SONIC SUPERSTARS GAME OF THE YEAR BABYYYYYY YEAR OF AMY AMY WOOHOO CLASSIC SONIC IS SO FUCKING BACK WE SONIC FANS STAY WINNING BECAUSE MUH MUH MUH MOMENTUM PHYSICS ARE BACK ON THE TABLE ANOTHER STEP IN THE RIGHT FUCKING DIRECTION WOOOOOOOOO-
-I don’t know man, I’m just kinda… whelmed.
Sonic is my favourite video game franchise ever, so it was obvious I’d break my backlog routine to play it, and I even sucked it up and paid the full $60 price of entry. I refunded on release day.
Sonic Superstars is… competent. That is the best way I can possibly use to describe it, and I think that is the most justifiable term to summarise my experience with the game overall. Yet, I can’t help but feel incredibly bitter about this. Which is funny, because if you know me on r/Sonic’s Discord server (hi bitches), you’d know that I was pessimistic towards Superstars and the overwhelming hype in the fanbase surrounding it. I was so prepared for every single Classic Sonic supremacist to pop out the woodworks screaming about how Superstars’ quality just proves Sonic only works as a barebones, classic 2D formula. Prepared for people to yell about how Amy and the Chaos Emerald powers further push the Classic Sonic formula when girlie, Amy is just additional content. The emerald powers, on paper, should be enhancing the replayability of the game and giving players new tools to approach the levels with the philosophy of ‘getting better at Sonic by beating the levels faster and faster’, when realistically, the only power that does this is discount Burst wisp, which also has the unforeseen consequence of breaking the level in half.
I was so bitter about the prospect of Superstars getting such critical acclaim that SEGA, notorious for being overly-sensitive towards fan feedback, would buy into this and just keep things the exact same for the next 2D Sonic release instead of actually innovating the formula in a fun way. In a very cynical sense, I wanted Superstars to fail. Ironic for a Sonic fan, yes, but I wanted Superstars to fail because I just couldn’t bear the mere thought of Classic Sonic dickriders kissing this game’s ass.
Somehow, the actual outcome ended up being far, far worse.
I believe Backloggd has made their view clear: this game is horribly mid and having played the entire game from Bridge Island Act 1 to the last story, I can certainly ascertain that this is the Classic Sonic game of all time. Somehow, this leaves me upset anyways, because Arzest, somehow, actually does a few really good things - for one, as much as I joke about muh muh momentum, the fact that it’s there, and actually a pretty close emulation of Mania physics, definitely brings it closer to fan game quality! The level design, for the most part, is also quite fun and has a pretty nice flow to it, with plenty of alternative paths to incentivise players to go after faster times in Time Attack mode. The characters are all pretty fun to play as well, with the standouts being Sonic and Trip (yes she’s playable don’t pretend this was an absolute fucking shock it was obvious from the start), albeit Trip renders Knuckles and Amy completely obsolete (and Knuckles controls like dogshit anyway so who cares). The bulk of my points for this game come from these few factors, because ultimately, level design and control characters are crucial for a Sonic game’s overall performance, and Superstars does all this quite decently.
Now let’s talk about where it all falls apart.
The Unfocused and Indecisiveness in Game Mode Priority
A lot of people draw comparisons between Superstars and NSMB in terms of its primary game mode - both games placed heavy emphasis on its co-op mode during promotions and advertisements, so you’d expect the game to work well in co-op gameplay, right?
Nope. In fact, I’d argue that Superstars tried too hard to find a balance between single player and co-op, and ended up falling short on both ends of the stick.
I never actually got to experience co-op with anyone because they didn’t bother implementing an online function and also I’m a Sonic fan in Asia. From what I’ve heard, however, co-op works similarly to Sonic 2/3K, where you could have a second player control Tails, but they would be unable to go offscreen and explore by themselves. Certain mechanics also only work for one player, forcing the rest of the group to wait until they can move.
The single-player experience, meanwhile, is definitely affected by the necessity to comply with the limitations of co-op. Bubbles underwater (particularly in Lagoon City) spawn at a more frequent rate compared to most Sonic games, and are more sparsely available. This was clearly designed so a group of 4 players could easily prevent themselves from drowning, unfortunately, inhaling an air bubble also causes players to transition from a ball jump into a state of vulnerability, which leaves them open to hits. Combined with the sluggish water physics and the design of the platforming in Lagoon City Act 2 especially, may cause players to unintentionally grab an air bubble mid-sequence, become vulnerable to a hit, and then proceed to get hit.
The bosses, meanwhile, have already garnered infamy from the general public for being excessively long, with countless time spent invulnerable to attacks and counter attacks that are fairly easy to dodge with ease being regarded as time padding. This was clearly done because the developers knew that if they designed the fights in traditional Classic Sonic fashion, a group of 4 can easily tear down bosses to shreds within seconds, completely eliminating the challenge in the process. Single-player is made to suffer as a result, as players are stuck sitting and waiting for the boss to expose itself to an attack, with this flaw especially being exposed with Trip’s gameplay where the already tediously long bosses require more hits to defeat. More on the bosses later.
