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

That seems to be a recurring gag with people's reactions to Sonic Superstars, lol.

"The physics are off and wrong" and they turned out to be identical to the classics, for example.

For a lot of people, it seems the idea of the Genesis games trump the reality.

 

Maybe many of those people either stopped playing the classics for decades or have never played them, to begin with.
Such opinions should come only from people who truly care and remember well the classics and want them truly back.

 

I think the music sounds fine. Nothing remarkable but not terrible. It at least sounds more natural than Sonic 4.

 

Trying to figure out what the limit of that is, because the CD, 1, and 2 remakes seem to be "good enough" to get their mods touted as the best ways to play the games, even though they're inaccurate even with mods, but then there's some form of hyper sensitivity when sound comes into play that makes anything EXACTLY new, like this short loop music in Superstars, wrong, but then public opinion on the Sonic 3 PC music is shifted simply by learning it was in a prototype and then treating fan arrangements as the definitive versions of those songs that are now considered even better than what the Genesis got, even though it's ultimately a lame composition with a Genesis sound all the same.

And maybe that's another case of"not the same critics" but I don't really have any way of knowing without self-reporters. So if you hate this new track but like the Sonic 3 prototype stuff (specifically the stuff that came after the prototype released) now would be a good time to speak up with your reasoning why.

 

Since those reactions aren't based on the reality of the subject, there really is no limit. People will just decide it's wrong even when it's right.

That's up to opinion. You don't have to like the new music, obviously, even if it is like the Genesis.

But for things like Superstars' physics and other things, I blame it on this recent hyper-polarization of the Sonic fanbase, where people have their one, hyper-specific idea of what Sonic should be and refuse to budge.

This is more Twitter discourse but the whole "Sonic should be cool/cute, not cute/cool" or complaining about how "childish" Sonic Prime or the literal preschooler shorts are are examples.

I've even seen people claim Superstars "lacks Sonic's edge", whatever that means. And the whole "Mania 2" business, for that matter.

But yeah, there is no limit; the entire mindset is that whatever actually happens isn't good enough.

Personally, I think the Sonic fanbase has a HUGE issue where a lot of fans care more about "prestige" of Sonic than what it is or does. They want things this way or that way because it makes Sonic "better", not because that's something they actually want to play.

But this is all a small minority of people, anyhow.

 

Yeah they make a big deal about how they needed modern 3D graphics but this music is stuck in the past compared to what Lopes did with Mania, he didn’t stick to just sounding like remastered Genesis music and took advantage of for lack of a better word redbook audio the same way Sonic CD did for the majority of the soundtrack to great effect.
I can see why the stars weren’t aligned for a Mania 2 or a game that was like it but a soundtrack in the vein of it is very much in their capacity, instead we get Senoue doing less limited but still unambitious 4 style music and an unknown number of tracks from Lopes that will most likely deliver the goods but unfortunately won’t be the bulk of the soundtrack I imagine.

 

I do wish when Genesis-style music is included that it was composed by people that know how to use the hardware like John Tay and Savaged Regime instead of emulating it with a soundfont.

 

I don‘t get the „songs are not memorable“ sentiment - I‘ve got the Bridge zone theme stuck in my head all day, and thats a clear indicator of memorability for me…! Also, i think it‘s a given that they‘re gonna change the Genesis instrumentation of the third track into something more akin to the BZ theme - the final game could sound and look very different from what we‘ve seen/heard so far, do we have any update on the release date? I read something about it being postponed to December?!

 

I don't have a problem with sounfont emulating as long it sounds authentic enough. At least it sounds way more authentic than Classic Sonic stages on Forces and the entire Sonic 4 soundtrack. I think this song Michael Staple composed is a great example to that.

But I agree it would be nice, especially for Sonic Origins situatio.

 

hmm Idk I personally think this gives off character select/options music vibes

 

I hope not, that would be the worst official Super Sonic track ever made. I'm surprised folks like this, this is absolutely inexcusable quality to me for a new 2D Sonic title. We have way too much talent out there that could do better, I was afraid Jun was going to do this.

