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

Do all the characters have super forms?

 

I don't like this. I'll be waiting for a price drop.

 

Umm...

We've been trashing Jun's Sonic 4 music since 2010. Where were you?

I will defend Jun on many things, even on some of the tunes themselves being catchy melodies, but not this. It's obvious that his compositions on most "Genesis style" tunes are not great.

 

I watched the final boss footage and the excitement of getting to fight the Death Egg Robot again almost made me overlook that the background is constantly skipping. Take a look here, specifically watch the background when Eggman punches the floor. The footage isn't edited, the timer ticks down normally so it really just looks like that in-game. It happens multiple times too.

They wanted to have a circular room and it looks like they did it the lazy way by only having the background be spherical while rotating it around its own axis, and that's not a huge deal, but then how does this even happen?

 

If you get dismissed about Senoue and his Genesis tracks, it's probably when you say things like "He doesn't want to hear the criticism of his "orchestral masterpieces" as they are called on this board".

At the very, very least, people agree his instrumentation is terrible and believe he makes good compositions. But "Sonic 4 doesn't sound good and he shouldn't use Genesis synths like he does" is rather uncontroversial. Any defense or expectations of it being good is largely in the realm of "he won't use those instrumentations this time".

 

Pretty much everything I was worried the co-op would turn out to be ("1.5 player mode" again, for a singe-player focused platformer, but with more players stapled onto the experience) was summarized in that one Pinball Carnival video. I'll say it again and with affirmation--this game would be wholesale better if they just axed it completely and did another competition mode if this was the best they could do. Sheesh.

This game is weird in the sense that I've maintained for a long time that Sonic Team historically haven't been interested in MD gameplay, and on a broader note aren't interested in making (good) platformers especially (2D and/or 3D). Superstars strikes me as actually their strongest effort in years--even putting Sonic 4 aside, just as a platforming game alone, I would be more compelled to play this than practically anything they made since 2010, when they finally stopped cramming in complete genre shifts as huge chunks of the entire gameplay. And as far as a MD entry goes, they are doing things people have wanted out of a new MD entry (Amy Rose playable, bringing back Fang) and trying new things (as opposed to the backwards sequel approach that was Sonic 4); in addition to actually bothering to get the main concepts of Sonic physics/gameplay right for once. But its still got major design and presentation problems that Mania, for the most part, was able to easily steer clear from.

I feel like @Sonic5993 put it best in the sense that there are good ideas there, it's just that the execution is uninspired and/or half-baked. They actually tried here, it's just...the end result is still flawed to a visible degree.

I'll give the NSMB rollercoasters a point over Superstars though in that at least it didn't move as ridiculously fast. Like, I can see that being difficult even for just one player.

Advance 3 had a similar gimmick, for an entire level (Chaos Angel Act 3) and it didn't move as fast as this.

I feel like Senoue's reputation with MD music was etched in stone when Episode II dropped, people had literally sent him different soundfonts and/or instruments to use and ways to reproduce MD-styled music (as part of the whole "feedback" sham of that title), and we got dying duck synths and an even worse boss track ("let's just take the pinch mode segment from Episode I and stretch that shit out"). People were trying to give him a pass with him handling Sonic 3's music Origins because it was years later, but to be blunt, I never really took anyone harping against the downers seriously. To be even more blunt, his direction with Superstars has just made those defenses look even more ridiculous in hindsight.

 

I would guess the game is programmed to switch the background model to a specific type when that happens, regardless of where it was before. You know how in Frontiers, when you get to the next phase of the titan fights that the music skips to a certain part no matter where it was before? It's like that, I assume.

 

I see nothing wrong with the game. Yeah there’s a few glitches here and there but nothing you don’t see already in a Sonic game.

 

Calling the game uninspired and half-baked is something I can't possibly agree with. Even the music doesn't really scream that. All the issues I have come from presentation in a way that makes it seem like the game didn't have the greatest budget. Not to the extent of Frontiers, it's absolutely more consistent, stable, and significantly less janky, but there is clear limitations in what they were able to portray. Reason #443 for a bigger budget for the next game(s).

It basically succeeds in everything that was established and most of the new things are done, at worst, well enough. Even the gimmick-based nature of the levels seem fun, and the only one I can say is really gimmicky is Cyber Station and the Breakout game in Sky Temple.

The next game, though, definitely needs to shake up the structure and design more. If this is the establishment of a new type of classic Sonic it's great, but I don't want it to actually turn into NSMB.

 

Sadly, I think we're entering "hope for a patch" territory now, as some of the issues we're seeing are clearly things that are broken, which is separate from whether or not they are actually good design choices.

