Sonic Superstars - SPOILER Thread

[Tenko]

@SonickaI had the same experience, I didnt touch the powers until I was running back through the game after beating it! Then realizing how much easier it made the whole game surprised me.

It's one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations for Sonic Team I think. Traditional people would likely complain if you absolutely needed to use the powers as some just want a standard Sonic experience, but that has created the situation where people outright forget about them almost as soon as they get them because you actually don't need them to progress or complete the main game at any point.

When you do pay attention to them tho, the quick activation prompt is a nice touch. How it automatically selects the power if you are in an area where its use could be helpful and you just have to press the activation button, rather than stopping to scroll through the wheel. They were clearly trying to keep gameflow going with that.

 

[Sonicka]

59 minutes ago, Tenko said:

When you do pay attention to them tho, the quick activation prompt is a nice touch. How it automatically selects the power if you are in an area where its use could be helpful and you just have to press the activation button, rather than stopping to scroll through the wheel. They were clearly trying to keep gameflow going with that.

Ohhh! I didn't notice that it was quick activation! Ok that does help improve that experience over the selection wheel - I'll keep an eye on this for my repeat run.

[Red Hot Jack]

16 hours ago, Dreadknux said:

I think it's fair if you're comparing the base Frontiers experience in terms of value for money / hours per dollar, but speaking about Final Horizon specifically is a false economy.

That DLC may have been free, but we all certainly paid a price for it.

(Superstars' higher difficulty is also much better balanced than the outrageous wonkiness of Frontiers DLC3)

But yeah generally, it's a much shorter experience. I was trying to weigh that up when I was reviewing it; for less than what the RRP for Superstars is I clocked in some three-four times as many hours before I completed the base game of Frontiers.

I agree that Superstars handles difficulty much better despite being hard, but it's only really hard in certain points.

There is also the idea that Superstars is a better experience albeit a short one, I also think it has more quality put into it, and content somehow, like 11 full new zones, multiplayer, extras, compared to Frontiers which milks a lot of its assets (levels and enemies) to make the game longer. It's just that when you pay full price and the game is done in 5-8 hours, I think it's better to wait to buy it because in a month, it'll be 30-40 dollars during sales.

[Iko]

I want to make a "little" review of this game. It's going to be filled with spoilers obviously, so be aware.

Spoiler

SEGA is not proud anymore but still presents Sonic Superstars

Yeah, they finally got rid of that "proudly presents" thing in the marketing, it sounded like alt-right propaganda.

Sonic Superstars makes a big step forward in the general mood and style compared to Mania, it goes back to feeling like Sonic and less like a Cuphead wannabe with continuous rubber hose references. Also, we didn't need references to real life politics and war practices in Sonic: you know that Sonic levels, when done right, can tell a story through gameplay, right? Mania implied through stage design that Eggman attempted to take control over media (television and press) to make propaganda for himself, he's depicted as if he was a sort of aspiring dictator but still a funny one that we should like and love. That trait of the game was annoying personally, and I'm glad we got rid of it.

Sonic is great already, there was no need to make him great again.

General

Sonic Superstars does not feel like an high quality game. It's fine, can be fun at times, but through the whole game there's this feel of cheapness and bare minimum, everywhere. Arzest seems to have copied homeworks from Sonic Mania too... Sonic Mania had gold medal grinding through bonus stages? check; Sonic Mania had Puyo Puyo? Let's take another classic Sega franchise and base another boss around that, it's Fantasy Zone this time; Mania had the 5th chaos emerald as the hardest to get, and you can't get it unless you figure out the trick? (go left at the brach every lap) Ok let's do the same but worse; Mania has annoying and often bad designed bosses that last for too long? Let's make the same error and push it even futher! Everything in the game feels like if it's there because they followed the blueprints of Mania, and not due to the developers' creativity; especially, some of Mania's bad ideas were ported to this game, and this shows that the team didn't know what they were doing beside just blindly copying (they just brought content from Mania without understanding if they were good or bad).

Gameplay

The core gameplay itself is good. It's the faithful recreation of Classic Sonic's gameplay from the classics, or at least from Mania and the remakes developed by Christian Whitehead. That's fine, though I'm not a big fan of the concept of sticking with that gameplay without evolving it.

