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

I didn't mean to double post but I don't know how to delete it or merge it, I'm struggling to use the forum properly this morning


Sonic himself is not the only issue. The characters are too "cute" in general but the background art, enemies and overall aesthetic are very bland. And I'm definitely cherry picking examples to demonstrate my point. But the contrast between classic Sonic and "classic Sonic" is pretty striking, to me.

 

The Felix-the-Catification of Classic Sonic would make some amount of sense to differentiate the two forms of the character side-by-side but Modern Sonic was also flanderized into a smiley agreeable do-gooder guy so the contrast doesn't work anyway lol. I can't be devil's advocate for Generations even when I try. Superstars Sonic looks like somewhat of an improvement (might just be the lack of baby blue fur) but they could be doing more.

 

Yeah, you're not wrong. It's very weird to me that we're at a point where Mario is expressing more 'tude than Sonic is. Sonic Team tends to take all the wrong lessons from the feedback they get ("Oh Sonic talks too much? And he never talked in the old games?? Okay classic Sonic will never talk again"). Maybe worth spinning this off into it's own topic at this point.

 

I'm guessing this is the same build as the one they showed off back at Summer Games Fest a couple of months ago.

 

It's not just Sonic either... When I was a child I found Robotnik to be a bit terrifying. The Genesis sprites made him look like a menacing clown, and in a lot of the official artwork his eyes were gaping black voids. The larger sprites from Spinball were particularly terrifying. By comparison, today he looks pretty benign. I always preferred a sort-of Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde interpretation, but the scary aspects seem to have been removed entirely. I think he should be depicted like HIM from Powerpuff Girls going forward, sort of flamboyant and cutesy - but juxtaposed with ink-sputtering psychotic outbursts of rage.

 

I get what you're saying and I agree with you because I feel the same way. But you really should have done some research and had examples already ready to illustrate your point otherwise you're just an easy dunking opportunity. Superstars is clearly working on pre-made assets for whatever reason so I don't think this is Ohshima's true "vision". To try and specifically call him out as being a burnout from the mines that he hasn't even worked on in decades is a ridiculous claim.

Sonic is and has always been a kids media, but a large part of his appeal is that he had a little bit of an edge to him. He was viewed and marketed it as the cool counterpart to Mario. The art back then refelcted it, both in the Japanese and American markets. They definitely leaned into it hard in the American side, but the Japanese side had their own share of "cool hedgehog" promos. We're about to hit CD's 30th' anniversary and the opening animation for that alone is still put up on a pedestal. I mean, look at this from Ohshima itself. The design that they're pushing out now in all the classic merch and new games doesn't compare.



They're rebranding the classic era to be cuter than the reality of the time. It's just far easier to market to far younger kids and girls. It's similiar to what happened with the Fred Wolf Turtles. Granted, the Fred Wolf Turtles were NEVER consistent, but a good majority of the era had the public perception + - unless yoou're from the UK   of these dudes being radical action heroes. The merch and references you get from them now is exclusively a cutsey look. Both of the big TMNT cross over events made a complete mockery of them as being incompetent goof balls.



A majority of the episodes opened with an intro animated by Toei with a rocking theme song containing lyrics such as "they're the world's most fearsome fighting team"



I'm not a fan of it. I don't like the "classic" Sonic design they've been sticking with from Generation and on. I'm not fond of Tyson's take either in Mania or the Mania shorts either to be perfectly honest, but I'll take it over what we're currently getting. I personally don't think anything has gotten close to representing the art and design from that era. Whenever I vaguely remember "classic" Sonic, I think of this piece from Yamaguchi . It's the best representation from those sprites on screen to illustration form. Ohshima created the dude, but Yamaguchi perfected it.


Yamaguchi has drawn Sonic and Tails recently and the dude still nails it to this day.

Yeah, now that's what I call dope.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter for me. I got "modern" Sonic to satisfy my thirst for edge.

 

For me, as a hardcore Sonic 1 enthusiast, I have no problem with Ohshima Sonic being "cute". Especially as while you can cherry pick pictures of Sonic in 1990/1991 that look edgy, Ohshima also drew him looking like this:




So, the more cute look was always there. I think I remember a direct quote from Yamaguchi talking about how when Sonic 2 was in development, they made a conscious effort to take the cute side out of Sonic, and implement it into Tails. Not a choice I agree with, honestly, but I'm happy to see it reinstated to distinguish Ohshima Sonic from Uekawa Sonic.

 

I don't get what's wrong with Classic Sonic's direction. It seems fine to me.

 

I remember people were putting the Generations and Superstars Classic Sonic promotional renders side by side and saying the Superstars render looked so much better and it was literally the exact same render like I could not tell the difference

also petition to ban anyone who uses the term "Santiago" unironically

 

Can't I just throw incendiary opinions out there with no qualification and have no repercussions?

