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

What we're hearing from those who played the demo is that each character had a short intro done with 2.5D in-game style graphics. That could change, but I'm kinda guessing it won't

 

I suppose the biggest issue is that, like Mania this animation merely reads as promotional. When you compare it to the holy grail, Sonic CD, it falls short. Sonic CD had a unique invigorating song, made Sonic look badass, and left the viewer with this inspiring depiction of a surreal adventure about to unfold on Little Planet. I want Sega to attempt to capture THAT, not merely reintroduce the characters, yet again.

I feel like, today, they wouldn't end on this image because... (falsely) it's not colorful or dynamic enough...



Instead we get this, which is more dynamic, but uninteresting. We know who these characters are...

 

Sonic CD intro rules and it's just Sonic running around rocks for a minute and 30 seconds.

 

Sonic CD’s intro was also animated by one of the biggest studios in the Japanese animation industry, and said studio doesn’t exist anymore. I’d love another animation of that caliber but I think expecting anything like it again is unrealistic.

 

Sonic CD had a bit more story to tell, whereas Mania, Origins (intro, not the game cutscenes), and this are more just a montage of what's to come in the game.

In a way it's more fair to compare these to Sonic CD's end credits video.

 

That's a valid point, but I also feel today's technology makes it much more feasible. They don't need to watercolor all the backgrounds, and ink and paint each frame like they used to. CD had soul, whereas this animation feels very corporate. Is being spellbound so much to ask for? /s

This is a billion dollar company, with a 30+ year billion dollar IP. With successful movies, games, tv shows, etc. They have all the advantages of modern animation at their disposal... We should be expecting more, not less.

 

Putting the blame on the marketing for not capturing the magic that was pre-launch Mania. Might seem unfair at first, but any other explanation fails. #TargetingNewAudiences What's shown so far is good enough for me if the quality stays consistent throughout.

 

It's far from unrealistic. There are many good studios still out there that can produce animation that's just as good, if not better. Probably in a shorter amount of time, too, since technology has helped speed things up immensely. It's just a matter of finding the right one.

 

I like this new animation, but I'm also... not sure what the appeal is for including these with each new Sonic game? Why can't they make the next Sonic cartoon proper in a traditional 2D animated style instead of CGing the whole thing?

 

Has Toei fallen that far from grace nowadays? ^^"

 

That's the issue I'm seeing most people have with this intro (which is also mine). It's just another montage, and it's not exciting one. There's nothing wrong with being a clip show montage. There are a bunch of games that did that.
Mega Man 8 just animates events of the previous games (it was the anniversary title after all).
Mega Man X4 is just various clips showcasing the new characters introduced to the game.
Trap Gunner is as low budget as you can get but it's got a banging track and nice presentation to hold it up and its a great way to quickly introduce you to the cast.
Omega Strikers does a couple of matches but they also introduce a majority of the roster and even manages to tell a short story in a minute and 30.

Superstars has only one good segment and that's when Sonic gets picked up by Tails and then chased by the giant Badnik. That was something new and directly related to the game. Everything before it are just random sequences that don't really tie into each other in any real meaningful way. This intro would have been a great way to re-introduce Fang and show off Trip but they appear briefly and they just stand there.

This really isn't a budget issue. It's a direction and concept problem.

 

probably because CG artists aren't unionised

 

Yeah, I absolutely get the sentiment. It's funny that CD should be so highly regarded when it's the absolute most simple ad for a game you could possibly have. It's Sonic, he runs and he's heading towards a planet that's floating over a lake while chained to a mountain. That's it. There's not a second to it that isn't just that. But each shot follows the last, and it creates a sense of progression that makes it really good.

Tails picking up Sonic is so exciting because it directly follows Sonic running, and shows how each character can make up for the others' shortcomings, besides being based on things that are actually in the game. It would have been the easiest thing to get Knuckles or Amy to destroy the giant fish thing and pick up this small story from there.

Honestly, even for random sequences, you could link them with purely visual transitions without any sort of proper story. That's what Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog's OP does, and it's still great.



Still, I like what we got. It has characters we love, and I'm thrilled to see Classic Amy hammering down enemies.

 

(they own another)


No if you get past the marketing, it's clearly seen as a lower priority effort that's not getting the full resources of Sonic Frontiers. Why this decision keeps being made, we may never know, but they absolutely could make it the best freaking thing ever if they wanted.

 

iirc that animation was done specifically by Studio Junio, Toei just made the character reference sheet, it was a contract job which apparently wasn't super uncommon for them back then


Edit: Oh wait my bad... apparently Hesse and co did not work on this one. That actually might explain the difference in style and quality, I thought SEGA just hit them with the good ol' time crunch.

 

Yeah, there's nothing unrealistic about getting something like CD again. It's not some groundbreaking piece of animation.

According to Eguchi, that is correct. It was outsourced to Studio Junio and they completed it over a 4 month period. I only have this screenshot. I can't browse Twitter anymore since I don't have an account.

 

So far, this game has a fun kind of whimsy. I hope that vibe can be carried all throughout the game.

 

The low frame rate of the intro immediately caught my attention, but content-wise, I think it's perfect! Intro animations don't need to tell a story, they just need to show the main characters doing cool stuff. And they're even in environments that actually resemble the actual game, unlike in the one from Sonic Mania, where characters were just being goofy in a pointless void, so that's a step up. I feel like Hesse's animations are more fluid though (not necessarily because of more frames per second, but because of better use of the available frames), so it's a shame he wasn't brought to work on Superstars.

 

Hes busy on movies, lol. Crazy to think of how far he's come from those parody comics