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

Hold up- are the shaders dynamically compiled once or are they dynamically recompiled every time? Either way, I don't see how that takes any less work from programmers than just compiling a binary one time and leaving it the heck alone.

Ridiculous! Completely ridiculous!

 

The way games use shaders is they are dynamically compiled at runtime, that's the purpose of a shader. The reason they can't just pre-compile and ship with the game is because shaders take information about the system they are running on. For example, a shader might need to know the resolution the game is running on, or the amount of VRAM available, or any other number of variables about the system it's running on. On a console, all these variables are static, it's fixed hardware, so they can ship the shader blobs with the game since the environment variables will never change.

On PC, this isn't how it works. Different hardware configurations will mean different compiled shader blobs, and depending on how the shader is written (shaders have different kinds of variables they take into consideration, like uniform variables, which are handled by the CPU, or vertex buffer objects, which are baked into the VAO and reside in VRAM), there can be millions of permutations of shader blobs, which are impossible to ship.

The reason Steam and Linux gets around this, is because Steam has crowd-sourcing technology built into it all over. One of the many, many things Steam crowd-sources, is spir-v shader blobs. When someone runs a vulkan game in steam, Steam takes their compiled shader blob, and stores it on their server. The idea is when someone else plays the game on matching hardware, Steam will recognize this, and instead of having them compile shaders in-game, they'll download and store the shader instead. With hundreds of millions of people who use steam, it gets around the permutation problem because there is a very, very good chance someone out there in the world has the same configuration as you and played the same game.

This means, A) As time goes on, and more people play the game, in linux on steam, shader compilation problems go away, and B) the more popular a game is, the less likely it is to have the problem.

Just to note: This doesn't *completely( solve the problem. There can be instances where there could be a near infinite number of permutations of shaders, depending on how they are used and what sort of uniforms/VBOs/etc are attached. And in those instances, dynamic compilation is the only choice. But for the vast, vast majority of games, this fixes the problem.

As for your comment about "programmers leaving it the heck alone" -- many do that. There are lots of games which will cache shaders now. The problem is if anything in the game changes -- you change the resolution, or it downloads and update or whatever, the cache is purged and needs to be recompiled. This is why in many games, the performance gets better the longer you play, like in Elden Rings. It's caching the shaders.

When Balders Gate3 launched, a bunch of articles were written about how Valve had "Fixed" the steam deck release. That's not actually true. What happened is the Steam deck, using Linux, had access to Shader pre-caching, and thus the shader sutter went away. Playing BG3 on a Linux Desktop had the same "fix" as the Steam Deck, and so does playing the Windows version using Vulkan. It wasn't that the Steam Deck was fixed, it's that it's a platform that has a large user base on static hardware, so many could enjoy the shared shaders. As more people played the desktop linux or windows vulkan version, slowly their shader cache built up, and those now also take advantage of this feature. It's honestly one of the most killer features of steam at the moment, and is the main reason I play PC Games on linux, not Windows.

 

I see I am not alone so cheers! Although, I like it more than CD by a little and I omitted Game Gear games and haven't played the Advance games myself. Although, Sonic 2 8-bit I think of as the best of those GG/MS games.

 

I guess I'm less of a completionist. I consider rolling credits beating the game, and anything after that as bonus/extra. Would I have preferred switching the order of Trip's story and Last Story? Sure. But if Trip's story makes me enjoy the game less I'm just not gonna play it, and won't lose sleep over missing one or two extra (annoying) bosses. But that's just me.

 

Yeah, I get the complaints that it's kinda mandatory, I suppose. Definitely should have been independent from the final story. Just not that huge a deal to me. Personally, I'd prefer if it was harder level design not catered to any specific character, and they change the lighting or colors and make it a proper encore mode.

 

I’m so pissed that Apple still gets no respect. I would like to play the game on my Mac Mini, but I have to use an ancient (but maxed out) Dell laptop, like I did with Mania. I can’t justify buying an entire console I don’t need just for a couple Sonic games.

 

Apple doesn't get respect, because apple is outright hostile to game development. The reason game developers don't support apple, is because in their pursuit of doing things "their way," they will exclude the way everyone else does things. This creates situations where you have to do more work to create bespoke apple versions of things, in contrast to the trend everwhere else which is to unify development. Apple's practices are the exact opposite of the way gamedev has been trending for the last 15 years, which is to make the porting process as seamless and invisible to the developer as possible. Not to mention apple is not at all shy about just ripping out some essential technology that huge swathes of their developers depend on and saying "deal with it." They've done it multiple times.

