What Went Wrong for Sonic Superstars? 

More like a new super mario bros wii for the sonic series but yea

Same!! And *then* I realized JUST NOW why Knuckles' Angel Island Act 2 doesn't have water in it (while it did in Sonic's story).

YES ong this pissed me off so bad in the Frozen Base Act 1 boss

I remember the zone with the sky I forgot what it was called but there was this boss that had saws and I lost all my rings and risked dying whenever I would grab them.@@NeatOnTheRocks

They took "Sonic games are too easy" way too seriously

I agree, unfortunately

Thank you!

I agree, I just wish that was more of the experience

Lol true

I agree. It's crazy how much these medals are somehow a worse reward and less intrinsicly motivating than the extra lives, shields, and etc. That are basically pointless in the classics once you reach a skill threshold. And yet, exploring and finding those secrets is so much more fun in those games.

That's great! I wish I did too

Because it's good. You don't have to feel bad about liking a video game, regardless of what this community says.

Sonic superstars is my favorite game I love it so much I made it my number one classic sonic game and I give it a 10/10

@@vividcolorandrichaudio6134 I sort of hate this fandom for this. Whenever a Sonic game isn't the second coming of Christ, we whip out the "almost"s and start complaining. No Sonic game is ever allowed to simply be good - it has to be breathtakingly amazing or we start to tear it down. Superstars is a good game. And that's all it needs to be.

Your opinion is valid, but I would easily make the same argument for the insta-shield, which hasn't been anything more than a rare unlockable in 20 years

Number 1, I initially planned to release this video a lot sooner, but the negativity of the experience took it out of me and I stepped away from it for a while. Number 2, I was just being considerate to those who hadn't played the game yet, since I specifically show moments from later in the game before I mention that I'm going to talk about the ending and such.

Glad to hear it!

That cutscene of Egg Robo rising up also plays at the end of Sonic's campaign! (But only if it's S3&K and get the chaos emeralds, but not the super emeralds--or it's S&K and you get the chaos emeralds... I believe!)

@@NeatOnTheRocks I think I've only played Knuckles alone like twice..... S3&K a million times (when lock on worked) and later rom hacks to add bigger better more are the way i've gone it since

@@RahhmiPoofs Same

Agreed

That would explain stuff like the character levels though.

I actually do like Press Factory 2's boss as well, though him killing me from across the room while I was Super Trip was cheeks lmao

Agree entirely. Yknow, sometime after Sonic Generations, I stopped letting myself get excited for Sonic games, so that I could save myself from being disappointed. Sonic Frontiers and the movies got me *excited* for Sonic again, and immediately on the first game I was hype about I was disappointed lol. Oh well

I feel this comment so hard that I almost didn't make this video lol, like I would have to adnit defeat in a way

"I got all the emeralds, made it through the main campaign and beat the most tedious yet bollocks final boss possible and just cannot find the energy or drive to push through an even "harder" more tedious version of that with an even more tedious and bollocks final boss for an out of nowhere tedious and bollocks final final boss and some internal brownie points." Best review I've read for this game

Speed Jungle Act 2 suffers the same way the Lava Reef boss does in that there's no way to damage it, you have to wait for it to damage itself. Emerald powers are useless, and going super means you literally just wait around for the boss to die

Fair nuf They do seem to accelerate REALLY slow, it got to the point where I had to dance back and forth whenever a boss was doing a new move because once whatever it was gonna do was telegraphed it would be too late to move out of the way if I were standing still.

@@NeatOnTheRocks try to change directions with amy on mid-air, it feels so wrong

Ok but in acting we'd call this "unmotivated decisions"

Agreeeeed

I think it was patched, but there used to be I believe, worth looking into.

Unpopular opinion but respect

After Mania and Origins, I wouldn't be surprised. Tall order on what they'd have to fix though.

Source?

I feel like I spent the entire video explaining why I need to whip out the "almost". It's a good, really fun game only about 1/3rd of the time I spent playing it. If it were just a plain bad game, it wouldn't be worth spending my time criticizing: but I want fans of these games and anyone who watches this video to be able to articulate exactly which design choices were mistakes, so we can hold the creators to higher standards with their next games.

My personal issue is that the games just too much money for “simply good”. A $60 game should be expected to deliver more than a mildly entertaining experience. It’s an issue I honestly have where these games that would be pretty good $30-40 games become mediocre at best when you’re forced to pay the typical $60 that seems to be the standard for any big release these days.

But she can climb the ceilings, her wall climbing is faster AND destroys enemies, AND she has the double jump

@@NeatOnTheRocks climbing the cealing is kinda awkward tho, just like grabbing it

This is factually untrue. You can see the first pod that Sonic and friends take back tk earth from the first ending by Bridge Island zone in the world map during Trip's campaign. Plus all the reasons for both that I mentioned in the video.

I disagree, to me it's the culmination of Sonic Boss design. Ideally there'd be a checkpoint after Mecha Sonic and you wouldn't have to worry about game overs, but DER is a perfect example of "you can do it the safe way, and deal with your impatience and urge to go fast, or you can push your precision to the absolute limit". I use to run Individual Level speedruns of Death Egg Zone just because it was so fun.