The Most Embarrassing Fucking Camera in Sonic History
One common complaint with 2D Sonic, as well as Sonic games in general, is the awful field of depth. The Genesis games, Game Gear games, and especially the Advance games collectively struggle to present important information regarding the level so the player is able to anticipate upcoming hazards or enemies and map out routes correctly due to the limitations of their respective hardware. Eventually, this problem was fixed primarily for the Genesis games with Origins and all the fan ports that allowed players to experience Sonic in glorious 16:9 widescreen. It didn’t completely fix the issue, but it certainly allowed for less frustrating moments where you get hit by something you couldn’t see on the screen.
With this in mind, Superstars having all the aforementioned issues while being developed in widescreen is fucking appaling. MANIA had a better field of depth, and that shit is even more of a nostalgic nod to the 16-bit era compared to Superstars! The camera zoom in Mania also had the advantage of allowing players to fucking see what’s ahead of them, and that is crucial when it comes to maintaining fluidity during the run of a level. Can’t have a bajillion alternate paths if I’m only ever able to SEE ONE AT A TIME! Did Arzest really have to commit to making the Superstars so realistically that they even decided to emulate the inability to fucking see??
Press Factory Act 2 and Egg Fortress Act 1 suffer the most from the atrocious camera zoom - in Press Factory’s case, an actually well-designed level revolving around a gimmick is tarnished for others because they couldn’t see a set of crushers directly ahead of them. Egg Fortress Act 1 is a bad level, but the lack of camera zoom to allow players to see the empty bottomless pit ahead of an isolated chamber MULTIPLE DIFFERENT TIMES. The effect of having platforms spawn only when a player enters the sub-room is acceptable, but not in a fast-paced platformer like Sonic where information has to be presented to the player quickly. To be fair, Spin Dashing into a bottomless pit because the camera or nothing about the game indicating there was a bottomless pit there to begin with is completely accurate to the Genesis games. /s
And you wanna know what adds salt to the wound? The fact that the FUCKING CO-OP CAMERA IS ACTUALLY PROPERLY ZOOMED OUT!!!! I CAN FUCKING SEE SHIT IN CO-OP THAT WOULD’VE MADE THE PLATFORMING A LOT MORE FAIR AND MY MISTAKES MUCH MORE APPARENT BECAUSE I CAN ACTUALLY ANTICIPATE SHIT THAT’S 1 FUCKING SECOND AWAY FROM ME-
-don’t even get me fucking started on the Cyber Station. Actually, no, fuck you, I will.
Gimmicks, Gimmicks Everywhere
Sonic games are no stranger to gimmicks - even going back as far as the classic games, Sonic 2 had a level centralised around pinball tables, Sonic 3K had Sandopolis Act 2, and CD is infamous for Wacky Workbench’s bouncy floor gimmick.
No Sonic game comes close to Superstars when it comes to the sheer amount of gimmicks implemented into the game. Unfortunately, this is a negative.
Naoto Ohshima was the director of CD, and that game had a similar arcade-style feel to it; stuffing generators and holograms throughout every level, which in turn incentivises the player to find all of them to achieve the good ending (or get better at collecting rings for the Time Stones). The difference here is CD always had a more abstract design philosophy that played to exploration of a terrain using Sonic’s skillset to complete a treasure hunt as quickly and efficiently as possible, and the whole bizarre atmosphere of Little Planet also helps ease the implementation of the level gimmicks somewhat.
With Ohshima returning as executive producer of Superstars, it isn’t surprising that this game tries an arcade-style approach as well. However, when your level design and gameplay philosophy is attempting to emulate Mania and 2 rather than CD, you have an inherent mismatch of ideals clashing against each other. The issue is aggravated even further because the arcade gimmicks of Superstars are significantly more overtuned to the point where they serve as pacebreakers or substanceless setpieces that interrupt the flow of the level design. Special stages are now distributed in spots easily spottable, and unlocking all 7 emeralds will still force you into the well that was a special stage alright special stage for the medals. Warp portals can appear in front of your face when you least expect it, and instead of transporting you to a much better route than what can be offered in a normal playthrough of a level, wastes seconds of time showering you with rings before thrusting you to who knows where in the level. Flow completely ruined.
This isn’t even to mention the level specific gimmicks, which honestly feels more like Arzest throwing a bunch of darts at random and seeing what sticks. Sometimes it works, like the aforementioned Press Factory Act 2’s progress urging button pressing and Frozen Base Act 1’s conveyor belts. But then you get stuff like Speed Jungle Act 2's glow in the dark set pieces, Sky Temple’s janky air fans, Egg Factory’s tediously long elevators crawls and anti-gravity chambers, and Cyber Station’s fucking rat maze, which wouldn’t even be that bad if the camera allowed you to see upcoming virus enemies. There are two fucking pinball-based levels out of 11, for fucks sake, as if it wasn’t already how obvious the arcade gimmick-feel of Superstars is. The less I say about the optional fruit levels, the better.