For example, some games in the series allowed Sonic to (slowly) walk and stand on 45 degrees slopes, while this game doesn't allow for it, turning most slopes into another form of soft-automation or at least something that pushes the player into a direction preventing backtrack... it took decades for someone to notice the "jump lock" when jumping out of rolling, and remove it for a better experience (I suggested that since the times of the Sega Forums), and the slopes physics are another of those details. Faithful recreating the original gameplay goes against this type of innovations, and while it doesn't really stop them from happening (jump lock was removed from classic gameplay in Mania after all), it still makes it harder to change the core gameplay to accomodate new ideas and fresh experiences. This also regards changes to the characters' movesets: Tails still can't interrrupt a flight that maybe was accidentally triggered, Knuckles still lags for one second after landing from a glide, etc... no matter how annoying they are, those details are still there because it's Classic Sonic.

So, I count the lack of innovation in gameplay as a flaw.

Aside of the core gameplay, there are other aspects that deserve to be inspected:

the Emerald Powers:

The emerald powers are very situational and cluncky to use. Through the game, at some point you will likely forget that they are a thing, and simply ignore them, because they're not well integrated, they feel redundant and like a last minute addition. Selecting them is annoying, especially since you have to use your right hand to move the analog stick and leave the finger away from the jump button, which means that you have to stop in place and select the ability because you won't have control on regular platforming while you select. You can also scroll through powers with L and R, but it's a lot slower and takes much more mental effort, something that just doesn't work in a game where most of the level design is reflex-based. Occasionally, the game suggests you the power you should use by selecting it automatically, but this is just a cheap work around to a problem that was not fixed at all; at least they realized that there was something off I guess.

They also break the single button rule of Classic Sonic, not that I care much of it. For decades, as a fan of the Advance games, I've been told that the movesets in those games were overdesigned, that Sonic doesn't need melee attack moves, that single button is better, and so; Through my playthrough of Superstars, I often felt the lack of a little punch move with Knuckles, or an air trick to break an automated section, and so... those moves introduced in the Advance games worked very well with Sonic's gameplay and were way better designed and integrated compared to emerald powers. In Superstars, Knuckles can actually punch at some point, but, you know, you have to select it, make sure to not get hit else the selection will be lost, then activate it, then you have a limited time to punch, else you can't activate it again until you reach another checkpoint... in the Advance games, if you are on a tiny platform (so you couldn't spindash or roll without falling) and some hazard got too close, you could just punch the hazard with the press of a button, without selecting anything. This game is definitely a step backward.

On a side note, tails' extra move obtained through emerald power allows him to finally break the flight status and free fall. It took 30 years and it's still an unintentional feature it seems... Cream had it in 2002.

The gameplay loop

It's the same as the other classic games, there's nothing bad about it. There's some annoyance though: Just like Sonic 3 and Sonic Mania, there's an overflow of special and bonus stages every few seconds, and if you decide to enter them all, the gameplay will have a lot of interruptions and little loadings, that summed together can ruin the overall flow and experience of the game. "Just ignore them"... heeehhh you can ignore them, but the emeralds are needed for completion and unlocking powers (which are required in Trip's story because there are progression walls), and gold medals are required too if you want to play the competitive mode, because the pieces of your prototype cost way too much, and if you don't get some medals during your playthrough, you will need to grind them later, a lot, and waste hours of your life into it. I finished my playthrough (both main story and Trip) with about 300 medals, and in average the prototype parts cost around 50 medals each, meaning that with a whole playthrough I can only buy more or less 6 parts.

Multiplayer

I was already concerned about this since the announcement. If 2 players on the same screen already don't work well in Sonic, how could 4 work? Simple, they don't.

The multiplayer was shoehorned into the game for marketing reasons, and no thought was put into it, absolutely zero effort. It's unplayable.

I didn't try it personally, but even by watching videos on the web, it's extremely evident of how bad designed and glitchy the multiplayer is: there are gimmicks that outright don't work in multiplayer, like the rollercoasters in Pinball Carnival.

It's not just a problem confined to the multiplayer modes themselves, that stops being a thing by playing alone: the multiplayer has affected (for the worse) the level design and boss design. I will comment later on this, when I will talk about level design.

There's also a competitive mode, I know very little about it because I didn't play it, but from what I've read around, it's not much better than co-op.

Level Design

The level design is not horrible, but nothing special either. Some levels are better crafted than others, a few of them are outright bad in my opinion, but there are a few which I liked as well.

