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

These files were given to the press who attended SGF Play Days.

 

I tried my hand at adding some non-S4 BGM to the B-roll footage (link to the original remix in the description and first comment in the video):

 

I'm a bit late to the party, mostly because I've been reading the thread and watching videos. Like someone else said, it did seem kinda surreal at first. My initial thoughts after seeing the trailer were a bit mixed. Looked great, but multiplayer made it seem like maybe it was more of a collection of minigames/races, like more of a party game. Glad that isn't that case. I love how they're leaning into the classic aesthetic more, with stylized environments and big ol' Flickies and what not. I dig the Chaos Emerald powers because it always felt to me like individual Emeralds should have their own abilities. It also kinda blows me away a little bit to see that Ohshima's team is working on this as well. I know some folks are worried about Arzest because of Balan, but in this case they're working on a game for an existing IP (that their boss is familiar with), for a company who probably has more faith in platformers than Square. I was also genuinely surprised to see Fang. Crazy to see a new 3D model of him after so many years. Did someone make Genesis sprites of him and the Marvelous Queen just for the trailer or were they lifted from elsewhere?

By the way, I sure wouldn't complain if SEGA gave Joe Satriani a call.

 

yeah like, at this point, the music scene has changed so much that I feel that drum & bass, EDM etc follows in the footsteps of what the OG games, especially Sonic CD in particular, was doing.

I disagree with another take in this thread, that the Cyber Space tunes don't match the level. I was blissing out hard in 1-2 and I think there's a reason why that tune in particular took off so much, and I feel that the electronic sound helps with the vibe of going really fast. It's why racing games even back in the 2000s had drum & bass tunes on their soundtracks.

 

It also needs to be once again reiterated that Sonic 4 has some really solid tunes, just horribly mired by offensively bad mega drive style mixing. You can do so much more to fix these, especially with a willingness to increase your variety in chip tune styles, even on real hardware, and it's a damned shame Sega/Jun/Whomever didn't quite get that. (Even with that horrid drum beat)

 

I find it funny Classic Sonic in Sonic Generations had a even more "modern" feeling on the songs than the Classic Sonic stages theme itself, lol.

 

I think what bugs me the most about Modern “classic” sonic music is that it doesn’t just not sound like Sonic; it doesn’t sound like the Genesis at all

There were generally two very distinct kinds of sounds for genesis original titles (Three if we count whatever black magic Howard Drossin was casting on that chip to make it sound like that; emulators are still playing catchup on Comix Zone), with Sonic ironically sounding very different from what Genesis games usually did, but the new stuff trying to sound like that chip doesnt sound like either of those

like I would be happy with music that sounded distinctly Genesis if not particularly Genesis Sonic, but that’s not what we’ve been getting

 

I agree with your points about the current music not sounding much like anything from that era, as well as the distinction between Sonic's music on the Mega Drive and the other games, though I think the difference there was more between JP developers and US/EU developers, as the majority of Japanese games sounded good (though there were still some excellent sounding western games).

But to your final point, I'd much prefer music that sounds Sonic but not Mega Drive, than the other way around. Sonic CD all day, baby.

 

I think he means GEMS games.

 

Here's something to consider: It's here, it's now, Classic Sonic is back and is embarking on his first all new solo adventure in fuck knows how long - shouldn't we simply drop this notion of trying to be all "retro" and shit, and fully welcome Classic into the 2020s? They've made a good start by shitcanning Green Hill and Chemical Plant, let's extend that to the tunes as well.

 

"Distinct Mega Drive sound" to me is what 16-bit remixes of the unused 8-bit version of Marble Zone sound like compared to the original, actual Marble Zone. Sonic music, at least Sonic 1 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles, sound a lot... cleaner, fuller and mellower, and the metallic-y slap-y bass sound that could get me to recognize a Mega Drive music from miles away is much less present. Sonic Spinball and Sonic 2 are more Mega Drive-like to me though.

I have no idea what I'm talking about from a technical standpoint, however, and this impression might a well be a complete hallucination.

 

I think those fan remixes and arrangements that try to capture the Mega Drive sound typically use samples from existing Mega Drive games rather than actually designing sounds on a real FM synth like the YM2612. That's why they sound out of place and distinctly "Mega Drive-y," because they were cobbled together from different sources. Sonic's music, along with the music of most non-GEMS Mega Drive games, was made by people who were experienced in FM synthesis and made sounds specific to the tracks. For those inexperienced with FM, getting a good sound can be hard, which is why many used GEMS which was a bit more limiting than custom sound work.

