Sonic Superstars is a Side-Scrolling platformer game was released in 2023 for PS5, PS4, XSX/S, XBONE, Switch, and PC. It was developed by Sonic Team and Arzest, and was published by SEGA.
In the last 5 years ago, I've already covered the Sonic Mania review which I consider the title as being one of the best side-scrolling platformer of modern gaming generation.
It goes back to its roots of the classic nostalgia of 16-bit era that made Sonic series an recognisable video game franchises.
It packed with amazing 12 zones, entertaining boss fights, quality gameplay and graphics, replay values, and many more has to offer that the fan of the series will be very pleased to see how this game had turns out to become another successful 2D platformer for Sonic series.
I am hoping Sonic Team would consider planning to make another collaboration with the Evening Star, the developers of Sonic Mania, to create a follow-up title, but unfortunately the plan has fell through which causing the development team to focus on developing an independent title such as Penny's Big Breakaway.
While Evening Star was no longer involved, Sonic Team has hired Arzest, a studio founded by Naoto Ohshima who was best known for designing SEGA's titular mascot for Sonic franchise, to create a new side-scrolling platformer game titled as Sonic Superstars. It marked Ohshima's first contribution to a Sonic game since 1998's 3D platformer game such as Sonic Adventure.
It is interesting to see Ohshima made a return after 24 years since to join with Sonic Team to create a new 2D Sonic game that are designed for those who grew up playing the classic 2D Sonic games from the past.
Their goal is to create a faithfulness to classic 2D Sonic games using a familiar gameplay design that plays quite close to Genesis/MD 16-bit platformer, while they added the modern graphics which makes the visuals presentation quite different from the previous 2D Sonic game such as Sonic Mania that uses the pixel-art style design.
The game had gained mixed to positive reception at the release which many gaming media praises the game itself as an improvement over the previous 2D games like Sonic 4: Episode 1 and 2, but not as quite good in comparison with Sonic Mania are far more superior in terms of gameplay and visuals.
I also heard that the Sonic Superstars had such a low sales that didn't meet SEGA's expectations due to being attributed to competition from the similar platform game such as Nintendo's Super Mario Bros Wonder, which is why its never been such a good idea to release it in the same month as their former console wars competitor's title.
I began to speculating the reason why this game didn't had such a good sales even the franchise itself is still popular as today, so I totally understand they made a bad decision to release it quite close to other platforming game's launch date, but I don't think the game deserves such a low sales because this game might be just as good which is why I am here to review this game to deliver several of things that they got the game right and some others that left to be desired that could have made the game bit better.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The game started it out when Dr. Robotnik comes to the Northstar Islands in search for chaos emeralds, as he hires his henchmen Fang the Hunter to capture all the giant animals by trapping them inside the capsules so he can turn them into a badniks.
The game also introduces Trip the Sungazer, an armored-mysterious girl who is enlisted by the villains to protect and guide them in the islands hostile environment.
Having learned of Eggman's actions, Sonic and his friends join forces and travel to the Northstar Islands to take the villain down.
The story is somewhat quite simplistic, so it's basically about the blue hedgehog and his friends set out to the islands to rescue the animals that are being held captive and stopping the mad scientist from stealing the chaos emeralds that allowing him to conquer the world.
There are no actual dialog in the animated cutscene which is perfectly fine because we know exactly what's going on in the game, if you could understand the game's simple plot that I've mentioned above.
The game shares with likable characters that are so recognisable in the whole series, so you have Sonic the Hedgehog who is a fastest running blue hedgehog speeding through the loopholes, has a cool attitude, and of course kicking Robotnik's ass like in every Sonic games is what I've liked about the blue hero hedgehog.
I also liked the other 3 characters which are also quite cool in the game too, so you have Tails which I considered him as Sonic's little helper and also his best mate in every Sonic games, and then you have Knuckles which is a tough-looking dude really good at throwing powerful punches but also can be knucklehead in some Sonic games, and lastly a pink hedgehog Amy who loves chasing after Sonic just like in Sonic CD which is kinda cute, yeah I mean really cute because she's really loves Sonic that's all.
Trip the Sungazer is pretty new to this game which, unlike Eggman and Fang, I consider her as docile and empathetic lizard girl due to her concern whenever she sees nature being threatened by these villains doing such horrible things is the reason why she really hated the way Eggman and Fang's action had treated the home island and captured animals.
