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

Give us Classic Shadow, and a Classic Gerald to go with him. Just imagine how round he would be haha

 

Giving Superstars an actual classic Shadow skin does not hurt anti-Shadow classic fans any more or less than this goofy Shadow costume does. "Classic fans" seriously need to stop being so ridiculously concerned about the idea of modern elements invading their classic space, and I say this as someone who prefers the classic games over everything else.

The classic designs and modern designs should just be an art direction choice. The plot to Generations was a huge mistake in my opinion.

 

I don't think it should just be an art style thing. Partly because it's been a very long time since I felt like Modern Sonic was really "for" me, whereas Classic never misses. In a macro sense, that's why it's worth having the distinction. Not everybody finds the defining elements of either "flavor" of Sonic appealing, and having them both on the table allows Sega to satisfy most of us.

Having said that...

That's why I prefer how Forces handled it: Just make it a completely separate canon that sometimes crosses over with the "modern" one. Now you can have a "Classic Shadow" (or emerald powers, or new characters, or-) without fussing over what that does to the timeline. You could even tell the story of how Shadow came to exist in this version of canon, and in the style of the classics. And so you can more easily draw out more meaningful differences between them.

Unfortunately for me and fortunately for most fans, it doesn't seem like we're going to go back to that anytime soon, but it was nice while it lasted. The important thing is, Sega's doing a good job emphasizing the characteristics of both Classic and Modern that fans of each have been clamoring for, without diluting things down and trying to appeal to EVERYONE the way they did with Forces.

If you want your Sonic drowning in realism and lore and cutscenes that always culminate in over-the-top anime battles, Frontiers has you covered. If you want none of that and would prefer Sonic to be a lighthearted video game about a fast blue hedgehog and his friends chasing down an egg-shaped man through various zone archetypes with gameplay reminiscent of what originally defined the series, Superstars is for you. And if you like both, so much the better, but there's really no way one game can encapsulate BOTH of these approaches. They're too much at odds with each other.

But both can thrive on their own merits, and I really do think Sega's on the right track with this approach.

 

Dream on, guys. Classic Shadow will never happen outside of fanon material. It's just a costume for Classic Sonic, nothing more nothing less.

 

I like both classic and modern Sonic. I think splitting them into separate branches of the franchise was the best decision Sega's made in a long time. Allows them to do their own things without tripping over each other and keeps those who prefer one over the other satisfied, how I see it.

 

I really just wanted Shadow in like Sonic Origins for the fun of playing the old levels with a different character with different physics - it's what made Ray so enjoyable in Mania and to an extent Amy in Origins Plus too.

Sonic 3 AIR Mods for Mighty give him the wall kick and ground pound so that makes him more fun than Mania, and there are inventive takes on Amy that are a lot of fun. Sonic 3D in 2D Shadow ported over to S3 Air is a lot of a fun.

 

I don't really mind the Classic/Modern split, but someone made a good point last week that it severely limits what you can actually do with Classic since its established that the former is now in the past. So now all Classic material has to exist in the nebulous space of being before Sonic Adventure so as to not contradict anything. Just feels needlessly limiting from a creative standpoint imo. And then, for whatever reason, no Classic characters are allowed to exist in the Modern setting. From a meta standpoint, its to ensure both sides have their own exclusive supporting characters aside from the main cast, but then you start wondering why Ray or Mighty just... aren't anywhere to be seen in Modern. And then Sega are extremely selective about the segregation too; they'll reuse those classic aesthetics they made from Generations and Forces regardless of how it fits in the current games, but not modernize the actual modern settings, nor allow any modern aesthetics in Classic outside of Generations?

The whole thing just feels so very poorly thought out and executed. But this fanbase is so annoyingly divided on both sides that people seem fine with the current state of things, so what the fuck do I even know at this point. I miss being able to enjoy when this series was just one thing and not a bunch of divided things into sub-categories. I get why its like this and why it's probably not going to change any time soon, but boy do I wish Sega get some balls and not kowtow to this fanbase so easily at times.

