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

The Egg Fortress thing is basically "we're off to space again, because fuck you!". Hell, even fangames like the 8 bit Sonic 2 remake and TT 16 bit are forcing space finales.

At this point, Sonic may as well just move to space so he's ready for the inevitable.

 

If I had to describe Superstars in one word, it would be incoherent. Very few elements of the game are bad per se (though the bosses are long-winded). It just that none of it meshes. The locale transitions between zones rarely have context, each act's music almost never share leitmotifs, the single screen multiplayer frankly doesn't work seriously, and plot is poorly explained nonsense, as previously discussed. This would seem to be a big failure of the director. And to my surprise, Oshima was not only not the director, he's not listed in the credits for the project at all. What did he actually do on this project besides sit for a few interviews?

 

He is, just under "Game Development" rather than "Sonic Superstars Development Team", as one of the game designers and as Development Producer, which I'm not sure is supposed to entail.

 

Ah, I see why, the transliteration of his name is Ohshima in Sega Retro, which I've never noticed before. Thought it was commonly Oshima. I feel Mandela Effect'd.

 

That's how he's always romanizes his name. On every social media he's on, he uses "oh" instead of "ō".

 

Could have sworn that it was just Ō, but that Mandela Effect is running deep apparently.

 

This specific instance is more of a personal preference as it's not really prescribed by the two popular (there are more than two, btw) romanisation systems, Kunrei and Hepburn. I just looked into it and seems to be common for names and gets used in passports.

I personally always write Ōshima.

 

Re: O vs Oh in romaji

Typically, but not always, Oh (or Ou) is used when the Kanji is 王, and Ō (or Oo) is used when the Kanji is 大. These are personal preferences, and 王 being translated as "Oh" is owing to it more being like "Ou" and being an honorific meaning King. Ō for 大 comes from 大 being more normally translated as "Oo" and meaning "big." Oshima's name is "Big island," 大島, so the common translation is Ōshima, or Ooshima, or simply Oshima, but Ohshima prefers translating it as "Oh." All are valid, these are simply the forms most commonly used.

 

"Ohshima" is also used in Sonic CD.

 

I guess I'm curious how much Ohshima's influence affected the product, specifically the negative aspects we've been discussing.

I get the feeling he doesn't quite understand the act transition and cutscene stuff that 3 and Mania thrive on, possibly because he was not involved in either game. The cutscenes in this game actually remind me a lot more of his conceptual cutscenes for Sonic 1 and what little there was in Sonic CD, albeit slightly more fleshed out (which I suppose comes from Izuka who was involved with Mania).

The bosses I think come from a desire not to have them be damage boosted like 2 and 3's are. Sonic 1 could be sped through if you knew what you were doing and because they were programmed in such a way that any time you touch Eggman he takes damage, but the way they're designed suggests that they didn't think you could do it so rapidly. CD compensates more for this by doing the waiting game more overtly and it's taken a step further by Superstars to an egregious degree. 2 & 3 doubled down on the "if you can touch him, you get your hit" mentality. In essence, we got a game more like 1 & CD rather than 2 & 3 which arguably is more popular given the reception of Mania which picks up those cues.

I really feel these two things come from Ohshima-san based on his history with the franchise, but it is fair to ask if this is really so.

 

PC guys we finally have access to the comic skins. Not exactly the way most people expected but hey! We were saved by the fans yet again! Not only that! We also have comic skin Trip and Eggman too.

 

I see there are a ton of custom skin mods for superstars but has anyone made a mod to add extra skin slots to the character select screen. Ie instead of a skin mod overwriting sonic’s model, you’re able to scroll through and select the skin mod as if it were an official skin (like the shadow hoodie)

 

I think the principal influence on Superstars is Mania. I think we should avoid becoming too romantic with Ohshima's influence. I think it's more likely he'd look at the acclaimed game from 2017 rather than look back at something he made over 25 years ago. Not to say Superstars has nothing in common with 1 and CD. But it shares far more in common with Mania: reusing level gimmicks from 1-3K, Mania itself had longer bosses which tried to stop you hitting them too often (Stealth has even said so on stream), the multiple path layout is much more similar to Mania than 1 or CD, and the physics have clearly been modelled on Mania specifically (as has been demonstrated by @Lapper.