I can tolerate a small but annoying stage gimmick that I can eventually master and get past so long as the rest of the layout is fun and interesting. But I'm not yet convinced one way another that it is or isn't.

I do find the visuals to be a mixed bag, but I want to see a proper full 4k60FPS PC/PS5/XBSX release before I can really judge that. PS4 and switch versions should not look bad (This isn't cyberpunk 2077 on last gen...), but are not fully representative either.

The music is less than perfect, which is sad for a Sonic game, but whatever. There will be hits and misses in this OST. Oh well. Hopefully there are more hits we haven't really heard much of yet.

 

Technically we're not even in the "game is actually out" territory, a day 1 patch is easily possible but historically, that's uncommon.

 

And you know, I love Chaos Angel Act 3. I know I said "I thought we were past the days of 'gimmicky section over bottomless pit'", but in truth I'm not opposed to this kind of approach under any circumstances, ever. But not only does Chaos Angel Act 3 move slower, it's also a level based on overcoming challenges while avoiding pit death. The level communicates the challenge much better, because it's acitvely trying to push you from the platform. Here we have a rollercoaster that's meant to take you from A to B and somehow the challenge is not getting fucked over by the platform itself, or being able to jump from one rollercoaster to the other (which is reminiscent of the boost games).

 

I'll concede on this point in that I don't think the entire game is half-baked on uninspired. There are still some things there in the game that I like, that I will say was actually handled pretty well (that aren't related to the physics). But stuff like the co-op I would definitely cite as half-baked for the reasons I've complained about before. And as far as as lack of inspiration goes, I think certain level tropes here like the carnival level itself, and the emerald powers, could had been fleshed out a lot more than what we actually have (or at least, what has been shown in the leaks).

I do disagree though in that I think the game could had looked and sounded good with the budget that it had; the problem is moreso the direction that was taken with the graphics/rendering and the sound. Like I said before, Mania's presentation for me was more coherent and refined, and that was made with what I'm sure was a tenth of the budget and resources put into Superstars.

 

I think it was raised a few months ago that the characters don't have shadows when they probably should. It's really noticeable in this stage.


But don't worry, the fat walrus gets one.

Also of note: the Act 1 boss music is quieter than the level theme, and there's a dodgy camera camera snap with the Fang and Trip cutscene (not to mention if Trip has just been standing there, it means Amy has been running around in circles, but whatever).

 

Mania's presentation is more refined, but that's because it worked with a presentation that already existed and was pretty much refined. It looks great but it doesn't look that much different than the previous games. The specific pitch was to make the game as if it were on the Saturn. I'm not saying there was less work involved, but in terms of "what should this look like", that was figured out immediately. The same goes for Superstars' physics but not its style; Iizuka even said they debated using a hand crafted art style.

Before we get to how well they made Superstars look, we have to acknowledge the more complicated task of making a 2.5D game look and feel like the classics but also something different without going into "2D in 3D" like Generations, Forces, etc. did.

There are issues with presentation like a lack of polish on some animations and that's where I think it needed a better budget.

 

How much better could Arzest out of all developers do even on a bigger budget? The fact that this game had to be downgraded for the Switch is an embarrassment. There's no good reason that needed to be done.

 

The same as any developer? lol. The game has great animations in some places and poor ones in others.

The only game they made that wasn't for the 3DS was Balan Wonderworld, and I'm pretty sure that was partially Yuji Naka's money-laundering scheme. So it's not like they've been making AAA games.

"of all developers" You'd think they made nothing but Lord of the Rings: Gollum or something. People are really trying to force Arzest to seem like... how people treat Sonic Team I guess, lol, when the games they make are simply just... mediocre.

Most games have to be downgraded for the Switch. And few games that do that achieve 60 FPS on both mods too. That includes games made by Nintendo too.

The game is made for three different generations, and the PS5/XSX/PC versions seem to be a significant improvement (the PS5 version is double the size of the PS4 version alone). Of course there's downgrading.

 

Why in this case though. Those games you speak of, including games made by Nintendo, push the hardware far harder. This game does not look like it's pushing the Switch hardware either visually or gameplay-wise.

 

Because the game would run like shit on the Switch otherwise. Performance over graphics.

I'm not sure why Arzest is in the wrong for making a very basic decision that developers typically do. I have no reason not to think they needed to do that, and I prefer the game running at 60 than looking pretty.

If downgrading Frontiers got the same result, I'd be fine with that too.

 

You could at least do me the courtesy of reading the rest of my post.

I suppose there's not much else to say on my end then. It looks and plays like what I expected, an upscaled 3DS Arzest game. Honestly Sonic Team should've just brought Dimps back, I don't know why they haven't. They did a decent job sometimes.