2D Sonic games have really been all over the place. 

There’s the classic games on the Sega Genesis, weird ports to the Game Gear and Master System, an interesting series on the Gameboy Advance, a random game for the Neo Geo, a few DS games, a terrible mobile game, and then my beloved Sonic Mania, which I’ve probably beaten more times than any other game.

Sonic Superstars is the latest in the series, and poses itself to be somewhat of an evolution of the 2D Sonic franchise that doesn’t stray too far from what people love about the gameplay. I was hoping it would turn out this way, and at least be almost as enjoyable as Sonic Mania was – but it didn’t quite hit the mark. 

Gameplay

The basics are the same as the classic Sonic titles – levels are huge, and split into multiple sections (acts). There’s a ton of verticality, which allows the developers to design sections where you are shooting fast down huge ramps, running upside-down through loops, and searching for many secrets, including the chaos emeralds. There’s a lot of replayability to be had, and just like Sonic Mania, this is a game that I think is worth playing through more than once. 

Superstars brings a handful of new mechanics to the table, and honestly I was impressed with them. In past games, you received a special super form after collecting all seven chaos emeralds. In this game, the super form is still present, but you now receive special abilities after each emerald you collect. I found them to be very useful, and allowed for some new level designs that wouldn’t have worked quite as well in past games. Their use is limited, too – they only last for around 15 seconds, and you must hit a checkpoint before using it again.

These abilities are perhaps most useful on bosses, and man does this game have a lot of them. While I’d say the bosses’ mechanics are designed pretty well, I found issues with their implementation. In some past games, you could hit bosses over and over in rapid succession, sometimes taking them down in mere seconds. This wasn’t always easy, especially if you lacked chaos emeralds, but it was a lot of fun to do, especially in repeat playthroughs.

However, in Sonic Superstars, the bosses have long periods of invincibility after each hit, sometimes doing transitional animations over and over again, coupled with slow attacks. In turn, they take less hits to defeat, but this makes them feel like Mario bosses, not the Sonic bosses I’ve come to love. It slows the gameplay down a lot, and definitely feels out of place.

This is at its worst in the THREE different final bosses that this game features across its two campaigns. Each of these bosses take more hits than usual to take down, and play even slower than the smaller bosses you fight throughout the game. One of them in particular is just way harder than necessary, and nearly made me quit as it would literally take me minutes to get back to the part that was giving me trouble. It was like Sonic 2’s Death Egg fight all over again… 

In short – level design great, mechanics fun, bosses problematic. 

Graphics 

We’re back to 3D after Sonic Mania returned to pixel art, and while things definitely look less polished, I still think it was the right choice. I’d say the presentation is acceptable, and once again allowed for some interesting designs that wouldn’t have worked as well in a two-dimensional style.  

I like it when things look shiny and colorful, and it’s definitely done well here. I just wish they had taken the time to smooth out the occasional issues – there’s a decent amount of times you’ll see characters and objects clipping into each other, and I noticed more than once some environmental assets that were clearly misplaced. 

Performance was decent, aside from some consistent stuttering in the loading screens. Otherwise it was able to maintain a consistent 60 fps with a high resolution, but note I played on my gaming PC. 

Collectibles

The main new collectible in this game are medals, which are earned upon collecting 100 rings, awarded for defeating secret golden enemies in each stage, and found in bonus stages and hidden throughout each level. They can only be used to purchase cosmetics for a special robot character you can create and use in battle mode (which I did not find interesting enough to cover in this review), but I had fun collecting them nonetheless, especially since your robot shows up in the campaign a couple times. 

What really interests me are the achievements. Sonic games are one of my favorites to complete all achievements in, and I did the same here. I found that it gave a good incentive for the player to try out different characters and explore, with some achievements asking you to defeat a certain number of enemies with certain character’s abilities, complete a certain level with no damage, and defeat all golden enemies. I didn’t find any to be overly tedious, although it’s very unfortunate that the golden enemies are only tracked if you complete the level without dying after defeating one – if you slip up, you’ll have to start the stage all over. 

If only there were more variety in the icons… 

Conclusion

Sonic Superstars, somehow, starts off great and gets worse as it goes on… sort of like the Genesis games. It’s strange, in the developer’s attempts to move the series forward, I think they’ve inadvertently stepped back in some areas. I definitely don’t think this experience is worth the full price of $60, but I got it on sale at $24 and am happy with my purchase. I’d say it’s a good game to get on sale if you’re just looking to play some more Sonic (after you’ve finished Sonic Mania, of course). 

About Catoons