Consider this, from my linux development PC, I can reach just about any target through GCC or Clang, even modern consoles. BUT NOT APPLE PRODUCTS. No, for an iOS version, I am *required* to have a separate Mac development platform, that I *only* use for Mac development. It's infuriating and balloons development costs for small developers, and that's why Apple is always left out. End users might not see it, but apple is *awful* for devs. Like, bar none, the absolute worst computer company, unless you're just all-in on Apple environment exclusively.

The hardware in your Mac Mini could probably play modern games just fine. It's the tech stack that apple employs that keeps games off your computer, not the hardware. Blame Apple.

 

I hear ya. I still hate it. I’m glad this Dell that was “old” in 2014 is pretty bulletproof except it runs like molasses. I did do a thorough clean up which has helped immensely, but it takes like 10 minutes to open Steam after startup. Once it’s going it’s fine. I’ve never had a laptop last this long, so I should be thankful

 

It's just a sore spot for me. I spent many years working on something using OpenGL specifically so I could hit Mac support, only for them to deprecate OpenGL just as I was ready to release the thing. And while deprecating OpenGL didn't mean it no longer worked, it did mean I was tied to a dying platform thanks to Apple's decision to not support an industry standard. Combined with the low user base compared to other platforms, and it just isn't worth it for me, when it *should* be worth it. Linux has a much smaller userbase than OSX or iOS, but I support Linux development because it's essentially a flipped ideology. I write something for linux, and it runs on *everything*. I write something for Apple, and it only runs on Apple. Despite their public perceptions, linux development is so much easier to support than Apple stuff, because in Linux, "it just works" from a developer's perspective these days. I can take my windows application and, literally, with 0 work, it runs in Linux now. And vice versa.

Mac development should be just like that! But it's not, it's purposefully bespoke.

 

Part of my bugbear with Trip's "story" is that it completely misunderstands what Knuckles' story was narratively: a denouement to Sonic and Tails'. In Superstars, the second playthrough has none of that connective tissue, it just haphazardly swaps out Eggman for an Egg Robo and gives Trip a new final boss. Then again, Superstars has the most barebones, surface level plot since...god, Sonic 4 (with Episode Metal and Episode II playing out its narrative much more competently), so it's not really surprising. I guess it's part of this game seemingly being rushed to market, because Trip's story does present the germ of a good idea - have her go through the stages again, but this time reflecting the changes that happened in them already where appropriate (Bridge Island 1 has an underwater section at the end after the fish badnik totalled the place, Egg Fortress is powered off and has an entirely different vibe), with Fang appropriating the trashed bosses Sonic and co. fought but using them in different ways to basically provide different boss fights. Ah well...

 

Shaders compile differently depending on the machine specs, so you can't precompile and ship them with the game.
They don't recompile every time you play the game, only once. But they do typically compile only when you encounter them in the game for the first time (as opposed to when you launch the game for the first time)

 

Is it unreasonable if I complain about the loading times?

 

The first half of this game was incredible. Love the level design and gimmicks/objects implemented. Glad to see a classic game try new things.

Press Factory was a nightmare as were a good portion of the later levels in the game. Egg Fortress was so brilliant in terms of level design (until the boss that is). I spent 3 hours fighting that boss and it was just so drawn out and slow.

The bosses could be amazing with minor tweaks to streamline them. The game takes great bosses and makes them frustrating and overly long.

I hope they patch the boss fights.

The post game was not even worth it for me. When I go to replay this game I'll just play the 60-70% that I really liked.

Also I don't see the incentive for medals, it's a robot avatar for battle mode only? Why bother?

It's a shame because the game started off so strong and could be so much better.

 

Initial UK physical sales stats:

• Debuted at #4 on the charts, behind Spider-Man 2, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and EA Sports FC 24
• The majority of sales came from the Switch version. 49% Switch, 34% PS5, 10% Xbox, 4% PS4
• Sales are 63% lower compared to Frontiers, though it should be noted Frontiers was a much bigger-budget release
• GamesIndustry.biz's author predicts Sega's plan for Superstars might be to take advantage of upcoming Black Friday sales promotions

Nothing that seems too out of the ordinary, I'd say.

 

Hot take: bosses are good, enjoyed most of them, they are definitely more memorable than a lot of classic bosses, some of them for the wrong reasons but hey

Also the 2nd story mode's difficulty was little overblown, expected something way worse, way harsher, all i got was some new obstacles but it didn't feels some insurmountable kaizo level difficulty or anything, it also helps that even if i die -and this goes for the main campaign too-, there is no penalty, no loss of lives, no having to go through 2 acts again , nothing like that, it's minor annoyances at best, only the final boss offer a real challenge

and another hot take, the final boss here was good, better than the 1st final boss -which i liked too-, he takes a long time, and he is super punishing, but all his attacks are super clear, they get you the first time, but once that happens, you know what happens, it's easy to deal with them, and even find new ways to deal with them if you are brave enough which i liked, the way the 2nd phase have an attack that just + - breaks the camera/ tv screen   was hilarious and mean-spirited in a way that i liked



Now for the final final true boss, that boss was just taking the piss, legit 10 minutes endeavor at minimum, and he is in fact so easy, but so long, cause he is just waiting in the background, he knows since you re super sonic, your rings goes down, his attacks rather than damaging you, they are designed to hinder you from collecting more rings.

