Sonic Superstars Developed By Original Designer's Studio

@Munchlax Hey! Hey! Pikmin was a decent game.

Sounds Ike a significant management problem you just don’t have a success like Mania and let a direct follow up fall through the cracks like that.
And oh wow the Sonic 3 composer I bet he did a lot of tracks for that game and not just a couple jingles I’m so glad he keeps being credited for that game in all these articles and interviews with zero mention of Sonic 4, he was credited and hyped up in this exact same fashion 12 years ago for that game.

wonder how they disrespected them? maybe give them a rush job schedule?

Wow something must have gone seriously wrong for the Mania devs to not make another Sonic game. How do you go from having them make the best received Sonic game since the Mega Drive era to “not being able to kick off” a new game? Surely something soured the relationship. You’d think after Mania they’d just hand them keys to the franchise and say “make what you want, we trust you.”

Anyway, I’d typically scoff at Arzest but the previews for this have been promising so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt with this. Definitely looks like it could be decent.

My interest got piqued when I saw the gameplay and people started talking about how it may be made by the Mania devs - which is one of very few Sonic games I actually enjoyed enough to finish -, then it took a hit when I saw it's actually Sonic Team and some other studio.

...and now you're telling me "some other studio" is Arzest...?

Screw this, too many games in the coming months anyway 😅

Sounds like some info is missing... There has to be a better explanation. Guess we'll have to get the Mania devs' take on it.

When it comes to Sonic games, it doesn't matter who is developing them, if SEGA rushes the games out.

I didn't like Sonic Mania's new music and level design so for me this is good news. The fact that the main composer is partially responsible for the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 soundtrack is equally positive. That game has my favourite Sonic song, Angel Island. The early players all said that the game controls like the classic ones. So far, so good. While it's true that Arzest is a small developer, the designer of Sonic is its head and Sonic Team is helping them. Please, Sega, don't rush the studio.

I don’t care what anyone says. Yoshi’s New Island was a fun game with a great art style.

The game looks promising, but reading what other games the dev worked on has given me pause. Definitely not a stellar resume to boast about.

Something about this reeks of missing info, we’ll have to wait and see what headcanon and co say

I see that Sega is still making great business decisions... turning away the Sonic Mania devs in favour of the Balan Wonderworld devs... for a new 2D Sonic game? Whatever could go wrong

I love Sega, but this is just typical of them. They can’t help but make the stupidest decisions. The game looks great from the trailers so I’ll give it a chance, but that’s not a team with a particularly good pedigree.

Honestly, given the early reception being quite positive and the fact they do seem to know what they're doing (level design seems solid, physics are on-point, presentation looks good), I'm not worried about Arzest's involvement. Maybe this game will redeem them

This looks like an improvement on both Sonic Mania as well as most of everything else they have done with with franchise over the last few years and I'm excited for it. Arzest have made some good games over the years even if Balan was a massive letdown, I'm glad they are being given a chance with Sonic.

I believe it will be a good game, but I would like a Sonic Advance Collection as well.

@Sherlock- if they make one i hope it's modded to have the camera zoomed out.

The game looks so vibrant and full of energy. Honestly, I think it looks great and suits the blue blur.

Sega is known for being actively hostile towards basically everyone. I'm sure the Sonic Mania dev has enough clout to get a good publishing deal with whoever he wants, to release whatever game he wants to make. He's probably better off that way.

Arzest isn't exactly a name that inspires me with confidence...

@DioBrando "Sega is known for being actively hostile towards basically everyone"

...yeah, everyone Western... ever since the Mega Drive days. From what I remember at the time there was a lot of resentment within SEGA that Sonic Mania was better received than Forces.

@DioBrando Already happened. Whitehead and several other members of the Mania team have a publishing deal lined up with Private Division, and they're working on a 3D action platformer

I don't trust these developers to make a half decent game these days, unfortunately. They kinda fell off after Artoon.

To be fair and to see the big picture, Simon Thomley (Headcannon) was not professional and tweeted blaming Sega the day Sonic Origins was released instead of talking with Sega about the Sonic 3 & Knuckles glitches that Sega later patched. He talked more with random people on Twitter than with Sega about the day-one glitches and about Sega staff.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/06/sonic-origins-contributor-shares-frustrations-over-the-state-of-the-game

Somehow Yuji Naka manage to leave a mark on this game despite not directly involve in the project.

That is not a great track record these devs had. But hey, the Mario and Luigi games were amazing. Although that was mostly Alphadream.

@Kyloctopus Exactly I don't understand the hate of that game!

The demo gameplay looks good and feels like Sonic. I believe in Arzest.

And the Sonic cycle begins. At least we found out early this time.