Then you have the main villain Dr. Robotnik are up to no good as always just like he did from the previous Sonic games. Just kidnapping innocent animals, stealing chaos emeralds, creating bunch of his minions bots, hiring his assistants, and of course conquering the islands is what really made the mad scientist quite memorable in the whole series.
I also got to say that the Fang the Hunter is also a decent right-hand villain in the game which you may know him from the early Sonic games that he first introduced as villain in games like Sonic Triple Trouble, and also appeared as playable roster in Sonic Drift 2 and Sonic the Fighters.
He describes as greedy and mischievous bounty hunter seeks to obtain valuables for monetary gain, and yes he just loves to talk shit with Trip when accusing her for the Trip's clumsiness...jeez what a dick, but also quite funny at the same time that's adds the game's sense of humour.
The overall presentation in this game are pretty good, as the game providing with really amazing animated cutscenes which I considered it as remarkable, bold, and colourful.
I know many of you are not a fan of this in-game's modern style graphics as opposed to pixel-art style design like from Sonic Mania, so like I said earlier about switching development team which is why it made the game look different while retaining the classic-style gameplay.
I had no issues with the art-direction they chose it for this title which they did a great job of capturing the similar style of level zones in terms of settings environments and scenery, so stuff like you have stages such as Bridge Island Zone which is a tropical themed stages filled with waterfalls, rock structures, sunflowers, palm-trees and stone tiles decorating the checkered blue terrain.
Speed Jungle Zone takes place in a vibrant jungle housing filled with buildings overgrown with trees, pathways made of tarnished trusses, discarded machine parts scattered throughout the zone, and buried objects such as nuts and bolts.
Sky Temple Zone takes place on a floating island are decorated with large red fans that makes you fly above the platforms.
Pinball Carnival Zone is a pinball-based amusement stages filled with numerous of pinball themed environments and carnival rides to go on.
Lagoon City Zone is a ruined ancient city that has been submerged underwater and also features a lot of water slides.
Sand Sanctuary Zone is a desert area that has an abandoned temple that vaguely resembles one of the stage from Sonic & Knuckles.
Press Factory Zone is an Eggman's empire-owned factory filled with industrial stuffs and workzone areas.
Golden Capital Zone is an extravagant temple filled with gold environments of buildings, black and white checkered floor, and there are numerous pools of lava in some areas.
Cyber Station Zone is located within a virtual space that features a pixel aesthetic which all have voxel designs.
Frozen Base Zone is a subterranean industrialized base in a frozen region has an mysterious place hides many familiar technologies.
Finally Egg Fortress Zone is a empire space station located in outer space which orbiting around the entire planet earth.
Overall, it has simplistic story cutscene, likable cast of characters, and great presentation.
Gameplay
The game features the story mode which is basically an whole campaign that you can play the game in single-player solo or 4-player co-op.
You'll be visiting in stage select areas where you get to pick whatever the stage that you wanted to play on.
You'll play as whichever the characters you've picked in 2D side-scrolling perspective, as your main objective is to being able to reach it at the finishing goal as well as defeating Dr. Robotnik and other types of bosses in each stages.
You'll start off with the basic controls, so pushing the left and right d-pad buttons or the left stick controls to move the player around, and holding down the d-pad button or left stick down will make them crouch.
Pressing the cross or circle button to make them jump on platforms as well as jumping on the enemies as jump attack, while double tapping or holding the same button will allow 5 of the characters do their abilities such as Sonic does ground spin-dash as soon as he hits the ground, Tails uses his twin-tails to fly above in mid-air as well as swimming underwater, Knuckles can glide through the stages as well as climbing up the wall, Amy uses her jumping attack with the hammer while holding down the button as soon as she hits the ground will allow her to perform rapid hammer attack, and of course Trip (which you get to play as her in Trip's Story campaign) has ability to use her spiky grip which sticks on both walls and ceiling to move across as well as she also can double jump to reach the higher platforms.
While holding down the d-pad or left stick down then tapping the cross or circle button will allow them to do quick spin dash giving them a extra boost of speed manoeuvring to reach through the loopholes and platforming heights.
