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

I don’t get what this post is. Are you just reposting exactly what they said so more people see it?

Edit: Also, after watching the footage with the tracks backing it, I think Tee’s song does work very well. I don’t know if I’d call it the weakest anymore. Maybe I’d have the second one as my favorite and then Tee’s tied with the third? Though I guess it’d still be the weakest in that case lol.

 

I LIKE Speed Jungle Act 2, but it's not a proper remix of Act 1 and that seems like such a shame.

Act Sonic by Kai is also fine. More of a grower.

Act 1 is still king for me. Probably going to be the standout track for the entire game honestly. I just adore it.

 

Judging by the co-op Pinball Carnival gameplay, multiplayer does kinda... look a bit wonky. There are some mechanics that shoot you far into the air and completely off-screen, which really doesn't feel conducive to single-screen co-op... and despite the first player not even being that far up, the camera doesn't zoom out. The amount that it zooms out seems negligible to begin with, to be honest. Im sure the whole game won't be like that, but even in Bridge Island the amount of times the second player gets left behind is pretty significant. Hard to tell if it's frustrating without playing it, but I can foresee this being a little annoying for new players. Also, I think that multiplayer video is our first look at the water city zone? I really love the look of that one, and Sky Temple looked great too. I'm excited to see the other zones this game has to offer

Also, "lag" is definitely not a reason why there is no online co-op. Iizuka just said he didn't think there was a demand for it, which is out of touch imo, but that's the be-all end-all reason as far as we know.

 

Izuka is live on Samsung's YouTube channel and they're playing / showing off footage from a fresh save.
Not sure if the VOD will be saved but it happened.

My impression: God fucking damn it the stupid Drop Dash tink noise is still here.

 

...uh? Shouldn't it be?

 

if that's about the vod comment: Sometimes, it's not! And it's really depressing when it's not!
If that's about the tink noise: dear god no there is no reason to have that sound.

 

I don't think I know what the tink noise is. Do you mean the VWEE sound effect when you charge it?

 

After watching the Iizuka livestream...

1. Definitely reinforces my impressions of the co-op looking frustrating, particularly for new players. The strangest design choice is probably those rocks with springs on them that pop up before a loop or an incline. They're probably supposed to help players who don't gain enough speed to get through, but in co-op that changes completely. The player in front triggers the rock to pop up, then the second player runs right into it. You could jump over, but then you lose speed that you want to keep going into the loop. Seems like there's just some design choices they didn't fully think about... or they wanted to include a way for older siblings to troll their younger siblings Also this footage shows just how quickly you get sniped when you're off-screen. It looks like you get teleported to the other player if you step so much as an inch off-screen for even a fraction of a second.

2. I'm seriously not a fan of this boss music. It's insane that the early demo footage we were shown had placeholder music added in post, leading people to reasonably believe that the boss music might ALSO be unfinished / placeholder... but it was the actual boss music the whole time, they just decided not to use a placeholder for some reason. I'm still holding out hope that it's just an unfinished version, but idk... not feeling that song at all, it feels so different from everything else we've heard so far, including the Genesis recordings.

3. Tails looks so cute :3

4. Swapping characters randomly during the special / bonus stages is a cool idea!

5. I'm kinda wondering if that's the final menu or if it's just for this demonstration, it looks kinda lacking in terms of style. Sure it's got that neo-classic-Sonic geometric design and all, but the character portraits are just still poses of their models, nothing dynamic or interesting about it at all. But I'm excited for this game mostly for the gameplay, so it's not like it really bothers me.

6. Where did Tails park the Tornado?

 

Man these stages weren't even designed for local co-op at all. You know what would have helped eased the frustration? If everyone had their own screen. I wonder how they could have achieved this...maybe through some method of splitting the screen. Perhaps some sort of online mode?
If only they had put in the work towards having some sort of networking functionality into the game...

 

No. It's the sound that comes after the initial sound, it's high pitched and sounds like the balls clanking in Sonic Advance 3. Except so much worse.

 

I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. Is this sound effect present in Mania?

 

This topic came up before and I think we successfully deduced that anyone who believed in it was crazy.

 

A physical PC version has shown up on European Amazon pages. The French page seems to indicate this is a code-in-box, rather than a disc, unfortunately. The German page seems to indicate that this physical version is exclusive to Amazon.

 

But if some Nintendo game from 4 years ago had bad online functionality, how could this multiplatform game possibly figure it out?

 

Just did a quick search and guess what - lag is in fact the reason there is no online co-op

 

In that case, we've gotten several conflicting answers. Lag isn't "the reason", lag is one of several reasons, we're cherrypicking here.

Also I have a really hard time believing Sonic Superstars is such a complex technical marvel of a game that Super Mario 3D World could have online co-op that most laypeople considered playable and fun, but Sonic Superstars (which is available on 3 other platforms besides the Switch) is simply too fast and complex. I'm not saying it would just be a breeze to implement and all they have to do is press the "add online" button, but the amount of people who act like Nintendo Switch online is physically impossible to do in a tolerable way, meanwhile much more complex games with many many more things on screen at once, and more interactions between players, have always existed and have been received well by average casual players. I'll also add that like... even if their online was so horrible that you could lag and teleport off-screen, the only reason that's an issue is because you're tethered to the other player at all times.


So to be honest... I really don't think either of the answers we've gotten is 100% honest. Battle mode also allows you to go very fast and if a kid's connection sucks they're gonna be screaming at the TV asking why they hit someone with their Metal Knuckles fist laser and now they've teleported halfway across the stage at mach 5.

 

Such as? (seriously - this is the only time I've seen Iizuka/Ohshima/anyone involved with the game address it)

 

No, it's a real thing. There is a high-pitched "tink" at the end of the Drop Dash SFX. In Mania you can only hear it if you charge the move for long enough, as the sound cuts off if you stop charging it. Try jumping off a high cliff in Mania and charge a Drop Dash, you'll hear it.

However, in Superstars, it appears the full SFX plays every time, and you can hear the "tink".

 

Ah, my mistake, I was getting mixed up with the argument over whether it was a change added to the sfx.

 

I simply don't buy their excuse. Online multiplayer isn't a grand mystery anymore. Hell, SEGA and Sonic Team help pioneer it for the console space during the Dreamcast days. I'm not saying it's an easy thing to add, but if they truly designed the game from the start to work with multiplayer then they would have solved the lag issue. Far faster games with far more players doing even more complex actions already exist. Sonic isn't doing anything special that makes it some sort of exception to the rule.
The more they reveal of the multiplayer aspect the more it shows that its just poorly tacked on. The game is clearly not designed with multiplayer co-op in mind, offline or online. The level design so far does not incorporate any actual co-op design in mind. In fact, it discourages it by sending you rocketing off screen or popping up obstacles as foXcollr pointed out. There are no objectives or obstacles designed with multiplayer in mind from all the footage showed so far. The fact that there is no splitscreen logic in campaign at all leads me to believe that's the main culprit. The mere thought of the players splitting up never occurred to them.
Superstars is clearly designed as a single player experience first with a multiplayer component added later. There is nothing wrong with that and that's most likely how I'll be playing the game anyways since it's not really doing anything to make it attractive as a co-op game. I wish they would stop promoting the game as a co-op game because it's very clearly not one. That's the only sour point I have against Superstars. Everything else looks stellar.