Sonic Forces, Sonic 1, 2, CD, 3, &K, Frontiers, Superstars. 8 games that the drop dash has been featured, in a row, since Sonic Mania. There's literally 8 games on screen at that timecode

@@NeatOnTheRocks isn’t S3&K one game?

S3&K is a unified experience, but no, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were released as separate games@@jaylenbutler899

Tbh you probably just had a skill issue. Sonic fans always complained that bosses were too easy so they made them difficult and challenging and here we are people are complaining for what they wanted.

It's definitely not a skill issue @Freedorm I love difficult bosses. One of my favorite games is Sekiro, and you saw how many hours I have in Terraria These bosses just aren't fun, regardless of the difficulty. The harder ones just stick out because what would be a couple minutes of not having fun turns into an hour-and-a-half. I'll start up Sonic Origins just to play the boss rush, whereas I avoid playing Superstars because of the bosses lol

@@NeatOnTheRocks Everyone has their tastes ig lol

Skill issue

Shut up​@@Domepeezy

True

Meh, the visuals and single-player gameplay in the main levels are decent

​@@NeatOnTheRocksI actually agree with him

You are 50% correct

Same

Did you miss when I said I liked Sekiro? If it were a skill issue, I would've liked it 😂

Of course I know what I'm saying. I'm a musician who's worked directly with creating music with and for the Genesis soundchip, and who could, probably, create an entire video about Sonic 4 & Superstars' approach to emulating the Genesis' sound and everywhere they go wrong in doing so, but why would I when that video would just get comments like these anyway (and, more importantly, Jun Senoue, mad respect that I have for him, should know by now that the Sonic community doesn't appreciate his current approach to that kind of music, since the community is so overwhelmingly vocal about it)

@@NeatOnTheRocks The fact that you said "Genesis soundchip(singular)" when there's actually 2 already brings up some questions. Could just be a misnomer, but idk. You also say "Sonic 4 & Superstars' approach" as if it's one, singular thing. Both Episodes of Sonic 4 as well as Superstars use *entirely* different synths from different companies with different patches. S4Ep2 sounds nothing like Ep1. Heck, multiple songs in Superstars use proper Genesis patches, like Main Menu and Press Factory. "should know by now that the Sonic community doesn't appreciate..." The Sonic community has failed to deliver any proper constructive criticism, including yourself. I've heard the music be referred to as "synth soundfont", "fake Genesis", "Genesis soundfont", "MIDI soundfont", none of which being remotely close to the truth. I've heard SONIC FORCES be referred to as "Sonic 4 music", even though the music was RECORDED FROM REAL HARDWARE. Why bother catering to people who don't even know what a synthesizer is, or doesn't know how to use Google? Not a single person has actually explained why the "Sonic 4 music" is inherently bad or lacks any artistic merit. The best you'll get is "I personally don't like the instrumentation", which is a 100% subjective statement that can't be proven or disproven. Yet they make no hesitation to call the music objectively bad. SEGA listening to hardcore Sonic fans has been a disaster the majority of the time, so some criticisms should be rightfully dismissed. And the whole "overwhelmingly vocal" part may just be a false consensus, as I've seen plenty of people enjoying Jun's songs, and most of them still have positive like/dislike ratios. If you actually are a musician, I expect better from you.

However, I am interested in seeing a proper video for this. I'd like to see you go into why Lost Labyrinth, or Mad Gear, or Sylvania Castle, or White Park, or Sky Fortress, etc. are all bad songs, because I ain't hearing it.

@@vividcolorandrichaudio6134 I must say I underestimated the pedantry you were prepared to bring to the table. For the record if you want my personal opinion, I do think the Sonic 4 soundtrack is underrated at worst. I quite like Metal Sonic's boss theme, and Oil Desert Act 2 is actually a guilty pleasure. Jun Senoue has proven time and again to be a masterful composer and arranger, and he deserves a larger role in more Sonic projects. However, his interpretation of modernizing the "vibe" of classic Sonic music into the modern day stand in stark contrast to Tee Lopes, for example. Sonic 4's soundtrack is critically panned, and Mania's is abundantly praised; and the impression I get from others and my personal opinion is that the tracks in Superstars that "sound like Mania" stand high above the ones that "sound like Sonic 4". Yes, I could create some critical piece that dives into why that is, but it would be spun negatively and picked apart by at least somebody, and it ultimately comes down to subjectivity anyway.

And yes, I'm aware the genesis had 2 sound chips, but one was unique to the Genesis and the other was ripped straight from the Master System. I didn't feel the need to distinguish that I'd also worked with the Master System's chip, but I have

What do you like about the bosses in later games?

My girlfriend

​@@NeatOnTheRocks False.

Agreed, haven't played Knux much but he's significantly less satisfying to play for sure

That's quite the hot take but there are things to like about Episode 2, especially as a Metal Sonic fan

You were, until you elected to click on this video. Like what if I was like "man can't I complain about Sonic in peace without NUMBSKULLS like these RU-vid Commenters who complain about every detail", I'd kind of be asking for it, wouldn't I?

these criticisms are validified