It’s not like there’s even value in exploration anyway, as the elemental shields have been replaced with a standard magnet aura (that doesn’t even shield you from attacks) and boring, boring blue shield. I’ve literally only found Speed Shoes on Bridge Island, and rings don’t fucking matter when there isn’t even a substantial score system here anyway. Oh yeah, the score system here is so pointless, they didn’t even bother to add it to the user interface unless you pause the game. It’s quite literally eye candy because in previous games, the score system would at least reward you with extra lives every 50,000 points, but now? Unlimited lives are the norm for modern AAA games, which means that you don’t even get to earn extra lives. Instead you get medals!!! Medals which can only be used for an online multiplayer mode I couldn’t give less of a shit about!!! And without extra lives to reward players for exploring away from the main path, what do they use to replace it? MORE FUCKING MEDALS!!!!!!!!!
I love losing my sanity
It’s Just So… Uninspiring.
You can honestly kinda tell when the developers decided “OK, we’re almost out of time and we gotta throw out this game soon, let’s just do a Dimps and shit the floor on the second half of the game”, and proceed to shit the floor on the second half of the game. The difference here is that Dimps never shit the floor in the audio-visual department, ever.
Tee Lopes’ presence departs from the game as soon as he pleasures us with ear orgasm #200 (also known as Lagoon City Act 2), and we’re left with a horrid mismatch of composers trying to do their best imitation of a Genesis synth… or a complete lack thereof, in some cases. Leading the charge is Jun Senoue, who once again looks fundamentally lost in the sauce (in a negative way) when it comes to synths. It becomes even more baffling that he insists on going for this when you realise that he still fucking kills the guitar shreds even today, with this incredible orchestral rendition of the Superstars opening theme. Even more baffling is the shockingly headless direction of the soundtrack in general, with the composers seemingly just unable to put together a coherent soundtrack that sounds consistent across the board, leading to one of the franchise’s worst soundtracks despite there being some bangers here and there by Lopes and Rintaro Soma. Say what you want about Advance 2, at least Egg Utopia and Techno Base both had fire music. They both looked visually cool as well.
The art, meanwhile, well… it’s definitely Classic Sonic, alright. Some of the environments do look pretty, but ultimately, they just feel like a hapless, lifeless slideshow crammed with colours and stuff to make it look Classic I guess. Pinball Carnival does have the minor niche of being more horror-themed (but even that visual aesthetic isn’t played with enough), but in terms of actual level themes, we’re left with…
…Not Green Hill 6, Stardust Speedway Past, Brown Sky Sanctuary, Casino Level 5, Beige Water Palace, Sandopolis 2, Boring Press Garden, Golden Capital (which unfortunately also has the poor distinction of being the worst level in the game), Bad Techno Base, Frozen Base and Not Death Egg 3. Absolutely inspiring assortment of levels. Also, remember earlier on in the game when you’d be able to catch a glimpse of the other characters doing stuff in the background? Yeah that shit’s gone in the second half of the game it’s not even consistent lmao. Not even the non-game graphics hold up, because while Superstars opening theme is serviceable, the animation, without Hesse on board (presumably) is choppy and incredibly inconsistent in terms of cinematography. The in-game animated cutscenes are error prone, and do not have the refined, high-quality feel of the animated prologue done by Hesse FOR Superstars!
2023, year of Amy, she’s the central focus of Murder, gets her own anniversary comic, is playable in both Origins and now Superstars, and is once again the heart of the story’s only real character moment! Metal Sonic? Who cares, give him a cameo at the end of Murder and make him the villain of the Amy comic STARRING Amy, we don’t even need for him to show up in Superstars! Even though the Cyber Station boss fight literally has Eggman piloting a bunch of Custom Robots to attack you which would’ve literally been the perfect chance for Metal to show up??? Man, I’m not even a huge Metal Sonic fanboy and even I feel terrible for Metal fans.
Golden Capital Zone Act 2 Boss Fight
Yes, that’s right, this entire section is a shoutout to a single fucking boss fight.
As mentioned earlier, the bosses in Superstars are horrid. Prolonged i-frame periods do not mesh well with the quick-natured flow of Sonic bosses, especially when the boss fight’s duration sometimes lasts longer than the actual fucking level itself. The autoscroller Fang fight in Golden Capital, in particular, perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with the design of Sonic Superstars. Ungodly tedious amounts of waiting for this fucking jerboa to open himself to a single hit while he fires off barrage after barrage of attacks that are comically braindead and easy to dodge. Multiple phases. A phase where you can’t hit him for AN ENTIRE FUCKING MINUTE while you dodge flamethrowers and lava dispensers THAT THE FUCKING CAMERA WON’T SHOW YOU UNTIL YOU’RE LITERALLY RIGHT ABOUT TO GET HIT BY IT. Instant-kill missiles IN PHASE 2. NOT A SINGLE CHECKPOINT. Even at your best pace, the boss fight takes at least FOUR FUCKING MINUTES. FOUR. And Fang’s not even the final fucking boss. He is certainly one of the worst boss fights in the history of the franchise, however, right up there with 06’ Iblis fight and Advance’s X-Zone.
