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

The footage is very interesting. It shows a lot of cool things about Bridge Island, like neat points of interest, mostly monitors and big rings, that got me wondering how you're supposed to reach them. Carol Yas would be very proud. Looks like a level with meaningful verticality.

Also this guy kept dying when that big fish destroyed the path in front of him. I love it! I think this set piece will be memorable for a lot of kids.

I wonder if Classic Sonic being cuter, and he is very cute in Superstars, has anything to do with an appeal to a global audience that Cool Sonic can no longer achieve? I say that because the presenters went out of their way to show Sonic's cute animations, and there seem to be more of them. I love it, as much as I love how goofy Eggman's animations are.

I just hope he still laughs when he hits you.

 

I don't think there's a lack of confidence in "cool" Sonic, rather that, with both sides of the coin planned to get equal representation going forwards, those identities are being leaned into more to tap into their respective strengths and appeal to specific audiences. Classic Sonic has certainly gotten cuter and upholds a pillar of something more simple and nostalgic, not only in gameplay but in setting, calling to mind the rubberhose cartoons that inspired Sonic's design to begin with. Meanwhile, Frontiers presents Modern Sonic in the most shonen-esque the setting has been since 06 or Adventure 2, and plenty of people love that. Remember how bonkers a bunch of us here were when we saw Giganto yeet Sonic into a mountain?

I'm sure the goal is to make both sides of Sonic have as much mass appeal as possible, but leaning into these traits allows them to build a stronger identity that core audiences can attach to.

 

Did we know that the Emerald powers have to recharge at checkpoints? That's news to me.

 

Makes sense. I wonder how audiences have changed since Sonic was first released, and how these segmentations relate to regional markets (i.e.: does Japan still not like "cool Sonic" or is that dead?)

We knew that because it was said somewhere, but we hadn't seen it yet! Also, Avatar lasts for a pretty long time. What a weird ability.

 

SA1 and Frontiers are like the best selling titles in the series in Japan, as opposed to the classics which did pitifully in their time. I feel like the split's pretty much entirely for the western audience (which is where the majority of profit is coming from).

It could be argued that the main reason Sonic and friends were redesigned at all for SA1 was mainly to refresh the series' reputation amongst the Japanese audience after Sega completely bungled the Saturn era in that regard.

 

2 days ago VGC published the full text of their interview with Iizuka. They’d included quotes from Iizuka in their initial coverage of Superstars but there are some interesting new nuggets here:
https://www.videogameschronicle.com...perstars-was-born-from-a-zoom-drinking-party/
- Iizuka says that Superstars is “completely built from scratch” and does not share technology with Mania
- Iizuka says more of Superstars’ features will be shown off prior to it’s release
- Iizuka says 4 player co-op won’t change the main level design (although in a different interview he said co-op changes the special and bonus stages) but that “the game experience will change depending on which characters you’re playing with…because we have Emerald Powers now as well, you can use each others’ powers to get each other out of a tight spot.”
- A playable Amy was considered for Sonic Mania “but we couldn’t get it done in time.”
- Thanks to increased hiring, Sonic Team in Japan has “more people than ever”

 

I don't know man first thing I and the gang are doing the second we get any emerald powers will be everyone using the Avatar power at the same time in hopes of crashing the game or at least giving Sonic his own version of the ending screen to Windows 95 Solitaire

 

And what about Mania Plus?

 

Small indie company. Please understand.

 

Honestly, what would it take to convince SEGA to stop letting Jun Senoue work on a retro Sonic title?

He's proven each and every time over the course of 15 years (4, Origins, and now Superstars) that he shouldn't have anything to do with these retro titles anymore. His new S3 renditions alone actively repelled me from buying Origins, and now Plus since they refuse to fix the tracks with better versions that already exist. And, to be completely honest, if somebody with taste like Tee Lopes had worked on Sonic 4's soundtrack instead of Jun, I probably would've actually sorta liked Sonic 4.

Watching the stream, you can tell he didn't do the Bridge Island theme, because it's at least passable as Saturn-era music. Cue the boss tracks, and in comes Jun with his irritating brand of Sonic 1 drum-slapping, pseudo-Genesis cringe that aggressively drags down the quality of every retro Sonic game he's had his hand in post-3D Blast. I knew as soon as Iizuka said he was directing the music that he'd screw it up somehow, and judging by the stream footage, I was right.

Which begs another question: why does SEGA think we want this kind of music in classic-era Sonic? It was the worst part of the Forces soundtrack because it kept trying to sound like a parody of Sonic music, rather than sounding like actual good Sonic music. They used the same style before in Lego Dimensions, but at least in that game it was fine, since everything in that game is meant to poke fun at itself anyway. But, when I think of good retro Sonic music, I think of CD and Mania. Not this crap.

Tee should be doing all the music in Superstars. The track from the Direct should be the baseline of quality for the whole game's soundtrack. This would be a 10/10 game without Jun's involvement, but Jun's contributions are so jarring and low-quality that he will singlehandedly cap this game at a 6. He makes consistently clashy retro tracks that sound like a parody of the games he's composing them for. I say this half-jokingly, but somehow he needs to be stopped.

 

They don't like us

 

>> increased hiring.

That's a good sign for other games as well considering how tough things have been for the mainline 3D title teams.

 

What a juxtaposition it will be if it really is like this where we go from Lope’s composed bangers to Jun either pulling tracks from his unused music drawer or showing how much he hasn’t evolved since 2012 on what he thinks classic music should sound like. That Sonic 4 sounding super theme for Origins he unleashed last year was possibly made while he was just getting started on this game.

 

i like to imagine jun knows his music is fucky but refuses to change it out of spite and he laughs like a little devil when he sees us cringe at his music so he adds more dead cat noises and sonic 1 drums

 

I wonder what’s up with the whole “doesn’t share technology with Mania thing” when Whitehead has explicitly told us Superstars is the Retro Engine translated to 3D…

 

Maybe he means more that he and his team directly recreated it without directly borrowing code (technology) from Mania. Almost as a "We recreated it ourselves so trust us, we know what we are doing" type of a shout out.

 

Ah, cheers for the correction. I knew it was something approximating that but I’m too lazy to open up Twitter for a direct quote. :’)

 

I personally will only be satisfied if Trip is revealed to actually be QNC from Sonic Boom dressed up in a fursuit, pretending to be a character who's pretending to be a robot

 

A lot of positives out of that interview. Maybe this was lost in translation, but I found it interesting when Iizuka seemed to imply people kept labelling Mania as retro or as a rehash when it was trying to be a new thing. Almost as if they really didn't want it to be labelled as such. I had thought a lot of the "old" things that were included were at the request of Sonic Team and/or Iizuka (I specifically remember he requested they use the Death Egg Robot again as a boss fight). And the marketing and promotional material for the game seemed to suggest it was banking on nostalgia and bringing up the past from the very beginning.

Like I said, maybe lost in translation or I just don't understand what he's saying there. But in the end I'm just glad Superstars is trying to move the classic series in a forward direction, at least that's how it seems.