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

Denuvo's issues are relatively common knowledge, especially in this community where they're discussed every single time a new game is released. Just flatly stating "well I didn't have any problems" when someone tells you that it impacts performance sounds like you're being dismissive and wilfully ignorant. It's never helpful for a discussion when person says that an issue doesn't affect them as though it's some point of counterpoint.

Anyway, we're not "dooming" about Denuvo just yet. It's the principle of the matter that software people have paid to access will likely become bricked in the future. And should they ever be in a situation without an active Internet connection, they'll loose access for the duration as well.

If it ever does come to a time when Denuvo creases to operate (or compatability with older versions starts to deteriorate), expecting companies to go back and update old games to remove Denuvo at some nebulous point in the future is, well... optimistic, I guess? That's the nicest way I can put it. I don't know what else to say other than that companies routinely do not touch up old software years after release and relevance because they have no incentive to do so.

 

Yet the only game that Sega has taken Denuvo out of is Sonic Mania. Team Sonic Racing, Sonic Forces, Sonic Origins, Sonic Frontiers, Sonic Superstars, and Sonic x Shadow Generations all still have it. Some of those games are years old and not getting updates anymore. Yes, they can take it out. But it doesn't seem likely.

 

My point is that a hit to performance that someone didn't experience doesn't do much to make them regret purchasing the moddable version of the game. The game being unplayable at some nebulous point in the future, on the other hand, is a much better thing to bring up.

As for the possibility of them eventually removing it, I'm not necessarily optimistic about that. Which is why I said "I'm not sure we gotta doom too much" rather than "I'm not sure we gotta doom at all". But I do trust massive backlash to happen on social media when a bunch of peoples' games become unplayable. Will that incentivize Sega to go back and remove it? Who knows! As an additional point, if Denuvo doesn't actually stop piracy now, then it sure won't in the future when it goes away and people can't legally play those games anymore. To put another way: Denuvo Doom Levels should be at neither 0% nor 100%.

 

Yes, Denuvo does get cracked basically immediately. But buying modern PC ports and them being rendered unplayable due to it is also not ok. Yes, I could find a cracked version of it, but I already paid for it. Why should I be negatively affected because some company told Sega their product could protect them from ghosts.

 

I'm sorry but this is simply not true. Frontiers, Colors Ultimate and Superstars are still not cracked. So is SxShG, the flashy new thing.
Is Denuvo bad for the consumer? Yes
Is Denuvo bad for preservation and modding? Hell yes!
Is Denuvo effective against piracy. Um.. hello? Yes it is, actually, whether you like it or not

 

Does the version of Denuvo included with Sonic games actually stop you from playing them offline? That hasn't been my experience, but I don't actually know for certain. Because if not, that's not going to be the part of it that bricks games in the future.

 

Wasn't the whole Denuvo situation in a weird science fiction-like scenario wherein exactly two people knew how to crack it, but one of them only cracked FIFA games and the other was an absolute tech shitbag?

 

To my understanding at least, every game with Denuvo needs to "check in" eventually but you don't need to be online every time you boot up.

 

Denuvo used to be easy to crack, but nowadays it really, really works. It's gotten to the point where there's only one person actively doing it, and said person is legitimately fucking insane to the point that most people avoid them like the plague.

 

I remember keeping an eye on the Hogwarts Legacy crack... she's a character to say the least. Sad that she's seemingly the only one doing it right now.

 

So...

We're never getting any new patches/suppport for this game, are we?

It's just being regulated to the dustbins of Sonic history, the one black mark of the classic forumla... perhaps even the killer of the entire Classic sonic experience?

I want to go back to this game, but I just struggle to justify it. There's no way to play through it that doesn't play depressingly tedious. I absolutely cannot stand Trip's stages, her final boss, or the final super boss, and I kind of hate that. I'd love a continuous act option, but one doesn't exist and you have to go back to the overworld every time. Even parts of Sonic 4 episode II I've found myself enjoying more.

I'd be fine with fan mods to optimize the game's experience, but those don't really exist either... whether because of a lack of interest, or because of technical problems, I can't say.

Does any hope exist at all, or is this just the end of the point of the official SEGA produced classic experience? Ohshima himself has some great ideas, but he also has a vision of classic sonic that doesn't quite match what we liked in 1-3k/Mania either, such as it is. Stealth/Tax have moved on, and that's okay. Should it be the end of the era? It is time we let the adventure kids have the franchise and move on, or is there a chance to fix this and still come back with a newer better title, or even successor in the future?

 

Superstars is dead for sure, Sega seems to be making a habit out of supporting a Sonic game for a year and then leaving it as is. Which I guess is nice for modding purposes, nothing will break unexpectedly, but is lame for people that don't use mods or are on console.
Jumping to the conclusion that classic Sonic is dead is pretty absurd, though. Superstars came out just last year, and before that was a half decade gap between it and Mania Plus. They're still making toys and comics for classic all the time, and no doubt another shot at classic Sonic will come in one of these stock gap years between big mainline modern titles.

 

I'm not referring to classic sonic as a merchandise brand... SEGA is not letting that one go any time soon and you only have to spend a few minutes in any toy aisle to see it.

(You can buy classic packs with Mighty in them now, kids today now want mighty toys I guess? How far we've come...)

But putting classic sonic merch on clothing and in figure form is not the same thing as committing to another full game in the 2D style after Superstars supposedly sold below expectations. As we've discussed here before, future retro engine titles seem to be a dead end for a variety of reasons, and this game now proves that even getting our sacred "Sonic physics" right is only part of the problem for creating a new game in this style.

