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

Yeah. It was SOR4. I thought it The Dragon's Trap (also another Lizard Cube published remake), but they actually debugged the original code and pulled values from the original game. SOR4 was made with the method you described.

 

Wow, 1 avatar move and that's it for the miniboss. I feel like this avatar ability is probably going to be the least playful of the set. Use it on maybe every boss and don't bother with it in the levels. Can't say that I think the game is benefitting from it.

With the bosses also taking fewer hits now it's making the player's input matter even less, as the above "fight" demonstrated. It's not even that the ability reduced their contribution. Rather, it took the player out of the fight wholesale while it simply triggered each invincibility cutscene phase, leaving nothing for the player to do but wait. Even taking a perspective of speed running, watching it closely it still looks like there's no way a player fighting it manually could actually get any of those hits in any faster.

So unless you have zero emeralds, this particular miniboss appears to quite literally be "Press X then wait for optimal win, or fight knowing it's not necessary". Hopefully I'm wrong.

Short level too... 1'14" and the player isn't busting their gut. This is assumed to be both an early level, and a fast level, so that could be fine. It looks like quite a clean journey too, comparing it in my mind to trying to speed run through Mania's GHZ2, which was quite a fiddly smash through many of the act's middle paths. Hoping there aren't many more acts that can be devoured as easily as SJZ1 here.

 

To be fair, that's a skilled player there. They even timed the avatar power so that it would kill all three stages of the miniboss, so maybe they played multiple times? They even knew when to jump to find what I once thought were snake tails, but are actually elastic vines. Also, in the other footages we've seen, players would spend like three minutes playing "normally", so I think it's okay. I still don't like Speed Jungle and this footage didn't make me like it more, but this aspect seems in line with what you'd expect from a speedrun.

 

Nah, I wouldn't say they timed that avatar ability. They just waited for the screen to fade from black. It appears they're spamming it actually, from those UI shenanigans.

As for the level, yeah they're definitely playing with past knowledge, but not skill; not to the extent of covering the brevity of that run. They're clearly not cracking on through the act; they're just going the right way... in a fairly cumbersome manner. From what we see there, I'm thinking it's about 40 seconds to blitz that path they took.

Which is fine; good for a fast and fun speed running act. I just hope it's one of few, rather than a common occurrence across the game's zones.

I actually like the look of SJZ1. It's a bit free with its speed but it says that on the tin; it's the game's "speed" zone, so I feel like it looks good for that role. SJZ2, however, that fog gimmick makes me grimace.

 

Weekly Famitsu cover featuring the game.

 

Hehehe he's such a happy little boy...

Anyway, I can finish Marble 1 in 1'25" and that's a very stop-start level, so I'm not concerned about the Speed Jungle finish time. As was said, this is clearly somebody who's played the demo a few times and I actually find it encouraging the level accomodates speedrunning so well.

 

I don't mind too much how quickly the level was able to be beaten in the playthrough--besides the player clearly being experienced with the level map, it honestly kinda reminded me of some of the stages in the earlier games where the upper routes were more freeform/open and how an experienced player could cruise around them. I do think (as something of a negative) it's also a good demonstration of how powerful Amy's double jump is in circumstances like that, it allowed the player to correct themselves from falling into a lower part of the level more than a few times (which would had definitely been the case for Sonic or Knuckles) and quickly get back into the action (which wouldn't had been possible with Tails' slower flight). Valuable for new/casual players, sure, but with a skilled player it does allow them to go buck wild with fast aerial mobility that's probably only second to Super forms. Her double jump could had arguably been nerfed for better balance.

The Avatar ability allowing the player to pretty much eat through the entire boss though, that bothers me quite a bit. It felt like the kind of game mechanic design I would expect from Sonic 4: Episode II with the Rolling Combo, just press a button and get an near-immediate win condition. I think it's also bad design in the sense where not only was the player using a character like Amy, where her double jump would had allowed her to hit flying boss hitboxes easier than the others. But Superstars is also a game where the bosses takes less hits to go down like in Sonic CD; which I think was a good change if they're going to continue the 3&K/Mania route of designing bosses with small windows to attack. The Avatar power undermines all of that quite a bit.

Not all of the emerald powers shown or listed seem to be this--the best emerald power that I think has been demonstrated so far is the Water one, which I think could lend itself to a lot of versatile uses--actually, more than enough that you could design an entire Sonic game around it as a central mechanic (in gameplay and even in story/continuity). I can also envision scenarios where the Ivy power/vine mechanic and the character-specific mechanics could also work well enough. But stuff like this and (presumably) Vision unfortunately comes across to me as the Advance games' attitudes concerning new/secondary mechanics. They're there simply so they can say they added new things to the formula, regardless of the implementation or context.

 

https://fxtwitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/1711411197264662565?s=20

Final part of Fang's Big Break is out.

 

Fang's Big Break Part 3 & Knuckles

Spoiler: Large Graphics which may include Fang the Hunter

___

Turns out the Big Break wasn't getting to appear in a new game after almost twenty years, it was having his popgun smashed by a big bird...