Especially since being Classic didn't really save Superstars from being a very mediocre experience for me, and bear in mind that I do in fact like the Classic aesthetic a lot. I dunno, I just the priorities of this franchise are extremely out of whack atm.

 

Sometimes things should be left in the past. No way classic exclusive characters should be added in the current timeline nor modern characters in the classic timeline hence why Sonic doesn't know the whereabouts of them. It's best to leave it to the fans who create fan theories of this franchise.

 

I kinda just want them to put shadow in a 2d game tbh, i think there is potential to be really creative with a moveset for him in 2d, though with how they generally use him in 3d (either a sonic skin/copy or really combat oriented) my hopes arent TOO high. I just think it would be cool, I always thought it was a missed opportunity that he wasnt ever playable in something like the advance games or rush

 

This is the last thing you should be saying about this franchise. We literally have a sub branch that's about living in the past.

 

I’m willing to bet money that this summer there will be dlc for Superstars adding Mighty, Ray and Fang as playable characters with unique movesets. Then in the fall they’ll add movieverse skins with movie shadow going over mighty (or potentially fang, if fang is able to use his cork-gun I could see that retooled as a chaos-blast)

 

Generations: "Hey this guy looks pretty cool"
Superstars: "Hey Tails make me a cool guy outfit"
Adventure 2: "Isn't that the guy I dressed up as for Halloween? Wow he's a dick"

Never meet your heroes, kids.

 

I think the no Green Hill is just in general. Notice how people were excited when it was announced Superstars would be all original levels. I love classic Sonic, but I'm tired of seeing Green Hill over and over. One of the things that really sets Sonic apart from other platformers for me is how unique and memorable the level themes can be.

 

To be fair, we went an entire decade between Lost World and Superstars where every single mainline game had a level or twelve that was explicitly Green Hill. And it still appears in Superstars' Battle Mode and intros, so even that's debatable!

Speaking of debatable, Lost World had Windy Hill which was even closer to Green Hill than most Green Hill-alikes, so if you think that counts then you push it back to Colors. But Colors used Green Hill's layout in its simulator levels, so now we're back to Unleashed.

I can't really think of anything I can accuse of being Green Hill in Unleashed.

 

Colors used Green Hill layouts in the Sonic simulator stages? Interesting. The only ones I noticed were Marble Zone, but I only played them once so maybe that's why.

 

Sonic Simulator stages reused pretty much most of Sonic 1 levels

 

Game Land stages in Colors are a lot like the Cyberspace stages, they're made out of levels from Sonic 1 and 2, plus bits from Unleashed and the main stages of Colors itself. Which is which is actually spelled out by developer notes in the files. It also notes how the main levels were split up into 6 acts.

it would actually be funny to have similar layout adaptations in a Superstars side mode just to see how that plays.

 

I'm a Classic purist, and I think Shadow is a complete and utter sausage.

That being said, after Superstars gave us those lame as shit emerald powers (aka rebranded Wisps) and had Super Sonic randomly fighting some dragon thing - it's a little late in the day to be debating what should be held sacred in the world of Classic Sonic. They might as well just bring on Classic Shadow for real now.

 

Frankly, and I cant believe I'm saying this, but the game shouldve been treated as a GAAS.

Keep the main game the same, but make medals unlock new characters and skins. You can pay for the same characters and skins too if you want to play as a certain character.

This would incentivize replays for hardcore players, and get casuals to pay a bit more, and allow for some fun and goofy fan service for those who want it.

 

Why on earth should a 2d platformer be a GaaS? Having a shop with unlockables is not some GaaS thing. Mega Man 7, 8, and Mega Man & Bass did that in the 90s. Mario Odyssey also had a similar idea more recently. Just have the medals allowed to be collected over multiple playthroughs (similar to the CDs in the aforementioned Mega Man & Bass!) and there you go. I just hate GaaS and making a platformer one just makes no sense.