Sonic Superstars Ultra Mega Spoiler Containment Thread for Spoilers [SPOILERS]

I said "some" not "good", lol.

The inherent problem, and the one I'm highlighting, is that "Genesis-style" is inherently vague and meaningless that while it's technically a direction, it will result in things like this. I do feel like the composers were told to make what they think was "Genesis-style" because that's the only form of consistency here. Even the best tracks sounding like something that was in the classic games (if entirely different ones).

Egg Fortress, and the sound mixing, and the sound effect reuse, yeah, I think there are bigger issues in the sound department than direction.

There are some of Senoue's tracks even in this game that I like. And I'd be fine with a soundtrack like that not because I think it's good, but because it would be consistent. The inconsistency is a bigger issue. Not just in quality, but style.

 

I, like many others are desperate for a Classic sequel that will finally surpass 3k and Mania. But I'm not desperate enough to buy Superstars in the vain hopes that one day it will happen.

I think the brutal reality we have to face is that the current team are never going to give that to us, and they'll never get Classic Sonic the way the Mania cats did.

If Superstars looks like your cup of tea, have at it! But anyone buying this game with the hope that if they support them, then one day they'll get it right - is a massive, massive fool.

 

I just want something new to challenge myself with after having played Mania and the classics a hundred times. But I'm not sure if people's gripes with the boss fights are the kind of challenge I'm looking for.

Spoiler

Trip gets a two-phase unique final boss against Nack who is an absolute terror filled with ring-ignoring one hit kill attacks, for one example.

 

There were multiple composers in Sonic 3, but for all intents and purposes, only one instrument. This means even with the "Michael Jackson" tracks, the soundtrack is relatively consistent.

Here, the brief seems to be "make classic Sonic music", with the interpretations ranging from "use a Mega Drive soundfont" to "generic synthesizer sounds". Some people put in modern embelishments, others are trying to recapture Sonic 2 and 3. Some are light and fluffy and for the kids, some are more serious and may be taking notes from Sonic Adventure and its siblings. And there's a level based on Fantasy Zone.

Obviously if you've only got one composer on a strict timeframe, the music will be inherently similar across the board, but there's no reason a dozen composers can't produce a nice soundtrack - you just need a competant audio director. But given they can't even seem to get the volume levels right, it doesn't looks as if they had that.


My younger self would have said some of the compositions were unsalvageable, but recently I discovered John Tay, so idk, someone might fix it all.

 

Exactly my point.

 

I work a job so I can’t finish trip’s story right now. But I got every emerald played every act and beat the wannabe time lord robot and I did not get whatever this true final boss dragon thing is. Once you obtain every emerald you do not need to do it again in Trip mode from what I can tell. Also trips super form is goofy as fuck and controls odd for a sonic game.


As of a minute ago: From what I’ve been told, beating trip mode gives you the true final boss.

 

Beaten Superstars today (At least got the standard ending, I guess I'll see if I go for all emeralds and finish Trip's campaign)

It's okay. I think everyone really over-exaggerated about the game's quality, lol. I saw some people comparing the level design to Sonic Advance 2 and I don't see it. None of the levels are filled with bottomless pits and when there are, it's during sections where it was placed appropriately and given generous checkpoints. I also expected the "Sonic 4"-like music to be way worse with how people were complaining about it in here and like... they're fine? The weakest part for sure, but it's listenable. I think the compositions were good, which helped it out a lot. However, I will agree on wanting it to be of consistent quality. It's jarring to go from a very well-composed level score to a boss theme that sounds like a temp midi, lol.

My big issue is that I find the game very boring. I don't get what the developers were going on about in terms of this being the "Sonic Frontiers" of 2D games. I felt the Sonic Advance games did a better job of evolving what 2D Sonic could be, even with the series' mixed results. The levels in Superstars are basic and the main gimmick, the emerald powers, felt underutilized. The only time I thought the game was getting more interesting was the last couple of zones, which is a little too late. The drill in Golden City was fun, I like the retro stuff going on in Cyberstation, Frozen Base Act 2 was a cute homage and I honestly thought the final zone's gimmick was cool.

Those have stuff that I had never seen in Classic Sonic before, but it only made up a small percentage of the overall game. Rest is what you would probably expect.

The one thing I found bad were the boss fights. It's not hard but they just waste your time a lot. I never liked the levels ending in a boss fight and this game just makes me hate it even more, lol. The standard final boss was annoying because if you die, you have to do all the phases over again. It isn't hard but again, it has the issue of having to wait around a lot to even get a chance to hit it. I died more through impatience since I wanted to get it done and over with, lol.

