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

It depends on where Sega's priorities are. Historically speaking, they've always been more concerned with their domestic market than the international one.

That being said, they're starting to let in a lot new blood from overseas; Ian Flynn, Tyson Heese, Evan Stanley, as well as Katie Chezanowski are significant parts of the franchise now, which was unheard of just a few years ago. So they're at least acknowledging the western side of Sonic's fame more than they did before.

Even if the Modern games are more financially successful in the long term, there's no real reason to stop making Classic games.

 

I wonder about that; music had literal Michael Jackson on the board at some point, and Western composers and performers make up a huge part of Sonic's production. Traveller's Tales, Sumo Digital and Big Red Button are all Western companies that were allowed to work with Sonic -- not mainline, granted, but then again so are the Advance titles etc. If there are no Western names linked to (mainline, actually released games) game design in Sonic before Sonic Mania, that also is true for games after it (to my knowledge). And if there are Western names behind story and visual identity, at least in animations, the only other name we had had at all in any of these potisions was Shiro Maekawa (afaik).

So I can't say there's been such a significant pivot of any kind recently. Sonic has always had people from the West working on it, but also not.

 

I always thought it was weird how Sonic always had JP voice actors, when franchises like Resident Evil or Devil May Cry never bothered with that

 

Nothing weird about it. Those games were due to creative decisions. RE and DMC only had English voice tracks because Mikami and Kamiya figured it wouldn't make sense for American characters to speak Japanese. RE1 actually had some Japanese voice work done but it was scrapped.
Both franchises did start including Japanese voice tracks later down the line starting with Resident Evil: Revelations and Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition.

 

I could easily see an alternative timeline where Sega wanted to keep Sonic and co. speaking English for the "cool" factor or something.

But thinking about it, appealing to younger kids is probably the biggest factor for all languages being spoken in Sonic games.

 

I thought I was the only one that don't like how Sonic look.

At this point I may never do Trips story because I don't want to play the stages again on hard mode. I have to force myself to play it in order to get to the true ending so I will be playing that today. I do think that her story should've been optional.

 

Spoiler

The infinite super glitch will help you. Just jump, transform and immediately cancel with a tap on both bumpers. Don't keep them pressed down, just tap. Every level becomes doable.

Spoiler contains a tip for anyone struggling to beat Trip's story (or in a state of incapability to be arsed) and who doesn't see themselves above a tiny little underhanded tactic.

 

People should keep that these figures are only tracking packaged sales. I am browsing Amazon JP right now (Superstars and Mario Wonder are about $37 USD there for anyone who hasn't purchased yet) and noticed the majority of reviews are "soft only" meaning they didn't purchase the physical version. While this was probably also the case for Frontiers, Wonders, every other game, those 4,128 copies may only comprise a minority of total sales.

But yeah, still a drop in the ocean when compared to Wonder.

 

I'm currently at Cyber Station Zone from Trip's story, and while, yes, the difficulty ramps up quite a bit, I'm still very much enjoying this game. One of my main gripes at the moment is the excessive amount of opportunities for you to enter Special Stages. Sure, you could just ignore them, but the FOMO is strong with these. I count that as a design flaw. I'm also not a fan of the carousel-like Bonus Stages music. It sounds creepy.

The music in general could be more tracky and playful.

 

Yeah, I really enjoyed Trip's Story myself. It was so high-intensity it's not the kind of thing I'll want to replay much, but the way every level was adjusted to acclimate to her unique abilities and gameplay was a lot of fun. It's like Knuckles mode in S3&K with more substantive changes, and MUCH more challenge. I just wish it was a bonus mode you unlocked after the Last Story instead of the other way around, because clearly, it's not for everybody!

 

This is what Jun should be using for the classic Sonic music (real instruments) not whatever that is he's using now. The music would sound so much better imo.

 

That's the frustrating part, some of his tracks are *so* close to being great. It's double frustrating that he continues to rely on the "Genesis" which feels more like an imitation. You can do some mind melting things on that chip but he continually stays surface deep.

