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

For sure. I doubt we’re gonna get them all the time or anything, but 2D or “Classic Sonic” likely will continue to be a pillar of the franchise moving forward, which is a good thing.

I can’t imagine SEGA are terribly upset at the state of the game sales rn. They’re not like, mega hits, but I highly doubt their budgets are huge, so selling multi-million dollar success every year boxes well for the series’ future.

 

The fact that classic Sonic is still alive and well in other media tells you all you need to know I think. I do hope we get something that builds on what Superstars tried to do in terms of moving the classic gameplay style into the modern age, and I wouldn't even be averse to Ohshima and Arzest taking another crack at it, I just really need them to not making a crap game next time round. Between this and CD, next strike and he's out...

 

I think I’d be content with a sequel to Superstars which built off of its strengths and made bosses that were not…those.

quite liked the game other than that actually, even liked the soundtrack but wish it was significantly more consistent.

 

Those bonus stage portals need to go. They're way too irritating and irrelevant. Maybe have a random drop counter for coins instead.

 

No real need to replace something that doesn’t have any value in the first place.

 

With a more subtle animation (as in Sonic 2, 3&K), I wouldn't have taken any issue with them. But having them randomly drop after defeating an enemy, I'd find it even better.

 

Feels like Sega's hit a pretty good groove in making Sonic an annualized franchise by rotating between new 2D game, new 3D game, 3D remasters and the racing games. There's room between the cracks for smaller releases but I imagine the goal is to have a new premium-ish game on store shelves every holiday - since 2021 we've had Colors Ultimate, Frontiers, Superstars and SxSG fill that role, with Crossworlds doing so for this year.

Over the next three years we'll probably see a Frontiers follow-up, new 2D game and maybe a remaster of Unleashed or Heroes or something. After the more sporadic release schedule of the 2010s (which produced very mixed results) it's been nice to see Sega/Sonic Team sort of get their house in order.

 

This game actually did pretty solidly despite the price tag, huh?

To add to the reaction pile, the reason I haven't gotten this game is because of the issues I can see in it from gameplay footage.

So, if they gave the option to attack bosses outside of really specific windows (like all Classic Sonic games do), fixed any of the bugs and maybe even re-recorded some the music to be a more cohesive whole, I'd 100% buy it because even at a lower price tag, I'd like a relative short platformer to be properly polished.

For me personally, shorter expensive games have to be really high quality to justify buying them (Shadow Generations did this very well).

Fixing some of the issues really doesn't seem that resource intensive, either. (Note, very little knowledge on this, so who knows, maybe it does.)

Can't fix some of the later unfair level/boss design?

Adding an universal attack window or maybe even adding more check points for longer levels seems like a really quick/easy fix to remove the worst of the tedium issue.

But in general this seems like another example of the case of corporate really sucking, which is unfortunate.