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Despite all my complaints, I still insist on my verdict assigned earlier in this review: Sonic Superstars is a competent game. It's only claim to fame is being a successful emulation of the beloved Genesis physics and some of the level design aspects that made the classics fun to begin with. Imagine this scenario: You go into a fine dining restaurant and they serve you a great steak, much like those you’d expect from Michelin-grade restaurants. However, they also served literal shit as the sides to accompany the steak. Would you still be eager to drop that positive review?
Sonic fans seem pretty happy to do so, apparently.
This may make me sound like an outright hypocrite: I literally wrote this review of Advance 2 yesterday, despite Advance 2 being an incredibly flawed game outside of its core gameplay mechanics. Two things:
One, if Superstars’ level design and physics were a generic good steak, then Advance 2’s mechanical resonance is an exotic, exquisite steak that has a taste so distinctly flavourful, that you’ll literally never find it anywhere else in the world. Superstars’ steak, meanwhile, you can find in places like Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic CD, Sonic Mania, Sonic 3 and Knuckles…
Two, I’m biased. I’m not ashamed to admit that Advance 2 is a guilty pleasure and a favourite child of mine. It’s not like Sonic fans have their biases either, with factions of Classic fans, Adventure fans and Boost fans gathered in legions to bitch and whine about how the other gameplay styles suck and how their gameplay style is vastly superior.
My journey throughout my backlog has given me experiences I’d never have learned from had I stayed in the Sonic vacuum. Klonoa 2 taught me how a platformer can still tell a thematically rich, emotionally felt story. Metroid Fusion taught me how atmospheric gameplay can also tell a narrative perfectly describing symbiotic relationships. Mega Man X (and indirectly, Advance 2) taught me how a classic, tried and true formula can be innovated in a way to make it radical and even more exhilarating than its predecessor. Chrono Trigger taught me how simplistic elements can merge to form a masterpiece when crafted under professional expertise.
Sonic Superstars taught me that by playing it safe, Sonic fans will shower you with praise and love for merely being competent.
Maybe I’m wrong and this game will probably warm up to me in future playthroughs - I’ve made it clear that a simple zoom-out of the camera in single player to match the camera zoom in co-op would substantially increase the potential enjoyment this game squirms out of me. Maybe I’d even attempt time attack runs of the levels. But for now, why would I pay $60 for a significant downgrade from Mania, which is 3 times cheaper? Heck, Triple Trouble 16-bit is a fully completed, cash-free fan game available right now, and I’d argue it's a truer representation of what made the Classic titles so great while having loads of content for Sonic enthusiasts to savour!
I’ve spent this entire review trying my damndest not to compare Superstars to literally any other game in the Classic formula except in a few specific scenarios, because I’m a firm believer of appraising games on their own individual merit. I’ve done this with almost all my reviews since 3D Blast, where I instead focused on one or more distinct aspects of a game that I found fascination in and wrote about that specifically. One of the few exceptions, ironically, is Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament, which I also slammed for betraying the definition of a Klonoa game.
I’ll tell you this, if I were to actually compare Superstars to literally any other classic Sonic title, Superstars would come out of the battle significantly worse. I find it incredibly laughable how Sonic fans lazily wave off justifiable criticism and notable flaws within the game, passing it off as ‘another step in the right direction’. Right direction my ass, Mania came out 6 years ago and completely solos the fuck out of Superstars. Maybe I can see people giving this game an 8/10 at maximum. Maybe they like it more than Sonic 1 or CD, which, fair enough, I can see why people dislike those games. Maybe it's their favourite Classic Sonic game, sure! I can see why people love Superstars, even if I obviously don’t.
But to call Sonic Superstars the best Classic Sonic game ever made, simply because it nails physics that were already refined and optimised 29 fucking years ago, and has level design that is a shallow imitation of games that came before, is not only an insult to literally every Classic Sonic game, but to critical game design theory in general.
Am I setting my standards too high? Or is it true that the Sonic fanbase has been subjected to mediocre game after mediocre game and constant mockery from other fanbases, that they’d bow down to whatever semblance of competency comes their way? Am I even truly a Sonic fan for detesting this much of what people love about Superstars? Am I allowed to call myself a Sonic fan after writing this review? I honestly don't know.
I care about this franchise a lot. It was my first ever favourite video game franchise, and it is still my favourite, and the friends I’ve made in the fandom hold a special place in my heart. I don’t hold any ill will towards any of them who played Superstars and adored it to bits, though I will and always have argued back when someone claims it's one of the best classic Sonic games ever made. Maybe I just care too much about opinions. I don’t fucking know anymore, man.
Regardless, if this is the direction Sonic Team chooses to take with 2D Sonic, then maybe I should kiss my dreams of a boost mode game that harmonises both classic and modern qualities into one outstanding title farewell.Classic Sonic used to be cute and cool, but now he’s just the cute one and there’s also a cool counterpart now, and if fans are OK with that, then good for them. It just simply isn’t for me. After this really, really long tirade, there really is just one conclusion - Sonic Superstars is a perfectly adequate, competently designed game. Despite this, I hate Sonic Superstars, its disillusionment with how it wants to present itself and the disillusionment it made me feel about myself as a Sonic fan, who can't seem to find the positives in Sonic games like everyone else would.
