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

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by The Joebro64, Oct 12, 2023.

  1. Sneasy

    Sneasy

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    The rest of the post is "it doesn't look like it needs to be downgraded", but if they did, it probably needed to. I'm sure there's some engineering wizard or game engine that can have the game achieve equal parity and performance on every system, but, well, there wasn't, and that's fine.

    They don't bring Dimps back because Bandai Namco got them making a dozen Dragon Ball and Gundam games. Seriously, though they do seem busy.
     
  2. Vertette

    Vertette

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    you wouldn't need a wizard for that im pretty sure i could do a better job arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
     
  3. Sneasy

    Sneasy

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    No, you couldn't.
     
  4. Vertette

    Vertette

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    My name is in the credits of two Switch games, including one that pushes the CPU very hard. My dev kit is sitting right here on the desk. Yes, I really could've.

    They could've just used two cameras and had the background render at half resolution. Shaves off so a lot of pixels you need to render, barely looks any worse. Bam, there you go, performance saved. Arzest didn't even try.
     
  5. Palas

    Palas

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    Amy carrying Trip on her back redeems this game entirely. Peak Sonic.

    EDIT: Although it's severely disappointing that you have a section in which Amy, arguably the character that is hindered the least by badniks in the game because she can double jump, doesn't have to even face badniks when she can no longer curl or double jump. It would've been great additional challenge!
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2023
  6. Sneasy

    Sneasy

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    I'm not doubting your expertise, I am doubting the magic solution or that the developers didn't try.
     
  7. kazz

    kazz

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    If you ask me the entire presentation looks exponentially less detailed than say DKC Tropical Freeze, a nine year old game literally meant for hardware weaker than the Switch, and rendered in the same 720p resolution (I think). I just somehow doubt it was only that Arzest was just helplessly bound by the Unity engine.
     
  8. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    Fang gets one but Trip doesn't. Blame the patriarchy!
     
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  9. Beltway

    Beltway

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    A legit positive I have for Superstars is that out of all my complaints for the gameso far, the enemy/badnik design isn't one of them. I'd actually say they are even great. Lots of new badnik design concepts that fit the theme of the levels and provide different types of hazards and/or attacks. The game also takes the 3&K/Mania route in where there are some classic badniks from the older titles, but they're fairly uncommon compared to the newer ones.
     
  10. Naean

    Naean

    Naean H.F. (Nez Man) Member
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    2D. Sonic Fan Game
    Another Twitch live stream video here from someone else, they played up to the very start of Lagoon City Zone Act 1 and stopped playing there. Haven't got the chance to watch it in full yet.
     
  11. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG

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    So I skimmed a lot of this. Since it's single player and the guy playing is fairly competent, I think it does a better job of showing us the game proper, at least for the first 4 zones...

    1. Sonic's stage design is much different from what we see in Trip's campaign from later footage (and I've seen footage of her going at least up to speed jungle), so it seems her campaign will be fully different routes in the same stages. Not sure if they are connected with the main campaign stages, but she goes through the same zones, at least.
    2. The gimmicks are annoying in some cases, but do seem to work reasonably well in single player and are certainly all beatable. I didn't care for a lot of Pinball Carnival, but I can now at least say the Zone looks passable in design and gameplay.
    3. There are a few cheap, unpredictable deaths and some incidents of automation, but nothing that will be deeply frustrating and you can avoid them all with at least 1 or 2 retries. More importantly, I'm seeing signals for HOW to avoid these deaths in at least a few cases that blend in more naturally with the stage's aesthetics.
    4. Some classic tropes like endless falling and looping sections (think beginning of Tidal Tempest 2, Metropolis Zone, ect ect) make a comeback make a return. Not everything is a death pit. This is a welcome return to form in stage design.
    5. Still a few too many rails for my taste, but the worst of it is in speed jungle, which is a speed based level, and in most cases Sonic can pick more than one route, which helps a lot to keep player autonomy going.
    6. Bosses seem to range from clever to annoying. There are more opportunities to hit them than it appears at first, rewarding skill and not just spamming emerald powers. A good sign.

    Overall, this is a much better demonstration than the last streamer. It's not quite a classic, but it's not a Dimps game either. And the Emerald Powers 'do' seem to open up new routes of exploration, as seen in the 3rd zone with the red emerald's power. It blends a bit of both styles, with a heavier lean into the classic design side of thing. I don't like the stage design for levels 3-4 as much as zones 1-2, but I don't hate them either, so that enters a gray area I can much more easily deal with. Add on my feelings for the Cyber stage I've seen in other footage and I can now say I have positive to neutral feelings on at least 5 of the levels and how they're crafted.

    It's the back half of the game that may prove more contentious, but we'll see. I expect more footage to appear quickly over the next 48 hours.
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2023
  12. Snatcher42

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  13. Chimpo

    Chimpo

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    Not for $60. That's not fine at all.
     
