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

I think that bosses being constantly vulnerable is good. Just give them more health so they're not dead in ten seconds, maybe with certain moments that can deal bonus damage.

 

Yeah, give them something like 16 HP at the very least. That'd help ease up things.

 

I'm going to keep it brief but it made no sense before because you'll grind every non-Sonic character to Max level and still get your butt handed to. If you want it to be still difficult, be Sonic. He does not have the same issues the characters do because he has quick enough movement and attacks to avoid a beating. It's balanced now because I still take a beating before I get my 3 or 4 hits in with Amy and Knuckles. I'm okay with that because I don't want to spend an eternity fighting a guardian.

 

It was bad before the patch and whilst improved post-patch, it's still bad now. They never should have considered making the combat borderline impossible or borderline worthless. The issue of combat with the alt characters in TFH is emblematic of Frontiers' totally confused and nonsensical gameplay design.

This is Sonic Team's biggest issue. They don't seem know how to create coherent and robust gameplay systems.

EDIT: What the fuck? This is the Superstars thread? I meant to click on the Superstars thread but thought I'd clicked on Frontiers by mistake. Apparently not... I ain't gonna continue this discussion here. If anyone wants to reply to what I've just said, do au in the Frontiers thread instead. Lol

 

Ironically, this is relevant to what I was about to post.

Sonic Team just made some major rebalancing fixes in the Frontiers DLC. It's stuff that originally made me ragingly mad, yet I'm all the same surprised that they actually listened and did fix it.

It's yet more proof that they have a weirdly robust post game support system that now 'heavily' relies on post game feedback. Maybe almost too much. It's obvious that some of these decisions should have been made before release with more extensive testing, but here we are.

All the same, does this mean rebalancing this game's issues are now actually possible?

If so? How? How do we fix the game's issues? What would an official improved Superstars actually look like now?

 

Well, opening up a boss' invincibility frames shouldn't be too complex, it's more the ones that have extremely long animations (especially those that move them away from where the player can hit them) that are a problem. You could speed these up, but they also contain attacks sometimes and I don't know how the pacing or programming of the fights are handled internally. There's also fringe cases like Frozen Base 1, where the boss is less of a problem than the arena. Maybe just make the bombs fall differently?

The solution to insta-kill hazards is...to simply not make them do that. Just do normal damage.

Honestly, if they just made those changes on the face of it, I'd be fine. Sure, half the OST being a little poor is a shame, but that's much more imminently fixable since there's a lot of fan composers who can do wonders with the tracks anyway.

There's no fixing co-op. This is because Sonic and co-op do not go together. Sure, online mode or being able to free-roam the stages might be nice, but at a certain point you're abandoning multiplayer for parallel play, which kinda misses the point.

Other than that...uh, make the robot parts cost less I guess? Also let me cancel emerald powers whenever I want. Little nitpicks like that. Superstars isn't bad enough of a game for me to have substantive criticism outside the bosses, I think.

 

They cannot release some type of DLC without fixing multiplayer or at least making it better. This is why most people bought the game in the first place and it was the worst feature in the game.

The boss battles need to be improved. I saw someone earlier say to make the bosses more vulnerable but with more hits which is a great idea but I do wonder how they are going to make that possible with Sandy Sanctuary and Golden Capital's bosses'.

I would say bring back Mighty and Ray but the character cast seems full already so add more villains to bring balance. I do think more stages and a new story explaining the purple dragon would be nice. Give my guy Knuckles his glide physics back from S3&K.

Make the emerald powers more meaningful besides allowing you to cheat through stages. For example, make them lead us to hidden chaos emerald special stages. Lastly, bring back the Super emeralds and the hyper forms and make the true final boss battle multiplayer.

 

Uh what? Says who? Multiplayer was a big part of the marketing, sure, but I'm not even sure there's a good way of knowing why people bought the game. Even if there was, I doubt it would be because of multiplayer.