And honestly, anything with an orchestra just sounds stellar, love me some good good good symphonic music like this.

 

I've played around with Trip's mode more, and I've just decided I'm not having fun with this and won't finish the game for some time now. Maybe I'll come back to it a lot later, but I'm not going to touch this game beyond maybe playing around the standard campaign a bit, if that. I understand Sonic games can be "too easy" to a lot of players, but I hate cheap deaths that much more, and I hate it when stage design constantly punish speed. I just don't like the last 2 zones at all in either mode, and that really sours my mood on all this.

I should have waited to buy it at a discount. But I guess I really had faith they could just make something as decent as Mania the whole way through. I feel kind of burned by the weird uneven drop in quality, honestly.

Oh well. I guess I'll wait to order if a Superstars 2 ever happens. I'm just tired of this cycle. They got so close, but I just can't accept a step backwards after Mania.

 

The reason why Mania was so good because it was made by fans who understood Sonic etc. I think SEGA should bring them back or bring in some new people like those people who've made those other fan games.

 

It's just a shame, because parts of the game really, really do nail the classic formula, with the only thing I'd say they objectively get wrong from the start being how Knuckles plays.


Werster's video really, really does nail most of the issues almost perfectly. I don't think Amy is as bad as he says, but beyond that, yeah... it's pretty much all there.

I think the harsh truth is the only games I've really truly loved for Sonic since the Dreamcast days have been Generations, Mania, and Heroes and Frontiers to a notably lesser degree (with DLC 3 in Frontiers again really souring things for me). It's the fan projects, romhacks, and Decomps that have kept me in this community for so long, and everything else I've just put up with to pass the years. My sheer love of content from Sega's console years (both 2D and 3D) keeps me here.

I'm going to try and stop posting in this thread now unless Sega does major changes with a patch. I know many will disagree with me, but it's heartbreaking to see them mess up again after getting so close. I was really pissed off after Origins, but they did a lot to fix it so I was willing to give them another chance.

 

If only the final boas theme was like this, too...

It's weird tho', Jun actually got his guitar (and actual drums) for the last stage of the game, so I wanna know what's up with that.

Edit:

This comment section is so fucking funny.

 

If you want Classic Sonic games made by "fans", just go play Classic Sonic Fangames. You don't need SEGA to fund and publish it just to get it in your hands. If you think anyone can do it better, just go play their game instead.

The truth of the matter is that the Mania devs clearly didn't actually want to do more, so they didn't, and now other devs have come in to do it their own way. Those devs didn't fail anyone who liked how Mania did things, the Mania devs did, both because they did something entirely different and then didn't follow up on that when they had the opportunity to.

 

I don't blame the mania devs for wanting to move on. In fact, their next game looks fantastic and like it'll be worth playing in its own right.


And believe me, I've gotten back into the fangame and mod scene hard over the past 2 years, and that fulfills an itch that I had since the 90s in its own right. I made fangames as a kid and a teen myself, long, long ago. I've even started doing mods myself again, and may continue to do so. But I still wanted an official title that at least filled that itch in its own right, you know?

It's not that I don't have a shortage of great games to play. My steam, anime and streaming catalogue could probably keep me occupied for years at this point. It's just, 2D Classic Sonic is still uniquely special to me in ways that many, many other genres of games aren't, and Mania proved that even as an adult I can still experience that kind of joy again. Heck, even the first parts of Superstars tapped it for a few hours. It's the drop off towards the end that makes this so disappointing.

But I repeat, I don't want to keep being dragged into this. I need to step away from this game for awhile. I don't fault anyone else for enjoying or even loving it, I'm just one of the people venting.

I can't get a refund for the game at this point, so they've got my cash one way or another. I'll accept it and move on, and maybe the fans can make something fun with the game's latter parts a bit later on. Oh well.

 

Ouch. Definitely not surprised considering classic sonic's historic performance in Japan and this game having a lot less marketing than frontiers, but still, ouch.

 

I will be checking this game out, looks interesting imo.

Also gotta play Generations which I've never played.