If anyone has any treasured memories with Fang's Popgun, may we perhaps mourn our loss?

 

You know what? I will love to see what other uses the Water ability has -- for example, in that water park zone we've seen the concept art for. If all it does is go up waterfalls, I'll be so disappointed.

I'd also be eager to see a game built around it if it's a one-time thing. Something like Super Mario Sunshine!¹ Imagine being able to temporarily use the oil in Oil Ocean as solid ground because water doesn't mix with oil, or being able to swim underwater like you could do in Sonic Colors, but only once per checkpoint and only for like ten seconds. It'd be pretty cool.

¹ Super Mario Sunshine haters are literally global warming advocates so I'll exempt myself from considering criticism towards it.

 

Just watched BlazeHedgehog's Gut Check video for Sonic Superstars. I got to say, all the points that he made actually make you think about the choices being made for Superstars.

 

The more I look at Superstars the weirder it looks

 

I mean we’ve spoken about the rim lighting a few times in this thread and I’ll certainly be taking an interest in reshade mods as soon as they start dropping, but I think “looks like an XBLA game you’d get for a tenner” is rather uncharitable statement. The character models, Sonic in particular, look top notch, for example.

And it does feel like his attitude towards the gameplay heavily invokes “but what if Sonic 4?”. Opinions he’s absolutely entitled to have, granted, but, given everything we’ve seen so far, the game would have to go *seriously* off the rails in the second half to be anything less than a 7/10 solid ass Sonic game.

 

Glad I gave this video a watch. I don't hate how Superstars looks but it does look a lil strange, and the rimlighting explanation makes a lotta sense. I assume rimlighting is a low-budget way to do 3D graphics? Or is it some sorta artistic decision at play, here? Maybe something to do with Sega expecting the game to mainly be played on the Switch, possibly in handheld mode?

The point about how so few of Sonic's creators found stardom is a bit of an aside. Success in video games is not just a matter of talent, but also being at the right place at the right time.

 

Okay so watching this BlazeHedgehog's video, which is nothing we haven't discussed to death here, I was reminded of yet another little something that has always bothered me about Speed Jungle:



Am I the only one who always has a kneejerk reaction to this effect thinking spikes just appear on top of the bush once it launches you upwards?

ᵃⁿᵈ ᵃᵐ ᴵ ᵗʰᵉ ᵒⁿˡʸ ᵒⁿᵉ ʷʰᵒ ˡᵒʷᵏᵉʸ ʷᶦˢʰᵉˢ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ʷᵃˢ ᵗʰᵉ ᶜᵃˢᵉˀ ᴸᶦᵏᵉ ʷᵒᵘˡᵈⁿ'ᵗ ᶦᵗ ᵇᵉ ᶜᵒᵒˡ ᶦᶠ ᵃ ˢᵗᵃᵍᵉ ᶠᵘˡˡ ᵒᶠ ʰᶦᵈᵈᵉⁿ ᵗʳᵃᵖˢ ʰᵃᵈ ᵃ ᶜᵒˢᵗ ᵗᵒ ʰᵉˡᵖ ʸᵒᵘ ᵍᵒ ᵘᵖ ᵇʸ ⁿᵒᵗ ˡᵉᵗᵗᶦⁿᵍ ʸᵒᵘ ᵗʳʸ ᵃᵍᵃᶦⁿ ᴬᴺᴰ ᶦᵗ ᶜᵒᵘˡᵈ ᵉᵛᵉⁿ ᵘⁿᶜᵘʳˡ ˢᵒⁿᶦᶜ ᵗᵒ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ʸᵒᵘ ᵐᵒʳᵉ ᵛᵘˡⁿᵉʳᵃᵇˡᵉ

 

OK, tinfoil time! I think Fang looks like a modern incarnation Fang in this panel:

 

I love this cover a lot. Honestly all of the character art we've gotten of this game has been superb! Also crazy we only have a week to go!

 

Definitely not great that it's just delete-a-boss while the player stands around uselessly. By the looks of it, even a speed run couldn't manually play in a way to do anything faster against that boss than simply activating Avatar and putting the controller down.

Makes me wonder how much this is going to occur with other bosses. That SJZ1 miniboss already moves through phases of invincibility and still gets wiped. Perhaps that's why invincibility phases appear to be such a thing in boss designs we've seen... to accommodate Avatar existing.

Agree with you on Vision, too. I could have gone for that ability had it been integrated into the levels/mechanics in natural ways. But having a little icon that appears to literally tell you "Use Vision now"... what a filler ability. Literal busywork.

I would go for that. A level that alters itself in your wake for the worse. You backtrack and you get harder obstacles.

 

Does anyone have experience purchasing digital games like this? I already have a Japanese eShop account.

Edit: This is from Amazon.jp. Apologies for lack of clarity.

 

That bit where they jump off the upward sloping vine to reach a high path, which doesn't seem to have any other way of getting to it, is exactly what I wanted to see