Sonic The Hedgehog, both as a character and as a brand, has arguably never been more on fire. After all, he’s had multiple hit games in the last three years, has two successful live-action movies, with a third on the way, and gamers are once again excited for what SEGA will do with the blue blur. SEGA has had a great 2024 in part because of Sonic, and the people there know that they need to keep the quality releases up, which makes it interesting to talk about one of their stumbles from 2023: Sonic Superstars. Yeah, that game didn’t get the buzz that SEGA was hoping for and then some.
If you don’t remember that game, it’s honestly because it wasn’t the most memorable title featuring Sonic and his pals. It was SEGA’s first attempt to do a true Sonic 2D title in a while, but, to be blunt, the dev crew mucked it up in more ways than one, including having the game in the 2D style, but not with 2D animation.
Enter Sega president Shuji Utsumi, who talked about the various Sonic releases as of late and noted to Eurogamer that the 2023 title was a disappointment:
“We were trying to do something creative with Sonic Frontiers. With Sonic Superstars it turned out to be a disappointment, in terms of the outcome compared to what we delivered. This time we have Sonic X Shadow Generations and the next Sonic movie, so we’re pushing things in the transmedia direction – movies and games working in harmony to make things bigger. But the core [of the experience] is the game. The game needs to be very good or else there is no transmedia effect. The Sonic X Shadow Generations game is actually very good, I would say awesome, action-wise. But starting next year, it’s going to be the next level.”
“Next level” does sound enticing, doesn’t it? However, SEGA felt similarly about its 2023 game, and it didn’t turn out that way, did it? Just as important, the people at SEGA said at the time that they felt there was “still a rivalry” with Nintendo, and that’s why they weren’t afraid to drop their game right next to Nintendo’s Mario title. You do remember how that turned out, right? Exactly.
Again, Sonic has been doing great in 2024. The latest remaster featuring him and Shadow sold over a million units right after launch, and the upcoming movie is likely to be the No.1 film at the box office. Hopefully, SEGA can learn from its failures and move on.