  14. Naean

    Naean

    Naean H.F. (Nez Man) Member
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    2D. Sonic Fan Game
    According to 4chan posts and screenshots, the Switch NSP file for Sonic Superstars is now out there and people are downloading it from pixeldrain. Of course, I don't wanna land this forum in potential hot water or whatever, so I won't share anything more specific regarding that file.

    Another live stream, seemingly no voice commentary on this one.

    Fucking hell, I hope to god this game is getting a day one sound patch, because some of this audio mixing is giving Sonic Adventure 2 a run for its money. Some sound effects are so comically loud they drown out the notably quieter music almost entirely at certain points. Some ambient audio like Sky Temple Zone wind and gimmick sounds like Cyber Station Zone rockets seriously should not be as obnoxiously loud as they are, how this audio mixing got past Q.A. is beyond me. In fact, I'm willing to bet Q.A. did flag this up, but due to crunch wasn't addressed in time.
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2023
  15. Ashura96

    Ashura96

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    What song(s) did TORIENA compose?
     
  16. HEDGESMFG

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    Yep. It's in the wild, wild and will be widely circulating soon. Of course, that's only the switch version so it will be a sub-par experience compared to the full PC version.

    From what others are saying on late game content...
    1. Trip Gets her Dragon Super Form in stages, and is playable in them. She as a character can be played in both the "Main" campaign mode as well as her own side story mode. I think you only need to beat the main campaign once to unlock her.
    2. All 5 characters get super forms, no hyper forms.
    3. There is NO Super Form final boss. The boss we've seen is the final thing. I haven't seen video or photo evidence of it, but if this is true, I'm betting co-op could be to blame?
     
  17. Naean

    Naean

    Naean H.F. (Nez Man) Member
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    Jesus Christ, I'm listening to a playthrough of Sand Sanctuary Zone Act 1 right now and it's fucking unbearable, holy shit. The sand falls and circular saw sound effects are actually hurting my ears with how loud and grating they are, while the music gets drowned out so badly. I can't stress enough how bad this sound mixing is, and for $60 / £60 / etcetera, this level of audio incompetence really isn't acceptable. This better be getting patched pronto upon release.
     
  18. aria

    aria

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    speaking with people who have played the game already. the game lets you use R to change abilities.
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2023
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  19. Beltway

    Beltway

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    Tuned into one of the livestreams, and so far, I'm honestly liking what I'm seeing of the later game stages. Sand Sanctuary, Press Factory, and Golden Capital are honestly getting my props as solid "hard" stages, liking the pacing and the gimmicks/hazards in them. They're honestly bringing me back around the game quite a bit. I also really like Press Factory's Act 2 and Golden Captial's Act 1 boss.

    Also like how you can choose between the normal acts and the special acts after certain acts are completed.
     
  20. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG

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    Okay, a lot more detailed impressions coming in now...

    1. Amy And Knuckles have their own unique starting cutscene. Including Knuckles starting on Angel Island's Adventure Emerald Shrine, and Amy starting on Green Hill. Both chase after Sonic and Tails in the Tornado. Sonic and Tails both share the same opening scene of chasing Knack.
    2. The more I see, the more I grasp that the momentum based physics are 100% intact. All the old tricks work reasonably well. Pick up the controls and it WILL feel like a mix between the retro engine and the genesis games. That's... very good news.
    3. Amy's character design here makes more sense than in Origins. Her "drop dash" isn't actually a drop dash in this game, but is just the hammer run. It has 0 forward momentum of its own and can move in any direction you want freely and she'll swing while the button is held down, it appears, but it gives her no speed boost at all like the "not-drop dash" does in Origins. She also has a double jump too. Maybe she's less of an anti-boss powerhouse too, but she seems well balanced overall.
    4. STK play more or less how they always have. It looks like the characters might have a tiny bit of extra weight to them, and Knuckles seems like it takes a few extra frames after landing from a glide to crouch and spindash, but otherwise all the usual classic tricks are intact (this will probably annoy some people, as it does slow him down a tiny bit and will change speedrun strategies). And I could be wrong on the weight bit. That's just a guess.
    5. Bridge Island is actually a very intricate, large and complex stage. Lots of paths. Seems like you can get lost in it for awhile if you want too. Very much a classic design. It's not super pretty looking, but it seems to play pretty well and you have 100% control over every path you take.
    6. You can jump in and out of acts into a hub menu at any time. Going back to the main menu lets you swap characters and resume your save progress from there. While you can make multiple saves, the main story is just one story per save file, not per character like in S3K Mania. All 4 characters are in this adventure as one story with slight variations in cut-scenes depending on whom you play.
    7. Switch visuals look good in emulation at least from what I've seen, a smooth 4K 60FPS and higher resolutions mask some of the loss in detail from lower quality textures. This bodes well for how the game will look on better hardware.

    And finally... last but not least...

    8. It's... a classic game. It's not exactly how we remember it, but it's a LOT closer than anything but Mania has ever been. At least early on.