He is smart, the smartest boss in sonic series yet, he knows super sonic weakpoint and he is sure abusing it to his benefit

and while i thought rings spawning are tied to RNG, i found out that the most amount of rings do come when you avoid attacks for 1 minute and + - Amy give you a lot of ring boxes   , so avoiding attack do in fact benefit you even if you are invincible to any damage

But you know what's bullshit? as i was trucking along just fine, i reached the final phase, it's clear what i should do, i do it, but...it doesn't work? i do press the button on the right time, but another rock comes at me with no lock on for some reason? no matter how much i succeed at hitting the first rock, the 2nd one always hit me for some reason and i can do nothing about it?

Turns out this was a glitch, an ill-timed one that caused me a whole attempt, out of no fault of mine, the game actively locked me out of winning this phase and just let me die cause rings kept draining.

Needed to do another attempt and to my surprise the last phase worked without issues this time, went so fast, which made me realize something

The final boss wasn't the final boss, it was the game itself.

Also had another glitch between phases, but this one was just funny, it momentarily locked me in a "death" pose/animation, but afrer a while it just kept going normally, was a death jumpscare tho

https://streamable.com/4c15vm

the game just shit itself here, trying it's hardest to just work, it's funny too cause most of my playtime was relatively glitch-free, only one i had before that was when i was playing Lagoon City, i was out of water, but suddenly, i was walking slowly, for some reason, and drowning countdown appeared out of nowhere , no bubbles since i was out of water which just meant certain death.


Anyway....still very good game! needed more polish though, also the way the final true boss literally appears out of nowhere, with no build up or anything, just makes it really feel like a secret boss you know, so those who are feeling the 2nd campaign is "mandatory", it really is not, both that playthrough and the "true" final boss still feels like side extra things that you are free to ignore if you don't feel like it, no proper climax or anything

 

I stared at the game behind the case in the store earlier today. I probably could have bought it, but I was too busy kidding myself thinking I'm ever gonna have a PS5 and Spider-Man 2 first.

 

So just got my physical import copies from Amazon UK, and on PS5 the comic skins code is region locked.

 

I'm just going to sum all this up by saying that, the more time I see reactions and analysis of the game, the more clear it is that they ran out of either time, money, or both.

Something went very, very wrong in the game's latter part of development. A lot of the lesser soundtracks come across purely as placeholder, and more closely match those beta tracks. The difficulty spikes do not seem like it was ever properly playtested and balanced, and the latter half of the game does use a lot more shortcuts to create content that keeps you playing for longer.

Maybe the price was raised and the publisher mandated more playtime, which led to a rush in creating content and padding? Maybe this was supposed to be a 30-40$ title, but SEGA insisted on a full priced holiday release? Even the co-op itself does not seem to be something the game was originally anticipated, but was rather added in late in development. Battle mode has an interesting core concept, but is very shallow in execution. Maybe the team expected a spring or summer 2024 release date, but were told to push it up to October 2023 to prep for a holiday release.

Both Origins and Frontiers seem to have had similar behind the scenes turmoil at the last minute, with origins being a glitchy mess, and frontiers having a very rushed and seemingly incomplete last 1/3 that was far less than what was originally planned for the game (there's strong evidence of a 4th and final island with a completely different theme having been originally planned, but instead Kronos Island was split into 3 parts). Post release support has gone a long way to improve both, but we don't know if Superstars will get any of that kind of support at this point.

There's truly a solid foundation beneath this title. The core engine was well made (aside from poor nerfed Knuckles). A lot of the initial stage design follows most of the principals and ideas we've been asking Sega to do in 2D Sonic for years, and I wouldn't fault anyone who liked the main campaign's level design as much as any other classic title.

But... something just... went off the rails at certain points. The story is a mess. The final final boss is messy. The difficulty is unblanaced and seems poorly tested. The music is vastly incomplete. Co-Op is poorly utilized despite being heavily advertised. Battle Mode seems incomplete.

 

Development issues and a rushed release for a Sonic game?
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you

 

…is this why I was constantly overshooting jumps in the first 20 min? I assumed something about the translation from 2D to 2.5D was causing me to misjudge things.

Also, has anyone else noticed the pretty long input buffer? You can press jump a good bit before you land and your character will jump again. It’s not as egregious as Frontiers’ where I have to actively play around it, but there are a few instances where it’ll fuck me up.