Sometimes, or actually often, I feel bad for Sonic. He often gets my sympathy when it comes to the special treatment of his arch-rivals and the injustice of Yuji Naka’s blue blur. Yes, I’m talking about Mario, here. According to most of us, Nintendo’s golden goose really can’t fail. When he stars in classic side-scrolling 2.5D games – such as New Super Mario Bros., New Super Mario Bros. Wii, New Super Luigi U, New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Mario Bros. Deluxe – it’s always described For glorious retro.
Beautifully designed and of course plays beautifully on PS5.
When Sonic does the same thing in games like Sonic Mania, Sonic Origins, or Sonic Superstars, he’s more likely to be described as unimaginatively stuck in the past. There’s an injustice here, of course, and while I haven’t been a fan of Sonic’s open-world games of the past 20 years, I thoroughly enjoyed his adventures that strayed away from everything that wasn’t in the 1991 original. Sonic, to me, is this. 2D platforming steeped in Sonic Team’s signature, colorful, playful design.
It’s fast and hard, in the right way.
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Sonic Superstars is developed by Arzest, the studio founded by Naoto Oshima, who created the character with former Sonic Team boss Yuji Naka. Arzest’s latest game, Balan Wonderworld, is one of the worst platformers I’ve ever tried in my life, which means I was a bit skeptical here before. However, it takes about five minutes of Superstars’ opening course, Sonic, to realize that it’s charming and nostalgic without ever feeling as dated as Sonic Mania.
The idea here is to retain the gameplay of the old Mega Drive era, but at the same time try to include some new game mechanics, keeping the basic concept fresh enough. You can choose to play as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, or Amy, and you can choose to play the entire adventure with up to three friends. The biggest gameplay innovation has to do with Sonic’s special gems.
The battle royale mode is a bit weird, but makes for some quick online matches.
When the game begins, Sonic puts his hands on an insanely powerful Chaos Emerald through a super-stylish intro sequence that allows for a special trick involving repetition. No matter which of the four characters you play as, in each level you press the right joystick to activate a super attack, and 20 or so additional versions appear on the screen to illustrate your chosen character. These attacks can be extremely valuable when thrown out during some of the more stubborn boss fights in the game, so I like this idea. The execution and design of the attacks themselves may not be the best, feeling a little too Japanese at times, in a weird way, but it’s certainly not something I didn’t like.
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Bonus courses are a big part of Sonic, but here they’re mostly weird.
Speaking of bosses, Arzest and Sega pulled out all the stops here, creating a number of really good bosses that all follow the ’90s formula that Nintendo has honed to perfection over the years. Each boss performs three attacks (of different types and kinds) and then positions itself into a position where players can deal damage, but you’ll need to figure out how and where as quickly as possible. There’s a boss that shoots chains, and to defeat this bad boy you have to trick it into firing projectiles at itself, while another boss shoots wires that Sonic can run through, which then do damage on its head.
The tail is okay
Said to be the easiest character to play as he can spin his tail and soar over difficult passages.
The variety of courses is very good and the courses are well designed. As usual, there are several different paths to choose from, with plenty of secrets on each track, which encourages exploration, while the running speed itself encourages all-out running, just like Sonic. This balance or rather “contrast” is successful and unique, and there’s more of a challenge here than I’m used to from Sonic the Hedgehog.
The design is also good, really good. The preview image looks a little too contrasty for me, and in the Gamescom video released in August, all the polygonal objects looked shiny, but once the game is up and running (I had it on a PlayStation 5 and an LG OLED C3 Having played it), it’s hard not to fall in love with the look of Superstars. It’s charming, neat, colorful, flows super smooth and worry-free. The music is also wonderful.
The presentation was fantastic and so was the music.
I play Superstars with my kids Frank (8) and Vega (7) and try to test how much my offspring like (or don’t like) Sonic’s latest adventure. Frank has played several Sonic and Mario games, and for the past year he’s spent two hours a day playing Fortnite. He’s a better runner than his dad, and was the one who figured out how to beat Three bosses, and I’m sitting there scratching my head like an old fossil. Frank cheered, chirped, and repeatedly praised the design and ability to change the character. He loved the courses, it was very fast and loved the boss. Vega, on the other hand, hasn’t played many games other than a few hours of Roblox on her iPad, and she found Superstars a little too difficult.
Papa Hegevall is satisfied after a few days at Superstars and realizes that Arzest has repaired its reputation after the terrible Balan Wonderworld and released a charming family game that captures much of what makes Sonic worthy of being preserved .