To be clear, I'm certainly not calling out Ohshima for anything. Just saying that I don't see "well this is how Ohshima wanted it" as any kind of defence for the overall badness of the art style, and that if it is how he wanted it, I think he could do better.

 

It's also important to point out we can't really consider Superstars to be Oshima's take on Sonic, solely. Oshima making the game with Arzest for a multiplatform game is a completely different process from him making a game with Sonic Team to spearhead a SEGA console. There are many more powerful voices here, and I believe the fact that Oshima is an original creator matters much less than some are perhaps assuming.

Then again, I thought it was pretty established by now that Classic Sonic as a brand is fundamentally different from (classic) Sonic as a brand. A sanitized version that exists in the face of a Modern Sonic that is actually the direct organic continuation of that Sonic brand. And I think that's okay, by the way. I'm not super into Eggman's design here, but I'm fine with a cuter look for all classic Sonic games further down the road. Sonic has always been more of an empty vessel than naturally cool anyway, and as much as they did remove his cuteness for Sonic 2, he was also the face of an educational game in 1996 too, and has never really steered away from it kid-friendly roots.

 

Please don't strike a line through objectively correct statements like this.

 

Really, we're just back to the fact that the current 3D models they've been using for a billion years just aren't very good.
Modern Eggman doesn't look bad on its own, in fact IDW can make him look pretty fuckin' creepy when they want to:


Look at this dude. Pure chills, lol

 

It's not exactly that Sonic shouldn't be kid-friendly. I have a newborn son and I'd love for him to get into Sonic early on. I think I liked it better when the series took itself a bit more seriously. I'd love more of this sort of thing

and a bit less of this sort of thing

or this


Like, you can see some similarities. They're all made of large, curvy shapes. But the S&K Final boss looks more mechanical and complex, and has almost a Terminator vibe going on with the eyes that makes it look genuinely threatening. Scared me as a kid.

 

No, like, I get it and I agree, personally. Even the S3&K final boss, if rendered in Superstars, would probably look like it's made of plastic rather than metal. I'm not knowledgeable enough to point out what exactly gives off that vibe, but even that miniboss seems to have been intentionally made to look more like a Kinder Surprise toy than a zoomorphic drone. Something about the lighting, I guess. Still, I don't mind it that much. I think it's understandable that they went this route and will stick to it for the foreseeable future.

 

I don't even know the origins of the term, just trying to keep it current for the kids fr fr no cap on god deadass

 

Yeah I've always loved his Adventure redesign and how it kinda evokes a big hairy spider or something. He still has his classic goofiness in the light but his shape sets off subconscious red flags with his bottom-heavy torso, arched shoulders, big blank eyes and giant mandible mustache. I think it's clever and unfortunate how often fans just focus on how he lost weight. Superstars Eggman actually looks more menacing than Classic Eggman has in a while though so I don't really have anything relevant to whine about in an on-topic regard lol.

 

Classic Sonic has always had intense cuteness in it. Tails is designed in every aspect of his character to be cute. Amy in Sonic CD is the same. There is some great promotional material from the Classic Sonic period which highlights Sonic's attitude. But I've always interpreted Classic Sonic as being half/half on cute and attitude in the games themselves.

I also think Eggman has always been an utterly ridiculous villain in the Classic Sonic games. The only thing he ever did in those games which was actually threatening was in Lava Reef and Hidden Palace in Sonic 3K. Otherwise he's completely buffonish in the way he acts and the only menacing aspects of his character are conveyed purely through music and game challenge. It wasn't really until Adventure where they presented him more seriously as a villain.

I don't mind that SEGA went strongly in the direction of cuteness and silliness for Classic Sonic with Generations. It's just as valid as going in the direction of attitude.

 

• Built a Blade Runner-esque endless landscape of crushing, shocking, smoking and slicing machines, which ends with a dump into contaminated water before a final large crushing mechanism.
  
• Built a giant Death Star type shop which, presumably, had weaponry on-board, not accounting for the large mech the player fights.
  
• Destroyed various landscapes both on land, sea and air, additionally doing this across time on occasion.
  
• Re-built the Death Egg with additional gravity traps and mechanisms, ending with a huge evil robot that crushes with its hands and fires a huge laser.
  
• General kidnapping of animals to use as living batteries.
  
• Every boss in the first Sonic trilogy which has some variation of of a mechanism to kill or maim.
  
• All of the above whilst grinning and laughing like a manic. The sprite-work of these games could be truly menacing at times.

Classic Eggman, other than being a red balloon, was pretty evil.

 

Ho ho hee hee oh that goofy buffoon who turns planets into oil factories and builds Death Stars. The charm of Eggman is that he's ridiculous AND a major threat. Like the Joker or something.

EDIT: Ninja'd by better post