was on Switch. Soul Hackers 2 skipping Switch altogether.

 

Since the game seems to be doing pretty well, I think it's pretty likely that it's going to be getting some post-release support going into next year. If so, I'm curious if it's going to go the Plus route a la Mania / Origins or the Frontiers route of a major update every few months.

If they don't patch out Uncle Jun's Yamaha keyboard synths with rearrangements in updates, I will drink an entire bottle of Moxie on camera.

 

If they do that, Multiplayer needs to be revamped and add in a mode with new stages to explain the …spoilers alert purple dragon. & give us Shadow just cause. It doesn’t have to make sense.

 

Ay wait a minute. Where the hell are my Shadow mods.

 

True, but also the humor in "selling out is bad because how the hell are you going to sell more" is top-notch and I like it very much. Sort of like "Zelda games' scores haven't improved at all in the past 10 years. Terrible franchise"

 

Not sure if this was widespread at the time, but during the Sonic Symphony concerts at BGS 2023, Iizuka clarified a misconception about Superstars' lack of pixel-art to some journalists that were present. Here's a translation of what he said from this website (in Brazilian Portuguese):

 

Ngl I hadn't even read any of the posts before mine about the game selling out, I was just genuinely trying to inform people since I figured some might want to know I had no clue how ironic posting that right then was

That makes a lot of sense. Definitely more reasonable and well thought out reasoning than I previously thought he had due to how people talked about it.

 

I’m not only holding you to this, but expect it in 4K 60fps.
Joking aside I wouldn’t get your hopes up about the music changing, they don’t really have a precedent for doing that. I hold out hope that they panic recruit tee or rintaro for a DLC update but with Sega it really is a coin toss.

 

I feel like this point was made abundantly clear the first (and second) time he said it but I've learned from the reactions to subsequent statements Sega and Sonic Team has made (like them saying that they want to catch up to and surpass Mario) that people absolutely refuse to listen or take them in good faith because Sonic Bad.

 

Yeah, you're correct. The physics are not as smooth as they are in the classics. Superstars is still really fun though!

Also, what's with this Mario VS Sonic, thing? What's this, 1993? Mario is always going to sell more because it's Mario.

 

I'm not surprised the game's done well on switch, especially at a price point that's much more in line with what the game should have cost.

I'm also not going to pretend it didn't bomb badly in Japan, and I still firmly believe it's underperformed on steam. The data we have (which is limited, but still telling) still points towards it and no amount of whataboutist revisionism will change that. The stats are transparent and speak for themselves.

None of that also excuses the game's serious problems in the second half, and especially in Trip's campaign and the final boss. And the terribly buggy state of the multiplayer experience.

If console sales end up balancing these factors out and the game performs on par with mania? Great. Doesn't mean the game is anywhere near as good as it could have/should have been either, but at least then classic sonic as a brand has some potential financial future, pixel or otherwise.

But maybe all I want is for them to stop rushing and half-assing some things after they get other things right. That's far from an unreasonable task. The game has a very uneven quality throughout and that's just annoying, when it didn't have to end up that way. If that has to come from post game support like it did for origins? Oh well, but it'd be better than nothing. But half-assing certain aspects of the game probably did hurt steam sales at the very least (along with a high price and mishandling the DLC and denuvo/epic issues). I stand by that assessment.

 

I'm confused on a few things. First, why would Amazon's US Best Sellers be public to this guy, versus the public? Does he work for Amazon?

Second, how strong is the competition in that list? I'm not really a gamer anymore, so I legit don't know. Minecraft is an ultra old game, and is a game like Just Dance selling millions of copies?

 

Just Dance sells enough they made editions for the Wii up til 2020 fwiw.

 

yeah like, years after the motion-controls iron had cooled and crumbled into iron dust, Ubisoft was still trotting out Just Dance at E3s (remember those? lol) and Direct streams too, so it wasn't just something that they were making and selling, but something that they were visibly making and selling.