Final score: 5.5/10
Focus: The fatal flaws of Sonic Superstars
Theme: Disillusionment
Review 75.
-I don’t know man, I’m just kinda… whelmed.
Sonic is my favourite video game franchise ever, so it was obvious I’d break my backlog routine to play it, and I even sucked it up and paid the full $60 price of entry. I refunded on release day.
Sonic Superstars is… competent. That is the best way I can possibly use to describe it, and I think that is the most justifiable term to summarise my experience with the game overall. Yet, I can’t help but feel incredibly bitter about this. Which is funny, because if you know me on r/Sonic’s Discord server (hi bitches), you’d know that I was pessimistic towards Superstars and the overwhelming hype in the fanbase surrounding it. I was so prepared for every single Classic Sonic supremacist to pop out the woodworks screaming about how Superstars’ quality just proves Sonic only works as a barebones, classic 2D formula. Prepared for people to yell about how Amy and the Chaos Emerald powers further push the Classic Sonic formula when girlie, Amy is just additional content. The emerald powers, on paper, should be enhancing the replayability of the game and giving players new tools to approach the levels with the philosophy of ‘getting better at Sonic by beating the levels faster and faster’, when realistically, the only power that does this is discount Burst wisp, which also has the unforeseen consequence of breaking the level in half.
I was so bitter about the prospect of Superstars getting such critical acclaim that SEGA, notorious for being overly-sensitive towards fan feedback, would buy into this and just keep things the exact same for the next 2D Sonic release instead of actually innovating the formula in a fun way. In a very cynical sense, I wanted Superstars to fail. Ironic for a Sonic fan, yes, but I wanted Superstars to fail because I just couldn’t bear the mere thought of Classic Sonic dickriders kissing this game’s ass.
Somehow, the actual outcome ended up being far, far worse.
I believe Backloggd has made their view clear: this game is horribly mid and having played the entire game from Bridge Island Act 1 to the last story, I can certainly ascertain that this is the Classic Sonic game of all time. Somehow, this leaves me upset anyways, because Arzest, somehow, actually does a few really good things - for one, as much as I joke about muh muh momentum, the fact that it’s there, and actually a pretty close emulation of Mania physics, definitely brings it closer to fan game quality! The level design, for the most part, is also quite fun and has a pretty nice flow to it, with plenty of alternative paths to incentivise players to go after faster times in Time Attack mode. The characters are all pretty fun to play as well, with the standouts being Sonic and Trip (yes she’s playable don’t pretend this was an absolute fucking shock it was obvious from the start), albeit Trip renders Knuckles and Amy completely obsolete (and Knuckles controls like dogshit anyway so who cares). The bulk of my points for this game come from these few factors, because ultimately, level design and control characters are crucial for a Sonic game’s overall performance, and Superstars does all this quite decently.
Now let’s talk about where it all falls apart.
The Unfocused and Indecisiveness in Game Mode Priority
A lot of people draw comparisons between Superstars and NSMB in terms of its primary game mode - both games placed heavy emphasis on its co-op mode during promotions and advertisements, so you’d expect the game to work well in co-op gameplay, right?
Nope. In fact, I’d argue that Superstars tried too hard to find a balance between single player and co-op, and ended up falling short on both ends of the stick.
I never actually got to experience co-op with anyone because they didn’t bother implementing an online function and also I’m a Sonic fan in Asia. From what I’ve heard, however, co-op works similarly to Sonic 2/3K, where you could have a second player control Tails, but they would be unable to go offscreen and explore by themselves. Certain mechanics also only work for one player, forcing the rest of the group to wait until they can move.
The single-player experience, meanwhile, is definitely affected by the necessity to comply with the limitations of co-op. Bubbles underwater (particularly in Lagoon City) spawn at a more frequent rate compared to most Sonic games, and are more sparsely available. This was clearly designed so a group of 4 players could easily prevent themselves from drowning, unfortunately, inhaling an air bubble also causes players to transition from a ball jump into a state of vulnerability, which leaves them open to hits. Combined with the sluggish water physics and the design of the platforming in Lagoon City Act 2 especially, may cause players to unintentionally grab an air bubble mid-sequence, become vulnerable to a hit, and then proceed to get hit.
The bosses, meanwhile, have already garnered infamy from the general public for being excessively long, with countless time spent invulnerable to attacks and counter attacks that are fairly easy to dodge with ease being regarded as time padding. This was clearly done because the developers knew that if they designed the fights in traditional Classic Sonic fashion, a group of 4 can easily tear down bosses to shreds within seconds, completely eliminating the challenge in the process. Single-player is made to suffer as a result, as players are stuck sitting and waiting for the boss to expose itself to an attack, with this flaw especially being exposed with Trip’s gameplay where the already tediously long bosses require more hits to defeat. More on the bosses later.
