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

https://x.com/Axanery/status/1714146625797390756?s=20

Turns out the comic book skin pack was available for a brief window on Steam for free but now isn't. Hopefully this means SEGA has to stop being greed, backwards and moronic and actually lets everybody access the skin pack for free.

Edit: https://x.com/Axanery/status/1714142006983668207?s=20
Oh, and we've got not just Denuvo, but also Epic Games DRM! Even on Steam! Joy...

 

Yep. I literally grabbed it having no idea what it even was. And it's so stupid... this filter should be the default look for the characters! It looks...really good in motion and removes the weird glossy feel that some complained about. It feels like an actual high res evolution of the sprites!

Also... the hilarious bugs start...

Gotta go... really fast?
https://streamable.com/nf94nn

 

So looks like this was an error, and comic skins have been removed.
I'm having some weirdness on Xbox. The game is v1.02, as opposed to 1.05 on PS4/5, and none of the DLC works. Also default volume settings are different, 10 and 10 as opposed to 6 and 5 (which with the mixing).

 

I managed to be one of the people that got the Comic Skins and other free DLC, but it shows that people aren't supposed to have it, the shader breaks every time Sonic jumps for me in the world map hub.

 

Just heard that Steam version not only has Denuvo but forces to log in into the Epic Game Store. Can someone please confirm?

 

Denuvo, yes. Epic, kinda. It prompts you to. You can X out and play single player without it. It's required for online battle mode.

 

Semi-sorta. It forcibly installs Epic Online Services (and probably thus Epic Game Store in the background) onto your PC so it can run the online mode because I guess Sega decided to get horribly lazy about it, but you can opt to ignore the log-in. The problem is it will pester you to log-in every time you boot the game up until you finally do it and it binds your Epic account to your Steam account. And as previous posts show, yes, Denuvo is in.

Sega yet again refuses to warn or tell anyone of anything ahead of time and hoodwink them with arbitrary bullshit through incompetence.

 

Is that the fucking end in the background

 

I was wondering when anyone was gonna comment that...

 

Anyone else on pc having controller issues? I'm able to mash pretty good but my spindash revs are, consistently bad, but jumps and other inputs seem fine.

 

I don't know why anyone thought there was even a chance the game wouldn't have denuvo. But epic games bullshit? Yikes.

 

Sigh... Showing off the most broken feature of the game predominantly in the trailer...

So far, I'm up to Zone 3 again. The PC version looks noticeably sharper than the upsclaed switch version, and I haven't dipped below 60FPS once, nor ran into any actual glitches myself.

These early stages really are very fun and actually quite well designed. And the game's aesthetic looks a lot better with final visuals.

No music fixes whatsoever, though. The random Sonic 4 OSTs are here, but at least they're easier to ignore since it's not the whole style of the game.

Overall, the more I play it, the more I really want to like this, but the more frustrated I am by all the little things surrounding the game SEGA is still messing up.

Price... overpriced DLC... poorly handled CO-OP.

Supposedly, there's no dedicated servers for battle mode on PC? You have to use invite codes, I think!?

Locking an awesome looking artstyle like the comic book cel shaded look behind a paywall (unless you got lucky and grabbed it early like I did) is really damn stupid. Stuff like this should've been in the game by default.

I actually kind of enjoy hunting for coins, but what's the point? I can't see playing battle mode for more than a few minutes right now...

Oh well. I'm having fun at least.

Someone in the RSDK discord claimed there were issues with the spindash tied to framerate? As in it input lags if the game drops below 60? I can't tell since I haven't had any dips whatsoever so far.

But if that's true, that'll definitely need to be patched.

 

Yeah, the Spindash revving is broken if you go above 60 FPS certainly. Not sure about below.

 

Oh thank you, i never even messed with anything but it was defaulting to 165fps, turned off vsync and locked it to 60 and now it works just fine. Wonder if that'll also fix some of the shader issues on the cell shaded skins

 

Managed to get the rabbit skin and menu wallpapers while they were available for free due to whatever error someone made. Haven't tried rabbit but the menu skins aren't bad, there's a nice stage background skin and there's one with a few of those old, highly stylized Sonic the Wallpaper/internal SEGA newsletter artworks. Don't think the full thing is worth $15 at all, so I'm glad I picked it up lol. Funny considering I talked myself out of pre-ordering the deluxe edition just the other day, and they just... accidentally gave it to me LOL. Missed the comic book skins though, sadly. I wonder if those will be available for a charge, because for me they currently say NA which has me worried we'll never be able to buy them. Wondering when we'll get the download codes for the Amy skin.

As for the game, I'm 1 hour in and... it's fun!!! I had to really convince myself to go to bed because it actually is a lot of fun to play. Physics feel spot-on according to my memory, at least to the point that I can't pick up on anything specific that's off EXCEPT the spindash feels a bit weak. Not sure if it's just placebo because the animation doesn't look as powerful, but it's only a slight difference if any. Didn't notice any issue with uncapped FPS and revving on my end. Dropdashing around as Sonic feels really good, and holding jump to bounce high off of enemies feels as good as it ever did. The first 2 zones are HUGE and I have no idea how much I saw out of the full maps, but it feels like the specific route I took in ex: Speed Jungle Act 1 was just a tiny chunk of all there was to see. Feels most similar to Sonic CD level design in my opinion, and I like it. It's not perfectly consistent, there are some weird points... but the nice part is branching paths are super frequent and there is almost always a choice for where you're gonna go next. The special stages and bonus stages are surprisingly not bad, I actually voluntarily entered the Sonic 1 style bonus stages on several occasions because they get a tiny bit harder each time. The bonus stage physics are weird, and not Sonic 1 weird, a new kind of weird, but it works. A big strong suit for me is definitely that the game just keeps you moving and moving. You're bouncing back and forth between the regular act and the special stages and the bonus stages and the warp points and the blue rings, and the pace feels really nice. Finished up to zone 3, for spoiler-free context.

The negatives are definitely there lol, for sure. The "unpolished" feeling hits pretty hard in specific areas. The game freezes for a half-second every time the results screen comes up, sound design feels really lacking and unsatisfying at times, there's one animation

Spoiler: Speed Jungle: Act Sonic spoilers

where Fang just slowly levitates toward Trip at like 2 mph and then weirdly kind of crashes into her and then awkwardly rotates around while unfitting cartoon sound effects play

, I think a bit of terrain at the end of the Zone 3 boss literally loaded inside-out, etc. But it's fun, and that's what I wanted. Hopefully the rest of the game is fun too!!

 

So does Sega have a deal with Epic or something?

 

I think they probably decided to use Epic's servers to host the online features rather than foot it themselves.

 

Why is the rabbit skin not included with the digital deluxe purchase even though it was advertised to?

 

So much for being hopeful...
But Sega did worse than expected. Epic acount on Steam plus Denuvo?
Why have faith in Sega in the first place?

 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3052712566

It's been pointed out that you can use these instructions to remove the EGS prompts at startup, but online multiplayer will not work if you do.

Be sure to follow the exact instructions.