Sonic Superstars Preview – Meet Trip, The First New Sonic Character Created By Naoto Ohshima In Decades

Sonic Superstars brings us back to a simpler time in the history of the Sonic franchise. The gameplay, story, and character roster are all more simplistic. This is true of the characters in the game, which are Sonic, Tails Knuckles and Amy. But it also applies to the enemies. Sonic Superstars brings back Dr. Eggman and Fang the Hunter, formerly known as Nack the weasel or Fang the sniper, from Sonic Triple Trouble, Sonic the Fighters and Sonic the Fighters. But they are not the only ones. Trip is also a character who has just been added to the Sonic universe.

It’s easy to argue that Dr. Eggman and Fang are already threatening Sonic and his friends. This duo is more than enough to keep them busy. Sonic Team wanted Arzest to make it even more difficult for Sonic and his friends. “When we think about the three enemy characters in the game, we have Dr. Eggman, we have Fang, and we have Trip,” Sonic Team creative officer Takashi Iizuka says. Eggman has always been a bad guy in Sonic games, and is always causing trouble. However, we wanted to bring one of those older and more minor characters back from the Classics series. Fang’s return to the series was the result of this idea. Fang is back in the picture after an extended absence. We also had Eggman as a constant character, Eggman’s permanent presence.

Trip

Trip, a co-creation between Iizuka & Arzest’s president Naoto Oshima (who was also Sonic Superstars development supervisor), joins the list of enemies. Iizuka explains that when he and Ohshima discussed making a game, they wanted a story with a twist. “We asked ourselves, what is the best story we can have?” Which characters will be in the story? What’s the story? As we were talking about that, we really felt we needed a new character for the story – we want to introduce a new character. It’s not enough to just have a character who has nothing in their background and will just “boop” into existence. “We want to create a unique character, with unique traits, a background, and some story elements. This will make them stand out, and allow people to empathize and relate with the character.

That last point is of particular importance to Iizuka and the team, as he recognizes past patterns when introducing world-ending threats seemingly out of nowhere that players are supposed to care about. Iizuka says that in the past when new enemies have appeared, they’ve been really powerful and strong. “We are Infinite [from Sonic Forces]. You can see them as enemies right in front of you. The enemy is formidable and you think, “Oh no!” How will I deal with my enemy? We wanted to present enemies in a different way.

Trip was the character created by Ohshima, his first Sonic creation in years. Ohshima’s most famous work is the creation of the Sonic the Hedgehog original design and Dr. Eggman. In 1999, however, after his involvement in Sonic Adventure, Ohshima left Sega. Ohshima collaborated closely with Iizuka in order to create ideas for the new characters. Ohshima explains that they had a constant dialogue and exchanged visuals about the character’s personality. Ideas for themes and actions of the character, such as an armored snake and ouroboros, were generated. I developed the design as I discussed ideas with Iizuka.

Iizuka explains that the character’s base is an English sungazer (lizard). “In Japanese, it’s more direct – it’s literally ‘armored lizard’ in Japanese. “But the sungazer animal was that which was referenced in the design of Trip.

Changing the Script

Act Amy, in the Lagoon City Zone is my only interaction with Trip. She doesn’t look like the world-ending menace we are used to in the Sonic series after stumbling across her. Even a character like Chaos in Sonic Adventure, who started out weak, was still a formidable foe in the early stages. She seemed lost, helpless, and sad in my first encounter with Trip. Amy offers to assist Trip. The second half of this stage is an escort, where Amy takes Trip to her goal. This character-specific act is meant to provide additional context for the Sonic Superstars story. But my impression from this initial encounter was that Trip wasn’t a bad character who wanted to destroy our heroes. Instead there were some complexities behind her transformation into an intimidating villain.

“The team wanted to show that Trip is not that usual enemy, and we wanted to introduce her in a way that’s not the obvious ‘Oh, I’m super strong’ way,” Iizuka says. When we first introduced Trip, she fell on her face the moment you saw her. What will people think first? Who is this super-strong enemy and what is her name? What’s happening? “We wanted to present the character that way in order to be different than how Sonic enemies are usually presented.”

Arzest and Sonic Team had to also contend with getting across these ideas through storytelling, without compromising on the core presentation tenets for the Classic series. Iizuka explains that since they are also using the Classic storytelling format, there will be no voiceovers or long monologues. “We wanted to do it that way, in a Classic style of storytelling where we just show the action of the character while still having a cool and interesting character.” “We think that as they enjoy Trip, and watch her through the story in the role of an enemy, then they’ll appreciate her even more as one.”

Why Doesn’t Shadow Appear In Sonic Superstars?

Iizuka told me in the past that Shadow was his favourite non-Sonic, and many people have speculated that Shadow might have made up the third antagonist in Sonic Superstars. Iizuka confirms, however, that Shadow does not belong in the Classic series. 

Iizuka said, “Shadow comes from the Modern Series of characters and games that we introduced.” It’s because the Classic series was created before Modern, they didn’t meet at this time. Shadow won’t appear in the Classic series because they don’t have a relationship. 

Iizuka continues with a laugh, “Unfortunately Shadow wasn’t in the capsule that day.”

Before Sonic Superstars launches, we will learn more about Trip. Sonic Superstars is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 4, Xbox One Switch and PC in the fall. Click the banner to learn more about this 2D platformer!