The Most Embarrassing Fucking Camera in Sonic History
One common complaint with 2D Sonic, as well as Sonic games in general, is the awful field of depth. The Genesis games, Game Gear games, and especially the Advance games collectively struggle to present important information regarding the level so the player is able to anticipate upcoming hazards or enemies and map out routes correctly due to the limitations of their respective hardware. Eventually, this problem was fixed primarily for the Genesis games with Origins and all the fan ports that allowed players to experience Sonic in glorious 16:9 widescreen. It didn’t completely fix the issue, but it certainly allowed for less frustrating moments where you get hit by something you couldn’t see on the screen.
With this in mind, Superstars having all the aforementioned issues while being developed in widescreen is fucking appaling. MANIA had a better field of depth, and that shit is even more of a nostalgic nod to the 16-bit era compared to Superstars! The camera zoom in Mania also had the advantage of allowing players to fucking see what’s ahead of them, and that is crucial when it comes to maintaining fluidity during the run of a level. Can’t have a bajillion alternate paths if I’m only ever able to SEE ONE AT A TIME! Did Arzest really have to commit to making the Superstars so realistically that they even decided to emulate the inability to fucking see??
Press Factory Act 2 and Egg Fortress Act 1 suffer the most from the atrocious camera zoom - in Press Factory’s case, an actually well-designed level revolving around a gimmick is tarnished for others because they couldn’t see a set of crushers directly ahead of them. Egg Fortress Act 1 is a bad level, but the lack of camera zoom to allow players to see the empty bottomless pit ahead of an isolated chamber MULTIPLE DIFFERENT TIMES. The effect of having platforms spawn only when a player enters the sub-room is acceptable, but not in a fast-paced platformer like Sonic where information has to be presented to the player quickly. To be fair, Spin Dashing into a bottomless pit because the camera or nothing about the game indicating there was a bottomless pit there to begin with is completely accurate to the Genesis games. /s
And you wanna know what adds salt to the wound? The fact that the FUCKING CO-OP CAMERA IS ACTUALLY PROPERLY ZOOMED OUT!!!! I CAN FUCKING SEE SHIT IN CO-OP THAT WOULD’VE MADE THE PLATFORMING A LOT MORE FAIR AND MY MISTAKES MUCH MORE APPARENT BECAUSE I CAN ACTUALLY ANTICIPATE SHIT THAT’S 1 FUCKING SECOND AWAY FROM ME-
-don’t even get me fucking started on the Cyber Station. Actually, no, fuck you, I will.
Gimmicks, Gimmicks Everywhere
Sonic games are no stranger to gimmicks - even going back as far as the classic games, Sonic 2 had a level centralised around pinball tables, Sonic 3K had Sandopolis Act 2, and CD is infamous for Wacky Workbench’s bouncy floor gimmick.
No Sonic game comes close to Superstars when it comes to the sheer amount of gimmicks implemented into the game. Unfortunately, this is a negative.
Naoto Ohshima was the director of CD, and that game had a similar arcade-style feel to it; stuffing generators and holograms throughout every level, which in turn incentivises the player to find all of them to achieve the good ending (or get better at collecting rings for the Time Stones). The difference here is CD always had a more abstract design philosophy that played to exploration of a terrain using Sonic’s skillset to complete a treasure hunt as quickly and efficiently as possible, and the whole bizarre atmosphere of Little Planet also helps ease the implementation of the level gimmicks somewhat.
With Ohshima returning as executive producer of Superstars, it isn’t surprising that this game tries an arcade-style approach as well. However, when your level design and gameplay philosophy is attempting to emulate Mania and 2 rather than CD, you have an inherent mismatch of ideals clashing against each other. The issue is aggravated even further because the arcade gimmicks of Superstars are significantly more overtuned to the point where they serve as pacebreakers or substanceless setpieces that interrupt the flow of the level design. Special stages are now distributed in spots easily spottable, and unlocking all 7 emeralds will still force you into the well that was a special stage alright special stage for the medals. Warp portals can appear in front of your face when you least expect it, and instead of transporting you to a much better route than what can be offered in a normal playthrough of a level, wastes seconds of time showering you with rings before thrusting you to who knows where in the level. Flow completely ruined.
This isn’t even to mention the level specific gimmicks, which honestly feels more like Arzest throwing a bunch of darts at random and seeing what sticks. Sometimes it works, like the aforementioned Press Factory Act 2’s progress urging button pressing and Frozen Base Act 1’s conveyor belts. But then you get stuff like Speed Jungle Act 2's glow in the dark set pieces, Sky Temple’s janky air fans, Egg Factory’s tediously long elevators crawls and anti-gravity chambers, and Cyber Station’s fucking rat maze, which wouldn’t even be that bad if the camera allowed you to see upcoming virus enemies. There are two fucking pinball-based levels out of 11, for fucks sake, as if it wasn’t already how obvious the arcade gimmick-feel of Superstars is. The less I say about the optional fruit levels, the better.
