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

I thought the graphics were good

 

I think it's human nature to judge things according to taste. We're willing to overlook a lot if it's to our preferences.

I think it's just more pronounced with Sonic because the games are so varied in terms of quality. There's never been a consistent string of completely polished Sonic games, so taste is what we judge them on.

It's also why there's so much division in the fanbase; we've legitimately had fans who will unironically say that Sonic 06 is a better game than Sonic 1 by virtue of maybe Silver being their favorite character. It sounds ridiculous to anyone outside the fanbase or someone who is a fan of Sonic 1, but yea.

If Sonic games were more polished and consistent with their quality, there wouldn't be AS much division probably (it would definitely still exist however) as there would be standard set.

Sonic Frontiers and Sonic Superstars are examples of unrefined and unpolished Sonic games, but which one is "better" is all down to a matter of preference as a Sonic fan.

 

The graphics definitely are not the best, but they are what they are. They look a bit cheap, but I dig the Oshima-influence.

Where the game needs "modding" is in the fairness of its boss difficulty. I don't wanna be coping too hard rn, but I do have a feeling that will be updated at some point. How soon that'll happen, I have no idea, but I doubt they'll have this game be at kaizo difficulty forever.

 

The best way I've found so far to summarize the difference between Superstars and the Mega Drive games is that Superstars is desperate to control the player's sense of fulfillment. It wants you to see everything it has so bad it pretends three medals are worth going through three entire Sonic 1 special stages; it won't let you get all emeralds before it would be convenient for it, lest you ignore and don't get to see all the challenge they built just for you; it doesn't let you kill bosses before you see all of its attacks and patterns. It won't let you go by without knowing when a specific ability would've been useful. It hates the idea of losing control over the player and their interactions with the action space so much it's willing to contradict the rules it established before just to prevent you from not doing what it wanted you to, when it wanted you to.

(Which should honestly be undisputed that classic Sonic games are not and do not do)

 

I kind of get this since this has been a repeated thing from Sega and Sonic Team. That their work tends to be overlooked since players will just rush past everything to get to the end.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s trying too hard to be a classic game in that sense. “See what we’ve built for you! You MUST see it all!” — not the appropriate mentality for a true classic game where different things can be seen in multiple playthroughs. It’s like they think that all their hard work must be seen in a single campaign. Essentially it’s like they are pushing the belief that once someone has beaten the game, they will never go back to it (I’m that type of player, but I’m surely in the minority here).

 

I'm not sure that's really true? Like, okay, the boss patterns are annoying, but this seems like assigning motive to a claim that doesn't feel super-strong in the first place. Tying emeralds to one per stage isn't a good practice but it's also not uncommon in Sonic. All the DIMPS games and Heroes do it, as does Colors, sort of. Having a notification for where a chaos emerald power would be useful doesn't feel like an attempt to control the player the way forcing them to use it would be, and I'm not even sure what the point about the medals and bonus stages is? Like yeah there's too few for how long it takes, but I don't think this really illustrates well what the issues are.

 

Which boss is considered kaizo level difficult? I'm at the last stage currently, and while some bosses were crazy difficult -- once you know their patterns, they're 1000% easier. Sonic 2's final boss was worse IMO.

 

Okay, this doesn't answer what I was saying though? I'm not seeing how things like an on-screen indicator for the powers or optional bonus levels constitute "desperate to control the player's sense of fulfillment", and my bringing up the other games is because I'm not sure if you're saying they all meet the criteria for that in the same way. It's just not a very thoroughly-argued point.

 

Gah, I thought this thread was the non-spoiler thread. Guess I'll stay off Sonic forums until I beat the game.

 

Maybe. Who knows. Those who get it, get it.

 

It’s not a great practice and you’re right in that it did originate in the 00s (unless Triple Trouble or Blast or some GG game I don’t care about did it first), but the effect is much less pronounced there since actually having the Emeralds isn’t relevant until the end of the game. Granted, trying to access special stages in the back end of any given game can be its own pain in the ass, but that’s where it starts and ends. Superstars meting them out the way it does does change the approach to the game compared to if you could get them all in Zone 1. I can see the argument for it, but personally I think it’s worse off for it.

 

I came across a couple of Google-based ads for Sonic Superstars yesterday, and I've uploaded all of them to the wiki, except for this.

The main reason why is because it's a JS-based webpage embedded in a Google ad. I'm not really an expert on extracting that kind of stuff, so I'll just leave the link here for anyone to take a shot at ripping it.

 

So it is just a vibe?

 

yes

 

The final boss seems hard as shit to me, so far.

 

oh don't get me wrong i realize recency bias is a thing and once things settled people can freely talk about things and perception can be settled after a while

I guess my issue is just that i am usually deep in the community that "any change in perception" for any game is just things i have seen day 1, to me i don't see any real change in perception for sonic colors as an example cause any issue people cite for that game was perceived by then, some fans have just been more vocal, also i have seen the reviews actually staying consistent for the remaster compared to the original, and that's with the remaster issues

Also i only attribute "recency bias" effect to the reeeealy high regarded games, +90 MC shit, so things like GOW games, BOTW/TOTK and now Spidey 2 etc. , lot of those games have their reception cooled a lot after a while or in some cases flip completely , in my opinion and perception, Superstars just isn't one of those, at most it's regarded as one of the good 2D games, nothing crazy like "finally the return of sonic!" and all that, can't see perception change cause of a "side" -kinda but not really- harder mode and couple of bosses

But that's just my own perspective, only time will really tell

 

Recency Bias, Honeymoon Phases, Personal Bias, Honestly you all complicate things way too much. It's really more simple than that:



(Play Game) -> (Did You Like Game?) -> (Fuck Yeah or Fuck No) -> (Spam-Take: Fuck Yeah)



Sure there's more to an opinion than yes or no, but nothing compares to the Fuck Yeah / Fuck No Scale

 

How do I get myself on the leaderboards? Whenever I beat a level in Time Attack it says "Global Ranking: ---".