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

That’s how it’s supposed to be done. Yep.

 

https://twitter.com/onthedownlotho/status/1667614432967675905?s=46&t=9VA_zWcqdBEmjJcRREkX4w

Idle animations

should probably keep an eye on Fadel here; seems like he wants to really poke and prod this thing

already said he’d double check the music as well

 

I more meant that it sounds like they spent a lot of time getting it right.

 

and also, like, it has bugged me for years that Amy is essentially "The Arbitrarily Underpowered Chick with a hammer". Sure Tails and Knuckles are technically slower than Sonic but they could keep up with him - Amy in all of her appearances save Advances 2 & 3 have her be absolutely glacial. Giving Amy the same ground as Sonic, even if that means her (extremely mixed) Advance moveset goes out the window, is a good thing to me.

 

I'm not going to hold Superstars accountable for being too cutesy just yet since we still haven't really seen much. They do seem to at least show Sonic being a little flippant in some of his animations, which is a step up from the dopey Mickey Mouse we got in Generations. Really all they need to do here for me to be happy is make Eggman feel like an actual threat. Would be really neat to see what he had planned next after the Death Egg, for example.

 

Iizuka makes a really interesting comment at 1:06:17, here’s how his translator communicated it at 1:06:55
“For Sonic Mania, Christian Whitehead is a real big fan of the classic series and he did a real good job of recreating that classic feel and experience for Mania. But for Sonic Superstars we still wanted to go back to the origins of Sonic and that’s why we’re working with Naoto Oshima, I’m sure you know who he is. Working with Oshima, is a colaboration with Izukia-san and Oshima-san and a lot of other people who were there and created those original sonic games.”
Are there more Sonic Veterans (Yas?) involved in Superstars?
The interview also reveals that development (or at least conceptualization) started in 2020 following a zoom “drinking party” between Iizuka and Ohshima

 

I saw someone earlier in the thread asking if you could jump while in a loop to gain speed, it seems like Fadel confirms that that is in fact possible.

https://twitter.com/RealJellyLord/status/1667617432913997824

 

I recall reading that Arzest is made up of former Sega employees

 

The idea of Ohshima and Iizuka drinking together on a zoom call and casually pitching the modern revival of the Classic Sonic formula is both wholesome and hilarious to me.

 

Tee Lopes was on twitter saying something along the lines of "lol they said the music was Tee Lopes-y" so make of that what you will.

IMO Super Sonic in Frontiers was extremely "shonen cool" so I can see why they wouldn't implement that in Superstars as well, it'd be pretty redundant.

This is still my favorite illustration of "classic Sonic" precisely for this reason!



I want to hug and squish him!!

 

Again though, it's not that that bugs me so much as their rather bland replacement; a double jump. Not some crazy unique power that makes tactical use of her trademark like Sonic's drop dash or Knuckles' gliding/climbing or Ray's souring. A double jump. It doesn't even have a unique animation connecting to her hammer. Even worse since characters like Sonic and Blaze have already had a double jump but more distinctively implemented.

This has nothing to do with her 'keeping up' it's to do with her not having as colourful as moveset as the others, even with their own similarities to Sonic. It merely follows ANOTHER formula of "the chick with a generic powerset".

 

see like, that's where I think our approaches differ, I want her to be like Blaze and be "just like the guys" and have always wanted her to be that way, and always disliked how she was just arbitrarily different because she's "the usele--er, everygirl chick who crushes on the hero" and how her moveset leaned into that (not being fast, all of her gameplay being stealth-based even into Sonic 06, because she's so weak she has to run and hide from things). So like, her being "one of the guys" in this game makes her less of the "everygirl" archetype that I really, really hate in cartoon animal properties.

I get that maybe her not being as "interesting" would be aggravating, but my personal opinion was that I always hated her "more interesting" traits and approaches because they were largely rooted in a trope I despise.

 

Everygirl..? Why don't you try to hammer jump.

 

I'm not talking about her Advance gameplay anymore. You want her to roll and run as fast as Sonic, FINE. Keep those. But at least make her one unique ability as cool and compelling as the others.

Like let's say she was EXACTLY the same as she is here, but rather than a double jump, she had a really unique move with her hammer, something that took advantage of the surroundings or gave momentum in a similar way to the guys' abilities and was only more incentivising the more you mastered or played around with it, not to mention made Amy's playthrough very unique in flow in spite of still having the core abilities of the other characters.

I just don't see a double jump doing that. Hell in the preview with her, she barely uses her own abilities at all.

 

Oh, I don't have any doubt he's a huge Sonic fan, it just occurred to me he probably have forgot where it was from (which could be a normal thing for everyone). Just to be clear, I'm aware the music in this demo is just a placeholder.

I think maybe someone ask him about the soundtrack tho', just to be sure. But he alreldy said is going to make his impression about the demo, so I guess we should just wait.

 

Amy's been as capable as Sonic since fucking Heroes in 2003. Ship has LONG sailed.

 

I have the opposite opinion, I hate how characters that are different and weaker always have to be powered up so they can be exactly like everyone else, it particularly bothers me when they do it with female characters because it always feels to me like they're saying that women have to fit into a "traditionally masculine" idea of powerful in media otherwise they're just the "useless chick that gets into the way of the cool males".

That's one of the reasons why I always loved Amy's gameplay in Advance, she's not like Sonic, or Tails, or Knuckles, or Blaze, she's herself. Playing with Amy is a very unique experience in that game and I think that her character in general has always been about that, that's why she's the one who convinces Shadow to do good instead of helping in Cannon's Core for example, she's strong in her own way and I think that's an aspect of the character that has been slowly forgotten in favor of making her just like everyone else.

With that said, her Advance gameplay can be a problem with the co-op, so I'm fine with them making something new here. And if I'm going to be honest, her being "weaker" doesn't automatically make the gameplay good, Amy's gameplay feels miserable in Adventure and 06, but she's fine on Heroes where hse plays like everyone else. It's just that I wish she was more unique and creative, there's a reason why she has a hammer, or why they gave her a car in Sonic R, the game where everyone else just ran on foot. These days it almost seems like the Piko Piko Hammer is merely a weapon of choice, barely any more important than Shadow's guns or vehicles in his solo game and 06, and I really don't like that. As E-122-Psi said a few times, she doesn't need to play like Advance 1 (although it would be my preffered style) but they should make something that fews more like herself and less like they just went "We need to give Amy some special ability... huuuuuh.... I don't know, double jump I guess?"

It's particularly disappointing to me because Amy is just seen as a character that was "made wrong", and thus almost every time she's used they just make something new and different that doesn't necessarily has anything to do with her character. She's considered the fourth member of Team Sonic, yet nobody seems to agree on what kind of gameplay fits her in a game style as simple as 2D classic Sonic

 

Ngl I love Amy’s jumping animation that has her spinning into a ball while spinning her hammer. The animation and the double jump feel inspired by her summersault ability from Adventure and Advance 1. Clearly this move is less unique than those, and I understand people who are disappointed… but personally I’m pretty happy with this moveset for Amy

 

I'll give you Heroes. But post-Heroes, I have never felt like Amy did anything to make me feel like there was decent representation for us in the franchise. For me that was Blaze, Blaze kicks ass and is just as powerful as Sonic right down to her super form, and her character weakness was being TOO headstrong and not wanting to rely on others, which is dope. Classic Amy looks awesome in Superstars and I'm looking forward to trying her. Double jumping IS kind of a boring ability, but she can also Smash through walls and basically has a permanent insta-shield which should be fun.