Yikes, major red flag here. The game looks good so far, but I'm wary. The Mania devs backing out and Arzest taking over is pretty much the exact opposite of what you'd want to happen.

@Banjo-
People seem to forget that If there is something that bothers you you should not discuss it publicly on Twitter but talk directly to the people that are responsible for it in your company.
If I was the person responsible for hiring a studio for a new game I would surely hesitate as well and not trust the ones who talked sh** about me on Twitter.

I was really hoping it would have been the dev team that worked on mania, but boy did I not expect these guys, but despite there uh, less then amazing track record, if a dev team can do a project, they can do a project. I think the game looks great and the early impressions were positive, so I’m willing to put in some faith in the dev team, and hopefully sega gives them all the time they need, don’t let us down.

I’m hopeful for this game is good. Though seeing it look really pretty is nice, seeing it look pretty but hearing they worked on Balan… it makes me scared for the controls.
Sonic games live and die based on their control, and that’s what made Mania so great.

That said I think Sega burned their bridges with all the Mania devs. They built the best sonic game since 3K, but Sega Japan was just too Japanese about things. I suspect many internal devs resented the praise the game got. Add to that that Sega apparently pushed the game out before it was good enough.

That’s super unfortunate Christian Whitehead and Headcannon did a fantastic job. Sega’s managers should have been focused on keeping their talent happy. Instead it sounds like they acted like the western devs were lucky to be working with them, not the other way around.

Wow this is sounding awesome!

Jun is the best man! So many good tunes he’s composed!

@Duffman92 Exactly. On top of that, he did it the day that the game launched.

I'd like to think the Mania Devs ridiculed Sonic Team and demanded more money for doing their job for them!

Also, Sonic Superstars is a dreadful name. It's like the name a child would come up with for a Sonic game. It doesn't even make sense as a new Sonic game... it works better as a title for a collection of older games.

I'm not saying call it Sonic 5... but yea Superstars is properly lame.

@nocdaes New Super Sonic Bros. Wii-heeee!

Welp. Guilty until proven innocent it is then.

@PikaPhantom I think so! Maybe this game will redeem them. It looks good and early impressions are all positive.

I wasn't a fan of Yoshi's New Island, but I actually saw a lot to like in Balan Wonderworld. I've replayed it through 3 times (twice on pc one on switch) and there are a lot of really terrible decisions that for many will ruin teh game, but theres also a whole lot of really good things, ideas, designs, concepts that just needed more time and playtesting to polish up. I really do think that the game could have been great but (sadly) it seems like certain people insisting on silly ideas (such as the "one button" controls and massively overinflating the amount of costumes, limiting whether the costumes can jump or attack leading to havign to ruin the level design to stop people getting stuck) spoiled what would have otherwise been a beautiful looking, imaginative and fun game.

Anyway, as for this Sonic game, all the gameplay footage I've seen so far looks like it handles just how I would want it to, and the fact that everyone who's played it so far at Summer Game Fest (including some real hardcore longtime Sonic fans) are all saying it handles well is more than good enough for me. I already know the graphics look lovely, the designs will be brilliant.

By the way, the current head of Sonic Team sneakily stealth mentioned this project many times on Twitter when replying to fans asking about Frontiers and future games. It has been clear for months that a new 2d Sonic game was coming, that would have new ideas in it, and he was not developing it but helping oversee it and was very happy and excited for it to be revealed as he thinks its good. Most/all of those tweets are in Japanese, but the YouTuber "The Sonic Show" coverered these in detail over several long videos going into the litearlly hundreds of leaks and teases he was dropping to random fans on twitter.

Tbh this just makes me suspect the rumors that sega got "upset" the fangame devs essentially made them look bad by making a better sonic game

You'd think they'd hold on to the mania devs with dear life instead of attempt to maintain the status quo

i see no issue
Balan Wonderworld is a true hidden gem

I don't think Arzest has made a single even decent game. All of their games are either boring and lack creativity or straight up bad. I don't understand how they still get jobs.
The trailer did show some promise and some interesting ideas but only short snippets of various levels don't necessarily show the full picture. It is more likely to be a massive let down than anything else.
With that unfortunately most of my interest in the game has dissipated.
At least it has a good art style.

@nocdaes At first, I didn't like the Sonic Superstars title but now I think that they chose it because of the four playable characters and because it's easy for numbered sequels.

Cautiously, very cautiously optimistic... Game looks good but so did Balan.

Looks promising so far, regardless if Arzest is the developer 100% or not. Though I admit the only game I've played so far from Arzest and Artoon is Yoshi's Island DS, so I cannot objectively say their games are bad. Let's just hope the initial impressions stay consistent with the final product (and hopefully there's a physical version for those of us who want one).