You can cycle the emeralds power ability by pressing the shoulder buttons or rotate it with the right stick controls to select any of these emeralds power which I will explain these for later on this review.
Most of the levels had filled with hazardous areas, smaller enemies and couple of dead ends in which you are required to avoid enemy's projectiles and falling off the stage. There are item box that comes in useful which gives you ability to perform any of these cool things like power sneakers which makes you run in high speed, invincibility makes you go invincible for 10 seconds, and of course the regular shield which protects you from enemy's projectiles and hazardous objects in one-hit damage.
You will need to collect rings which acts as the character's health, but getting hit by the enemies or any hazardous can lead you to lose many of rings in which you can still retrieve these remaining rings that scattered around everywhere before it disappears in next 5 seconds.
The game introduces 7 emeralds powers when obtaining these chaos emeralds from the special stages, so you have avatar chaos which summon forth wave of clones of themselves stampeding across the stage dealing damage to enemies, bullet chaos will allow your character in midair launching an ball themselves in the direction demolishing most things, vision chaos which reveals several items being highlighted in a bright purple as well as enabling you to access things in several stages, water chaos which enables you to turn your character into liquid allowing them to traverse streams of water, ivy chaos which summon a large vines that travels upward enabling you to reach higher areas, slow chaos substantially slowing down the area and things around you, and of course extra chaos will grant you the extra power giving each character a unique ability when activated, so for example: Sonic gains a homing attack allowing him use chain attacks to quickly dispatch large group of enemies, Tails throws his small tornado that travels forward dealing tremendous damage on enemies, Knuckles uses his punches sending a projectile forward to hit targets from a safe distance, Amy can tosses her hammers forward effectively against air-based enemies, and of course Trip can shoot her fireballs that bounce around the terrain.
You may have a secondary objectives where you'll need to collect all 7 chaos emeralds to obtain emeralds power that I've mentioned it above before which can be found in the special stage, so you'll be entering in by going into a large massive gold ring (except the large blue ring are totally something else) can be hidden somewhere else in the main stage which grants you access to the special stage where you need to swing across through the stage faster to chase after the chaos emerald, so catch them before the time runs out.
If successfully gathered all 7 chaos emeralds which turns your playable characters into a super form can be activated, if you collected all 50 rings as requirement to use it, which allowing them to perform a ultimate power which means you can able to breeze through levels, instantly kills all enemies, and not taking damage from projectiles and hazards, but it can also drain down the remaining rings which means your super power form will get deactivated if the rings reaches to 0.
So far, I'm really glad that the gameplay turns out to be really good because I did not expect the feel of the controls and physics itself are butter as smooth which proves that Sonic Team had learned the lesson when hearing the feedback on other 2D Sonic game like Sonic 4: Episode 1 & 2 are nothing sort of sluggish and stiff that took away the fun factor of the game, so going back to this which plays much better than I've expected because I think the developers wanted to make this game to be faithful to classic 2D Sonic games that we all love back then.
I can able to pull off many manoeuvring moves like spin dash, gliding, jumping, climbing, and being able to run around the loops from top to bottom which I finding the controls to be really responsive to play without any sorts of issue.
Despite the controls plays really well in the game, I wanted to point out the emeralds power concept which I'll admit it seems to look cool but I don't think it worked well for most part because it's likely that it will make the game quite too easy to beat regular bosses which is why I finding it unnecessary to use it in the game.
I say I really liked the stages in each zones which shares many great segments such as trying to escape from big-long red creature in Bridge Island Zone, encountering with Fang that goes after you in Speed Jungle Zone, there are a man-made bridge and objects floating in above the sky while flying around with the winds of red-coloured fans in Sky Temple Zone, have fun bouncing around with the pinball flippers as well as getting on the fast-ride roller coaster in Pinball Carnival Zone, go for a water-slide then go deep underwater and smash all the gigantic fruits in Lagoon City Zone, run on the quicksand and squiggly snake body in Sand Sanctuary Zone, get bounced up by giant press machine and try to hit the switch before the whole stage explodes in Press Factory Zone, chase after Fang that stole your chaos emeralds in Golden Capital Zone, you're transformed into a pixel-art figure in Cyber Station Zone, you're welcome into the Shoot-em-ups style stages plays similar to SEGA's Fantasy Zone in Frozen Base Zone, and of course you're being forced into playing the stage in reverse after completing the first act in Egg Fortress Zone.