Platforming

Platforming itself is veeery basic. Most of the open stages are made of randomly placed platforms, that can be climbed from below because aren't solid. The game rarely uses solid walls to make platforming challenges, and this is most likely because of multiplayer: they wanted to avoid someone to be stuck into some level geometry so that all the players on screen can stay close to each other at any moment; Bridge Island Zone is the worst case of this... it's so random that you can just hold right and spam jump mindlessly (I mean, not so literally, but you got the idea).

The challenge is very generic... most of the times there's not a well designed platforming challenge, it's mostly just tiny platforms you have to bounce from one to another, and in the case of Trip's story or Act Knuckles, vertical corridors that you have to climb by switching from one wall to the other in order to dodge spikes, in a similar but slower way as what you could find in a Sonic Lost World 3DS 2D level.

A lot of levels have climbing sections that are just tiny platforms (sometimes moving) spammed in the air without a precise logic beside just letting you climb. In Speed jungle it's not just platform but also vines, the idea is the same.

At times there are linear sections without alternative routes; it doesn't happen often, but there are some levels where this is a thing, such as some passages of Sky Temple, and the final level of the game.

A few levels such as Speed Jungle and Press Factory act 1 have sections made of S-shaped terrains (rail vines in case of Speed Jungle)... they are uninteresting IMO.

The game rarely takes advantage of curved and angled terrains to add depth to the gameplay: there are some curved and angled terrains, a skilled player can occasionally take advantage of them to reach something, but overall, I didn't find many cases of challenges intentionally designed around the physics system like that. Most of the times, angled terrains are used as a cheap and annoying form of difficulty during bossfight, to annoy the player because the acceleration is influenced by the slopes and you are supposed to dodge bullets while trying to predict what your speed will be like at the moment when the bullets are near you, and what precise angle the jump will get in that same moment because sometimes you also need to jump in order to dodge. Yeah it's mostly just basic bullets and sometimes lasers, never anything deeper than that. I'll go into boss design later.

There's a decent amount of unfair instant death caused by bottomless pits and other unfair hazards in the game, most of them are by surprise in moments when you think that you are safe, like during that giant fish miniboss in the first zone of the game, when at some point the ground breaks and you die unless you know from prior attempts and jump before the thing happens (trial and error + memorization difficulty). The infamous rollercoasters of Pinball Carnival are even worse, especially in multiplayer.

Overall, platforming in this game is very bland, and also bad at times.

Gimmicks and level themes

All the zones are original and have new gimmicks, but most of the times they feel kinda weak: it's hard to explain, but it feels like the developers went creative bankrupt and scrapped the bottom of the barrel in a brainstorming session in order to get new ideas because they had to do it, not because they were inspired or anything. A lot of gimmicks are variations of existing ones from past games, some are completely unique but still very basic, such as a bouncy floor, platforms made of moving blocks, ON-OFF switches... there's nothing too much flashy that doesn't come from a past game: one of the most visually interesting gimmicks in the game, the spinning wheels in Pinball Carnival, seems original, but in fact they are just the wheels that you can find in Scrap Brain in Sonic 1, slightly changed. I like the way how they were used though, as a sort of creative elevator to move from upper and lower floor... that's pretty unique; There's also the snake in Desert Sanctuary, that's clever too (though it's still just a visually creative bouncy floor).

Though, I won't blame them much from taking inspiration from past gimmicks and past stages: the series had many games and now it's really hard to invent something that's completely new, so I understand that. My only issue is that, as I said, many of those gimmicks feel very basic and uninspired, or totally out of place just because they had to be unique at any cost.

Level-wide gimmicks

There are a few levels which have a level-wide gimmick... think of the ghosts in Sandopolis, the fire in Mania's Oil Ocean and so on; they don't feel particularly good in this game, it seems they're there because the developers were forced to push variety in every level at any cost.

The press in Press Factory act 1 especially, that one makes very little sense and the geometry of the level doesn't take much advantage from it beside pushing you in a dead end a couple of times; it's mostly just a useless annoyance. The nonsense of this gimmick is especially evident in some sections that loop vertically... the press will force you to the upper routes, but since the level is just like 3 S-shaped routes looping infinitely, switching from one to another is really pointless, both as a reward and as a punishment.

Then there's a level that plays backwards while the time is rewinding itself. That's a pretty creative concept and very unique, though gameplay-wise it doesn't add much aside of making frustrating situations with unexpected hazards coming out of nowhere and those missile badniks that now apparently can't be hit anymore and will damage you on touch most of the times. The level is very linear and unfair, with instant death traps everywhere and boring closed rooms where you have to wait 20 seconds stuck into an elevator.

