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

Yeah, I agree with you-- that was the approach across all instances of this divide! It does seem healthy.

 

Something that we should all keep in mind regarding this game's main developer, Arzest, is that Sonic Superstars will mark their second HD project, the first being Balan's Wonderworld.



Call it a cop-out excuse, but with that in mind, I find the aesthetics of Superstars to be impressive given possible inexperience prior. I'd say if Arzest should continue on with a new 2D Sonic after Superstars they could take influence from one of the prior games for the aesthetics.

Arzest's Yoshi New Island - at least attempted - used a presentation style inspired by the 2D Yoshi Artwork. Only truly held back by 3DS Limitations.



Therefore once Arzest has a better feel for Sonic and more importantly, HD Development, perhaps they could take influence from Yoshi's New Island and use a style based on Classic Sonic's Shaded 2D Artwork. To prove this is possible, on the right are models and textures by Kromosx



In spite of everything I'm glad Arzest chose to "play it safe" regarding the visuals of their second HD Project, and can only really want to just hope they use their soon-to-be prior knowledge for an even bigger, better project in the future :D

 

Fwiw on occasion Balan Wonderworld looked pretty. That was the one thing the game did ok.

 

I think I said it earlier, but boss battles where every attack was counterable is also cool.

…also breaking the stages with certain costumes.

…and the M.C. Escher stage.

Okay, I just like most of the game. I admit it.

Though I think the game performed horrendously considering the visuals, so that concerns me a bit with Superstars. I also generally just think that Superstars looks too mid-00s, post-NSMB 2.5 platformer for a Sonic game. Balan had some cool themings but the actual in-game execution was also a bit generic along those lines.

 

I for one am excited about this game, but I hope the physics are consistent with Sonic Mania and all the other Retro Engine releases. I thought the classic Sonic levels in Sonic Generations were too floaty, and I felt the vague feeling of "invisible guard rails" pushing me onto "the right path" every time Sonic went airborne or hit top speed. It wasn't as blatant as the guard rails for modern Sonic's levels, but I never missed jumping onto something by just a couple pixels the way I repeatedly did while trying to improve on my world record for MSZ Act 2 Encore as Ray in Sonic Mania (try saying that 10 times as fast as you can).

 

That's already been confirmed through multiple public demos and impressions. Maybe not exactly 1:1, but they are close to how they're supposed to handle.

 

I'll have to find out for myself, but now the only question is which version I'll buy. If the Switch version can maintain a steady 60fps, then I'm willing to give up mods just to avoid DRM. I'm still bitter about Sega sneaking Denuvo into the Steam version of Mania and Origins. I remember when people ran it through Wireshark and caught it phoning home over 10,000 times per second; I know I'm taking license with the term DoS attack, but it was definitely clogging up the Ryzen 7 1700X I build I ran back in 2017 and denying me the ability to keep services like being able to run my 3 VMs.

 

I remember when Sonic 4 Ep 1 was on its way. The game had been play tested by the public several times... maybe for about a month (super rough memory here though)... before anyone actually made it clear how poor its physics were. In particular, the way he'd drop like a brick after rolling off an edge. So much time passed before anyone who had played it actually made this really simple thing known, and then quite a bit more time passed before we all realised the whole thing was just Sonic Rush movement.

So I have a pinch of reservation about Superstars' physics. I do believe it's unlikely that there will actually be anything really wrong with them, just... that whole Sonic 4 debacle really burnt. I was annoyed at all those unknown play testers.

In this case, even CW has vouched for it so that's really about as good as it gets. Still, I'm expecting a few tiny foibles to be apparent. Mania has some of its own little differences, and we've seen that Tails at least flies differently now, so I'm realistically expecting a few more slight adjustments to what we grew up with... while unrealistically keeping a small part of me ready for something drastically wrong to come out of the woodwork.

As accurate as it was, even Sonic Fan Remix had a fairly tangible mess up where you could just roll-accelerate-jump without end through the entire stage, and those physics were otherwise just as solid as Superstars' physics appear to be.

Just... perhaps excluding Mania, the benefit of the doubt has never really been a luxury we could throw around with Sonic titles.

 

Bitch we knew it was Sonic Rush movement from the first 3 second trailer. I'm not exaggerating.


Then the leaks came out along with more official footage and we all knew exactly what we were looking at months before release. What were you seeing?

