Sonic Superstars devs discuss new enemy Trip

Sonic Superstars is taking a different approach to the story, including with new enemy trip. The developers behind the game have now given insight into its creation.

Sonic Team creative officer Takashi Iizuka told Game Informer that the team “wanted to have a new story,” which required a new character. It was also important to have an enemy “with some kind of unique characteristics, some character backgrounds, some storytelling elements that are going to make the character unique and stand out and be a character that people can kind of relate to and empathize with and enjoy as a character in the world”.

Iizuka said:

“When speaking with (Naoto) Ohshima-san about making a new game together, we wanted to have a new story,” Iizuka says. “We thought about, well, what story can we have? What characters are going to be there? And how’s this all going to play out? As we were talking about that, we really felt we needed a new character for the story – we want to introduce a new character. And we don’t just want to have a character with no background with nothing going on that’s just going to ‘boop’ pop up in the world. We really want to show a character with some kind of unique characteristics, some character backgrounds, some storytelling elements that are going to make the character unique and stand out and be a character that people can kind of relate to and empathize with and enjoy as a character in the world, not just because they’re there, but because they mean something to the world.”

Iizuka went on to say that Sonic games have a lot of “in your face” enemies. However, for Sonic Superstars and Trip, “we wanted to do something different.”

Regarding working with together on the new character, Ohshima and Iizuka said:

“We sent visuals back and forth and had an ongoing dialogue about what the personality should be like. Ideas came up for the character’s actions and themes, like an armored lizard and the ouroboros. I worked on the design while discussing the ideas with Iizuka-san.”

“When you look at her, obviously she’s covered in armor, and the reason why she’s covered in armor in the game is the base of her character is a sungazer lizard in English. In Japanese, it’s more direct – it’s literally ‘armored lizard’ in Japanese. But the sungazer is that animal that was being referenced for the deign of Trip.”

Sonic Superstars will be on Switch this fall.