That shit was soooooooooooooooo much fun. The spritework, music, and goofy Saturday morning cartoon story really packs a nostalgic punch while showing you a peak you're likely looking for if you adore a more modern version of classics. Think something akin to Sonic Mania from the classics instead of Sonic Generations. With a few tweaks here and there, this feels like the peak of what Mega Man should aim to look like and make you feel in comparison to the classics. Truly a whole 'holy shit, two cakes!' scenario for me.

6.5/10
Not gonna lie, hurts my soul a bit as a die-hard Sonic fan.

The game presents you with a very hot-and-cold presentation.. the whole time. The beautiful preview trailers? Meet the in-game cutscenes where the quality is half of what those drawn trailers had before, filled with random cartoon sound effects whenever an action or emotion is displayed. The insane Tee Lopes music? Only about 5 tracks, most of which are used for the first few levels, and most of the rest of the soundtrack ends up being the beautiful shitfarts Sonic 4 brought. The level design that the critics, fans, and all the preview demos showed off? Pretty much gone after the first two or so zones, where the game becomes Sonic 4 once again and makes everything about weird, annoying gimmicks that change up the game - and also falls in love with block platforming. Sometimes you get peak Sonic, other times you get Sonic 4. No, not Episode 2.

The gameplay -
It's great. Classic Sonic physics with movesets that suit all the characters. Sonic controls perfectly (miss the insta-shield tho), Tails is cool and can kinda? fall faster while holding down during his long, laggy flights. Knuckles has a little too much endlag with his glide, and jumps off the wall randomly when trying to climb stuff, and Amy... is simple but fun - double jump is nice, but that grounded hammer walk move is beyond useless. She should have came with that mini-dropdash she had in Sonic Origins' S3K. Point is, they all control fine. (Trip, the unlockable character, is really fun too! Can climb walls in a cool way, and has a great double jump. Great addition - design-wise not so sure though).
The Emerald Powers are okay. I don't like the random prompts they give you to use in level designs, feels a little too forced and gimmicky, but they're useful for cheesing certain parts that give you trouble. Getting them all is a bit of a hassle though, since the Special Stage rings aren't that easy to find, and the Special Stages themselves are a bit wonky to master - chasing the emerald feels inconsistent and unfair at times. I ended up never using them unless I was upset or trying to get past an annoying part of the game, since running around as Sonic is normally fun enough when the level design is good.
When playing the well designed stages (Speed Jungle Act 1, Carnival whatever acts 1 and 2, and Bridge Island), the game is REALLY fun. The music is killing it, the platforming isn't too blocky, with SO many ways to travel and keep moving forward, and you get to use the physics of classic Sonic gameplay to the highest degree. Bridge Island is nearly a perfect Sonic zone to me!
Unfortunately, the game dips in quality in the later levels, with shitfart music all over the place, block platforming level design, constant walls you run into, gimmicks that prevent going fast (Speed Jungle's lowered vision gimmick, 0 gravity sections in the final zone, the auto-scroller sections in Golden whatever, etc), and obstacles that murder you like bottomless pits and crushing blocks. These are EVERYWHERE, making up most of the last 7 or 8 zones you have to go through. and what are you rewarded with at the end of these acts/zones? Bosses that throw the most obvious patterns at you, but make you wait 15 seconds every time until you can actually hit them. They end up being a chore more than a challenge that you get bored/lazy and accidentally get hit and die, resetting the process and making you wait to beat the boss again. Yes, I said WAITING to beat the boss, because it really isn't a challenge... until you meet the last few bosses. These become a little challenging, while wasting even more of your time! An average Sonic Mania boss will take you about a minute to two, whereas an average Sonic Superstars boss will take on average 3 to 7 minutes. They hide around way too much that it just drags on way too long. Definitely the worst part of the game for me - especially when it plays the dogshit shitfart music that they clearly held onto from Sonic 4: Episode 3 before they canceled it. All three final bosses took me over an hour each simply because dying makes you spend so much time retrying to get back to the same spot, only to die to some bullshit you had no way of knowing was coming at you, killing you instantly (Yes, fuck you Fang!). Waiting this much has never been an issue for Sonic games, so I hope they really patch some of these and compare and contrast to similar bosses in the series that do this archetype correctly (Sonic Mania's Studiopolis Act 1 boss, most of Sonic Advance 2's bosses, 3D Sonic bosses). I cannot express how much sadness these boss battles gave me - it really felt like my time was being wasted, and I won't be replaying this game unless the bosses get fixed or I use a mod to outright remove most of them.