Superstars is a good game but it's clearly taken the Mania design route without understanding the key artistic underpinning. Mania was realising the concept of a Sonic celebration game on Sega Saturn. Superstars is just an original Sonic game which doesn't have such an interesting and unique concept. It does have the coop idea but badly realised.

Even Superstars' failings are similar to Mania. Both games have nonsensical stories and disappointing final bosses.

I wish Superstars had more in common with Sonic 1 (the best Sonic game)...

 

Oh there's definitely influence from Mania, don't get me wrong, but if it was exclusively copying their work, thenI think people would care for it a lot more. The Mania influences likely come from Izuka who insisted on certain things being included, but it's clear that Oshima (and or Arzest) didn't follow the design philosophy of Mania.

Aside from the level design which I talked about in my prior post, stuff like the removal of elemental shields in favor of a regular shield and magnet power-up feels like an Oshima thing. The bosses being a wait and hit affair with invincibility animations also feels like an Oshima thing since the same thing occured in CD (I also discussed this in my prior post). Levels aren't as expansive and fluid as Mania but they aren't as clunky as Sonic 1 and CD either, it's more a compromise between the two. Honestly, a lot of the design decisions feel like compromises between Oshima's approach to Sonic and Mania's approach to Sonic which I think Izuka brought to the table (arguable as to if he fully understood it in a way that the Mania team did though).

As far as the story goes, whether you care for Mania's story or not, it's presented far more cohesively than Superstars is. We know from the outset that some Eggrobos pull a weird gem out of the ground which warps everyone to different places and transforms them into more unique egg robos. Eggman is obviously fighting with them for control of the Ruby so he can power this massive robot on Little Planet and that culminates in a battle between the three parties. Superstars on the other hand has Large animals being captured by Eggman, Fang, and Trip who is bullied. The bullying thing is well defined, but why Eggman wants the giant animals or what the drawing is in the opening cutscene is never explained in the game itself, there's a random mural Knuckles finds that's not elaborated on, the Giant Animals as a concept seem tangential to the search for the thing in the drawing, and then a giant dragon pops on out of nowhere.

Gameplay-wise and story-wise, Mania has far better execution, and I'd argue that if they were in fact copying it then they did a really poor job at it. Other influences veered it off course into something more akin to 1 and CD.

 

I do believe Oshima's influence in every aspect being discussed was limited, and there is very little evidence, if any, of Superstars being influenced by the principles that separate 1 and CD from 2 and 3&K specifically, much less any of them being there in any of the three games because of Oshima. It's a widespread notion, but it's a stretch that has nothing to do with what 1, CD and Superstars actually show or do.

It makes a lot more sense to imagine the game is aware of everything that came before it, including Mania, which already is a critical reevaluation of the classic formula that sets new standards, even for combining what each previous game brought to the table. Even if Oshima had complete control over 1, CD and Superstars, it's not like he phased out of existence for 30 years and doesn't know what happened to the franchise in the meantime.

Just looking at the maps, you can see they look nothing like 1 or CD, but most stages do look fairly "anthilly", just like 3&K. They also prevent backtracking pretty often and favor horizontal motion over verticality (again, nothing like 1 or CD and a lot like 2 and, most importantly, Mania). The fact that it's less competent than Mania at being Mania doesn't make it any less inspired by it.

The easiest explanation for discarding elemental shields isn't Oshima not liking them or having a strict vision of what Sonic is supposed to be based on the game he worked on; it's making way for emerald powers, the game's main gimmick, while preserving a similar core loop for all characters and simplicity in addressing challenges.

 

I just bought the very, very pointless "Steam code in a cardboard box" PC version and I'm quite satisfied tbh.

Really don't get why they bothered making it though. It's Europe only, Amazon exclusive and isn't even an actual game. Who's the market for this? I'm only buying one copy, SEGA.

 

Did they ever fix the obviously-unfinished and inconsistent soundtrack? (Namely, by replacing the Sonic-4-esque tracks?)

 

The game gear games do have the Battle Bird Armada and the Witchcarters but of course most wouldn't know that since that's not console. The issue with the dragon in superstars is he just suddenly appears, Eggman didn't do anything to unleash the dragon with his classic chaos control or at least the game didn't tell us/imply that's why Eggman was messing with time travel.

 

I find it interesting that people think Ohshima had a light touch on the design of this game. That's possible, but the whole time I'm playing it I can't help but feel it's a Sonic game designed by a team whose most ubiquitous output has been Yoshi series spinoffs.