It’s not like there’s even value in exploration anyway, as the elemental shields have been replaced with a standard magnet aura (that doesn’t even shield you from attacks) and boring, boring blue shield. I’ve literally only found Speed Shoes on Bridge Island, and rings don’t fucking matter when there isn’t even a substantial score system here anyway. Oh yeah, the score system here is so pointless, they didn’t even bother to add it to the user interface unless you pause the game. It’s quite literally eye candy because in previous games, the score system would at least reward you with extra lives every 50,000 points, but now? Unlimited lives are the norm for modern AAA games, which means that you don’t even get to earn extra lives. Instead you get medals!!! Medals which can only be used for an online multiplayer mode I couldn’t give less of a shit about!!! And without extra lives to reward players for exploring away from the main path, what do they use to replace it? MORE FUCKING MEDALS!!!!!!!!!
I love losing my sanity
It’s Just So… Uninspiring.
You can honestly kinda tell when the developers decided “OK, we’re almost out of time and we gotta throw out this game soon, let’s just do a Dimps and shit the floor on the second half of the game”, and proceed to shit the floor on the second half of the game. The difference here is that Dimps never shit the floor in the audio-visual department, ever.
Tee Lopes’ presence departs from the game as soon as he pleasures us with ear orgasm #200 (also known as Lagoon City Act 2), and we’re left with a horrid mismatch of composers trying to do their best imitation of a Genesis synth… or a complete lack thereof, in some cases. Leading the charge is Jun Senoue, who once again looks fundamentally lost in the sauce (in a negative way) when it comes to synths. It becomes even more baffling that he insists on going for this when you realise that he still fucking kills the guitar shreds even today, with this incredible orchestral rendition of the Superstars opening theme. Even more baffling is the shockingly headless direction of the soundtrack in general, with the composers seemingly just unable to put together a coherent soundtrack that sounds consistent across the board, leading to one of the franchise’s worst soundtracks despite there being some bangers here and there by Lopes and Rintaro Soma. Say what you want about Advance 2, at least Egg Utopia and Techno Base both had fire music. They both looked visually cool as well.
The art, meanwhile, well… it’s definitely Classic Sonic, alright. Some of the environments do look pretty, but ultimately, they just feel like a hapless, lifeless slideshow crammed with colours and stuff to make it look Classic I guess. Pinball Carnival does have the minor niche of being more horror-themed (but even that visual aesthetic isn’t played with enough), but in terms of actual level themes, we’re left with…
…Not Green Hill 6, Stardust Speedway Past, Brown Sky Sanctuary, Casino Level 5, Beige Water Palace, Sandopolis 2, Boring Press Garden, Golden Capital (which unfortunately also has the poor distinction of being the worst level in the game), Bad Techno Base, Frozen Base and Not Death Egg 3. Absolutely inspiring assortment of levels. Also, remember earlier on in the game when you’d be able to catch a glimpse of the other characters doing stuff in the background? Yeah that shit’s gone in the second half of the game it’s not even consistent lmao. Not even the non-game graphics hold up, because while Superstars opening theme is serviceable, the animation, without Hesse on board (presumably) is choppy and incredibly inconsistent in terms of cinematography. The in-game animated cutscenes are error prone, and do not have the refined, high-quality feel of the animated prologue done by Hesse FOR Superstars!
2023, year of Amy, she’s the central focus of Murder, gets her own anniversary comic, is playable in both Origins and now Superstars, and is once again the heart of the story’s only real character moment! Metal Sonic? Who cares, give him a cameo at the end of Murder and make him the villain of the Amy comic STARRING Amy, we don’t even need for him to show up in Superstars! Even though the Cyber Station boss fight literally has Eggman piloting a bunch of Custom Robots to attack you which would’ve literally been the perfect chance for Metal to show up??? Man, I’m not even a huge Metal Sonic fanboy and even I feel terrible for Metal fans.
Golden Capital Zone Act 2 Boss Fight
Yes, that’s right, this entire section is a shoutout to a single fucking boss fight.
As mentioned earlier, the bosses in Superstars are horrid. Prolonged i-frame periods do not mesh well with the quick-natured flow of Sonic bosses, especially when the boss fight’s duration sometimes lasts longer than the actual fucking level itself. The autoscroller Fang fight in Golden Capital, in particular, perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with the design of Sonic Superstars. Ungodly tedious amounts of waiting for this fucking jerboa to open himself to a single hit while he fires off barrage after barrage of attacks that are comically braindead and easy to dodge. Multiple phases. A phase where you can’t hit him for AN ENTIRE FUCKING MINUTE while you dodge flamethrowers and lava dispensers THAT THE FUCKING CAMERA WON’T SHOW YOU UNTIL YOU’RE LITERALLY RIGHT ABOUT TO GET HIT BY IT. Instant-kill missiles IN PHASE 2. NOT A SINGLE CHECKPOINT. Even at your best pace, the boss fight takes at least FOUR FUCKING MINUTES. FOUR. And Fang’s not even the final fucking boss. He is certainly one of the worst boss fights in the history of the franchise, however, right up there with 06’ Iblis fight and Advance’s X-Zone.
