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

I'm curious as to why you say "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." Really? What Sonic games have you played in between that time? There are at least 5 experiences or more that I can list that Superstars is a lot better than despite some of the negative feedback it has gotten. You have Sonic 4 Episode 2, Sonic Boom (all of them), Sonic Lost World, Classic Sonic in Generations, Sonic Forces, Team Sonic Racing, and Sonic Colors (has mixed reviews too). Sonic Superstars has a 73 metacritic score which is higher than some games we consider all-time greats. The user score is also 8.8.

 

I see a lot of negative youtube titles for Superstars and Frontiers update 3 but I just looked up dream team and

"Dream team is my favorite Sonic game of 2023"

"Dream Team IS Adventure lite"

"Dream team is only held back by being a phone title"

I'm sure you can find a couple negative ones but these are all positive. I think people want to praise games they like and enjoy. Superstars and Frontiers Update 3 got negative titles because of people who genuinely felt negative about them.

I know Superstars has a lot of positive press and youtube titles too, but I think just diminishing any criticism or distaste towards the game as "clickbait" is diminishing and objectively not true.

 

That's fair, but my point stands.

 

Not that I have to prove myself, but Colours, Generations, S4E2, Forces, Mania and Frontiers. I get the sense you're missing the point by bringing up metacritic scores and such. I don't really care about those because they have literally zero bearing on my experience and enjoyment. This game could be a 100 or a 0 and I'd still feel exactly the same way about it. By bringing up the scores in what I'm inferring to be refutation to my opinion, you're putting the numbers before mine or anyone else's experience with the game, be that experience good or bad. Maybe I'm being uncharitible, but it's coming off as saying that I'm wrong for not liking Superstars because it's got high numbers, which is contrary to the reality of cause and effect that Superstars has high numbers because on aggregate people like it. If you want to actually know what I feel this way, feel free to do a Ctrl+F of my name through this thread. As I said a few posts ago, I don't want to become one of those guys just making the same points ad nauseum, nor do I really care to type out all that negativity at length again.

 

I vote we bring back the ring tether from chaotix so you can drag your deadweight noob friend around like a rock. Everyone will LOVE that.

 

And that's okay.

But fair point, it's hard to imagine the devs going the extra mile for this project in just about any respect.

 

Advance 3 already showed co-op worked just fine. The huge multi-tier stage design typical of Sonic games allow for exploration. In Advance 3 specifically, they were gigantic and there were several instances where novice players could tag along with experienced players and learn the ropes, or use the co-op abilities to get help. The Chao treasure hunt was another component in that game when you had more than one player seeking them out. Side objectives/collectibles have always been a thing since CD and 3 to encourage exploring off the the beaten path. Giant Rings, Metal Projectors, Robot Teleporters, Red Rings, Medals, etc. Having these scattered throughout the stages and having the group split up to seek these out is another gameplay opportunity. Hell, you don't even need to specifically design a goal, people could just come up with impromptu racing if you just let them.

With Naoto Ohshima back on board as a producer, I was hoping he would try to influence the game to be more like Sonic CD in terms of large levels filled with different routes and gimmicks you would encounter just for fucking around. Have a return of a side objective type deal like the projector/generator. Something with CD influence would be perfect to just run around, fuck around and find out. But it seems like it's just a standard adventure. Co-op really just seems like it was slapped on here as a last minute idea to make it stand out.

 

Get Dimps on board to help Arzest and Sonic Team develop Sonic and the Amazing Mirror.

 

Honestly I think being more like CD is not a good thing and, for as much shit as I give this game, I’m very grateful that’s not the case because. I don’t feel like I’m fucking around in CD, I feel like the game is fucking me around. There are so many points in CD where I feel like there’s no flow to the level design whatsoever and/or I’m actively fighting it to make progress. Superstars’ level design is at least a big step up from that. It’s telling that Press Factory 1, possibly the best level in the game conceptually, falls down by having the level design work against the player like a less aggressive version of Wacky Workbench.

Furthermore, CD’s level design only somewhat works because, in theory, it has a very different gameplay loop to traditional Sonic games in that you’re supposed to be exploring for time warp posts and then exploring for generators. As a result, gameplay involves a lot of back and forth. Superstars wouldn’t be better for having CD-esque level design not just because CD’s level design is a farce, but because Superstars’ exploration incentive as the same as other traditional Sonic games’: to find optimal routes.

I think a game with CD’s level design and Superstar’s bosses would leave me a broken, babbling, sobbing mess, rocking back and forth in a corner.

 

A Metroidvania where half of the map or more is a bottomless pit

 

It took me a minute to realize what was going on there but it's a little annoying that nothing was actually changed within the game settings to achieve the effect.

I really wish that video's title wasn't something people said as a serious criticism (in general), because it seems to be said the most about games that actually have mostly original assets and careful consideration for screen readability in relation to whatever style they're going for. an example I remember someone making the same statement that isn't Superstars would be the Pokemon Diamond/Pearl remakes, which are probably genuinely some of the best looking Pokemon games I've ever seen just in terms of overall quality (maybe with the personal crituqe that the colors look washed out), but they acted like it was all automatically invalid because it wasn't free-aim third person camera like the other games (That got absolutely trashed for having "n64 textures" because that format couldn't scale at all to the hardware they were working with).
It feels like you just can't win, or make decisions for the sake of *actually making the game* sometimes.

 

Yes.

I want it NOW

 

capcom's Flagship team (yes, the ones who made Link's Awakening and the Oracle duo) worked on Amazing Mirror too given how great those Zelda games are and how meh the Advance games are, I think I know who to attribute that game being good

 

Free Holiday DLC costume.

 

So, why do I have a 5GB download/10GB update for superstars?
Looks like a shadow skin or playable form was accidentally leaked...
Courtesy of @Axanery on Twitter.

https://xcancel.com/Axanery/status/1734373479598764051

 

Makes sense; next year is when Sonic 3 the Movie comes out and that will tie perfectly into a Superstars plus.

 

Wait, what? Shadow, like in the Shadow or Shadow Mario, Link etc.?

 

Can we get Classic skins in Frontiers and/or Dream Team then? Like to balance things out?

 

Shadow has a movie coming out next year.

 

This patch actually fixes things! Few things I noticed off the bat:

• Most of the music glitches have been fixed (two tracks playing at the same time, no tracks playing). This isn’t fool proof, I found an instance where the game still freaked out, but it was only once and not all the time
• You can’t go OoB in the sky temple boss anymore
• You can’t detransform from super in the last story hub
• You no longer die going to the far edge of the screen during the press factory act 2 boss as super
• You no longer die in the golden capital act 2 boss if you take the lift too high or too low in certain sections
• The infinite super exploit was fixed

no real patch notes yet but this def helped. I did notice one glitch remains though, spin dashing at higher refresh rates still doesn’t work right.