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

I think 2D mario games are the perfect example of the Nintendo ratings bloat, honestly. Many titles like Metroid, Zelda, or 3D Mario more sincerely deserve the strong levels of acclaim they get. NSMB games are solid, but not exceptional in most cases, and I consider even those ratings too high.

Having said that, I think Superstars being between 75-80 is perfectly fine, as it's also where I'd put most of the NSMB titles as well. Mania deserves to be a low 90 IMHO, as the whole package comes together beautifully and is only held back by recycled elements (which are mostly utilized in very clever and unexpected ways), while something like Sonic 4 is a low 50 for ep 1 and a low 60 for ep 2.

I expect Mario Wonder will probably get higher ratings in the low 90s, but would probably fit better in the low to mid 80s. It does look good, and more fresh than past titles, but at the end of the day I'm still expecting the SMBU formula to still hold it back a bit.

Now games like Galaxy 2 and Odyssey? Classic Mario 64? They are iconic and deserve their places in gaming history, IMHO. Maybe Galaxy 1 and Sunshine a bit less so, though not by much for the former. 3D World and 3D Land would be in the low 80s for me. Both good, but far from great.

 

Oop, it's OC score increased to 76, now that's something

 

Here's some gameplay of Rabbit. What's really interesting is that they seem to be treating him as his own character to some degree? He's got the same abilities as Sonic, but with the unique animations and even his own icon. He's almost like an echo fighter from Smash.

 

"Sonic, you know him, you love him. Tails, flies higher than all the others. Knuckles, hits hards, glides further. Amy's got a passion to use her hammer. And, Sonic's cousin Max came as well...does whatever a hedgehog can do!"

 

SEGA please keep Yasuyuki Nagata for the team.

 

I think I'm going to like this game and I'm happy about it.

 

Just a reminder, If you post about how much you hate Jun's synth tracks, you're validating my own hatred of Tee Lopes' sound.

Being honest, standards are always way too high on everything. You can't have a just okay movie, a just okay game, or else people see it as wasting time (even though it's all wasting time) or it makes it so much easier for people to take whatever you make and paint it as the worst thing ever because nobody who thinks this way actually *does* check things out for themselves, and if they do, they look for the bad.

It's an actual fucking miracle that the impression from the initial footage of Frontiers didn't stick or lead to the same bad faith criticisms Forces got, like the Rerez Sonic Forces Positives episode.

 

Well reviews exist so to give people an impression about the game and scores are a way of quantifying that, but as with any piece of media, the quality is in the eye of the beholden. I know some people will say that's a cop out, but its the truth.

Mario will probably always sell and score far higher than Sonic, and sure that might give the impression that Sonic "sucks" and people are free to think that, but if people still enjoy Sonic despite it all, then the score is irrelevant.

We have people defending 06 for gods sake; after a brand has been around for a while, quality stops mattering. Just look at Pokemon as a series.

 

No one is validating your hate boner for Tee Lopes by pointing out the inconsistency of the soundtrack -- much of which might not even have been made by Jun Senoue anyway --, the short loops, the seemingly poor sound mixing etc. That, and Lopes was not in a managerial or directorial position for this game, unlike (apparently) Jun Senoue. You're entitled not to like Lopes' work, but saying posting about the synth tracks validates whatever it is that you feel about him is off-puting to say the least.

 

And what are you on about again?

 

Yeah, not getting the Tee Lopes hate at all

 

I guess my point is that more people are in control of the impressions, good and bad, than the work itself and people interacting with that work, even if the impressions aren't very well thought out, which there can be a lot of these days, and that alone kind of ruins any true relationship between people and a work.

 

The Final Horizon and Superstars are leading the charge heralding the game industry's return to NES-era horseshit difficulty spikes and I am all here for it

 

Superstars now stands at a "Strong" 77 (19 reviews) on OpenCritic, 68% of critics recommend.

Superstars is still at a "generally favorable" 75 on Metacritic (PS5, 27 reviews).

 

Frontiers and Superstars already had rather long dev cycles however. 4-5 years after Mania and Forces? A new game after 2 years of dev time (lets say 3 at most) could turn out excellent easy. They just need to stick to what they have already built. I imagine the pressure from Sega is to have more Sonic games coming out more frequently again

 

IGN gave Superstars a 7/10.

 

The comments seem pretty quick to call out the reviewer on misunderstanding what classic Sonic games are about, but I think there's still some merit to what they said in the video.

Obviously the classic games were ALWAYS about slower and sometimes tedious platforming, sprinkled in between speed sections where you go blazingly fast. And obviously the key to going faster is learning the stage layout and taking the right oaths. But the bosses DO look slow, and they DO look like they kind of play out the cutscenes and long periods of intangibility just to stretch out the battle. It's definitely a solution to damage boosting, but not the only solution, right? And the water stuff really does look pretty annoying at times. There's also some odd stuff that really grinds the game down to a halt, like the weirdly long wait time after you exit a special stage ring and you just spin in mid-air for a while.

The balance of speed and platforming is one thing I REALLY don't think I'll be able to gauge until I get my hands on the game. Watching this footage, it's still hard to tell.

Also, the absolute whiplash I've gotten from this game the past few days has been wild lol. Anyone else feel this? I saw something the other day that had me thinking this game was a disaster, suddenly today I'm thinking "huh, doesn't look that bad, and the reviews are pretty good so far". One day I'll be super disappointed about the music, the next day I'll see a video that changes me mind. It's so conflicting, I just hope it's fun.

 

I wish you could play as your custom multiplayer character in the single player stages. Would be fun to use Metal Sonic etc al.

 

While the game currently lies between a 75 - 77 on Metacritic-styled sites (MetaCritic - 75, OpenCritic - 77), it's been doing better when you avoid merging all these different opinions.

Using only the reviews published on MetaCritic (https://www.metacritic.com/game/sonic-superstars/critic-reviews/?platform=playstation-5):

- 9/10 (x4 / 89 is a 90 for cowards.)
- 8/10 (x12 - 13 / 79 is a 80 for cowards.)
- 7.5/10 (x3)
- 7/10 (x5)
- 6/10 (x4)
- 5/10 or Lower (x1)

...

Even if we won't count scores in the high 9's range, the coward numbers.


- 9/10 (x3)
- 8/10 (x12)
- 7.5/10 (x4)
- 7/10 (x5)
- 6/10 (x4)
- 5/10 or Lower (x1)

...

While when meshed together the game appears to be at a mere 75%, the game on the whole has more 7.5 - 8/10s or higher than anything lower.

The game's average in such case then would be within 7.5 - 9/10. So in that case, I don't know why I wasted my time doing all this. The site says itself, 17 Positive Scores, 9 Mixed.

 

Let's be real you're skewing the numbers there. 79 and 89 are 79 and 89, not 80 and 90. Further, I don't know if there were just no 6.5s, 8.5s or whatever, but I'd argue you may as well just lump the 7.5s in with the 7s. I do think it'd be fair to excise the 5 as anomalous though if you were trying to find an average rather than aggregate. At any rate, yeah there's definitely more 8/10s than anything else there and that's good to see.