So idunno, this whole game felt like it should've come out on the 3DS instead. This doesn't feel like it earned the status of a full-priced, 60 dollar game. It's not bad, but it's nothing special either. I'd wait for a deep discount.

 

It's actually a lot like how you can have "Genesis" style remixes of the same modern tunes by a bunch of different youtubers that all end up sounding nothing alike.

 

Well.

At least Trip is really cute.

lmao.

 

Everyone who's playing the game early can you please use this chart to describe your thoughts?

 

There's also a lot of old versions of the music. I don't know if "play with worse music" is an option, but it's curious that so much of this is left in-game.

I'm not sure if it's a case of "pull in as many musicians as possible to get this stuff done", but it suggests they might not have had time to clean up after themselves. Given we know they were using placeholders at promotional events, and have borrowed jingles from Sonic Mania, I suspect there was some mismanagement on the audio side.

Curious to see what the dataminers find. Will we find the Sonic 4 tracks??

 

I really gotta say I don't know why they did designed it this way. Mania did it to a lesser degree, which a lot of fans complained about, so Superstars doubling down on it is baffling. The classic Sonic bosses were, by and large, designed to go down in 15 seconds on purpose. Nobody's first time against a boss will go by that quickly so it makes replaying them fun and rewarding, kind of like Sonic games in general. That wasn't a mistake and it didn't need to be "fixed".

 

Looks like we might actually be getting at least some music updated and/or patched in, as this video seemingly contains a new customisation track (0:49), which is either unused or not present in the unpatched physical broken street date copies, based on what I've watched in various live streams. In the early release physical copies, the customisation menu plays the standard menu track, unlike in this video.



Interesting... This solidifies my belief that Sonic Superstars' soundtrack was rather rushed.

 

I think I huffed too much hopium in regards to the soundtrack. Specially regarding the boss tracks.

I don't think I can expect a day 1 patch to change anything.

 

That official video suggests the audio situation is even more insane. If Jun Senoue's gone deaf from playing loud guitars for so long, that would explain the audio inconsistencies... but there are big Sega veterans in there - Takenobu Mitsuyoshi scored most of Sega's arcade output in the 1990s - his piece even sounds like it was ripped from Sega Rally



These people have some of the most talent in the industry, and yet not a single one spotted the volume discrepancies? Come on.


This alone has me believe they shipped a prototype and are playing the "day one patch" game. But it reflects really badly - even if it hadn't leaked a week early, there people who make noise about the state of shipped games - musical downgrades/upgrades were never going to go unnoticed.

 

shipping a prototype for launch is industry standard, no one really cares about it unless the game leaks and that happens to be the one version of the product they see

 

One thing I'm pretty confident in is that datamining the unpatched physical release version and assumedly day 1 patch version will result in some interesting comparisons in what did and didn't change, particularly in the audio department.

Another thing I've noticed is that the World Map track in the early physical version doesn't appear to loop seamlessly, like it loops ever so slightly too early. It's somewhat subtle but noticeable, the flow is slightly off-time; makes me wonder if perhaps that track will be slightly longer in a patched version? Maybe not though... Also, footage of earlier demo builds had the boss music not loop at all, resulting in silence except sound effects. Man, this game's audio situation has been sketchy since some of the earliest press / marketing material, what on earth is going on with that I wonder? The audio situation being "insane" indeed seems like an apt description here.

 

This guy is fighting a gold version of the final boss as Sonic, no idea how he triggered that: https://www.twitch.tv/boldolee

 

I asked him and he just-- didn't answer lmao

EDIT: But he answered someone else abut it: he doesn't know (lmao)

Spoiler: Screenshotting it in case it needs to be archived as a glitch or whatever

 

Industry standard is still to ship "version 1.0" of a game, though yes you'll be pushed onto 1.1 or 1.2 or whatever pretty quickly. Though this is a terrible practise that should always be highlighted, especially at a $60 asking price.

But when it comes to music, having wildly inconsistent volumes across tracks is akin to charcter textures not loading in graphics world. Yes you can still play the game, but making the conscious decision to launch in that state? Again, it's not a great look, especially when you've got top-tier Sega musicians on board with decades of experience.


One thing that is a great look is Sonic fighting the final boss on a floor of floppy disk drives. Which I've only just noticed. And am wondering if it was intentional.