Tyler Davis
Reviewed on PC
When Sonic Superstars was first revealed, I was cautiously optimistic. It wouldn’t have been the first time Sega previewed a brand-new title for the Blue Blur that appeared promising but turned out to be more than disappointing, and I wasn’t ready to have my hopes shattered by the rhythmic curse of Sonic release quality again. However, it seems that developers Arzest and Sonic Team have managed to blaze past the aforementioned stigma regarding quality and produce a game that’s sound through and through. Sonic Superstars is not only a polished and great Sonic game, but it’s also an incredibly well-designed platformer in its own right.
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The Gameplay
Sonic Superstars is incredibly well designed from a gameplay perspective, managing to diversify what 2D Sonic is known for without losing what makes it great in the first place. These are games about route memorization and momentum. You don’t just beat a Sonic title; you master it. Because of this, Sonic’s 2D titles have always struggled to satisfy on the first run, almost completely by design for the average player.
Sonic Superstars circumvents this by expanding the scope and size of each stage with a boss fight tacked onto the end of them. These stages feel more developed and substantiated, making the game’s first run a tad more fulfilling and satisfying. Then, when it comes time for the route memorization and time attack playthroughs, the stages now consist of even more routes to puzzle out. Alongside a set of four different playable characters with distinct playstyles, this game is accessible to almost every kind of player without lessening the experience for any one of them.
Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy all get their time to shine. Not only do they each have a side act reserved just for them, but their patented and fan-favorite abilities are the most well-designed they’ve ever been. One of the best things the team did was keep all characters at a baseline regarding gameplay. It makes it easy to acclimate to each other by swapping on the fly, but they don’t feel like reskins of one another due to their stunning individuality.
It helps significantly that the platforming is smooth, easy to control, and well-balanced regarding momentum. Sonic has never truly felt this controllable in a 2D space, even when coming out of large speed pockets as the stage blurs by. I will say that this game’s lack of overall speed helps with this, but the lack of speed is up to the player. Momentum and speed are a reward for how well you’re playing the game and utilizing its physics to clear levels. Sonic returning to a gameplay formula in which speed doesn’t matter as much as momentum does return a level of depth to the series platforming that hasn’t been seen since Sonic Mania, which was still a blip of brightness within a sea of ‘boost formula brain rot.’
Not every boss fight is excellent, with some admittedly overstaying their welcome to the point of boredom. While I wouldn’t say any of them are poorly designed, the team could have cut some of the Act 1 bosses to favor more impressive Act 2 battles, which would’ve helped elevate the bosses overall. That being said, most of the boss fights are still a good time. The game’s true final boss is incredibly endearing but requires some extra playtime to seek out and find.
Chaos Emerald abilities mark their brand-new debut in this title alongside some enjoyable special stages that offer a unique but not headache-inducing challenge when it comes to chasing down those precious Emeralds. You swing from floating balls, jump pads, and boost tunnels in an open arena like Spider-Man chasing down a runaway emerald. The abilities aren’t as fun to use as I thought. They aren’t ever necessary for stage completion and rarely come in handy during boss battles. When replaying the game, they work as a toolset to map out new and even faster routes, but in terms of the primary campaign, they act more like a shiny gimmick than a gameplay feature.
There is a big emphasis on multiplayer this time in the form of couch co-op campaign play and an online mode that’s best left at player discretion. Playing through the story with a friend is delicate and much more intuitive than shared-screen multiplayer modes in platformers of its ilk. However, much like the online, it feels tacked on. Fun, sure, but not all that fleshed out.
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Graphics, Performance, and Music
The game plays it safe in every conceivable way, especially with its visual design. It’s what you know and love about Sonic’s classic world, but this time rendered with beautifully stylized 3D models that don’t show an ounce of age anywhere throughout the game. Their animations are beyond smooth, keeping up with the game’s faster set pieces without breaking a sweat. Being all brand-new adds to the game’s sense of polish, but they also allow for the main cast and other characters throughout the game to be more expressive in 2D than ever before.
World design and stage set follow suit with the aesthetic commitment to generate, each setting in this game something you’ve seen done one hundred times over in 2D Sonic games of the past. Even on its own, the levels don’t feel all that exciting regarding setting.
Sonic’s soundtrack would typically help fill out the atmosphere of each stage, but the sound design here pushes the music to the back, each track sharing the same generic energy seen in the visuals. The music isn’t bad, but it lacks any stand-out or thematic tracks for the Bridge Island Zone opening theme.
Performance is pretty damn good both on PC and Steam Deck. I didn’t encounter a single hiccup or glitch with the solo campaign. I did run into some issues regarding multiplayer, however, such as level geometry freezing player characters and undergoing instant death at a stage’s end.
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Final Thoughts
Sonic Superstars is a good game with a robust design ethos. Still, as an overall package, it is dragged down by the tacked-out multiplayer modes and generic gameplay/visual design. While the $60 price tag may seem like much to some players, the game has a surprisingly lengthy runtime with a main campaign that includes about two dozen stages, taking me seven hours to complete. The game also consists of a surprisingly extensive post-game. I can’t say whether or not it will be worth the full MSRP to everyone, but for me and the fun I had with the game, it was worth it for myself. That being said, sale season is just around the corner, and Sega loves a good discount, so keep your eyes out for it then, especially if you love all things platforming.