 

It's visible to everyone. They just bothered to check and compile the list and put it in a tweet. You have to remove consoles, gift cards, peripherals, etc to compile the list of just video games. From there you get the current BSR value.

Amazon US Best Sellers

As of 11/28 at 11:50am PST, Superstars is ranked
#"7" on overall video games (#18)
#6 on overall Switch games
#4 on overall PS4 games
#"3" on overall PS5 games (#5)
#5 on overall Xbox games

You can do this for other territories too, but the only info you're getting is that the game is selling well within a time period in that territory. The BSR updates constantly so this isn't really a good way to get some numbers. It at least gives you the idea that it is performing well considering that Amazon is the largest online retailer. If it's selling out on Amazon and ranking high, then it's moving units.

And yes, Just Dance and Minecraft still sale in this day and age. Minecraft is still charting on the latest NDP rankings.

 

I got this game last week. I think it has its flaws, but I had a damn good time overall. I've always found it fun to take advantage of your speed to fling yourself off slopes. If you have at the very least some decent physics and level design, you can't really go wrong with 2D Sonic.


Now, I do think the bosses could've relied less on the "wait until the boss stops to show off its weak spot" design philosophy. I think this was something Mania suffered from as well. (Looking at YOU, FBZ Act 2!)

The difficulty? Honestly, I found most of the game to be somewhat easy. + - This includes the levels in Trip's story.   I managed to get the first 6 emeralds on my first try, while the 7th one only took two. The final boss + - of the first campaign   did give me a big challenge, but not one that particularly maddened me. (I think the infinite lives might have contributed to that). + - Most of the problems I had with Trip's final boss wasn't the second phase, but those lasers in the first phase. However, I soon realized that all I needed to do was to slow down and not always try to hit Fang after he throws one of those things. I honestly found the second phase with the webs and corks to be rather easy. All you really need to do is to time your jumps for the webs and just run left and right for the corkscrews. I found the final boss with that purple dragon dude to be, slightly puzzling. I'm a bit peeved that you have to start every boss from the beginning if you die, regardless of their length.  

I kinda think some aspects of this game were not fully thought through. I rarely found much use for the emerald powers for places that didn't require them. This especially goes for the powers for the seventh emerald. Why would one choose a simple extra move over what is essentially a "win the game" button? + - In speaking of super powers, Super Trip is cool, but I feel this is one of the least thought out aspects of the game. Her larger hitbox and slower speed makes her more susceptible to getting squished. (See the Press Factory boss and the Trip version of Frozen Base Act 2.)  

The presentation? I'm a bit overwhelmed. Considering Oshima was a major force in this, I expected the zones in this game to have the wacky appeal of CD's zones. The zone theming in this game feels subdued and a bit generic. Except Golden Capital. Golden Capital ROCKS.

Glitches? I only encountered three, and I'm not sure the 3rd one can be called a glitch. The first glitch had me endlessly fall out of the world map. This has only happened to me once as of now. The second one had me + - clip through Fang's laser walls in the first phase of Trip's final boss. But is that really a bug, or a benefit?   The last one was during the credits. For a brief period, I ended up walking on a brief stretch of nothingness. It seems like the credits take place on a finite stretch of land and the developers didn't have the foresight to think that some players would be able to outrun it.

I think some of these minor flaws stem from inexperience on Arzest's side. I think the fact that the game was made in Unity should've been a giveaway that the devs didn't exactly have the most experience.

In spite of these flaws, as I mentioned before, I had a damn good time. I got this game on sale, but I think I would pay 60$ for this.

 

I'm just chiming in to mention one thing I am kind of bummed about in the game.

But, to clarify, I love this game. Make no mistake. I think it is stellar. Even the bosses.

However, one thing that has irked me since release is that the rabbit character is only a skin. I had hoped that the character would eventually appear in a Sonic game. And it did! Yet, it is only a skin and not a true separate character. He also doesn't have any super neat ear moves, does he? I am hoping he is reintroduced in the sequel as his own character.