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

The way the Sonic fandom gaslit itself into thinking that Genesis-accurate physics were incredibly difficult to implement and clearly Sonic Team was just too incompetent to add them was kinda wild ngl

Like, every single skateboarding or snowboarding game has them. Any even remotely plausible racing game would too. Sonic Team really just didn't care about replicating the classic physics.

 

They shouldn't have to honestly, it's a meme. But now any random person who doesn't like it not being the exact same can influence the casual market into thinking a game's bad just by... Suggesting that it's bad, with no evidence or anything to back it up. All because it's not the EXACT thing they wanted when the game feels more like Sonic Advance than Sonic 3.

 

Even a casual player can understand that something is wrong when a game constantly uses props to move a player foward to cover up for regular movement.

Or uses a mechanic to help the user navigate a 3d Space on a 2d game.

And even if you think i'm giving them too much credit (which personally i don't think so) i can assure you they can feel when they are punished too much for falling into a inscapable hole out of nowhere.

 

Would anyone mind that? Sonic Advance feels great.
Sure, people always say want a game that "feels like classic sonic" which is just an easy accessible way to say they want a return of all of those core principles that have been missing in almost every attempt at 2D so far. The Advance series definitely "feels like classic sonic" and personally I'd enjoy Superstars just as much if they'd copied that instead (even being obsessed with classic physics stuff).

I feel like most people would not even notice (or care about) that kind of difference. Unless something important is actually off (the examples are obvious), where the classic games are an easy beacon to point towards because you know they have those core principles.

 

I learned from @Azookara that Sonic Frontiers does in fact have that kind of code in it, but it was simply commented out, and there are mods that bring it back. Genesis-accurate physics are kinda hard to replicate, because programming is hard, but phasing out Genesis-Sonic-gameplay as a whole was very much a conscious choice all along.

That said, building a platforming game on Classic terms around such momentum-based-platforming, which depends on those kinds of physics, is much harder. I disagree with @Lapper about Sonic Advance feeling like a classic game, but I think it feels more like a classic game than Superstars can ever hope to. And that's just not a problem. What Superstars will choose to mimic and what it will do with these simulacra facing today's gaming standards is what counts.

 

When people complain about bad physics and controls in 2D Sonic games (or 2D sections of 3D/2D hybrid Sonic games) they're talking about the likes of Sonic 4, Sonic Forces, Sonic Frontiers or even Sonic Generations, but not Sonic Advance. I don't know the specifics of the differences between Sonic Advance 1 and the classic games, but it feels like you would expect a 2D Sonic game to feel, and it feels good. Sonic 4 et al don't feel the way you would expect a 2D Sonic game to feel, and feel clunky and unsatisfying in their own right.

What are you basing this on? Christian Whitehead said that Sonic Mania's physics were translated to Sonic Superstars. Everyone who's played the game has said that it controls like the classic games.

 

You're big into Sonic physics - how close is Sonic Advance? There was noise going around for years that it was "the Sonic 2 engine" magically converted to the GBA. I was going to investigate this once, but it's pointless if there are genuine experts on this board.

This was Dimps doing the engine "right", so it's curious to how it got so wrong by Sonic 4. Were Advance 2, 3 and the Rush games shedding features or were they complete engine re-writes?

 

Advance 1 definitely does; lets me do everything I like to do in 1, 2, CD, and 3K.

I don't remember if Advance 2 changed anything in this regard, but I do remember that Advance 3 feels different (in a bad way); if I remember correctly, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was the player no longer being able to "badnik bounce".

I think there's a reason we see "Sonic Advance was the real Sonic 4" much more often than "Sonic Advance 2 was the real Sonic 5". Or, I encounter the former more than the latter, at least (read: I've never encountered the latter).

 

Yeah, well, classic Sonic gameplay isn't just a physics engine. The fact that there is no life system with a permanent fail state (and in turn the fact that the role of rings change completely); the way permanent power-ups are meant to unlock, or at the very least give you hope to unlock, experiences in stages you've already been through (or, I should say, a "positive" replay factor); the idea that you can co-op with up to three more people; these are all not just new features, but displays of a certain mentality and a game design philosophy upon which classic Sonic just wasn't built. It wasn't there for SEGA or Sonic Team 30 years ago. Which, again, is not a problem: Sonic Superstars is a game for audiences in 2023, after all.

The Master System games didn't have 1:1 physics either, but they are bona fide Classic Sonic games because they had everything else, and made do with what they had.

 

I play it the least, but I think Sonic Advance 2 largely feels like 1 when not in a boost state. Advance 3 definitely changed the movement in order to make Sonic’s acceleration and speed a bit faster. The other characters play pretty close to Advance 1 when not paired with Sonic though. The missing bounce is something I noticed again while playing yesterday and it is disappointing.

 

But the physics and controls are specifically what everyone was discussing these past few posts.

 

But I was very specific in my post that I was no longer talking about physics:

 

12 Zones confirmed in the Nintendo Direct.

 

This might include your Hidden Palaces, Sky Sanctuaries and Doomsdays.
Still it's a great number.

 

That's honesty way more than I was expecting, and I'm definely glad with that number.

 

Some screenshots of the new zone shown from the video:
(from Switch footage obviously)

Spoiler

I love how it looks, it's quite unique

 

Looks like a digital casino or something. Sports-beting themed zone incoming?

 

The first footage of that new zone immediately reminded me of the carnival like zone from Sonic Crackers lol

 

We now know what the Mania team has been working on in Penny's Big Breakaway.

 

Well now I know what they meant here at least. Hmm