Presentation, Music and Narrative -
Just a classic Sonic game. The cutscenes being made by two different teams (one good, one bad!) made things very jarring and inconsistent. Otherwise, it was okay. The stage themes were great - but the presentation was not. Very good ideas, but it just looked pretty bad. Game looks like a 3DS game and that shit died in like 2018 (peak 3DS, at least). The water zone was really cool! But it looked like blocks and shit because those are just easier to make and model. Makes me wish the game was fully sprite-based again, because this was certainly not their strong suit.

Some of the music was phenomenal. Sand Sanctuary, Lagoon City Act 2, Speed Jungle Act 1, both Bridge Islands and Pinball Carnivals are INSANE bops! They fit their environments well, and paint a beautiful picture for you as you run through the zones. and then the rest of the game either goes from acceptable to Sonic 4 shit... aka inconsistent again! Wonder why? Those zones and act songs I listed were done mostly by Tee Lopes... the rest? Jun, and a list of 20 other composers. All to create a bunch of songs that have no purpose - they don't fit the environments, and bank on the Genesis drums to give you that feeling of nostalgia that we are LONG passed on with the Sonic series. Why did they spread this project between this many people, when it should clearly have been headed by Tee Lopes (and following his design philosophies) and Tyson Hesse (art department, cutscenes, etc). Well, I know the reason, but it makes me upset regardless. Feels like the staff paid a few very talented folks to make sure the stuff they presented in the demos and to the public were phenomenal, and then outsourced the rest of the game that the public didn't see. Not only did they do that, but they reused many things as well. While playing, I got an invincibility theme and the new tune was super catchy! I wondered what the end of act theme would be afterwards... and was met with Sonic Mania's EXACT SAME end of act theme. No remix, no alterations, nothing. This also applies to menu sound effects, other weird things like Tails' flight sound being modern Tails' one from newer titles, the WISP BOX SOUNDS playing after getting a FRUIT from the lottery capsule in the end??? Why??? So inconsistent.
The story was... fine, better than 1 and 2 (because they are primitive and the first ones lol), but really doesn't do anything special with the multiple new characters we get to see. The huge animals? They're just huge. That's it. Trip? Story doesn't really give us much reason to like them much besides cute animal that we helped and now recruited and can fucking spindash lol. Fang? Just a henchman to the doctor, who strangely enough outshines the doctor, but that's because both offered so little to the game's that I hardly noticed them when playing. Sure he shows up one more time in Trip's story, but he didn't really make a presence there in the game. In the animated short and the comic though - he's great! Guess they don't know to translate that well to the game... even though that's the thing that'll be what people actually buy and see. and the last fight? for Super Sonic? Literal random dragon, coupled with ANOTHER bossfight of CONSTANT waiting! and if you die, have fun replaying that 10 minute boss fight every time! shit man I am so sad about some parts of this game.

If you want to try and play the game, I suggest waiting for mods to fix up it's glaring issues, or to stop after the first few zones and return it before you get 2 hours in on Steam. Sonic Superstars is super inconsistent. I'm sorry if my review upset you - I hold the Sonic series very dear to my heart and want the best for it. I know when it can be really incredible, and seeing them trip and fumble on this golden opportunity saddens me. This game can do so much better.

still had fun tho lets go sonic