Then they tried the same thing with Spyro, and it backfired miserably. You could say the same thing about Mania. Without getting the references and having played the original levels, you obviously won't get as much out of it as someone who has. Origins has flaws, but its updates and features make it a "good enough" way of experiencing the classics, especially since lives are gone. Certainly a better way of experiencing them officially than any of the other ports sans Jam maybe.
I think people won't care that much about contexts in Shadow Generations, they will be probably focusing how cool Shadow is (as they should). And I think pretty much same can apply for Sonic in Sonic Frontiers.
it didn't help that the JP version of Spyro 1 was weirdly busted and broken for some bizarre reason! lol On the topic of recommending Sonic games to newcomers, the official JP Sonic youtube channel actually uploaded a video of their top 3 games for newcomers. I don't speak Japanese very well but their choices are SxSG, Frontiers and Mania. It makes sense that an official channel would choose the two most recent games but I'm surprised they chose Mania over Superstars.
I think both those who like Superstars (that's me) and dislike it can agree that it's much more difficult than Mania.
Yeah. It is more difficult than Mania on the whole, although Mania does still have its moments. But a lot of Superstars' difficulty comes across as cheap to me. Much as I love the game, it does leave me feeling frustrated more often than it ought it to. I can only image how it makes less seasoned fans feel going up against some of those bosses and particular level design elements. Spoiler I'm never playing through Trip's story ever again. You can't make me.
Outside the bosses, mainly those at the end, I honestly don’t know what people who struggled more with Trip’s story are talking about. It seemed fine to me. I enjoyed it.
I haven’t played through Superstars in its entirety in a bit. I just downloaded it again, and will give Trip’s story another run through later (minus the boss because no).
For the Classics, 2 (or I guess Origins, now). Mania can come afterwards as a natural evolution. For the 3D games, Colours. No contest. I rule Generations out purely because it requires knowing a lot about the source material.
…I am not sure if this has ever been shared on this site. Maybe it has. I don’t know. I haven’t tried searching for it. But I think a good idea in determining what might be a good thing to share with a newcomer is to look at the experiences of newcomers and what they gravitate toward. In that light, I did just remember this video exist. I think most people coming into the series is going to be looking for the speed focus, as that is all they might know about it. And according to this dude, games like 2 and Generations appear to do well with that.
I dabbled in a l little bit of superstars just now. Don’t have time to really sit and dedicated myself to a playthroughs right now. But I honestly think Superstars feels better to play than most of the other Classics, including Mania. And I am talking about the decomp versions, Forever, Absolute, and Air, without the roll lock and speed caps and stuff. I don’t really know why. But just the way Sonic feels to control in the air in particular just feels better to me. Maybe it’s physics values such as acceleration, deceleration, air drag, speed and stuff… Maybe it’s a level design thing where more flat terrain (less inclines at least) makes it flow better… Maybe it is the exact manner in which Sonic feels as you’re flowing through some of the game’s level design in general… …Maybe I am just making stuff up to try to explain how I feel. But what I am not making up is that I feel it. Superstars feels great to me. And before this, I had a similar feeling towards CD (at least the only version of it I have played, the CW remake) thinking it too always felt better to play than the other Classics. Though I will say it is kind of annoying sometimes when you try to jump off an incline/ramp for height and instead your jump just gets eaten and you stay on the ground. Annoying in Frontiers. And definitely happens here as well.
Superstars feels great until you try to do some badnik bouncing or play as Knuckles. They fixed those two issues and it would be a good template moving forward.
This video was not at all what I expected, and it's actually something I'm into. It's fulfilling to hear someone kinda get the feelings of Chronicles music I've had for a large portion of my life but pretty much anyone else refuses to really press into. And with a bunch of examples of more stuff that hits in a similar way as a bonus.
this vid is a prime example of how hardcore fans (myself avowedly included) have extremely divergent preferences from newcomers to the series. i dislike the boost because it trivializes the process of gaining and maintaining speed - this guy loves the boost because it trivializes the process of gaining and maintaining speed. i dislike the button prompts popping up telling you exactly when to slide / drift / etc. because it totally removes the need to visually engage with the level elements - he likes them because it removes the need to engage with level elements, etc. none of those preferences are good or bad i just find it interesting how differently newcomers approach them. i noticed a lot of this stuff when my roommate was playing mania vs. generations too - they liked the latter more for largely the same reasons as this guy this is why, to my chagrin, i think the boost formula is probably here to stay. i think it's profoundly limited and really played out, but the truth is probably that a momentum-based 3d sonic game would not be embraced by general audiences for the same reason this guy chafes against the classic games.
I don't think that's true at all. We haven't really given the audience a chance. SEGA hasn't really given it an attempt either. As for the guy in the video, the boost was one very minor line out of a 20 minute video. His list of favorite games (that he tried) are 2, CD and Generations. The reason for enjoying those was even in failure, those games did a good job of keeping the flow going. Games like 1, 3 and Adventure 2 had a bunch of moments where the game demanded you to stop and kick rocks for a second. If you gave them a 3D game with the same design philosophy as 2, he'd probably enjoy it just fine.
That video makes a lot of really good points, and they're points I've kinda always felt, such as feeling like Sonic 2 has better level design overall than Sonic 3 does, even though I prefer 3 for its adventurous, story-driven feel. I too have always felt that a speedrunning-focused twitch reflex style was more appropriate for the series than the slower platforming you see in a lot of the games. The boost formula has a lot of flaws and I wish Sega would stop acting like it was perfect and that they didn't need to change anything about how it plays or how its levels are designed, but I think most people are not playing Sonic for the same reasons the hardcore Classic fans are. Most of the casual crowd just wants an exhilarating experience of speed akin to a rollercoaster, and not one they're being asked to "git gud" at before they get it. Part of the reason the Classics were so popular with young children and older adults is that you didn't need to try that hard to go fast. If I had the talent, patience, or discipline for making fangames, I'd want to make one closer to the Boost era of design philosophy. I dislike the "real communism has never been tried" argument people have for trying to force people to like slower platforming-focused classic Sonic design, when I've played a LOT of fast-paced action games in the last 15 years that I see bits of Sonic in, that are simply done better, are truer to its identity, and end up being more successful. Sonic needs newer, fresher ideas on what can be done with speed and to not give in to fans who think games from the 90s are the best foundation for a game made in 2025.
How about that one little Sonic game from eight years ago which was designed to be a literal modern day 90s game, and it ended up becoming the only modern day Sonic game that the general public takes seriously?
We're talking about 3D games here. Besides, I don't know how sustainable Mania's formula really is. What happens when you take away the nostalgia bait, the novelty of being the first truly Classic game in 23 years, and the glowup when compared to the atrocity of Forces? You get Superstars, which sold below expectations. This isn't an isolated incident, either. That's just what has historically happened when companies think remakes or retro throwbacks can usher in a new age of games like them, and lo and behold, they can't survive beyond a niche audience. I'm not saying Sonic can't have a subseries of games with more niche appeal, but it can't be the main series.
