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

No, I bought that at launch and it just came with the regular cover, with card inserts inside the case containing the codes for the LEGO Eggman and Comic Book skin downloads.

 

Is Superstars camera really more zoomed in than usual? Because every time I read the conclusions of people who sat down and compared it to Mania's, they say it is the exact same.

I don't really even think it's relevant honestly. But at the same time, when I played through it, I had just come off time attacking Generations. So not being able to see that far ahead may not have been too much of a problem because I could kind of predict where I was going to need to jump, as it usually pretty obvious based on previous experiences.

At the end of the day Pariah695 was completely right.assivity traps are 100% a thing. You can learn to predict them.

I mean, i could already do that to a degree. But being conscious of it, I can do it a lot more. And it is fun. In fact, I have probably replayed all the levels with some younger cousins 3 or 4 times by now (not doing the bosses again) probably because of this aspect of Sonic alone.

I still don't know if I would say that passivity traps is good design. Some part of me do thinks it would be better to be ale to go on reaction, and to have the camera zoomed out enough to see where jumping off some angles at speed will take you BEFORE you jump off of them and in enough time even when moving at speed to make that decision...

...but a bigger part of me no longer cares.

 

I haven't done a comparison, but it felt more zoomed in to me. The 2,5D style might be contributing to it, because it causes everything that's not in the center to be curved away, hindering visibility.

In contrast to the previous levels, Pinball Carnival felt better. It wasn't as busy as the other levels, and felt more like a Sonic level.

 

The camera zoom is exactly the same as the classics. It just looks a little more zoomed in because it's 2.5D.

 

I honestly did not notice this at all, but alright.

Also, could you elaborate a little more on the previous levels not feeling like Sonic levels?

 

I dunno, it could also be a trick of the art style? The visuals of Superstars are a lot "chunkier" than in any of the actual 2D games, making them feel larger and more zoomed in on screen.

 

The camera in co-op mode honestly feels like what the default zoom level should have been.

 

That's exactly what it is. Sonic's size is the exact same relative to his surroundings, but because this is a 3D game the geometry extends closer to the camera and causes it to scroll faster, making it feel more claustrophobic.

I don't know if there's a way to like "reduce perspective" on the camera so it appears more flat, but that would probably make things less claustrophobic.

 

You mean the FOV, and yes, they could've done that. I remember the Mega Man 11 devs were struggling with striking the right balance with it, because they didn't want to make the environments look flat but also not too claustrophobic. See: https://www.siliconera.com/mega-man-11s-dev-team-goes-into-detail-on-how-stages-are-made/

 

I felt there were very few moments where I could use Sonic's momentum. There are few slopes, and often he's propelled forward by level gimmicks, so there's less platforming than I'd like.

 

I think it's really close to Sonic 4. The thing is Generations and Forces camera/zoom out level is a lot farther away than classic games and may have tainted our judgement.

 

It's a matter of perception, too. Take letters for example:

 

I've finished the game with Sonic. I appreciated the last level's gimmick, but the boss fight that followed had to be one of the worst boss fights ever. Followed by an all-too-long credits sequence made bearable by a mini-game.

Now that I've finished the game, I still have no clue what the story is about. I remember seeing an animation prior to release where Eggman, Fang and Trip visited some ruins. In the game itself, nothing is explained. You're after Eggman because... it's Eggman? Trip's motivations aren't shown, either.

I figured things would become clearer playing through Trip's story, but she just fights Eggman from the start like everyone else.

Did I miss something during my playthrough? I did play through the character-specific acts, but sometimes I could choose to play an extra act in exchange for a fruit. I never did because I didn't understand what that was.

 

The story is just like Sonic 3. You're in a new island. Egmann is turning the animals into Badniks. There's a person you don't know, who's collaborating with the villain at first then become your ally.

Trip's story is just like Knuckles'. The relation between Trip and the final boss also seems inspired by Chaos and the Echidna tribe.

 

The only thing you missed was that Trip actually fights Egg Robo, not Eggman. Why? Because Knuckles did it in S3K, that's why.

There's also the Black Onyx or Onyx Egg or whatever it's called that you can see in the map menu hub thing, which Trip seals the dragon away in after the Super Sonic final boss. Apparently a lot of story content was written and cut from the final game for unknown reasons, according to Ian Flynn I believe. There's really no story to speak of in Superstars. Barely any attempt was made and that's a crying shame. Even the level transitions and less than half baked.

 

In Sonic 3, we know (or learn) that Knuckles is the guardian of the Master Emerald, the artifact that holds Angel Island in the sky. We are also shown in-game that Eggman is after it, and betrays Knuckles, who then becomes our ally.

We're also shown repeatedly that the Master Emerald is a power source that Eggman wants to harness, shown to us at least three times explicitly: the first when he launches the Death Egg (for the second time) after stealing it, and the second and third times when fighting the Giant Death Egg Robot and Mecha Sonic MKII.


In comparison to Superstars, we know that Trip is (maybe) the guardian, or at least a resident of Northstar Island. Yes, there's supplementary material that helps explain the plot more, but I didn't want to include it because a new player has a bigger chance of not watching/reading it before playing the game. I'm not including either of Sonic 3's manuals for the same reason.