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Despite all my complaints, I still insist on my verdict assigned earlier in this review: Sonic Superstars is a competent game. It's only claim to fame is being a successful emulation of the beloved Genesis physics and some of the level design aspects that made the classics fun to begin with. Imagine this scenario: You go into a fine dining restaurant and they serve you a great steak, much like those you’d expect from Michelin-grade restaurants. However, they also served literal shit as the sides to accompany the steak. Would you still be eager to drop that positive review?
Sonic fans seem pretty happy to do so, apparently.
This may make me sound like an outright hypocrite: I literally wrote this review of Advance 2 yesterday, despite Advance 2 being an incredibly flawed game outside of its core gameplay mechanics. Two things:
One, if Superstars’ level design and physics were a generic good steak, then Advance 2’s mechanical resonance is an exotic, exquisite steak that has a taste so distinctly flavourful, that you’ll literally never find it anywhere else in the world. Superstars’ steak, meanwhile, you can find in places like Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic CD, Sonic Mania, Sonic 3 and Knuckles…
Two, I’m biased. I’m not ashamed to admit that Advance 2 is a guilty pleasure and a favourite child of mine. It’s not like Sonic fans have their biases either, with factions of Classic fans, Adventure fans and Boost fans gathered in legions to bitch and whine about how the other gameplay styles suck and how their gameplay style is vastly superior.
My journey throughout my backlog has given me experiences I’d never have learned from had I stayed in the Sonic vacuum. Klonoa 2 taught me how a platformer can still tell a thematically rich, emotionally felt story. Metroid Fusion taught me how atmospheric gameplay can also tell a narrative perfectly describing symbiotic relationships. Mega Man X (and indirectly, Advance 2) taught me how a classic, tried and true formula can be innovated in a way to make it radical and even more exhilarating than its predecessor. Chrono Trigger taught me how simplistic elements can merge to form a masterpiece when crafted under professional expertise.
Sonic Superstars taught me that by playing it safe, Sonic fans will shower you with praise and love for merely being competent.
Maybe I’m wrong and this game will probably warm up to me in future playthroughs - I’ve made it clear that a simple zoom-out of the camera in single player to match the camera zoom in co-op would substantially increase the potential enjoyment this game squirms out of me. Maybe I’d even attempt time attack runs of the levels. But for now, why would I pay $60 for a significant downgrade from Mania, which is 3 times cheaper? Heck, Triple Trouble 16-bit is a fully completed, cash-free fan game available right now, and I’d argue it's a truer representation of what made the Classic titles so great while having loads of content for Sonic enthusiasts to savour!
I’ve spent this entire review trying my damndest not to compare Superstars to literally any other game in the Classic formula except in a few specific scenarios, because I’m a firm believer of appraising games on their own individual merit. I’ve done this with almost all my reviews since 3D Blast, where I instead focused on one or more distinct aspects of a game that I found fascination in and wrote about that specifically. One of the few exceptions, ironically, is Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament, which I also slammed for betraying the definition of a Klonoa game.
I’ll tell you this, if I were to actually compare Superstars to literally any other classic Sonic title, Superstars would come out of the battle significantly worse. I find it incredibly laughable how Sonic fans lazily wave off justifiable criticism and notable flaws within the game, passing it off as ‘another step in the right direction’. Right direction my ass, Mania came out 6 years ago and completely solos the fuck out of Superstars. Maybe I can see people giving this game an 8/10 at maximum. Maybe they like it more than Sonic 1 or CD, which, fair enough, I can see why people dislike those games. Maybe it's their favourite Classic Sonic game, sure! I can see why people love Superstars, even if I obviously don’t.
But to call Sonic Superstars the best Classic Sonic game ever made, simply because it nails physics that were already refined and optimised 29 fucking years ago, and has level design that is a shallow imitation of games that came before, is not only an insult to literally every Classic Sonic game, but to critical game design theory in general.
Am I setting my standards too high? Or is it true that the Sonic fanbase has been subjected to mediocre game after mediocre game and constant mockery from other fanbases, that they’d bow down to whatever semblance of competency comes their way? Am I even truly a Sonic fan for detesting this much of what people love about Superstars? Am I allowed to call myself a Sonic fan after writing this review? I honestly don't know.
I care about this franchise a lot. It was my first ever favourite video game franchise, and it is still my favourite, and the friends I’ve made in the fandom hold a special place in my heart. I don’t hold any ill will towards any of them who played Superstars and adored it to bits, though I will and always have argued back when someone claims it's one of the best classic Sonic games ever made. Maybe I just care too much about opinions. I don’t fucking know anymore, man.
Regardless, if this is the direction Sonic Team chooses to take with 2D Sonic, then maybe I should kiss my dreams of a boost mode game that harmonises both classic and modern qualities into one outstanding title farewell.
Final score: 5.5/10
Focus: The fatal flaws of Sonic Superstars
Theme: Disillusionment
Review 75.
2 Comments
you are so real for this review
Vivicarious
4 months ago