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

2-3 million sales for a budget title "did not sell well"?
You need context. You can't just throw out random numbers. What a dumb tweet.

 

I didn’t think we’d get such a straight forward answer so soon. This also explains everything. How unfortunate. I feel like they too only found out about the game at the reveal. Tee and other composers did their job and Jun wanted the world to hear his Sonic 4 Episode 3 tracks.

When we no longer got the Sonic 1/2/4 drums in Mania, I thought we had finally broken free.

 

Those are Mania's lifetime sales to date, while Superstars sold a quarter of that in just two days.

Basically, Superstars could outsell Mania in just a few short months, despite the fact that Superstars costs more and is generally considerably to be worse than Mania.

 

Is there a point to the maze bonus stage when you can get more medals in usually a few seconds from blue ring special stages? It seems like they wanted to copy how Mania had the blue spheres bonus stages but the medals there were exclusive to it and you got worthwhile unlockables from collecting them.

Just looking at the whole thread there gives a good hint that the context with that poster is that 2017 broke them and they’ve never recovered.
If they don’t make Frontiers 2 and instead make another Lost World I wonder what the asinine justifications for that would be from these types who can’t accept how inconsistent Sega is with handling Sonic and not letting success guide them.

 

I still haven't played it due to an unexpected circumstance I am dealing with. I basically have all my money tied up for an unexpected long travel across the countey and lots of lodging. Rolls eyes. This type of thing always seems to happen when there's a game I want to get. Happened when Metroid Dread came out too and that game along with this game I had planned on making day one purchases but alas no. But I will get it soon.

If this has harder bosses, I am all in.

I am really excited to play it. Super Mario Wonder too. But I am most excited for Superstars.

Sometimes I think it is beneficial to take a step back and consider this is what they wanted to make and 'they' in this case consists of Ohshima-san which is a huge deal, at least to me. So, I think some real thought went into this even if the game itself may not meet everyone's exact expectations or hopes. But, it is legitimate. It isn't a Sonic 4 scenario. So, I am thrilled to give it a shot.

I think what I have seen in videos reminds me of playing Sonic 1 for the first time all over again and I am thinking I feel this way because of some of the level designs. Keep in mind Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone are my two fave Sonic 1 levels. I know that isn't a popular opinion. I really like a lot of what I have seen here, though.

 

https://x.com/Axanery/status/1715049294074466472?s=20

Thread of things being datamined from the game, including potential future skins. Really neat that there's stuff like + - NiGHTS parts   for battle mode - shame hardly anybody will ever see them because of the EGS trash and battle mode apparently not being much good at all anyway.

 

Love how the cross play functionality is only between EGS and Steam.

 

Trip's name in the files being Brie, aname that exists, just calls back to that "Knuckles' name must be Jamal" tweet(? I think it was a tweet). Sonic looked at her stumbling around and being a mess and said "lmao Trip you are" like a high school boy would.

 

So I've beaten it the main campaign on Steam and am slowly working my way through the Trip campaign this weekend...

A few thoughts...
1. The stage design actually stays pretty solid throughout all the zones, save a slight decline with Egg Fortress being more gimmicky, but even then I've been pleasantly surprised by how many paths and secrets are still in that relatively narrow stage. Little things like golden badnik placement, giant ring placement, and token placements are overall quite clever, even if they will quickly be redundant once you unlock most battle suits.

2. However, this is not S1-3K, Mania design. This is 100% Sonic CD's evolution. As someone who has literally been modding CD recently in the RSDK engine and studying its maps quite closely (and also seeing how chunks were actually organized), I now more deeply understand the way those stages work, and this is a natural evolution of that philosophy without the messiness caused by having to compensate for time travel. The incentive to explore is very, very strong, and I found myself naturally doing it. And all the stages are rather large, I'd say many are even comparable to somehthing as massive as Titanic Monarch in Mania. Large and complex, with multiple paths, several options for exploring more deeply as Tails and Knuckles, all around good stuff. I was initially very skeptical, but for lack of a better word, I "get" it here. Skilled speedrunners can still do some impressive stuff, but exploration and platforming are emphasized a lot more, without the designs being quite as sloppy or lazy as something you'd see in Sonic Colors, or as cheap as the dimps games, thankfully.