Recycled gimmicks

The game occasionally recycles gimmicks between levels. For example, there are 2 different zones based on pinball mechanics, and they have bumpers and flippers that are copy-pasted beside a change of color; the long loop that will let you to switch between background and foreground is brought back in several zones too. This is not very bad of a thing, but sometimes, an already bland and boring zone like Golden Capital, becomes even worse when you face gimmicks that you have already met in a previous zone.

The good one

The levels that feels like the most fresh gimmick-wise, is Cyber Station. The "digital transformations", while I was concerned they would feel out of place to play, are really fun instead, kinda like the snowboard section in Sonic 3's Ice Cap, for example. The problem is that they are sometimes not well designed enough (think of the rocket transformation, it goes too fast and the obstacles are too hard to predict, they can be dodged easily if you play well, but it's still annoying and everything instantly kills you on touch), but the idea is great and has a lot of potential. I wonder why the heck didn't those Breakout sections from Sky Temple appear in Cyber Station instead, that's where they would naturally fit the most.

Callbacks and returning concepts

Speaking of inspiration from past games, I was surprised by how many references to modern games there seem to be... Many emerald powers and some stage gimmicks, along with Trip's climbing move, seem to be based on wisps, plus some levels, both aesthetically and mechanically, seem to have many callbacks to, surprisingly, Dimps games! Intentional or not, I've seen a lot of game elements that give me flashbacks of Sonic 4, Sonic Rush, Generations 3DS, Lost World 3DS, and even a little bit of the Advance games. Obviously, as I said, Mania is referenced a lot too, as well as the other classics, for obvious reasons. With the first two zones having "Bridge" and "Jungle" in their names, and Fang being in the game, I wonder if this game was supposed to be a sort of Sonic Generations of the handheld games in disguise. I honestly appreciated this, really.

Boss Design

It's... horrible, definitely the worst thing of the game. I won't get much into detail, I'll just say that there are no good bosses in the game, just a couple of passable ones. Think of Big Arm from Generations 3DS... that one is miles better than any boss in Superstars, so 2.5D and Classic Sonic aren't an excuse for this.

Most bosses are super boring, you have to wait for an opening and then hit them just once at a time, then repeat until it's destroyed. Some bosses also have unintuitive mechanics, and cheap instant death moves. The final bunch of bosses can take you more than 10 minutes each, for each attempt, and are both hard and unintuitive, which means that you have to trial and error a lot before realizing how to survive and attack them... 10 minutes each attempt, yeah it's that bad.

Multiplayer (but also the Avatar move) is probably the cause of the long wait times and limit of 1 hit at a time. With 4 characters on screen, if it was possible to continuously damage a boss, they would deal 4 hit in less than a second, and if a boss had just 6 HP, that boss would be obliterated in less than 2 seconds. They put some limit because wanted the boss to be long enough. Some of the most fierce and brutal bosses in the game, which have many instant kill moves, are probably designed for multiplayer, in hope that at least one of the 4 players would survive so the fight could continue even if someone else was defeated. The result is that the bosses are just boring and frustrating, both in single and multiplayer modes. From many decades, bosses that increase their HPs according to the amount of players exist, but apparently they didn't think of such solution for Sonic Superstars... so, let's wait for Fang to finish his missile launch animation for the 50th time and hope that the instant kill laser won't spawn in a weird unpredictable way and kill me, again.

Story

I think that the story is kinda ok for a classic-styled Sonic game, if not for one thing... what the heck is goin' on?

There are a lot of nice moment, like the cute interaction between Amy and Trip, or the animated shorts at the beginning and end of the game. They story though, the game does a very poor job at explaining what's actually going on. Where is that dragon coming from, why did Trip align with Eggman's faction and how precisely did she decided to attack Eggman instead of working for him, where the heck that huge spaceship comes from and why does it seem crash-landed on that ice area instead of being in a sort of launch base? What's that hourglass gimmick and what is Eggman trying to accomplish with it (it must be related to the dragon, but how?)... etc. the story is even more confusing than Mania's.

But even without fully understanding it, it still feels nice, like a classic game's story, regardless.

