Gotta go fast ... or not!

Most Sonic games hit the accelerator, making you travel at high speeds while avoiding hazards on your way towards the objective. Unlike most previous games, Sonic Superstars exchanges traditional speed for new abilities, more exploration, many minigames and slightly more difficult bosses. Most of this stylistic deviation works well for much of Superstars' roughly 15-hour multi-campaign story.

Sonic Superstars has three main game modes: a campaign with three individual stories that are unlocked in sequence, after finishing the previous one you can access a new one, a battle mode for eight players and a time attack mode. Story mode features 11 Zones across the new Northstar Islands, where levels occasionally take inspiration from other well-known stages in Sonic history. For example, the Speed Jungle Zone.



Here in the levels we don't find anything grand or any significant visual innovation, but they did the right thing by bringing the classic style that the game's fan base loves, so despite having this lack of novelty, they fulfill their role and bring a touch of nostalgia. 

But I definitely had fun playing these levels, they can have some questionable enemies and obstacles, and your choice to focus on platforming instead of speed is a bit disappointing, because when you play Sonic, the least you expect is speed.

And there are several routes to take in each level, at first it was fun to explore these paths, using different playable characters and the Chaos Emeralds' abilities to explore less linear paths looking for something hidden, but after discovering that the only reward for This exploration was more rings or a currency used in cosmetics in multiplayer mode, the player ends up feeling a little unmotivated to try to face extra dangers and enemies.



Another interesting thing about this edition of the franchise is that in addition to the classic characters that we are already accustomed to, a new character was added who plays a fundamental role in the game's campaigns. The character is called Trip, and was developed by the same creator of Sonic and Eggman, Naoto Oshima, which could be a good indicator of quality for this new character.

The game's plot doesn't deviate from the pattern we've seen for years, it's the classic Eggman is plotting an evil plan, developing a multitude of robotic enemies that will try to stop Sonic and all his friends before they reach Eggman and try to stop him. conclude with your plan, something that can be a little frustrating as most of the games in the franchise have this premise.

Hunting Chaos Emeralds

Collecting Chaos Emeralds is more straightforward in Sonic Superstars, as the greater focus on exploration ends up encouraging the player to look for the giant golden rings that hide them across the map. And finding one of them sends you to play a short minigame where you need to chase the Chaos Emerald, swinging from point to point until you reach it. And I ended up finding the minigames really cool, as they were fun and made the process of getting the emeralds more dynamic.

And Chaos Emeralds are no longer limited to just granting Sonic the ability to transform into Super, as each one now grants a unique power. For example, the Avatar and Bullet abilities, the first of which creates clones that run across the screen, destroying enemies, collecting rings or breaking walls to open new routes, while Bullet allows you to launch yourself in the direction of your choice several times during your duration.



The Bullet was extremely useful when playing as Sonic specifically, as he doesn't have the additional movement options you get when playing as Tails, Knuckles, or Amy, and you can see how using the emeralds' abilities makes the game much more dynamic. and are much more essential to gameplay than simply a strong skill.

And since we talked about the characters' abilities, now let's talk a little about the enemies that will face them. Eggman will regularly challenge you with various egg machines shaped like clowns, dragonflies, giant mechs, and more, but some of the bosses Eggman has prepared for players can be quite annoying.



The times of constantly jumping on one of Eggman's machines to destroy them quickly and efficiently are in the past, many of the bosses in Superstars are immune to normal attacks or move away as soon as they are hit, making them untargetable. , except for specific attacks that you can counterattack.

This isn't an uncommon tactic for bosses in other games, but the problem here is how far you have to deviate from the same simple attack patterns before the boss is defeated. Some of the worst ones can double or even triple the time to complete the phase in which they are the boss, which ends up taking too long and becoming a bit tedious.

Running away from problems

One of Superstars' best features is its phenomenal soundtrack, with songs that perfectly match the theme of each level. Throughout my gameplay, I didn't find any music that didn't make me tap my feet to the sound of its percussive and electronic beats, and they all fit very well with the franchise's already established musical style.

The game's sound effects are also cool, the sound of bees buzzing or the impact of lasers is really cool, but in stages that end up being very long, especially when we remember that some boss fights are extensive, this can end up becoming a problem.

Another very annoying problem with the game is the controls. Don't get me wrong, most of them work very well, but some mechanics were thought out in a bad way, like Tails' flight, where if you want to fly higher you have to keep pressing the jump button instead of simply holding down the button, something that ends up being very annoying and tiring as we progress through the gameplay.



The game is initially very exciting, at first glance it seems perfect, it has a good soundtrack, very beautiful and nostalgic graphics, but as the gameplay progresses its defects gradually appear and become increasingly clear, such as the decision to focus more on exploration, which was a great idea on paper and created a unique dynamic for each level, but it would have been better if it hadn't sacrificed speed in return.

The boss designs are creative and clever, but they often wear down your patience with long periods of unattainability and occasionally frustrating one-hit kill mechanics, these details end up taking away a lot of the shine the game could have had.

That's why we can say that the game itself isn't bad, but it lacks some details that it shouldn't have, it ended up having a lot of good, very interesting ideas, but some of them were poorly executed, and despite the game being quite nostalgic and fun , it’s not something “super” as it is in the name of the game.

Sonic Superstars was played via PC via Steam.

We sincerely thank SEGA for providing us with the game access key to make this review possible.