3. Physics are not a 1/1 match for the originals, but they are close enough that my muscle memory instantly adapted with no issues.

4. I didn't have too much trouble with the game's difficulty, personally, though I can see how others will. Getting the emeralds early and opening up all super forms and emerald abilities early made a huge difference. But I only died against the final boss about 3 times, for example. I also deliberately reset the stage to ensure I had an option for super forms going into the cyber boss. And some of the bosses (Press factory) you can cheese pretty effectively still, just not as quickly as in S1-3K/Mania, which I can understand the frustration over. The Golden Zone boss was probably the most annoying one, though I still only died about 3 times. There really is a 'gitgud' component to speedrunning these, though it doesn't mean I'd disapprove of checkpoints either. They are more stressful to play even when you know exactly what you're doing.

5. I've already spoken on the music a lot. I'll only say that, again, I like a lot of the tunes, just not the instrumentation. It's a soundtrack that could've been excellent if it was just cooked a bit longer. The whole thing just seemed rushed, sadly. I'll await the inevitable anti-Sonic 4 remix Music mods to fix this and be content with that.

6. Trip's stage designs are much harder, and the bosses seem to have double the hits. I think this challenge is meant more for someone with my skill level, so I expect to be more frustrated here as I play, but I'm prepared for it. I like Trip herself, but don't like how slow her super form is. She should have an optional dash attack in super dragon mode.

7. For those curious, if you beat the normal campaign as Trip, she doesn't get a special ending cutscene there like the main 4. You have to beat the final boss 4 times to see all the different animated versions.

Overall? I still really like the game, and will probably end up replaying the main campaign once with each character (without swapping) eventually. I'm genuinely happy to get fresh classic content that doesn't recycle any stages, though I must admit the rise in prominent fan developers has worn down the nostalgia for me now. I already am getting the Sonic experience I dreamed of with mods or fangames, so this doesn't quite fill the void for new classic content that I used to have. I'd still love a sequel to this title, but it has to sell well for that to work. And it will definitely need changes going forward in things like music and difficulty options.

I'm going to push through Trip's mode, beat the Last Story, then probably give the game a break and give Mario Wonder a full playthrough for comparison's sake.

 

I finished the game as Amy last night, and I liked it so much I wonder if I've been too harsh on Sonic CD in retrospect and should give it another chance. No glitches, no soundtrack complaints, liked all the stages (especially Golden Capitol), looking forward to checking out the battle mode at some point. Sega did great here.

 

2-3 million for a budget title is good and make a nice profit, but most Sonic games that aren't absolute trash or a niche spin-off make those numbers eventually, and are priced higher. For a highly-rated, $20 Sonic game, that's not particularly big numbers.

The context is that Superstars can sell as many copies or even less than Mania and net Sega an even bigger profit than Mania did. This reality is why Superstars is 2.5D--there's a limit to how much pixel-art games can sell. Sega wants to sell $60 Sonic games, and to do that, you have to at least look "modern".

Superstars is probably already struggling to sell well at $60. It won't hit its stride until the holidays. Such a situation would be worse for Mania.

After Adventure, they made Adventure 2. After Advance, they made Advance 2 and 3. After Unleashed, they made Colors and Generations. They even wanted to make a sequel to Mania.

Sega is good for at least one follow-up to a successful game. Lost World is an anomaly, but I'm convinced they truly, genuinely believed that the boost formula hit a plateau, and Forces and perhaps ironically Frontiers reinforce this theory.

Never has Sega and Sonic Team been more adamant about a game being the foundation of the franchise than with Frontiers, and its runaway success ensures we'll get a follow-up. The Final Horizon was pretty much them already making a sequel. They know how to follow success. It's failure where they... fail... at.

