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

Do you have a picture of said box? I’ve never heard of this before, I wonder if it’s even scanned on the wiki.

 

The Battle Birds and the Witchcarters were both from spinoff games centered around Tails.

 

They did it for Sonic Generations too.

 

It reminds me of a statement I once heard on Mania's pitch. I remember it was said that Iizuka was reluctant to do a Mania style game because it is really hard to do one of high quality. But when he saw Mania, he was convinced to go ahead and do the game.

I think it's generally greatly underestimated how highly regarded Mania is by SEGA, Sonic Team, and those who work on the franchise. Probably to peddle the idea that Iizuka hates Evening Star because he's jealous or something. The fact that EveningStar based their physics on Mania and clearly based the level design on the game indicates to me that Mania is considered the golden standard for Classic Sonic design in SEGA.

 

It's worth remembering also, co-op is an integral part of the design of the game. It turned out not to be the huge draw they expected, but it's still an easier explanation for less flow in levels or bosses that you can't rush. It's much easier to imagine Arzest did things in this game for reasons pertaining to this game, not as a statement of any kind, even implicit, about any other games.

 

I both agree and totally disagree with this.

Co-op could well be one reason for the slow boss fights, although the same excuse isn't valid for other games with similarly slow fights (except S4E2, arguably). That's about where the agreement ends though.

But having said that, I don't think the regular on levels feel at all geared towards co-op. The supposed lack of flow and bland layouts come across as a result of the team's lack of experience and foresight, because the levels in no way accomodate keeping all players on equal grounds. The main reason that the co-op in Superstars is so bad is because the game does virtually nothing to accommodate it. The levels constantly send the front player speeding ahead without warning, whilst the camera can't even stick to any rules about who it follows. It's entirely inconsistent. And at times during a co-op playthrough, the game will want you to play levels that are entirely single player only. The character specific acts are optional, but the game doesn't indicate that. You'll clear Speed Jungle Act 1 and get asked if you want to play Act 2 or Act Sonic next. Pick Act Sonic and then all other players except player 1 (or whoever chose Sonic) will be forced out.

Co-op was slapped into Superstars without sufficient planning. Sonic isn't Mario or any other strictly left-to-right platformer with a consistent pace. You can't just add multiple players and expect it to work, but that's exactly what Arzest did. It's bad.

 

Stuff like the darkness gimmick in the jungle level makes me wonder how much the game was actually designed around multiplayer. I thought a good way to incorporate multiplayer into a modern sonic game would be something like Speedruners, where the goal is to stay in the front and you explode if you go off screen, then you can place items in levels that let you screw over the other players mario-kart style. Multiplayer platformers are inherently chaotic and the good ones lean into it.

 

I feel like the only one who actually had quite a good time in co-op. I never really had issues with levels breaking or getting separated from each other—and when we did separate, it was harmless anyway. It's nowhere near as obnoxious as the basically-fake co-op play that the 16-bit games had.

 

it seems to like its just like NSMBU in that coop is fine with 2, maybe even 3, folkss, but 4 is where it starts to fall into chaos which is honestly fine?

 

It falls apart with as many as 2 people. The "little brother co-op" mode of old was never perfect, but this is hardly any better.

 

Yeah it was basically a replacement for the times you gave your little brother an unplugged controller and hoped he didn't notice. Worked fine enough for that. Superstars' multiplayer hardly works at all

 

Ah, havent done it myself so i was basing it mostly off the (very small) amount of 2p coop i had seen. I can totally see how it'd just be similar to the older games coop given the speed of the game, just wasnt exposed to it much, though I did see plenty of 3/4 player coop seeming like a nightmare

 

I dunno, the basically-fake co-op the 16-bit games had never allowed the Player 2-controlled Tails to deliberately kill me over and over.

 

Honestly I can see how this would be annoying but when I'm with friends and we decide to play some mario this is usually the best part lmao

 

For sure. It was funny when it was happening. But if we're gonna describe either of Sonic's approaches to co-op as "obnoxious", it's gotta be this one.

 

Why does Sega feel the need to come up with "clever" ideas to implement co-op? Why can’t they just use split-screen?

I can give the Mega Drive games a pass for not having split-screen co-op, as the tech wasn’t up to doing all levels.

But modern consoles shouldn’t have any issues in doing split-screen co-op.

The only issue I can see for split-screen co-op is that some levels have trigger points which transform the level. So if all players are not present, then some players could get trapped in the pre-transformed state. However, this could easily be fixed by making all players automatically teleport to the trigger point when one player crosses it. Or putting a gate before the trigger point that all players have to be present at before it will open.

Whatever the shortcomings of split-screen, it’s far better than all these ideas they keep on failing with.

Sonic is a franchise that appeals to all ages and all groups, so it’s a real shame that you can’t properly share the experience with a sibling or a friend.

Keep It Simple, Sega: Keep It Split Screen.

 

I can't imagine split screen actually working since, as is, we already saw complaints about the screen being too zoomed in. Split screen might make the more treacheous stages like Cyber Station completely untenable.

I don't know, I kinda like the idea of Encore Mode as a relay team kind of co-op. The kind of "co-op" I played the most as a child was of the single-player-with-controller-rotation kind. And I think it's lovely. The idea that you can get up to four lives per life if you play with friends sounds pretty cool to me.

 

That's something completely different. It's the amount of screen space the view port gives you, not the actual physical space. Playing the game on an 80" TV wouldn't fix the zoomed in complaint.

They also have another solution that's already in the game, online multiplayer. Each player gets their own camera. They just restricted it to their dog shit versus mode. I won't accept the excuse that the main campaign mode was too intense to handle it.

 

I think I need to understand better what you mean by that. When I wrote that post I was thinking of two people playing the game in a split screen (considering 3 or 4 way would preserve the aspect ratio) and both losing screen space above their heads or to their sides for that (which would make it at least feel more zoomed in, to Sonic Advance 2 degrees maybe). Isn't that what would happen?

 

Unfortunately, the "everything is toggleable" era is still not here. And yet, somehow I get the feeling the developers made a deliberate choice here in order to "not ruin your friendship".

They could have made it so that player 1 can change the camera settings mid-game by pressing the shoulder buttons:

• camera follows group
• camera follows individual
• split screen

It would suck though, if your preferences aren't in line with what the group or player 1 decided. So much bad potential.

I think that's the reason why we didn't get more camera options or party modes.

Edit: Or maybe they did simply drop the ball? "I hate you, but I have to admit, this game rules." Boom, friendship saved.