 

Cultured minds play with the instrumental soundtrack turned on.

But yeah I'm also worried about the soundtrack being inconsistent, regardless of how well the Mega Drive-esque tracks are executed. I so desperately want a return to Adventure-era crunchy guitars and rock organs, since that's not really present in Ohtani's OSTs anymore.

 

can't wait for a sonic 3k prototype with these songs causing everyone to retroactively decide they are the greatest music ever made for a sonic game

In seriousness these songs do what they wanted too, replicate megadrive music,. They do that pretty well (that bass in the unknown track sounds really close to the bass instrument used in the classics). Saying the quality/production of these tracks are bad is just not a good argument. From what I can tell the instrumentation is pretty alright (waaay better than Forces/S4) and the mixing is decent, they are quality tracks and would have been considered such back on the megadrive. The problem is that it's trying to hard to be megadrive music instead of building upon it. Would have much preferred they let jun do his thing on guitar for the lead, I sooooo badly need more songs like crank up the heat for final egg. Anyway, these songs almost certainly sound the way they do not because lack of production value or effort but because this was the goal all along.

really hoping Jun is allowed to shred for the final boss

 

What? Chemical Plant does not sound like Oil Ocean. Mystic Cave does not sound like Emerald Hill. Flying Battery does not sound like Launch Base. The synth sound can be varied, and it's definitely not the norm for a synth.
I've only heard 4 clean tracks, and of the 4, 1 of them is a retro track, the other one is fine, and 2 other tracks share the same lead. There is still a ton of music so hoping the shared lead stops at those 2 tracks and it doesn't end up like MM11.

That's how I play MM11.

 

Ok that's it this OST isn't gonna be for me at all lol

EDIT: Also, self-reporting, I also hate the S3&K prototype music, and just about everything Senoue did for 3D Blast except Panic Puppet Act 1. So I'd like to believe I'm consistent enough.

 

I'm going to reserve full judgement and opinions until I hear the final game's soundtrack, because that rendition of Bridge Island Zone: Act 1 sounds like an earlier and rougher draft compared to the version in the short Twitter video we got recently, which sounds significantly beefier and more refined. This version's audio being mono also doesn't help matters either, so I don't want to be too harsh on the track until I've heard a high quality rip / release / recording of it from the actual final game itself.

Personally I find the track quite memorable, but I really want to hear its final rendition in higher quality to properly form my opinions on it.

The Title Screen track screams Tee Lopes, at least at the beginning, almost identical melody to the start of Sonic Mania's Title Screen track, although the rest of the track sounds to me like Jun Senoue trying to mimic Tee Lopes' style, haha. Perhaps they both worked on this track together?

 

Personal opinion time, I'm not sure how anybody could think that comes anywhere CLOSE to Sonic 4's music. This uses actual Genesis patches that actually work well together - and in fact, one of the main complaints of Sonic 4 soundtrack was that it would sound a lot better with actual Genesis instruments.

They seem to be going for a Sonic 1 or 2 style, but this is genuine eons better than anything Sonic 4 and its faux-Genesis instrumentation had to offer.

 

People cry over the synths all the time, but if there's any real problem with that track in my opinion, it's the snare. It's so loud and distinct, but not in a good way. And I think Senoue has more of a problem with that than any general notion that he can't "do" Genesis music.

 

So why do we say for sure these are Superstars tracks? One has completely different instrumentation and is a completely different style from the other 2 and they're from a Lego challenge. Isn't it possible one of the 3 tracks is just for the game?

 

The Bridge Island Zone theme definitely sounds like the snippets we've heard in one of the livestreams of the game. I also doubt they'd make wholly original music just for a Lego browser game.

As for why the one song sounds different, could be earlier versions of the music pulled from the middle of development. The Bridge Island music also doesn't sound quite like the one heard in-game.

They have been very dodgy about showing off any music (the one clean B-roll footage we got uses placeholder music), so I assume the music is one of the last things they're finishing up.