That's a pretty okay answer I think. I can only speak as a musician and producer though, not as someone who knows about Mega Drive development work personally.

 

First post on this forum in literally years, but Superstars got me back on my bullshit:

I think this will either rival Mania in greatness, or be uneven and forgettable. It seems they got the physics right, but unless Sonic Team and Arzest can maintain consistently fun level design it will all be for naut.

What we've seen so far seems indicative of Sonic Team's trademark uneven nature: the first Zone looked great and a proper return to form, but the Jungle Zone resembled an Advance or Rush game more than the classic Trilogy.

The music is a bit of concern too. I haven't heard anything, but I doubt Jun Senou's ability to make music that evokes classic vibes after hearing his compositions in Origins and Sonic 4. Perhaps the more ambitious art style will motivate him to create music that has classic sensibilities but with a modern shean.

Overall I am cautiously optimistic for this! Ultimately I'm expecting it to be decent at worst, so I think no matter what we'll get something worth playing through at least once or twice.

 

I think it’s good if each stage ends up having a different feel, but high quality level design.

 

The "music scene" has changed a lot less than you'd think IMO. Macross 82-99 is mega popular and half their music samples (or wholesale takes melodies from) 90's j-fusion. Tunes like "Crystal Dolphin" still blow up and become memes/trending sounds on TikTok because people are genuinely into it. There are also elements of fusion in the "mainstream", even if it's not super common. Plus, I think it's a bit limiting for Sonic to just be about "whatever is relevant right now", even when Adventure adapted the series' music to match tastes, the style they went for was at least similarly structured. Generations' brand of EDM doesn't really follow the same structure or form as classic Sonic songwriting. I just think an easy way to nail that structure would be to look toward the music classic Sonic music was trying to emulate. A lot of Sonic CD's music even managed to realize that sound because woooo goodbye hardware limitations (mostly) and I think CD-style music would bode really well today with some modern production.

 

Let me add my own two cents to the "Genesis sound" discussion, based on my own knowledge and experience writing Genesis music for fun over the last few years.

Developers often re-used the same FM sounds between projects on the Genesis, and some tools (like GEMS) came with their own sounds. This resulted in a lot of "groups" of games that sound similar; for example, Matt Furniss and Hitoshi Sakimoto each have a pretty homogeneous output, by virtue of doing their own arrangements. Any of these have some claim to being the "distinct Genesis sound", although, by quantity, the soundtracks using the default GEMS patches are probably the strongest candidate. The Sonic games mostly avoided this by using a lot of bespoke sounds (and, in Sonic 3's case, by cobbling the OST together from whatever Sega could get their hands on). But Sonics 1 and 2 were both arranged (from Masa's demos) by Sega's in-house team, and it definitely shows; and Howard Drossin brought his own style (using a lot of GEMS instruments) to Spinball. 3D Blast (iirc) draws heavily from the same palette of sounds used in Sonic 3.

This doesn't really apply to the new music/remixes people do for Genesis in this day and age - there are too many composers, and they all do their own arrangement, using tools that are far better than what existed in the 90's.

Sonic 4's tracks aren't arranged like any strain of Genesis music I'm aware of - or at least, they don't sound like any of the good OST's on the console, and they don't sound all that good in a vacuum either. This makes some sense, because Senoue composed, but never arranged, for Genesis during the console's life. But why his intuition told him to arrange the OST in such an unpleasant manner is anyone's guess.

If I had my way, Superstars' OST would sound something like a (diverse) 90's club mixtape, because I do feel there's something quintessentially 90's about Sonic, and I think it would pair well with the game's aesthetic direction. But I'll settle for a little voice in Jun's ear that tells him to ignore his maligned concept of "Genesis music" instead. Hopefully that's what Tee Lopes is contributing for Superstars.

 

Honestly nowadays indie developers seem to actually harken back to the era of the 90's compositions nowadays more accurately than any big publisher or studio does, in due part to direct inspiration from and growing up with those sorts of games.

 

I'm excited about an AAA priced 2D platformer with (presumably) the budget to go with it. I would've preferred Mania 2, but we take what we can get I guess. The visuals are striking, although I think they could use a bit of "something" to give them a more Classic Sonic feeling.

I do have some concerns from the gameplay video that there may be an over-reliance on "gimmicks"; springing up from vines, sliding, the spotlight surrounded by darkness thing. I hope these don't take away from the essence that is required - true classic physics, speed and momentum being rewarding, and interesting level design.

I have a soft spot for the music (except for the bosses) since I saw Jun perform it live at Summer of Sonic years ago, so I actually hope it stays in!