As for Balan, I haven't played it, but I intend to one day (Switch version, no less). I don't necessarily put all the blame on Arzest for that one, I'm guessing the real reason it turned out the way it did was because of the apparent resentment Yuji Naka had with Naoto Ohshima and for Square Enix being Square Enix.

I'm worried about the Switch version to be honest. The screenshots I saw made it look like a 3DS game.

Sonic Mania Devs: "We want to be in charge of playtesting and we want to tell you when we think it's done"
Sega: "No"
SMDs: "Been nice working with you"

A trailer is one thing and a released game is another. This is especially true in Sonic’s case. We know modern Sega’s level of gourmet is mall food court when it comes to their IP

This game is going to be amazing!

This is just more proof that no matter what, even if Sega manages to do something truly great and amazing for once... they ALWAYS end up f------ it up. Always. They can rarely even do anything right these days, and when they do nail it, you might as well just ask yourself, "okay... well what did they do now? What's the inevitable downside to this?"

Welp, Sonic is in good hands then!
...lol.

@UltraZelda64 that's why I'm always more stoked when they hand off a property for someone hungry and eager to impress.

For those curious you can watch demo gameplay on Youtube. They show complete stages and I saw two bosses.
It was enjoyable.

Is that mean there is no Sonic Mania 2 in the future ?

@LikelySatan Like they did... and it was great, and the resulting product downright amazing, and honestly years--no, decades--overdue. But of course, this is Sega--they can't just keep a healthy relationship with an excellent development crew they had for Sonic Mania. :/

Do something right for once... screw it up the first chance they get. That seems to be the way of Sega.

@larryisaman Mania as good as it was was carried heavily by nostalgia, and music. As far as I see it looks fun and pretty. Hopefully Jun won't ruin the music with his garbage 16bit compositions like in Sonic 4 and Tee Lopes helps him make really good music.

I feel like people are being too hard on Arzest. Yes, Balan Wonderworld was a disaster, but it wasn’t entirely the teams fault. And given the early positive reception I think we should at least give them the benefit of the doubt.

It's not just a trailer, there were people playing the demo and reported their positive impressions.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/06/round-up-the-first-impressions-of-sonic-superstars-are-in

Gamespot's impressions:

Nintendo Life:

https://www.nintendolife.com/features/hands-on-sonic-superstars-is-exactly-what-sonic-4-should-have-been

@Jireland92 I think that Sonic Superstars will be their first great game based on the trailer and the first impressions about the demo.

@RupeeClock I love his soundtrack for Team Sonic Racing but yep, when he tries to make new classic music is a mixed bag. I hope that he makes some good tracks like when he worked on the Mega Drive games. Fingers crossed.

Game looks good and I know that preview impressions have been positive but considering that I haven't personally liked a single game I have played from Arzest, I'm going to keep my excitement in check.

Arzest / Artoon have contributed to many brilliant titles as well as duffers. There's no reason to believe that this won't be any good based on the initial positive looks and impressions. They're also not held down from previous experiences of Sonic Team trying to emulate the classic feel and not getting anywhere - so we could be in for a good time.

The soundtrack - we'll see. I love the majority of Jun's work on the levels in Adventure / 3D series (and of course his band Crush 40), the 2D stuff like Sonic 4 I don't think hits the mark - but since he's headlining a collaboration of other artists for this game's soundtrack then I'm not too worried.

@DragotheKomodo when I mine for ore in BOTW & TOTK more often than not the hidden gem is flint - useful either to be sold on for a cheap price to traders or to set alight on fire.

So in this sense I agree - Balan Wonderworld is indeed a Hidden Gem

Something tells me that Sega wanted the "deal" with the Sonic Mania devs to fall through. Otherwise, they could have made it happen.

@Sonicka bad joke is bad
i honestly like Balan Wonderworld
simple yet deep gameplay, beautiful worlds, amazing story
it was Yuji Naka's passion project, and i can feel it

@DragotheKomodo bad jokes are the best

I actually couldn't measure if you were being for real or not. But fair play if you got enjoyment out of the game, not gunna take that from you.

@BulkSlash your right sonic 1 for genesis was a trash game. They hired this team because a sonic legend who has proven he can make an amazing sonic game that passes the test of time is the head and director, thinking of them as the balan guys is disingenuous and ridiculous.

@UltraZelda64 Yeah, mainly I was referencing Streets of Rage and Mania. They need to go back to that.

@Adol-Bannings I ran a five and a half minute mile 20 years ago. Nowadays , it's more like 9.5 minutes but we don't count that. I'M FAST.

@Adol-Bannings you are taking this Sonic the Hedgehog discussion more serious than I am. Have a great day.