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

Sonic Mania originally had a new jingle but it was replaced with the Sonic 3 one. So it's probably a series mandate at this point

 

Nah, I'd be surprised if it was a hard mandate or anything. My guess is that Tee went back to the S3 theme because of the fact it's got a bit of a legacy. Starting with Unleashed, very few 3D games use it anymore though. Same was true for the Advance and Rush games. They normally create their jingle based on the main theme for a given game, just like Tee Lopes originally planned for Mania.

 

Some 3D games used Sonic 3's jingle, but not all. Meanwhile, every mainline 2D Sonic game uses it.

That, and the fact that Mania was forced by Sonic Team to use Sonic 3's jingle makes me think it is a mandate.

 

Is that what Tee Lopes said?

 

This isn't really common knowledge, but Taxman had this to say about it in the Retro Engine discord:



He went on to say the Discovery pitch prototype had the old Act Clear theme. I wouldn't call this "Sonic Team forced them to use it", but it was in fact done at the request of SEGA/Sonic Team.

 

That's helpful. Thank you!

I still wouldn't say it looks like some hard mandate though. Just a bit of audio consistency. We don't know how that particular decision went down with SEGA and the Mania guys.

 

By 'old Act Clear theme' are we talking the one from Sonic 1 and 2?

 

He's referring to the unused act clear theme Tee Lopes posted on Twitter.

 

Okay, that's it. Whoever designed Sonic Superstars's bosses should never be let near a Sonic game again. Story Mode's final boss (without all Chaos Emeralds) was bad, but Trip's Story's Frozen Base boss was worse. But then we get the final boss of Trip's Story, which is even worse. It has insta-kill attacks!

So! Frustrating!

Consistency with... what? Sonic Mania has levels from Sonic games that have a different jingle for the end of the act. It would have been more consistent to have a jingle based on the main theme, like was planned.

 

Consistency just with what the usual act clear theme is, especially because Mania is a spiritual successor to the Mega Drive games.

We could argue the semantics of "mandate" all day. But the simple fact is we don't have all the details and you can take the information we do have to draw different conclusions to each other.

 

Finally defeated insta-kill asshat. Now all I've left to do is Last Story.

 

For all the people on PC, I hope you’re using Pariah’s mod recommendations to play through the game. It makes it 10x’s more fun.

 

What mods would those be exactly? I haven't heard a thing about them but I'm curious.

 

Sonic Superstars didn't only copy Sonic Mania's blue missile that you have to wait for and return, they also copied that you have to chase after single flying rings during the post-game's Super Sonic sequence. It's arguably even worse here, as the terrain is bigger and there are less rings flying about. They band-aid it a bit by having Tails and Knuckles leaving behind a trail of rings when they (randomly?) appear, but if the boss decides to trigger the side view while they're there, all of those rings are lost.

There's also the genius idea of having Super Sonic's dash consume 5 rings, which, before I was aware of it, made me wonder why my ring count was so low after the fight had only just begin. Fine, don't use the dash then. Oh, but you have to! The black holes that the boss sends out suck you in if you get too close, and you can only get out of them by using the dash. What's even worse is that if you don't dash out, the black hole will kill you instantly!

As a result, instead of paying attention to the boss to figure out what you need to do to fight back, you spend almost all of your time flying around to gather as many rings as possible so you don't run out and die, until you're forced to try to attack when the boss activates the side view where you can't see far enough ahead to dodge the black holes and fireballs while maintaining speed. It is decidedly not fun.

The only other avenue of attack I've noticed is returning blue missiles blue meteors, and at one point I somehow damaged the boss while it was using its detached hands.

 

Yeah that fight is a 7+ minute slog that can’t be sped up much unless you get the timing right to hit the hands on every opportunity but no matter what you have deal with the final sequence with it’s janky QTE inputs or kiss another 7 minutes goodbye.

 

Despite loving the game, I’ve been following your comments and excitedly anticipating you getting to the final boss because I knew you’d have the worst time lol. It’s definitely a very awkward fight with how much you have to focus on rings. I just beat it for the first time since release and completely forgot the dash thing and ran out of rings in about 20 seconds. Then I stopped dashing and ran out in phase two because I hadn’t sufficiently stocked up. Third or fourth time was the charm though (can’t recall as I ended up just finishing it the next day).

You can barely focus on anything outside of gathering rings to the point that I don’t think someone could properly learn and defeat the boss without dying at least once. The final hit also has some weird timing that took me 2 or 3 attempts the first time I beat it back when the game released.

I can’t consistently get hits on the hands so I don’t really bother, but what you do is get slightly out of their range (and I mean SLIGHTLY) and then hit them when they stop moving. It’d be easier with the dash but due to its ring consumption, it’s not worth using.

If the game ever got an update, which I doubt because it already had a physical release, I think it’d deserve a redesign. It’s challenging enough as a boss, but I think it’s not as well designed as the non-true final bosses. Fang, for example, I was able to beat very easily on this playthrough as the patterns where consistent and predictable. I think removing some of the randomness with the rings would be sufficient so using the dash doesn’t have to be a “stuck in a black hole, may as well,” type of last resort move.

Credits are also ridiculous. I don’t know if backing out of them loses you anything so I just put the controller down and do something else lol.

 

I don't think anyone liked the dash move in Sonic Mania costing rings, but at least you didn't *have* to use it. I don't know what they were thinking with bringing it back and making it the only way to escape those black holes.

 

Yeah, I have to admit that, when it comes to the patterns and most telegraphing, the boss fight with Fang at the end of Trip's Story is well-designed. But slip up, and in most cases you're killed instantly. The only thing I thought wasn't telegraphed well is when his mecha suddenly gets close and destroys the surrounding floor.

There are some oddities, though.

• One of the two moves between missile swarms is to create duplicates of his ship, and you're supposed to hit the 'true' ship. It's not clear how you're supposed to hit it, because when you attack it you can get hit for seemingly no reason. The safest seems to be to try to hit its sides, but if you mess up you jump into the pink insta-kill lasers (though one time Trip somehow got through it without being killed).
• When the mecha releases a swarm of robots that you're supposed to knock back, sometimes those couldn't be hit and they'd just drop through the floor.

 

Pariah has a google doc guide to get the best out of every mainline Sonic game. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Uk5U8jY_RPZF9m_gmPfSOfCngAOSAxy393dsQVPoOyQ/edit?gid=0#gid=0

 

I actually beat the black dragon twice.

The first time, I was low on rings when I made the final DDR input, so Super Sonic ran out while the screen was brightening. And because this game is buggy, the screen remained white when the fight restarted. I had to restart the game.

Anyway, I finally beat it! Trip sealed the dragon away in the egg. I recall reading that Eggman turned back time afterwards, but I didn't see any such scene. Not even after the long-ass credits.

Reading back, the black dragon was teased at the beginning of the game? I don't recall, but I only saw that scene once. Still appears out of seemingly nowhere as the game's true final boss.