“I think I’m done with the Sonic series.”

This was something said around the year 2020 by me. I just didn’t really have much hope in the franchise for many years. Thought Forces was mediocre, thought TSR was mediocre, thought the first movie was decent at best. When Sonic Frontiers was first shown off it would just be another dud trying to copy what others were doing. Surprisingly it was a good game though my opinion has gone down on it over the past 11 months I think it’s been out. Still it gave me some hope and while the second Sonic movie was still just decent I did see it as a better movie. Which now leads into Superstars. (Warning big spoilers will be in this).

When the game was first revealed I was curious but not hyped especially due to the questionable presentation and $60 price tag. I also had no hope the Switch port would be good considering every Sonic game after Forces have had some downgrades besides maybe Origins. I never bought it so I’m assuming it’s basically the same besides worse resolution on the cutscenes. It was also revealed Arzest was making it and I hate them. They were the ones responsible for some of the most mediocre games out there like Hey Pikmin, Yoshi’s New Island and Wii Play Motion. (Edit again umm IDK why I wrote Hey Pikmin here because I haven't even played or seen the game outside of trailers, so apologies to anyone who likes that game). They are in the same tier as ND Cube for “Please no.” Despite it all, I had confidence we would have another Mania on our hands especially with some hyping it up.

I wanna make it clear, this won’t be detailed. This will be the story of how I now have trust issues buying new games and how Sonic Superstars is one of the biggest examples of Buyer’s Remorse I’ve ever had.

Let’s start off with the fact that the game gives a good first impression, the intro cutscene is nice, the first few zones are fun and the physics are mostly accurate. They at least seem to be very close or identical to Mania. (Edit here uhh I don't think this is actually correct, sorry for the misinformation). I was having a good time for a lot of the journey thinking that while it’s not the best game ever, it’s still good. Maybe I’ll warm up to it more on later playthroughs. Then the last quarter of the game arrived and I was pissed. I was angry. It was a feeling that shocked me and kind of made me depressed afterwards. Level design in the later zones is terrible and just doesn’t have the same good flow it was having before. But there’s a lot of other things to go over.

First those special stages, they are all mostly easy except that 5th one until you figure out holding left for most of it makes it pretty easy. You’re swinging on items to reach the emerald and while it’s confusing at first, you’ll understand it quickly but they have such little depth. I appreciate the new idea but it needs work. There’s also the emerald powers that range from don’t match the level design well or so situational they feel like a waste of space. I like the idea of it but the game doesn’t make level design well around them for both of the wrong reasons.

There’s also medals that you can get from special stages you’ve beaten, inside levels and even in checkpoint bonus stages where it’s the Sonic 1 special stage again. Why? But oh wow there’s a shop, maybe I can buy cool stuff like elemental shields, I noticed they weren’t in levels yet-oh it’s battle mode stuff. Sigh. Wait, didn't Fire and Ice do something like that too? So why even go into the boring Sonic 1 special stages if the reward is so lame. There’s also this bonus act if you have this weird fruit but again I don’t really care.

Then you have the bosses. Omg the goddamn bosses are some of the worst in the series. What the hell happened here?? You got bosses with a ton of I-frames and bosses that love to waste your time being in the background. How did they do what made the Sonic Rush bosses not good and made it even worse!? This is especially bad by the last quarter and the final boss is so long and tedious and me dying on it constantly was driving me up a wall. Yes they’re not hard but this crap is tedious man! There’s a reason Mania never did this. I’m almost convinced the last few bosses are designed the way they are so you couldn’t cheat them as Super Sonic. The only bosses I really liked was in the tribute stage to Fantasy Zone where the bosses are just literally bosses from Fantasy Zone. That was still easily the best part of the game tbh and I’m not even a big fan of FZ.

Once you beat the story mode you can play a new harder mode with a character and they somehow made the level design even worse and frustrating. It also just feels like it’s not play tested well at all and for some reason my playthrough of it kept having music glitches like the act clear not playing and having the background music play twice at the same time. They also gave the bosses more health COOL I LOVE WHEN MY HORRIBLY MADE BOSS FIGHT LASTS LONGER! GOD I LOVE VIDEO GAMES! The new final boss was cool but my god it lasts too long STOPPPPPPPPPP!!! Though I want to just scream.

F*ck everything about the Super Sonic final boss. It lasts too long, the design of the boss is terrible and I COULDN’T BEAT IT! That’s right I gave up! Now if someone can actually tell me what I did wrong I’ll try again but right now I can’t do it anymore. Sonic just faces the boss and he throws these meteors. I press the button he does this animation and it does nothing, I do nothing and I still get hit. Like wtf am I supposed to do?? I see people doing this spin move but I can’t figure out how to do it! Am I stupid?? Yes. I JUST DON’T WANNA DO ANOTHER 7 MINUTES JUST FOR 20 SECONDS OF AN ATTEMPT!!! Listening to Anime music to help the pain only can help so much. It was already a garbage fight but that ending part still makes me furious. I swear I just can’t mentally handle it anymore.

Really I could go on. I could say how visually uninteresting the game is. I could talk about the Switch port and how people on Twitter lied about it always being 60fps cause it is definitely not consistent at the very least. I could have brought up how much I’m sick of this Digital Deluxe BS. I could rant about how I’m sick of seeing Sonic LEGO. I could mention how apparently the multiplayer sucks and how I couldn’t play it because I’m a LOSER! Do you really think I’d ever have people to play with? They don’t even play the Segaaaa jingle like wtf game!? It doesn’t even have their modern Sega sound. Seriously for god's sake this game pisses me off!

If I had to be blunt. I’m depressed. I mean I’ve been depressed for 2 months with stuff like the thought of being dead one day or just how I’m getting older and less chances to look nice. Just personal stuff no one probably cares about. I don’t have much money and I kind of just expected this to be at least very good. This has changed me about how I feel about buying games now. I don’t feel confident buying anything anymore. I’m being serious, I just don’t know anymore. I honestly now have regrets buying Super Mario Bros. Wonder. I’m tempted to go hope for a return knowing it probably won’t be good either. I’m sick of buyer’s remorse man, I just wanted a good game and I’m so upset about it.

I’m never trusting Arzest with another game, they’re on my blacklist. I don’t care what they do now, if Sega continues to use them for Classic Sonic then goodbye to that. Superstars is probably not a bad game. In fact please don't let my opinion ruin your enjoyment for it if you have any but as someone who has beaten most 2D Sonic games, this is now one of my least favorites. I would rather play Sonic 2 on the Master System, I would rather play Sonic Blast (maybe not as Knuckles), and I would even…god I can’t believe I’m saying this…I would rather play Shattered Crystal-ahaha just kidding! Superstars just…angers me…upsets me. I think about how I was gonna review every classic game to celebrate and tell stories like how much I like Sonic 1 or how Triple Trouble is very good or my bad experience with Tails Adventure or how just so many of them have memories to me. Now I’m here being sad.

I have one last thing to say. I’m done with Sonic. I mean it this time. Unless it can truly be really good someday, I’m out with the exception of finishing Prime and watching that 3rd movie. I just can’t take this anymore. I’ll still replay older games I like and hey if they ever truly do it, I’ll be there. I remember reading Morio Kishimoto wanting one day for Sonic to have the same quality as Mario or something like that. I really hope you one day get that achievement. All I can do now is end it with a cringey reference, there goes the end of my hope for the blue blur.

“Farewell Sonic forever…”