Characters

The familiar characters are all as you expect them to be, the storytelling is so minimal that there's not much to say about them. The animations are ok but nothing special, their moveset (about the playable ones) is very basic and unimpressive, but that was expected from a classic game (if anything, I'm impressed that Trip doesn't glitch the game more, besides a couple of situation that I encountered).

Fang

I think that this game doesn't make him justice enouhg. Before I complained that Mania abused of rubber hose animations and style, but freakin Wile E. Coyote of the Sonic Series, the character whose uniqueness consists in being the one who brings rubber hose humor to the cast... the only one who should massively rely on that style as a way to express his personality, is the same one who in this game is a lot more bland and rigid than in all his former appearances. He pilots a mech that seems to come out from a 90's or 2000's anime (I'm talking of the first phase of that final boss), and shoots lasers, force fields, missiles, and all sort of mecha stuff that really don't fit with the character, who used to be clumsy, to boast and laugh at you, to hit you with a cork gun (a toy). This is not really Fang IMO, Triple Trouble 8bit (a fangame, I know) got the character right unlike this game.

Trip

What do I think of trip? I don't know yet. In-game, she's just as rigid as everyone else, and not much expressive, though in those cutscenes she can be cute and funny. I find it a bit weird that she seems to be completely unable to do anything, can't hold a lance, starts crying when lost in a room of the ruins, and messes everything up by tripping and being clumsy, yet, as you unlock her, she becomes one of the most broken characters in the series. I think that this contrast of being so weak and clumsy and then all of a sudden canonically becoming a death machine and a dragon with Super Sonic's powers, seems a bit out of place and kinda badly written. It's the same character, but feels like two different unrelated characters that switch conveniently depending on the situation.

Lore-wise, she's just another Knuckles, or Blaze, whatever. A guardian of some powerful ancient relics, on a mysterious abandoned island full of ancient ruins... I dunno, it feels unoriginal, even though I like that they introduced some new mithology in the franchise that's not just the chaos emeralds once again. Maybe with some bits of Tikal.

Design-wise, she seems to be the amalgamation of several different other existing characters:

- On a first sight, she resembles Marine the Raccoon, with an extremely similar color scheme and pattern

- She also looks somewhat similar to Tikal, vaguely

- but has eyes shaped like Blaze's

- and has some details which remind me of Cream (the golden armrings attached to her gloves have those small circles that resemble the yellow buttons on Cream's gloves, that spiked brown part on top of her head resebles Cream's orange stripe on the same place of her head, and the fact that their dress/armor can be simplified as looking like a triangle, in both characters)

-she also somewhat makes me think of Sticks, both for the color scheme and the fact that she lives in the wild

But also, she doesn't really look unique enough in my opinion... I might get used to her design some day, I'm slowly doing already, though the first thing I thought when I saw her unmasked was "looks like... does that like..."; the character is very derivative of others and that's her weakness I think. Let's see what they will make of her in the future, I just hope that she won't steal the spotlight to some of those existing characters who seems to be inspired from (or maybe just happen to resemble by coincidence).

On a side note, she definitely looks like a modern character, beside the "chibi" proportions.

Comparing her with the source animal she's based off is interesting, I can see where they took the idea of making her all spiky, though it's weird to see her face not being lizard-like at all.

Artstyle

Visuals

Besides the technical quality of the game being cheap (something that I already commented in the previous sections) and the visuals being compromised due of that, the artstyle itself is kind of ok, but nothing special. Sometimes I thought I was playing a worse looking version of Kirby's Return to Dream Land instead of Sonic... well it's looking like a generic mascot platformer, it doesn't have much artistic identity besides maybe screen transitions and menus. There are some levels that, despite the small amount of details and rough graphics, look very nice, such as Lagoon City act Amy.

In general, I think it looks like Sonic but a bland one... think of Sonic Rivals, Sonic Boom, or something like that.

Music

I don't really want to comment too much on this, there have been countless discussion in the fanbase already. Sometimes it's Sonic 4 sounding stuff, sometimes it's nice music, the game is inconsistent. I liked a couple of songs, but most of the Sonic 4-like ones are forgettable or outright bad. The game doesn't have a strong sound identity, it mixes several clashing styles and brings sound effects and jingles from Mania.

Final thought

Without the solid core gameplay of the classics and a lot of effort spent into it, this game had the potential of being a total disaster. It has the spirit of a 5/10 game, though there's a lot of content, variety, the game is solid enough and the gameplay is a perfect copy of the one seen in Mania, that may not be innovative, but plays well at least. All those elements improved my opinion on the game a lot.