We finally get a brand new classic title with original stages and accurate physics and it's... still depressingly mid? I realize our tastes are all kind of subjective anyway, but the broad consensus from both sales and general fan reception is that, as an overall experience, this was better than 4, worse than mania... and its sales reflect that exact attitude.

The fact that SEGA has not discussed the game at all for most of this year also points to the mediocre performance/sales it's experienced, which is the real problem at heart. Azrest made a good effort, but they weren't quite up to the task, and no one wants to try and salvage the game to give it a second wind, which is a shame.

 

I think you're being overly dramatic here. They'll probably take another swing in the future. Classic is still a strong brand for them. The biggest misfire here was trying to appease to the Japanese audience. The game performed fine in the western charts, but it was absolutely abysmal in Japan where it just did embarrassing numbers. Whatever targets they missed were most likely due to that region's complete disinterest in it. And they actually seemed to have put some marketing effort over there too.

 

I thought at the very least they’d add a checkpoint between Trip’s final boss and increase the rings in Super Sonic’s on top of fixing whatever the hell is wrong with its QTE timing but no the game really is seemingly forever stuck making you miserable if you want to finish it you beyond the main story.

 

I think the actual reality is that Classic Sonic was never really meant to be a recurring branch of the franchise. There being a "Classic Sonic" at all is arguably a result of the inconsistent rollercoaster of quality for "Modern Sonic" and a nostalgia for the classic games. Notice also that they walked back on the idea that "Classic" and "Modern" are different brands and in canon universes.

After Sonic Mania, "the only good Sonic games are the classics" came back with a vengeance but Sega couldn't actually capitalize off Classic Sonic because the people who worked on Sonic Mania moved onto other things. Mania itself didn't do crazy good in sales either: Iizuka specifically said he chose a 3D artstyle for Superstars because sprite-based artstyles limit the audience for the game.

Sonic Frontiers did better than practically any game since Sonic Heroes. The movies did really well, "Modern Sonic" is doing really well. Sonic is "good" again, so Sega probably doesn't feel the need to rely on Classic Sonic.

Of course, Arzest being the developers is also an issue, since that's not a Sega developer team and it's up to them if they want to continue it, and if they are making a Sonic game, it's probably a new one.

Regardless of how well Superstars sold or was received, the fact that the brand is generally on its feet again means that Sega probably wants focus on the main part of the franchise.

TL;DR: Sega isn't embarrassed by Classic Sonic, things are just back to "normal." Modern Sonic is the face of the franchise, Classic Sonic is a thing that comes back for anniversaries or special occasions.

 

I still can't believe they didn't even bother releasing a physical soundtrack for it.

Not the first Sonic game that didn't meet internal expectations or was criticized for its music so the decision baffles me.

 

The game did not do terribly well in the west either compared to modern titles. Price drops were swift, talk around it plateaued fairly quickly, and the average player struggled to finish the game completely more than other classic titles due to the steep difficulty curves.

Getting the classic formula right almost seems too hard to be worth it when the modern titles are now doing so well again. The brand is very much having a resurgence, but the enthusiasm for classic gameplay seemed to have dropped off a roof in the past year since Superstars hurt it. You've got events like SAGE/SHC keeping it relevant, but they've always existed and don't really determine Sega's development plans anymore. The Stealth/Tax situation does not strike me as one that's going to be replicated any time soon, as I personally have no idea what fan developer even could realistically replace those 2.

I guess part of me just wishes this game would get a nice QoL update, whether fanmade or otherwise. There's a lot it got right (many of the stages are well designed and the physics are solid, with a few minor issues which could easily be tweaked/fixed), but even the fandom does not seem to want to touch it, for whatever reason, which is just bleak. For better or worse, SEGA doing the "plus" fixes for Mania and Origins did help improve both titles as well, so it's a shame that this concept seems to be a dead end here (both came out within roughly a year, so we're past the point where those updates are likely)

And that's before we even discuss problems like the botched multiplayer aspects.

 

I understand the fear that they may not think Sonic "needs" classic Sonic games anymore, but this takeaway is honestly strange in a way I'm not sure that I can pinpoint. Who would've thought a specific physics ruleset and original zones weren't all there was to a series that spearheaded what was thought to be the newest hot shit from a gaming company 30 years ago? A lot of it were circumstances that can't be replicated (like 2D being the norm), so if anything "getting the formula right" doesn't really... mean anything? Sonic Mania didn't achieve whatever success it had for exactly the same reasons why the classic games did it, so it was never a question of replicating the formula, exactly.

If nothing else, the question might be that they couldn't find the market niche they wanted for a game featuring Classic Sonic, regardless of it being good or bad. They'll release the best game they think they can get away with releasing, after all. It's not like they gotta be thinking "omg we got it all right this time what DO they want did they LIE to us".

 

It's really disappointing that the OST, the boss invincibility frames and the erratic difficulty spikes never got patched, but the game still is fine and did fine. It failed to meet expectations, but that's not the same as actually being a failure. Did we not learn that for some bizarre reason their expectations were on the same level as Frontiers? That's their failure, not the game's, same as the price tag.

I have no clue when we'll see another Classic Sonic game, but I'd say that what we need is a 2D game like this with modern Sonic's setting and characters. If it's all about the branding, then keep the gameplay good and change the brand. Classic Sonic can still be a skin they charge US boomers a few extra bucks for! Superstars represents what Sonic lacked in the 2010s and hopefully won't be in the future: a stable series of side games that don't crash and burn while the main series does whatever the hell it wants (hopefully with less crashing-and-burning than the 2000s). I'm not sure how much we can fault it for failing to live up to one of the greatest games ever made.