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Oh Look, A New Sonic Game – Sonic Superstars Announced

It’s that time of year – Geoff Keighley is back on stage, looking business casual as he hosts the Summer Game Fest. Being a Sonic fan, you never really know if you’ll get anything at these events, yet you can’t resist tuning in anyway. Today, sandwiched between news about Remnant II and Honkai: Star Rail, a certain blue hedgehog suddenly ran onto the screen, with a certain weasel watching from the shadows.

Sonic Superstars is coming this fall. It’s a new Sonic game! That’s what we like, right?

It looked like 2023 was just going to be 2022, but more. More Frontiers, more Origins, more Prime. Suddenly, an announcement for a new 2.5D Classic game comes out of the blue. There he is – Classic Sonic, looking pretty slick, joined by Miles “Tails” Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, and Amy Rose. It’s been a while since Amy’s been playable, especially in 2D. She’s finally getting her due, what with this and her being playable in Origins Plus. Clearly, she’s celebrating her 30th anniversary in style.

Taking place in the Northstar Islands, the game plans to mix up the classic Sonic formula. One of the more interesting new features involves the Chaos Emeralds. Instead of only being the barrier between you and Super Sonic, the Emeralds are meant to give Sonic unique abilities. The trailer shows off a couple of these: changing form to swim up waterfalls, multiplying yourself to attack an enemy head on. Is it safe to assume there’d be seven new abilities? Maybe. There are seven Chaos Emeralds, after all.

There’s also a new four player co-op mode. Ever wanted to throw a party where you’d force your little brother to be Tails, your neighbor as Knuckles, and your history professor as Amy Rose? You can finally live that dream. Unfortunately, this mode is only for local co-op.

What might be the most exciting for long time fans of the franchise is who’s making a return. In-game, Dr. Eggman won’t be the only enemy you’re going up against. Fang the Sniper returns, and unlike his brief appearance in Sonic Mania, he looks to be the real deal. Flying the Marvelous Queen, we get to see an official 16-bit rendition of the character, but are given the biggest tease as to how he’ll look in 3D. Hopefully we see that sooner rather than later. Production wise? The creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, Naoto Ohshima, has returned to design a brand new character. His involvement was left for the press release, creating a character “that Sonic, and his friends will have to face.” Whoever this ends up being, be it a permanent foe or a misguided individual similar to Knuckles or Shadow, we’ll have to wait and see. Either way, it’ll be exciting to see what he adds to the franchise after all these years being away.

As for the rest of the team, there’s no word on who is developing the game, aside from the Sega/Sonic Team logos on the official website. Who is directing? Who is designing? Hopefully we’ll find out soon. There’s already been reports that the game will be playable at Summer Game Fest, so hopefully we’ll get some hands-on coverage on how the game plays.

Could this be the true follow-up to Mania? Maybe. I dunno, I haven’t played it. What I do know is that when the website went live, they accidentally had an image of the title screen with an early working title, Sonic Orion. I’m guessing that wasn’t meant to be there, whoops. But hey! It’s neat we know that now.

Sonic Superstars is coming Fall 2023 for $59.99, and will be available on all the usual suspects: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Epic Games, and Steam. “Additional details regarding packages and future content will be revealed at a later date.” Whatever that means.

[Source: Sonic Superstars official site]

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12 Comments

  • Reply

    Even more playable Amy Rose!!! That’s awesome!

  • Reply

    Not excited at all. Not only is all the constant Amy pushing starting to feel smothering. So far they have made her the center of attention in a christmas short for Mania, a game she barely had a cameo in. They’re treating it like making her a playable character in Origins is some nostalgic “dream come true” moment when she wasn’t important enough even during CD’s original release to be called by her actual name in America. Her birthday is the inciting plot motivator in the recent gag visual novel and shes basically the main character in the comic now alongside way too many ancillary female characters. And I am not bothered by a predominately female cast in anything but its clear the point is “furry waifus” and not anything dealing with inclusion or empowerment. Frontiers treats her as “part of the team”, like Sonic Boom is the frame of reference for things, where up until then she was just a big Sonic fan-girl. I know its partly for means of “brand cohesion” but if thats the case then why aren’t characters like Ray, Mighty, and the chaotix being treated like a pool of friends or friendly rivals like modern Sonic’s gaggle of day-glo little buddies? Its nice that Frontiers is doing as well as it is but otherwise it feels like Sega is allowing fans to make a lot of decisions that feel good in the short term but already feel like they’re running out of steam in their ability to build anticipation.

    • Reply

      https://i.imgur.com/iPNRSNj.png
      A new 2D Sonic game with Mania-accurate physics is announced and you’re mad Amy is getting a good 30th Anniversary. Piss off.

      • Reply

        Yeah you’re telling me to “piss off” but I’m the one frothing at the mouth. And I know, I know, I deserve it for having more to say than “consume product, then shut up and consume more product”. The marketing involving Amy is insincere and pushy and theres nothing wrong with saying I don’t like it.

        • Reply

          bro what

        • Reply

          SEGA’s promotion of Amy is currently extreme, but Amy was considered “Player 4” since at least the Saturn. SEGA is now attempting to reverse the damage done by the shit writing from Sonic X and the shit gameplay from SA1/06.

  • Reply

    Yeah I’m going to continue to try and explain myself to people who have already decided I’m wrong or out of line so they can act incredulous or insult me. Super cool website, great community, glad people from here are in charge of Sonic now.

    • Reply

      i dont even have an account here

    • Reply

      Ugh, no. I have decided you’re out of line the moment you started ranting about it as this is ‘Green eyes’ all over again. First guy responding to you was right: piss off.

  • Reply

    Sonic Superstars looks cool. I’m interested to see how natural the 4 player co-op is. Glad they’re experimenting with it.

  • Reply

    […] Sonic Superstars – Sonic Mania‘s success made it all but inevitable that a new ‘Classic […]

  • Reply

    Even more playable Amy Rose!!! That’s awesome!

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