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

I think I get the sentiment of a 4 player party fighter fest with 3D visuals, but remember that Power Stone was Capcom.

Honestly I would like to see the revival of a spinoff/side-game era at this rate. I just hope things don't get out of hand.

 

I mean I haven't played much of Battle but it always kinda felt like a barebones Power Stone clone to me, and I don't think it's a stretch to assume Sega could've taken inspiration from its 3D fighter gameplay. I'd just like a new game like Power Stone even if it's not directly inspired by it. And I don't think it's an unprofitable idea either considering Multiversus and the like. Goofy fighters seem at least somewhat back in style so I don't see why not.

 

yeah my thoughts exactly, any character design choices should be aesthetic only and not have any bearing on gameplay imho

I mean they've got classic sonic grinding on vines now, that's always been a "modern sonic" thing lol

 

Thanks! Just finished playing through it and, honest to goodness, it's exactly what I want. The greater field of view allows so much more play based on instinct instead of level memorization. Certain things like the sense of speed certainly take a hit with the camera so far out, but I think it's a worthwhile tradeoff for greater level readability. Obviously the genesis games weren't designed for so much of the screen to be visible so it looks crusty, but a modern 2.5D game like Superstars should be able to pull it off visually.

I see that there are some benefits to keeping the camera closer to Sonic for a better sense of speed and a better look at character animations, but I'm still all about zooming out.

 

I'm actually really glad the camera is so close. Being extremely zoomed out is one of my biggest gripes with a lot of modern 2D games.

That said, having the option for those who prefer it would be nice, given that such a thing is much easier to implement when there's no pixel art to worry about scaling oddly.

 

Like @lopinjop, I wasn't particularly weirded out, either. Granted, I also didn't play like I normally would because I could see much more of the map around me, so maybe we all just kind of adapt to these kinds of things? It makes it hard for me to make a direct comparison and make a value judgement. Sonic's camera work is lowkey very sophisticated with how it behaves different when you're on the air vs. when you're n the ground, and that's very diminished here, but I can't say I felt weird in any way.

 

First impressions from Brazilian channel Voxel:

"I have to admit it with no regrets: Sonic Superstars was potentially the most fun game at the Summer Game Festival."

 

The way he talks about the game is different from other accounts so far, isn't it? He said there's a co-op mode on top of a single player story mode. Almost as if single player is the main progression of the game. Maybe I interpreted it wrong.

EDIT: Nevermind! By the end of the video he makes it clear that you can use co-op at any point during the main campaign, and confirms that co-op wasn't available at all in the demo.

 

its almost his birthday jesus its ALMOST HIS BIRTHDAY let him have this one thing he wants to be a ball



re: camera, the camera zoom is one of the biggest gripes I hear people have with Classic Sonic, I see no harm in offering an alternate camera mode and just letting people choose. The Sonic 1 hack seems like a bad faith example because zooming the camera WAY out is like if someone said "I prefer my cookies a little bit salty" and you dumped an entire shaker of Mortons iodized salt into a bowl of cookie dough and said "see? this is bad, cookies shouldn't be salty" as they threw up pure salt for 23 consecutive minutes. Zooming out the camera isn't the same as ZOOMING OUT THE CAMERA.

 

Ah, I thought you were implying Sega was involved with making Power Stone and was screwing up by not bringing it back. I get you now. The gameplay is definitely kind of similar. There aren’t too many 3D fighters in that style.

 

At a glance it seems more zoomed in, but if you compare the two games they're actually very close. It probably feels like less is visible because of the perspective on the edges of the camera, which is something I encounter often in 2.5 games like this.

 

Regarding the camera: an interesting small change made I noticed is that when Sonic falls in the air he doesn't pass below the centre of the screen like he would in Mania and the others, so you are able to see a bit more below you when falling than you could before.

 

It would make time attack biased in favor of zooming-out to be able to see things better. I don’t know, why not just have the levels use a dynamic camera for sections that need it?

 

I think that's also going to extremes. Zooming out a tiny bit or offering 2 slightly different zoom options would mean there's, at most, 2 ways to play the game. You couldn't just zoom out on a whim or adjust a slider to cheese speedruns. It just means there's a normal platformer camera, and then there's the classic Sonic camera that is intentionally zoomed in (I believe) because the game was designed during an era where they NEEDED to use tricks like camera zoom and setpiece placement (count the number of palmtrees and tall sunflowers you pass in GHZ1) in order to establish the illusion of speed. Again it doesn't bother me personally, but for example porting the classic games to widescreen actually increased visibility in a drastic way, and many non-hardcore fans said they liked the new visibility.

 

I guess that's the key here. 2.5D naturally looks more cramped because of the perspective, so it feels zoomed in.

 

yeah there's some fisheye lens effect going on, I wish it was more like the New Mario games which has 3d characters and objects but pre rendered backgrounds.

 

It’s actually field of view. A lower field of view will give you something closer to 2D.

A higher field of view creates a more stretched 3D effect or rather the “fishey” like effect that you’re referring to. Where the polygons further away from the camera’s center point near the edges of the screen appear a little more stretched or distorted to create the 3D depth.
Fov of 90 works well in fps or 3ed person games. But in my opinion looks odd for 2.5D
If you look at GHZ 2.5D here, I set the field of view to 45. And to me it felt a little more natural.
you can take it all the way down to 1 and you almost get a semi 2D , or just set the camera to orthographic projection for pure 2D, I had some options in ghz 2.5D to allow players to change the fov, as well as the camera distance, or select 2D orthographic camera style.


A better showcase of that 45 fov but with models closer to the foreground and background.

 

No need. Mega Man 11 solved this problem years ago

5 minutes 11 seconds

https://www.siliconera.com/mega-man-11s-dev-team-goes-into-detail-on-how-stages-are-made/

 

But that's a bad example. First of all MM11 look extremely flat, that levels might as well be made up of png's instead of 3D models.
Secondly the levels are made entirely of blocks unlike Sonic games which are filled with slopes and corksrews and all sorts of wacky geometry.