Usually, the mediocre Sonic games feel like they are full of issues due to being rushed and incomplete... this one (musics aside) instead feels very complete, it feels like the development team did the best they could, they outdid themselves. The problem is, I can't see a sequel of this game getting better than this... from there, I think it can be the same stuff over and over, or go downhill. The team was already struggling with keeping each stage and boss fresh that they at some point had to rely on questionable design choices to bring new ideas.

This is not the right direction for Sonic, 2D Sonic needs to evolve and become something new, something high quality again, something that's not stuck in the past. Quantity over quality is a wrong mindset as well... the game definitely didn't need 11 zones if they couldn't keep the level of quality high enough: I would have prefered 4 less zones and more care put into level design, and game design in general.

This game is a clumsy mess, that just happens to play well because the physics are copied from a different game that plays well. It reminds me of Baldo, a game that tried to be way bigger than what the development team could handle... the only difference is that the gameplay in Sonic Superstars is good and solid, and you won't get stuck (until you reach those final bosses, at least), Baldo instead was the total disaster that Sonic Superstars could have been without those positive traits... the two games have the same vibes to me regardless (luckily, Sonic Superstars didn't go wrong).

Final Score

7/10

EDIT: I noticed that there are some writing errors, especially around the characters section. I'm tired now so I won't correct them, I don't know if I ever will.

And I know this is a series of unpopular takes (possibly controversial too), I don't expect anyone to agree with me, I just wanted to tell my honest opinion.

It took me a few hours to write it lol.

[Shiny Gems]

4 hours ago, Iko said:

I want to make a "little" review of this game. It's going to be filled with spoilers obviously, so be aware.

  Hide contents

SEGA is not proud anymore but still presents Sonic Superstars

Yeah, they finally got rid of that "proudly presents" thing in the marketing, it sounded like alt-right propaganda.

Sonic Superstars makes a big step forward in the general mood and style compared to Mania, it goes back to feeling like Sonic and less like a Cuphead wannabe with continuous rubber hose references. Also, we didn't need references to real life politics and war practices in Sonic: you know that Sonic levels, when done right, can tell a story through gameplay, right? Mania implied through stage design that Eggman attempted to take control over media (television and press) to make propaganda for himself, he's depicted as if he was a sort of aspiring dictator but still a funny one that we should like and love. That trait of the game was annoying personally, and I'm glad we got rid of it.

Sonic is great already, there was no need to make him great again.

General

Sonic Superstars does not feel like an high quality game. It's fine, can be fun at times, but through the whole game there's this feel of cheapness and bare minimum, everywhere. Arzest seems to have copied homeworks from Sonic Mania too... Sonic Mania had gold medal grinding through bonus stages? check; Sonic Mania had Puyo Puyo? Let's take another classic Sega franchise and base another boss around that, it's Fantasy Zone this time; Mania had the 5th chaos emerald as the hardest to get, and you can't get it unless you figure out the trick? (go left at the brach every lap) Ok let's do the same but worse; Mania has annoying and often bad designed bosses that last for too long? Let's make the same error and push it even futher! Everything in the game feels like if it's there because they followed the blueprints of Mania, and not due to the developers' creativity; especially, some of Mania's bad ideas were ported to this game, and this shows that the team didn't know what they were doing beside just blindly copying (they just brought content from Mania without understanding if they were good or bad).

Gameplay

The core gameplay itself is good. It's the faithful recreation of Classic Sonic's gameplay from the classics, or at least from Mania and the remakes developed by Christian Whitehead. That's fine, though I'm not a big fan of the concept of sticking with that gameplay without evolving it.

For example, some games in the series allowed Sonic to (slowly) walk and stand on 45 degrees slopes, while this game doesn't allow for it, turning most slopes into another form of soft-automation or at least something that pushes the player into a direction preventing backtrack... it took decades for someone to notice the "jump lock" when jumping out of rolling, and remove it for a better experience (I suggested that since the times of the Sega Forums), and the slopes physics are another of those details. Faithful recreating the original gameplay goes against this type of innovations, and while it doesn't really stop them from happening (jump lock was removed from classic gameplay in Mania after all), it still makes it harder to change the core gameplay to accomodate new ideas and fresh experiences. This also regards changes to the characters' movesets: Tails still can't interrrupt a flight that maybe was accidentally triggered, Knuckles still lags for one second after landing from a glide, etc... no matter how annoying they are, those details are still there because it's Classic Sonic.