 

Let's not take some girl's speculation that Mania sold 2-3 million as gospel. We have no idea how well it sold. All Sega ever said was that as of April 2018 (about 5.5 years ago) it had sold "over one million" copies. But that was before it was ever released physically. It's been a mainstay at retail ever since, so the fact retailers keep stocking it would seem to indicate it's been a consistent seller, at least. Still, it could have sold much more than 2-3 by now, or it could have sold less. Only Sega knows!

 

It might be canonically something similar to Chip from Unleashed.

 

With these confirmations, I'm now fully convinced that Tee Lopes and Rintaro Soma should have been the duo to create Sonic Superstars' entire soundtrack, because I.M.O. they both made the best tracks in the game hands down. Most of the tracks by the other people don't hit nearly as hard for me, I find circa half of this game's soundtrack rather forgettable or annoyingly repetitive and undercooked, some tracks are just outright bad to me. Very disappointing to have a soundtrack of fluctuating quality like this, and the boss tracks in particular are a huge let down; so generic, lacking punch, energy and memorability. Such painfully wasted potential for a consistently banger soundtrack.

 

So I've just pissed away another hour or so trying to fight Trip's final boss some more, which also forced me to go through Egg Fortress Act 2 again. I tried to keep an open mind as I did so and see if I could find the joy others are getting, but it was just as cheap as the first few times I played it - particularly the swordfish missile badniks, which exhibit zero consistency as to whether they will or won't hit you when going in reverse. I suspect that somebody flubbed their hitboxes so the back end hits you rather than the sharp front end.

Anyway, the final boss is still just atrociously bad. I have phase one down to a tee at this point and can do it without taking a hit most times. Most of phase two is fine, but the bouncing balls can be unpredictable and the web to cork shot attack is basically a death knell if you get caught in it any time after the first attempt. Worst of all is the headslam attack at the start of the third part of the second phase. I'd avoided the arms, but the head slammed down far too fast to the point that I wasn't able to activate slow despite knowing what was coming. I'm baffled as to how anyone has managed to beat this abomination and, if nothing else, I'd advise against buying the game in its current state at any price given the not insignificant odds that you literally just won't be able to finish it.

EDIT:

Spoiler

I can only shout "fuck you" over and over again. I never want to see this crime against humanity again.

 

I just want to point out that multiplat releases tend to sell best on consoles, the Switch on particular (at least from my own experience and the experience of other indie devs I've talked about this with). I imagine Mania sold a few million copies on Switch alone between digital and physical editions.

 

Having finished the story mode I can confidently say Superstars' level design is absolutely nothing like Sonic CD, and I'm repeating myself here. I'll defend Superstars is, in fact, a child of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, which is already entirely different from Sonic 1 and 2:

• Probably the most important: the objective structure is a direct "modernization" of S3&K. That means what the game asks of you, and how you will read the elements on the screen (what they are for, how alluring they will feel), will be, mutatis mutandis, closest to S3&K. That is: there is a main objective -- defeat the boss at the end of the stage -- and multiple points of interest scattered throughout the stage that you must find. Sonic CD does not have that: it has one point of interest, which you can still entirely ignore and reach the end of the stage. So how you will read the level layout comes from S3&K, not 1, 2 or CD (maybe 2, a bit):
  • This also means any incentive for exploration, that is, actively diverting from the main objective, feels exactly like S3&K. You'll either look for multiple points of interest related to the good ending, or the extras not really related to the main progression, or for rings because they'll help you survive the boss;
• The levels are often really focused on a readable moment-to-moment gameplay. Sections you can't or at least shouldn't repeat, like the rollercoasters in Pinball Carnival or the storm in Sky Temple, are hallmarks that resemble Sonic 3 & Knuckles' set pieces a lot more than any other 16-bit Sonic game: the game is full of Moments that define the stage. Press Factory Act 2 is just a more hardcore version of Sandopolis Act 2 at heart, and no other classic Sonic game has that kind of approach, forcing you to speedrun a level whose layout is opposed to that. But even without actual set pieces or overarching gimmicks, Superstars divides its levels in very clear sections. While Sonic CD sometimes opens with what is very clearly a section with a beginning and an end, the rest of the levels aren't that easily dividable in "routes" because you're actually circling around most of the time even if you're not pursuing time travel etc., and the levels don't lend themselves to streamlining much. You'll often reach dead ends or hit spring that seem to lead you nowhere really; it's like the level doesn't know or care where you're going, and kind of gets in your way, whereas S3&K and Superstars do know, all the time. Ring trails that lead somewhere else are common (like other items or other paths), making the stage feel very tailored to moments that will be fun to go through. In Sonic CD, ring placement feels particularly random, like things you have to go out of your way to get and that exist in spite of the level;
• The layouts of most Superstars levels have higher and lower routes without that many structural differences between them. Bridge Island and Speed Jungle are notable exceptions. The elements you'll see in any path you choose won't change very much, they'll just be more sparse/streamlined or more cluttered. As a result, there's a heavy focus on running, because solid ground will never be that scarce as you go up, and running up or down walls is very common in most stages. Not that this isn't present in Sonic CD, mind you, but this is very important in S3&K. Think Flying Battery! Or Hidrocity! Or Launch Base! Or Marble Garden!
• Because it's more streamlined in terms of objectives and structures, Superstars oftens lets itself change the general orientation of the level, i.e.: go left or up as a rule. Sky Temple, Golden Capital, Lagoon City, Cyber Station and, if I'm not insane, Sand Sanctuary all do that. Even Speed Jungle does in Trip's story, although Trip's story is a different beast altogether;
• S3&K has built in itself the perspective that you can use innate abilities to reach points of interest, even if those abilities are temporary. This kind of approach is extremely important in S3&K, because not everything is reachable just with pinball physics. This is the reason why Bullet is so vital in Superstars: it denies the physics system the ability to stop you from reaching whatever you want. It suspends Sonic's normal, strictly momentum-based tools for exploration, which Tails' and Knuckles' ability also do. And even the elemental shields do! Sonic 1, Sonic 2 and Sonic CD never, ever have that. If there is something on the screen, it can be reached with whatever you have now as Sonic. If it can be reached, it must be through manipulating the physics system and, in some way, it depends on finding enough speed and jumping from somewhere you can actually go instead of resetting the stage and getting another path from the start. Superstars is the opposite of that, and Pinball Carnival is the level where this is most obvious;
• Y'all saw Naoto Oshima's name and automatically defaulted to Sonic CD, but the one guy who we know worked on Superstars' level design is Iizuka, who was a level designer in S3&K.

All in all it makes zero sense to think of Superstars as a descendant of Sonic CD's approach to level design just because it uses discrete elements from that game.

EDIT: Now of course Superstars will share similarities with CD, or with any other mainline 2D Sonic game we think of. CD has Metallic Madness Act 2, too, which has most things I've attributed to 3&K and Superstars here. But to say the general philosphy isn't borrowed from S3&K primarily looks misguided to me.

 

Thanks for that detailed write-up. My favorite game is CD. I love its layouts, levels and bosses, to death. When I played this game I agreed with the CD comparisons but on the positive side. But your reasons are fair and accurate. This game deserves a place between CD and 3&K as the second/third best platformer *ever* made.

 

It may have looked like I was shitting on CD, but it's my favorite too! I love absolutely everything about it. I wish Superstars was more like it, especially on the level's more... carefree? attitude towards Sonic, even if it feels chaotic and annoying. Superstars isn't nearly as annoying.

 

So I finally beat Trip's final boss and unlocked the last story and...

I'm done.

Congratulations, Sonic Superstars. You're the first Sonic game to get me to just give up. I've not played all of them, but I've played many and they've run the gamut of quality. The originals, 8-bit Sonic 2, Chronicles, Frontiers' Final Horizon. None of them managed to just run out my patience like this game has. I don't remember the last time I played video game with such little respect for my time as Superstars has.

