Sonic Superstars is basically the New Super Mario Bros of Sonic and I mean that in the best way possible

This is the most vanilla, boneless, standard 2D Sonic experience you're ever gonna get, it does exactly what it sets out to do and goes no further than that in the slightest. But again, that's not really a bad thing, it wasn't meant to be anything more, it was a very low scope videogame after all

Even if it's basically "New Super Sonic Bros", it does have some stuff that makes it stand out like some very fun playable characters, a more experimental level design philosophy akin to Sonic CD's (good thing, if you ask me), with very gimmick heavy levels and very charming and memorable setpieces, especially considering how vanilla its level themes are

I've been a very big fan of this game's art direction since the very beginning, I always loved Naoto Ohshima's approach to enviroments and background design, but I can't help but feel this game feels way too cheap and safe with its graphic presentation, it doesn't really have anything it can call its own: It's not heavily stylized like Sonic 1 or Sonic CD, it doesn't go for any kind of interesting cel-shading style, it looks just like any other scrimblo bimblo 3D videogame and I think Sonic should strive for a bit more visual identity, especially considering its roots in 80s CGI aesthetic from the very beginning. And it really doesn't help that most zone themes don't really feel THAT unique, most of them feel like different takes on zones we already had before except maybe Cyber Station, so yeah even if the art direction is great, the graphical style bogs it down a ton for me. Say what you want about that game but Balan Wonderworld was a way better display of Naoto Ohshima style as a whole and nobody's getting me out of this boat

The big elephant in the room is the music, we all know the music in this game isn't great but I think the reception to it has been way, WAY too harsh especially considering how you can very easily tell this game's soundtrack was not ready for release in the slightest, so it isn't really fair to criticize for what it is, it's very obvious they wanted to do so much more with it but probably due to mismanagement and bad direction they just weren't able to. This game has a whopping NINETEEN composers, which is way too much for a 2D platformer, most of them have never even worked on Sonic before, my guess is that they probably just asked the one SST composer that was available that week to make a few tracks and just add them to the pile with zero cohesion or direction whatsoever. EVEN SO, this game still has some very cool tracks, all of Tee Lopes' are good and I'm a very big fan of Lagoon City Act 2, I'm a sucker for Saturn era styled music for Sonic so I really fuck with the ethereal vibe that one gives off. Don't be too harsh on the composers on social media, kay?

The overall gameplay was pretty good, physics didn't feel exactly 1:1 to Mania like they said they would but they feel accurate enough, even if they're not perfectly equal to Mania's they're still the best in the series by far, so in that aspect this game is a big home run, having a 3D game that feels almost 1:1 with the classic games is such a miracle and it should not be understated. We gotta talk about those bosses though, these have got to be some of the worst if not THE WORST bosses in the entire franchise, most of them aren't even that bad but they take SO DESPAIRINGLY LONG because almost all of them follow the pattern of "wait -> dodge -> attack -> repeat" and they got like 10 seconds of invulnerability after you hit them, they're such a pace-breaker, not a single one of them was fun in the slightest, ESPECIALLY the final boss, I never want to play that again. Despite that, I think there's a good reason as to why these bosses are designed like this, and that relates to the next topic

Multiplayer is... WEIRD, it doesn't feel playtested at all, I tried it out with a friend of mine and we encountered like at least 10+ game breaking bugs, including running in slow motion, staying in a ball form with no ability to move, DROWNING OUTSIDE WATER??, and more. And most level gimmicks don't even work properly, you can tell they were made for single player first and they didn't even bother testing them out for multiplayer. But despite how garbage it is, it's really fun when you and your partner(s) know what you're doing, if you're skilled at 2D Sonic you'll probably have a great time and I can't wait to play more of it, especially because the bosses are actually kinda fun in multiplayer, the waiting sections feel way less empty when there's other people moving around on the screen, and dodging boss attacks as a team is also fun, bosses are definitely a bit more enjoyable on multiplayer

Overall, it's a really solid experience, but don't expect this to be the next big step for Sonic or even 2D Sonic, this basically falls in line with what Mario was doing during the 2011-2016 era of just making "another Mario game" with no real flare to them, it's basically just another Sonic game.

TRIP IS AWESOME BY THE WAY, SHE'S SUCH A GOOD INCLUSION TO THE SONIC ROSTER

oh and I don't care about Battle Mode BYE