So, I count the lack of innovation in gameplay as a flaw.

Aside of the core gameplay, there are other aspects that deserve to be inspected:

the Emerald Powers:

The emerald powers are very situational and cluncky to use. Through the game, at some point you will likely forget that they are a thing, and simply ignore them, because they're not well integrated, they feel redundant and like a last minute addition. Selecting them is annoying, especially since you have to use your right hand to move the analog stick and leave the finger away from the jump button, which means that you have to stop in place and select the ability because you won't have control on regular platforming while you select. You can also scroll through powers with L and R, but it's a lot slower and takes much more mental effort, something that just doesn't work in a game where most of the level design is reflex-based. Occasionally, the game suggests you the power you should use by selecting it automatically, but this is just a cheap work around to a problem that was not fixed at all; at least they realized that there was something off I guess.

They also break the single button rule of Classic Sonic, not that I care much of it. For decades, as a fan of the Advance games, I've been told that the movesets in those games were overdesigned, that Sonic doesn't need melee attack moves, that single button is better, and so; Through my playthrough of Superstars, I often felt the lack of a little punch move with Knuckles, or an air trick to break an automated section, and so... those moves introduced in the Advance games worked very well with Sonic's gameplay and were way better designed and integrated compared to emerald powers. In Superstars, Knuckles can actually punch at some point, but, you know, you have to select it, make sure to not get hit else the selection will be lost, then activate it, then you have a limited time to punch, else you can't activate it again until you reach another checkpoint... in the Advance games, if you are on a tiny platform (so you couldn't spindash or roll without falling) and some hazard got too close, you could just punch the hazard with the press of a button, without selecting anything. This game is definitely a step backward.

On a side note, tails' extra move obtained through emerald power allows him to finally break the flight status and free fall. It took 30 years and it's still an unintentional feature it seems... Cream had it in 2002.

The gameplay loop

It's the same as the other classic games, there's nothing bad about it. There's some annoyance though: Just like Sonic 3 and Sonic Mania, there's an overflow of special and bonus stages every few seconds, and if you decide to enter them all, the gameplay will have a lot of interruptions and little loadings, that summed together can ruin the overall flow and experience of the game. "Just ignore them"... heeehhh you can ignore them, but the emeralds are needed for completion and unlocking powers (which are required in Trip's story because there are progression walls), and gold medals are required too if you want to play the competitive mode, because the pieces of your prototype cost way too much, and if you don't get some medals during your playthrough, you will need to grind them later, a lot, and waste hours of your life into it. I finished my playthrough (both main story and Trip) with about 300 medals, and in average the prototype parts cost around 50 medals each, meaning that with a whole playthrough I can only buy more or less 6 parts.

Multiplayer

I was already concerned about this since the announcement. If 2 players on the same screen already don't work well in Sonic, how could 4 work? Simple, they don't.

The multiplayer was shoehorned into the game for marketing reasons, and no thought was put into it, absolutely zero effort. It's unplayable.

I didn't try it personally, but even by watching videos on the web, it's extremely evident of how bad designed and glitchy the multiplayer is: there are gimmicks that outright don't work in multiplayer, like the rollercoasters in Pinball Carnival.

It's not just a problem confined to the multiplayer modes themselves, that stops being a thing by playing alone: the multiplayer has affected (for the worse) the level design and boss design. I will comment later on this, when I will talk about level design.

There's also a competitive mode, I know very little about it because I didn't play it, but from what I've read around, it's not much better than co-op.

Level Design

The level design is not horrible, but nothing special either. Some levels are better crafted than others, a few of them are outright bad in my opinion, but there are a few which I liked as well.

Platforming

Platforming itself is veeery basic. Most of the open stages are made of randomly placed platforms, that can be climbed from below because aren't solid. The game rarely uses solid walls to make platforming challenges, and this is most likely because of multiplayer: they wanted to avoid someone to be stuck into some level geometry so that all the players on screen can stay close to each other at any moment; Bridge Island Zone is the worst case of this... it's so random that you can just hold right and spam jump mindlessly (I mean, not so literally, but you got the idea).

