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

What do you mean? Press Garden was the worst level. Easy Dub for Superstars.

EDIT: I take it back. Hyrdocity was the worst Mania level.

 

Touché.

 

They're made of marble AND Sonic rolls around in them like a marble.

 

Probably called Press Factory cuz its full of instant death crushers...

 

Wait shit maybe it’s (Bench) Press Factory and it’s a literal jungle gym and we get a stacked Eggman as a boss just fighting with his bare hands…yeah actually I take everything back.

 

They should have stopped alliterative zone names once they realized they could never top the genius that is Panic Puppet.

 

I like the idea of Pinball Carnival act2 having a haunted ghost theme. It's been far too long since we've had a haunted zone. Would be cool if they reference the Sandopolis ghosts or King Boom Boo.

 

The GameInformer article also has this quote from Ohshima - "[Iizuka and I] sent visuals back and forth and had an ongoing dialog about what [Trip's] personality should be like. Ideas came up for the character's actions and themes, like an armored lizard and the ouroboros."

I feckin' called it! We're getting a new lizard friend Sit tight, Espio


Also, Emerald Powers seem neat. Not sure how fun it sounds blasting through water like the Sonic Colors Drill power, kinda seems like it removes the conventional challenge of staying above water level, but I'll have to try it I guess. Homing attack also seems strange when they could have thought up a new and interesting ability for classic to use like a walldash or bounce, but this will maybe keep modern 2D fans interested in the game.


Zones are looking REALLY cool and unique. Playing a Breakout mini game in Sky Temple sounds pretty unfun, like Frontiers' way-too-frequent shooter mini games. But otherwise, love the tropes they're using and Im excited to see them reference Press Garden.

 

Going back to what's been revealed re: character-specific Acts some more, the more I think about it the more I reckon it bodes well for the amount of content Superstars will have to offer.

To put things into perspective - we've known for a while now that Superstars will have 12 Zones. If we assume those all have two regular-length Acts each, that gives us 24 total, which is the same length as a regular, no emeralds playthrough of Sonic 3 & Knuckles as Sonic & Tails (counting Lava Reef and Death Egg's main bosses as part of the preceding Act, since they mainly seem separated out for logistical reasons and the game counts them as part of Act 2) or a no-emeralds run of Sonic Mania Plus in Normal Mode. This is a good starting benchmark if so, as from the get-go it seems we should expect a game similar in length to its predecessors within the confines of a single playthrough.

Obviously both those games have alternate Acts for different characters/modes, so you'll never see each game's full content in one playthrough. By my count, Sonic 3 & Knuckles has 26 Acts total (counting The Doomsday Zone and Knuckles' alternate Sky Sanctuary), and Sonic Mania Plus has 28 (counting Encore Mode's Angel Island Zone, both the Knuckles and Encore Mode alternate Acts for Mirage Saloon, and Egg Reverie Zone).

This means even if each character in Superstars only has one character-specific Act in the entire game, the total amount of content should be at least equal to Sonic Mania Plus. If each character has character-specific Acts in more than one Zone, we'll be looking at a game surpassing that level of content - even if you'll only see a similar amount to its predecessors within any one playthrough, the alternate stages aid the game's replayability. And none of that is even accounting for the possibility of Superstars having a Super Sonic exclusive final boss, which may well happen given the precedent both these previous entries have set for it.

Obviously that all hinges on one big assumption - that all 12 Zones in the game will have at least two "normal" Acts. But if they do, I'm excited that they seem to be seriously trying to surpass the overall length of its direct predecessor, Sonic Mania Plus, and in a way that shouldn't make a single playthrough feel unnecessarily bloated. Providing the stages are well-designed and fun to play, we could be in for a real treat. Fingers crossed...! = )

 

I honestly love it when Sonic games try to adapt other games to its own formula, much like Collision Chaos' boss. So I'm really excited for this Breakout segment as long as it still plays like Sonic somehow (using springs? Or something? To make Sonic bounce and destroy the blocks).

I'm much less excited for the emerald powers, but we already knew they were going to be like that. So there's nothing new to complain about.

 

It should be noted that Sky Temple Zone, the third level, is described to be a longer one-act zone that took the writer *nine minutes* to complete. Interesting that they're placing it right smack in the middle of the campaign, instead of at the end where these one-act levels usually go.

 

*Press Factory*

That sounds like an obvious derivative of Press Garden Zone.

Can’t they come up with something original for once? All these tropes we’ve seen so far are looking very genetic. I’m not asking for the upchucked Froot Loops aesthetics of Sonic CD, but the classic titles and even the Advance trilogy always had a great deal of imaginative concepts. Fantasy type stuff while still managing to stay relatively grounded.

Beach, jungle, sand, sky, etc. Youre treading dangerously close to pulling another Lost World on us here Iizuka.

 

I mean, you get to a point where it does become rather difficult to pull off something original that isn't way out the norm. You can only do so many vegetative, stoneish, casino space zones before you get some repeats. The franchise is old. Ideas are bound to be repeated. Just wait until everyone points out how they "stole" something from a fan-game because a cannon launcher has a star on it like (insert generic fan-game) did.

I don't care about repeated ideas/themes as long as its executed well and fun to play.

 

I admit I have to see more before I give a final conclusion, but it still kind of feels like they’re not even trying with some of these. The jungle one being the most blatant. Just feels like every single trope came to fruition either by “Hey, fans will recognize this!” or “This will be welcoming to the casual platformer crowd!”.

I agree, they ran out of basic level tropes a long time ago. But you know what they can still do? Combine 2 of them, put a giant spin on it, something to make it feel fresh.

Mushroom Hill Zone goes through seasonal changes. Lava Reef Zone freezes over. Press Garden combines a factory with a Japanese ice garden. They should be embracing ideas like those. Fucking Hill Top Zone is more inspired than Sonic and friends in the jungle world of New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

At the risk of stirring up a debate that isn’t worth the effort, I will just leave it at that. Like you said, the execution and fun factor is more important anyways.

 

The only thing they have in common is "press".

We've seen literally nothing about the zone, assuming it's not the Eggman base zone, in which case it's nothing like Press Garden.

I think you overstate their creativity. Sonic Advance with its imaginative concepts like "Green Hill but a beach", "Ice Cap again", and "Casino Night again". And who could forget Sonic 1 with "city", "night city", "factory"...

Game Informer mentions how Sky Temple gets stormy and violent, Lagoon City gets more underwater, Pinball Carnival turns into a haunted house... You missed these? They were the standout. They didn't even play Press Factory.

I would agree with 3&K and Mania having more different Act 2s but after Speed Jungle, Superstars seems to be shaking the zones up more.

 

Golden Capital is one of most original of these and I love how it's a lava-themed stage.

 

Golden Capital seems to be based on that one unused zone idea from Sonic 1 considering the... gold, and also the mountains.

 

Speed Jungle's change is that it gets rainy and you enter the darker parts of it, requiring assistance from the butterflies. It's pretty wrong to say it doesn't change, even if you don't like how it changes.

 

Whoops, missed that - if one-Act Zones are a thing, that throws out all my calculations about the potential amount of content. Guess we'll just have to wait and see when the game's released...!

 

To be fair, if Sky Temple is the only one-act zone and each character has exactly one exclusive act, the act total would still be 27 (28 if there's a 5th playable character and they also get their own act). Any additional one-act zone or Super boss fight zone is just a +/- 1.