These are the really cool stages that I find quite incredibly fun to play which I really liked spending time to knock these enemies down, collecting rings, and go for the special stages to collect chaos emeralds is what really keeps me playing the game more than the hours.
There are quite of the boss battles that I find mostly decent except one of them sucks ass which I will discuss it at the end, so stuff like such as you have Eggman's mecha that welds round-metallic ball, the flying robot bug that shoots you with electrifying projectiles, the fat-rounded bot with stretchy-arms that loves to pounce on you, the Eggman's hovership that shoots out multiple of shiny disc-blade, the bouncy-clown bot juggling around with the spiky bombs that drops on you, the robo-squid deploying many minions to attack you as well as trying to electrifying you with the shock, the big-rounded monkey bot swings around the area while trying to squash you with the giant press machine, the golden-pig bot chases you around in rotating room, and there's few more to encounter in each zones which I find these regular bosses quite good to play, but except the Fang's final boss in Trip's story campaign which is really stressful to play is because I really don't like these cheap instant death patterns where you had to dodge these deadly laser that's being throwing at you without having to touch it and I also hated the Fang's mecha part where he traps you with the sticky-electrifying web takes forever to escape before he finishes you with the deadly projectile shot, so its nowhere near good as the Eggman's final boss which is slightly better on the main story campaign.
The game has 4-player co-op which I got to be honest with you guys is that I don't find these 4-player co-op well executed because it's basically a single screen play where you and your team must work together to beat the stages, but the issue is that your team partner accidently keeps running and jumping into the off-screen pretty too much otherwise you and your teams get both separated, so it could have been done better if the game has an option to include local split-screen or online co-op play that would have made it easier for the player to focus on their playable character that don't usually end up getting off the screen quite often or have the whole single screen bit zoomed-out when you and your teams get separated should have worked better.
There are another game mode called the battle mode which I got to say it's really fun multiplayer that they did the job right because it has several of matches such as the survival is where you had to avoid the cannon balls to survive until the end, the race is where you had to race through the stage and reach the goal before the other players, the star snatcher is where you had to collect many stars as possible within time limit until one of them that has most stars declared winner, and finally the zap scrap is where you had to face your opponent by shooting each other to earn the points until one of them that has higher points declared winner, so those are the battle games that are incredibly good to play for multiplayer.
Overall, it has good physics control, decent single-player solo, and fun battle mode.
Graphics
I know you many people aren't the fan of these 3D model visual design that the developers made their choice to use for this title, as opposed to 2D pixel-art design like from Sonic Mania. I got to be honest with you that the graphics in this game is actually good in terms of colourful environments and multi-layered settings that made the stage look impressive.
Stuff like you have the Bridge Island Zone that has moving clouds, large ocean, and steep waterfall at the background, the Pinball Carnival Zone has ferris wheel, castle, tracks, and tents at the mid-ground, the Golden Capital Zone are filled with man-made stuff at the large background environments, and the Cyber Space Zone are made of 8-bit neo-lights area which proving that these level settings design are incredibly fine and detailed.
The parallax scrolling are quite acceptable in some stages because they made a mix of sharp foregrounds and blurred backgrounds of the levels quite easier to navigate for players to prevent losing track on platforming stages, and the best of all is the use of stage auto-rotation in bonus stage and final boss battle where you run around the Dr. Robotnik's big fat mecha bot in circle which I find it quite impressive to play.
The character's design is just as amazing which I really liked their classic aesthetic design just like from the classic Sonic games that we know back then.
I got to say that the performance and resolution on PS5, XSX/S, and PCs is running smoothly on these versions, so the PS5, XSX/S (X Model) and PCs are fully on the 4k resolution (except XSX/S (S model) are running on 1080p) and providing full 60fps with no signs of slowdowns whatsoever which is incredibly smooth on these powerful system.
The switch version is however runs on native 720p may be not quite as good in comparison with 9th-gen consoles in terms of texture details and filtering are looking bit rough, and it misses the bloom effects in many stages which is why the graphics environments on the switch version is missing some details, and then the frame-rate is kinda okay on in-game stages till you've reached to later one or two bosses may gonna drop the frame performances to 50fps making the Switch version an inferior to other console platforms does the job better for its visuals and performances, but that doesn't necessary mean the switch version is bad because it's still as playable throughout the game.