We see in the opening cutscene that Eggman and two others who seem to be working for him have collected giant animals from the island and put them in capsules. Eggman gestures to a sketch he made, presumably something he wants to find, Trip is clumsy, Fang is angry at trip.

Trip seems to be begrudgingly working for Eggman, forced to, or just is really clumsy. Either way, she and Fang don't get along very well, and repeatedly messes up their attempts to stop Sonic and co. in their pursuit. Trip doesn't really seem to actually want to stop them; when she gets lost after falling in her own trap, she lets Amy bring her to safety and isn't hostile to her.

Fang and Trip's partnership reaches a breaking point when Fang openly threatens Trip with violence after she makes Fang spill their stolen collection of Chaos Emeralds right in front of Sonic and co., and right after Trip takes off her armor and transforms into a dragon, betraying Fang and joining the heroes.

We still don't really know why Trip was working with Eggman & Fang, or what her motivations were for joining the heroes at this point in the game. I don't think Eggman knew of her true nature, as I don't think he would've let her be so close to the Emeralds if she was being forced to work with Eggman. We also know that Fang is a bounty-for-hire (from Triple Trouble).

Regardless, we move forward in the game, and the last two notable moments (before the Last Story) are Knuckles discovering the mural in Golden Capital, where it depicts figures that wear Trips armor utilizing the Chaos Emeralds for their Emerald Powers used in the game. The last one is Eggman (somehow) reversing time, sending us back to the beginning of the level to fight the final boss.

The Last Story shows the Black Dragon somehow escaping from the (not mentioned or shown besides the mural) Black Onyx, a gemstone that once contained the dragon that it has now escaped to cause havoc on the Island. It's assumed that Eggman never got to the gemstone before being defeated. Sonic turns Super and defeats the dragon, and Trip seals it away once again.


Just my thoughts and it breaks my (self-imposed) rule, but if Eggman saw the mural in the animation (the only time we see Eggman explicitly see the mural), why didn't he get Trip to tell him how to harness the Emerald Powers, as opposed to stealing the giant animals as he does in-game? What do the giant animal Badniks have over any other normal Super Badnik? If his goal was to use the Black Dragon for world domination, why was it never mentioned until the aforementioned dragon was unleashed?
In the final cutscene, we see Trip caring for the Giant Animals on the island, which gives us a motive for why she betrayed Eggman, but why wasn't it shown until the final cutscene? Why did Eggman not once use the Emerald Powers for his own benefit? If something else besides Eggman caused the Black Dragon to be unleashed and Trip had prior knowledge of it, why wasn't it ever mentioned? How exactly did the Black Dragon get unleashed? What even is the Black Dragon and it's connection to Trip and her people?

I know I said a lot but it was on my mind for a while and now was a chance to say it all. I'm also aware that a lot of story was cut from the final game.

 

Uhh, it's definitely Eggman she's fighting. Looks exactly like Eggman. Not like Egg Robo at all.

 

I'd really like to see what the uncut version of the story was, because there's a lot of plot details in SS that you can just barely put together, but not enought to get a full picture. My personal interpretation:
-Eggman can't utilize the emerald powers for the same reason he cant go super. The black dragon uses emerald power-like attacks in his boss fight, so emerald powers might be something tied specifically to either dragons or the island (that way they dont have to bring it back in future games).
-The big animals are big because they eat the big fruits. I don't know why they put so much focus on the fruits in this game, they gotta be used for something. Maybe the island just has a lot of energy and the creatures that are native to it get really strong by eating the fruits that grow on it. Honestly asking why eggman does one thing or another is pointless because at that point why not ask why he doesnt go for the master emerald every game.
-In the cutscene where eggman shows Fang the picture of the poorly drawn dragon, Trip get nervous and tries to take the picture back (?) My guess is that eggman figured out about the dragon on his own and wanted it for himself, and trip already knew about the dragon and knew how dangerous it was but didn't bring it up because she was too scared of making him mad.
-I once say a theory that eggman used the time reversal machine to revert the black opal to before it trapped the black dragon. I like that theory.
-The dragons were an ancient race that lived in the golden capital. They were all wiped out at some point, and now Trip is the only survivor. The black dragon was an evil member of the tribe that was power hungry, going of the dragon mural im guessing that the dragons used the emerald powers one at a time to accomplish tasks but the black dragon wanted all the powers all the time, and perhaps the downfall of the dragon tribe was caused by the black dragon itself. Basically just a repeat of Knuckles' backstory.

 

I'm unsure if you're being sarcastic, but Trip does fight Egg Robo.

 

Are you actually playing Trip's story (which is basically a single-player exclusive hard mode and has a unique fight against Fang in Egg Fortress 2) or just the main story with Trip selected? Cause this is Trip's story:


The levels all have a ton of Egg Robo and spike spam too, making them very annoying to play. And as you can see in Kilo's post above, the boss fights against Egg Robo all cover the boss arenas in a blueish-purpley fog for some reason.