A return to the classic formula with a fresh look and full multiplayer, Sonic Superstars is essentially Sonic 5, in a good way. Not only does it look fantastic and wonderfully cartoony, but it brings completely new stages to the series for the first time in years! And most of these stages are fantastic, with a great sense of flow that only feels better the more you improve.

There's several playable characters which is fantastic for replayability, and tons of secrets to discover in every stage. It also introduced Emerald powers, abilities each character can use after collecting chaos emeralds, and I love this. It gives you more incentive than ever to find the special stages and unlock these powers.. which isn't hard because the special stages are absolutely piss easy, weirdly so.

The levels are honestly great and the music is pretty brillaint, though some tracks are clearly better than others.

The place the game loses the most points are the boss fights, they really missed the mark here. Some are easy pickings, but many of them just go on way too long, dragging out with long periods of invulnerability, and too many phases. Now quite a few bosses can be cheesed using emerald powers - and I like that, but the final bosses are awful. The final boss of hard mode is so drawn out with no checkpoints, and the true final boss isn't hard but goes on for an enternity.

That aside though, Sonic Superstars has a great energy, and i enjoyed it a lot - 8/10