Overall, it has colourful environments, amazing character's design, and fine looking stage design.
Music and Sounds
The soundtrack in this game is pretty great in some stages, so you have some of these music like from Bridge Island Zone, Speed Jungle Zone, Pinball Carnival Zone, Lagoon City Zone, Cyber Station Zone, Egg Fortress Zone, and Special Stage is kinda sounds like the mix of classic Sonic games like the Sonic CD and Sonic 3, where as the Sand Sanctuary Zone is kinda gives it a style of Shantae series which I got to praise Tee Lopes for creating such incredible soundtrack that fits the style of classic 2D Sonic games, where as some of other soundtrack by Jun Senoue are relying on the Sonic 4's instrumentation which many people dislikes the way it sounded in previous game like Sonic 4: Ep 1 & 2, but thankfully I can think two of the soundtracks that did got it right with Sky Temple Zone and Frozen Base Zone are by far the Jun's best music for Sonic game.
The sound effects are recognisable with classic 16-bit jingles like jumping, collecting rings, and collision hit on enemies, where as I really liked the environmental sounds on background stages.
Overall, it has great soundtrack and has recognisable sound effects.
Special Features
There's nothing much to say about this game...besides the debug cheat which includes stage select and sound test which is fine, but I got to be honest with this is that it's nowhere near good as the classic 16-bit effort is because in classic 16-bit Sonic games you can do lot of cool things to mess around in the stages like adding and duplicating more item box, enemies, large special rings, checkpoint, and goal post where as this game is completely absent which is quite a shame for those who likes to use debugging mode like from classic 16-bit games.
Overall, absolutely damn shame.
Advantages
Great presentation
Likable characters
Good controls
Decent single play solo
Battle mode is fun
Fine visuals
Very good soundtrack
Disadvantages
Emeralds power is completely unnecessary
4-player co-op mode isn't brilliant
Fang's final boss is the weakest part of the game
Pointless debug mode
Final Verdicts
Presentation 8/10 - simplistic story cutscene, likable cast of characters, and great presentation.
Gameplay 7/10 - good physics control, decent single-player solo, and fun battle mode.
Graphics 8/10 - colourful environments, amazing character's design, and fine looking stage design.
Music and Sounds 8/10 - great soundtrack and has recognisable sound effects.
Special Features 4/10 - it does have stage select and sound test, but misses true debugging mode.
Overall 7/10 - I got to say that Sonic Superstars is fairly better than the previous games like Sonic 4: EP 1 & 2 just aren't aging well as I remembered back then, but this game is not quite match the same quality level as the superior Sonic Mania which plays so much better in terms of control physics, pixel-art design, and has better platforming action that I finding it much appealing to play.
Sonic Superstars in other hand are genuinely good which I appreciate that the development team did such a fine job for its single-play solo shares with fluid controls, great stage segments, has 5 playable characters, fun special stage, and decent battle mode, but it's just the local 4-player co-op, use of emeralds power, Fang's final boss, and lazy debugging options seems to be a step back which I had a reason to give a score of 7, so if they could have done it better by adding the local split-screen and online play options for co-op mode, add more debugging features, and make Fang's final boss more forgiving to play would have made the game so much better in my opinion, but thankfully the gameplay controls and single-play platforming action turns out to be absolutely well which is why it is so much important to create a fun Sonic game that really matters the most to make fans of the series happy.
The game is sadly had sold quite poorly at the release which is never be such a good thing to launch it at the same month as Nintendo's successful platformer title like Super Mario Bros Wonder just sells like a hot cakes selling over 4.3 million units in two weeks after the release.
While SEGA's own platforming title didn't meet their sale expectations, Sonic Superstars is still a decent platforming game that I did not regret playing it because it's better to give this game a go, so you can get it for between £20 to £30 physically for all consoles platforms where as you can also get it on digitally from PS Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop, and Steam for £55, so I can only recommended to those who are a massive fans of the franchise will able to give the game a worth of play.
I am hoping that Sonic Team will consider to make another 2D Sonic games with better additional content and fun platforming action to see how it really goes in the future perfect.
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