 

I’m exaggerating because I (me, me, and me) want it to be better but I forget people cannot read sarcasm through messages but they do need to fix it. You cannot market something and make it the worst feature in the game. For a $60 game, the least they could do is make multiplayer playable without the camera issues. That’s not asking for too much.

 

So what do we do to avoid this forbidden "parallel play"? Add mechanics that force players to stick together? I'd argue that's even more antithetical to Sonic and is exactly the problem with Superstars' co-op already. I just don't see the issue with being able to play together without having to help or be dragged around by another player every two seconds.

 

This "parallel play" conferred by splitscreen and/or online co-op would be sweet. In the Discord call with the boys and kazz rolls past me. Hell yeah. Call it whatever term makes you feel better, but the prospect of it was the thing from the reveal trailer that had me the most interested. We do not have to cook up some way to avoid it. If it never appealed to you, you'd be just as able to not engage with it!

 

What, you think everybody here who's criticised the game is after a paycheque? Get real. I've been negative about Superstars because it's honestly been the least enjoyable Sonic experience I have had perhaps since Sonic 4 Episode 1. I think there are real problems with its level design, boss design and particularly pacing. Granted, not everybody agrees with me, and that's fine. I generally don't post too much in this topic these days because I don't want to become the guy who just drones on the same points and tells people to quit having fun, but it really isn't healthy for critical discussion to dismiss crticism of the game as some kind of engagement driven conspiracy. It's so easy to do that for opinions we don't agree with these days rather than actually engaging with them and I hate it.

 

Still a clickbait. I rest my case.

 

My dude, what the fuck are talking about? You made a reductive comment about the state of critical discourse surrounding this game, I offered my assessment as to why that's incorrect and reductive and you respond with...the same reductive comment, now made about my opinon? Do you realise how that sounds? Why would some no-name rando on a web forum like me give a single solitary shit about generating engagement on Sonic Retro of all places? What possible reason would I have for stating anything but my genuine thoughts and feelings on this game?

 

You guys are being weird. I'm not saying it's innately wrong to allow players to move independently on the map, just that it provides the coop very little opportunity for cooperation. The experience of independently traveling your own paths on one map and playing two copies of the singleplayer side-by-side are not dramatically different. There is real possibility that the beginning and end of stages are the only times the players would be together on-screen. Does that mean I think they should force the players together and do nothing to address this in an update? No, of course not. I just mean that from the devs' perspective, it makes sense that they wouldn't see the point in maintaining an online connection or cutting the fidelity/performance of a game that was already questionably-optimized for that.

I mean, I'm trying to think if I've ever had a decent co-op experience in any Sonic game, and the only thing that's really coming to mind is...Rise of Lyric.

 

It's okay to be critical of the game, but being biased about it is another.

 

Sonic YouTubers love to doom and gloom because negativity sells. It happens, like, every time Sega breathes. Hyperbolic "THIS GAME SUCKS" thumbnails get clicks and generate ad revenue in a way that positivity just doesn't.

 

Not only that but we're all Sonic fans here. I think the majority of us want to like every game they put out. Its cool that their are people who loved the game in its current state but I'm not one of them.

Anyone here who said they doesn't like the game and stated their reasons that can be backed up by the game, I will take at face value because there's no reason for us to lie.

Especially because I go into a Sonic game wanting to like it. It's not my fault I didn't.

 

You're talking nonsense at this point. Bias is inherent to human nature. The reason art is subjective in the first place because our opinions are a product of all our various biases and perceptions of what a piece of art or media should or shouldn't be, whether that's for our own tastes or the standards we believe that media should meet (the latter of these perhaps more relevant to Sonic discussion). There is not a single person here who can honestly claim to be both unbiased while also holding opinions about any given Sonic game. I have seen people who would try to do so, they're insufferable and only ever seek to invalidate the opions of others. If you like Superstars, good for you, but don't treat those of us who don't as if we're not real or don't have valid opinions and beliefs.