 

Yeah I don't know what Deef is on about. Sonic 4 already had a bad rap even before its reveal with its announcement of an announcement bullshit. The only people singing it praises in previews were the press from press events and we know what their qualifications are to get anything published.
Sonic Superstars has had multiple large scale public venues where numerous credible people have tested and played the game. Even without play testing, we have more than enough footage and Lapper has done comparison videos showing off the accuracy. This is one aspect we don't have to worry about.

 

Wow, I can’t believe I got excited for that back when I was 15 lol. That’s like the Mania reveal’s evil twin.

 

In the same way, you could tell Mania was going to be awesome the very second Whiteheads involvement was confirmed in the reveal trailer, we didn't even need to see the footage, we just knew.

The Mania team just got Classic Sonic in a way that the Superstars cats never will. At the very least though, Superstars won't be the irredeemable spent wank that 4 was.

 

The off screen Mania trailer reveal reactions are still my favourite videos to go back to. The insane roar of cheers when Whitehead's name comes up is magical.

 

Sonic 4 was disappointing the second we learnt it wasn't Pikachu in a Sombrero.


In fairness, while physics were an issue spotted early on, the bigger fish to fry were things like the wacky rotating cameras and the fact it was called Sonic 4.

And then that homing attack and the chain of Bubbles enemies. And then the music. Just awful, really.

 

this is funny because whitehead himself literally said on twitter right after this game's announcement that they "got" the physics

 

Man... brings a tear to your eye... It was so good.


Re S4 vs SS: I think my post made it sound like I was surprised that Sonic 4 was shaping up badly. No, that much we all knew.

My intent was to highlight my recollection of how there was a particular issue (drops-like-a-brick -- video of spin dashing off ledges in Splash Hill, anyone?) that took so long to really get publicly known. So when it did eventually appear I just felt like "wtf". Not at the physics issue itself, but at how long it took for someone to actually report it.

Maybe many others had already known or predicted that issue by then. If so, that went by me. I only know my impression of that particular thing was one of a bad surprise past its use-by date, and I formed this lingering skepticism of play testers as a result.

Yes, CW et al are on-side with Superstars, I know I know, which pretty much invalidates my comment, but I already acknowledged this myself. My own vibe is still to just hold onto that grain of salt.

Yeah, that is indeed what I was thinking when I mentioned him in my post.

 

From what I can remember of the Sega Forums days, there were some pre-release impressions of S4E1 from Sonic fans (not the gaming press) who did confirm stuff like jumping being off and the lack of momentum. Then there was other issues like the abysmal rolling and the uncurling—blatant mechanics that literally everybody could see and didn’t need to play for themselves.

And honestly, while some people did feel something was amiss with the very first trailer; I remember way more people shouting them down for being grumpy over three seconds of gameplay footage. Which I guess for the moment has some truth in it, but in retrospect, I really wish people strongly countered that response with “wtf, who reveals only three seconds of gameplay and the game title in an ‘official trailer’ after five months of drumming up hype.”

Nonetheless, it was really when the Partnernet leak happened when people got to realize just how terrible the physics were. Demos of later pre-release builds of the game by people who did understand MD gameplay from that point; was just filling in a checklist of how little the physics were changed despite the delay.

 

One of my favorite game reveals of all time. Don't think I've gotten more excited at a game reveal since (though Superstars surprise trailer does come close)

 

I've realised that in my old age, I can't stand waiting this long for any game now. Superstars, and now WRC... I don't think I can even deal with 8 weeks of waiting now. If it's more than 2 months out and I'll want it, I don't wanna know it exists.

 

In that case, yes, I agree. The thing is, S4 came around less than 5 years after 06, and even less time after the Werehog and Black Knight. 2010 was the height of headlines like "Sonic was only good in 2D", "Sonic's shitty friends need to die" and "Sonic doesn't need a story". It was also hot on the trail of retro revivals like the first two NSMB games and Mega Man 9. All the the professional critics and Joe Public needed to see was 2D Sonic vaguely resembling that thing they liked from their childhood, and they claimed it was nostalgic perfection.

Superstars is a different case. We've seen enough of the game to know it's the real deal by now. And after Mania put Forces, Generations and, yes, Sonic 4 to shame I think that the general rhetoric has shifted too. Superstars may not be quite as good as Mania or 3K (the jury is it until we get the game for ourselves), but I've no doubt it's gong to be a great and authentic Classic Sonic experience so the same.