Spoiler

Before diving into why this boss just sucks to play...what even is it? Why is it here? I mean, yeah, it was foreshadowed in Trio of Trouble and the drawings on the wall in Egg Station, but like...it has fuck all to do with anything. Eggman, so far as I can tell, isn't even around to try and capture this dragon or...do whatever he wanted to do with it. There's no reason for the dragon to have beef with Sonic or anyone. It just...pops up out of the ground. It's like the whole thing came from a different game.

With regards to the gameplay itself...it's actually not nearly as trying as the Eggman and Fang final bosses, but it's also just so brainless. Hit the blue meteor back at it for extra damage, but the crystal net and spinning ball attacks are of absolutely no consequence because they don't damage you and you can't damage the boss during these anyway (surprise, surprise) so it's not like they're impeding you from your primary goal. The shit comes in with those blackholes though. Conceptually, they're already not great. Super Sonic is already slipping around like butter so avoiding they make for some pretty cheap hits...except they're not hits. They're instakills. Seriously, what is it with this game and instakill bullshit? The boss would be inoffensively mediocre if these blackholes just took some rings as certain other attacks from previous Super Sonic bosses do, but Ohshima and co. have such a hard on for screwing over first time players that they're placed with reckless abandon during the endgame.

There's also the fact that the dash move costing rigns to use is horribly communicated, with not even a "ker-ching!" sound effect as in Mania. I mean I learned it soon enough when wondering why I was starting the fight with so few rings, but ultimately it's just bad design.

God, I'm finally feeling what Laura was feeling with Sonic Frontiers. People here are eating this up but it's just...atrocious to me. If Sonic 4 is a parasite poorly disguised behind the visage of the original games, Superstars is that parasite becoming smarter. It's heard the incessant cries for Mega Drive-accurate physics and bosses that don't fold like paper, but the way Superstars tries to deliver on these wants betrays a lack of understanding of why the original games and Mania work so well. The physics are good but the level designs have little flow and, at their worst, punish you for going fast. The bosses put up a fight now, but so many of them blindside the player with do-or-die bullshit, combine with glacial animations that make fighting them an absolute chore.

And on top of this there's just how half-baked the game is in so many areas emblematic in the game's setting and story. Trip is marketed as an accomplice of Eggman and we all knew she would join Sonic and friends in the end but...she never gets a chance to be an antagonist. There's no explanation in game as to why she's hanging around Eggman and Fang, so god knows how this all plays out for those who haven't seen the suplemental material. There's no boss fight, not even a joke one to reveal that she's actually harmless and not really out to menace anyone, so her swapping sides just...happens with no meaning or impact. There's just nothing to her. apart from a neat design + - and even that is ruined by whatever the hell Super Trip is supposed to be   .

Add to all this the wonky structure of the game, the unremarkable graphics (albeit with good character animation in areas) and the inconsistent soundtrack, and the whole thing is just a mess. I was hesitant when Superstars was first announced because neither Evening Star nor Headcannon were attached to it. That wariness gave way to growing optimism as more and more came out. Ohshima was on board, someone who was integral to the classics and had experience directing one of these games already. Whitehead vouched for the physics, which we later learned were thoroughly tested to make sure everything was just right. The level design was far less of a vertical runaround than CD, with distinct gimmicks and the branching paths we've come to expect of 2D Sonic. But even with all that, it just wasn't to be.

I remember saying not long before release that the game would really have to go off the rails to be anything less than a thoroughly good Sonic game. And, by god, it sure did go off the rails. I feel so disappointed and like this whole thing has played me for a fool in a way that Forces and its marketing could never hope to manage. I don't really think a Sonic game (or perhaps any game) has made me feel this way before. I mean, I'm on this ride probably for the rest of my life, so it's not like I'm done with Sonic or anything, but if this gets a sequel? I don't think I'll bite. I've seen what Ohshima and Arzest have to offer 2D Sonic and I just don't think it meets the standard.

Ironic, then, that Evening Star is credited in the staff roll, just above the message thanking us for playing.