The challenge is very generic... most of the times there's not a well designed platforming challenge, it's mostly just tiny platforms you have to bounce from one to another, and in the case of Trip's story or Act Knuckles, vertical corridors that you have to climb by switching from one wall to the other in order to dodge spikes, in a similar but slower way as what you could find in a Sonic Lost World 3DS 2D level.

A lot of levels have climbing sections that are just tiny platforms (sometimes moving) spammed in the air without a precise logic beside just letting you climb. In Speed jungle it's not just platform but also vines, the idea is the same.

At times there are linear sections without alternative routes; it doesn't happen often, but there are some levels where this is a thing, such as some passages of Sky Temple, and the final level of the game.

A few levels such as Speed Jungle and Press Factory act 1 have sections made of S-shaped terrains (rail vines in case of Speed Jungle)... they are uninteresting IMO.

The game rarely takes advantage of curved and angled terrains to add depth to the gameplay: there are some curved and angled terrains, a skilled player can occasionally take advantage of them to reach something, but overall, I didn't find many cases of challenges intentionally designed around the physics system like that. Most of the times, angled terrains are used as a cheap and annoying form of difficulty during bossfight, to annoy the player because the acceleration is influenced by the slopes and you are supposed to dodge bullets while trying to predict what your speed will be like at the moment when the bullets are near you, and what precise angle the jump will get in that same moment because sometimes you also need to jump in order to dodge. Yeah it's mostly just basic bullets and sometimes lasers, never anything deeper than that. I'll go into boss design later.

There's a decent amount of unfair instant death caused by bottomless pits and other unfair hazards in the game, most of them are by surprise in moments when you think that you are safe, like during that giant fish miniboss in the first zone of the game, when at some point the ground breaks and you die unless you know from prior attempts and jump before the thing happens (trial and error + memorization difficulty). The infamous rollercoasters of Pinball Carnival are even worse, especially in multiplayer.

Overall, platforming in this game is very bland, and also bad at times.

Gimmicks and level themes

All the zones are original and have new gimmicks, but most of the times they feel kinda weak: it's hard to explain, but it feels like the developers went creative bankrupt and scrapped the bottom of the barrel in a brainstorming session in order to get new ideas because they had to do it, not because they were inspired or anything. A lot of gimmicks are variations of existing ones from past games, some are completely unique but still very basic, such as a bouncy floor, platforms made of moving blocks, ON-OFF switches... there's nothing too much flashy that doesn't come from a past game: one of the most visually interesting gimmicks in the game, the spinning wheels in Pinball Carnival, seems original, but in fact they are just the wheels that you can find in Scrap Brain in Sonic 1, slightly changed. I like the way how they were used though, as a sort of creative elevator to move from upper and lower floor... that's pretty unique; There's also the snake in Desert Sanctuary, that's clever too (though it's still just a visually creative bouncy floor).

Though, I won't blame them much from taking inspiration from past gimmicks and past stages: the series had many games and now it's really hard to invent something that's completely new, so I understand that. My only issue is that, as I said, many of those gimmicks feel very basic and uninspired, or totally out of place just because they had to be unique at any cost.

Level-wide gimmicks

There are a few levels which have a level-wide gimmick... think of the ghosts in Sandopolis, the fire in Mania's Oil Ocean and so on; they don't feel particularly good in this game, it seems they're there because the developers were forced to push variety in every level at any cost.

The press in Press Factory act 1 especially, that one makes very little sense and the geometry of the level doesn't take much advantage from it beside pushing you in a dead end a couple of times; it's mostly just a useless annoyance. The nonsense of this gimmick is especially evident in some sections that loop vertically... the press will force you to the upper routes, but since the level is just like 3 S-shaped routes looping infinitely, switching from one to another is really pointless, both as a reward and as a punishment.

Then there's a level that plays backwards while the time is rewinding itself. That's a pretty creative concept and very unique, though gameplay-wise it doesn't add much aside of making frustrating situations with unexpected hazards coming out of nowhere and those missile badniks that now apparently can't be hit anymore and will damage you on touch most of the times. The level is very linear and unfair, with instant death traps everywhere and boring closed rooms where you have to wait 20 seconds stuck into an elevator.

Recycled gimmicks

The game occasionally recycles gimmicks between levels. For example, there are 2 different zones based on pinball mechanics, and they have bumpers and flippers that are copy-pasted beside a change of color; the long loop that will let you to switch between background and foreground is brought back in several zones too. This is not very bad of a thing, but sometimes, an already bland and boring zone like Golden Capital, becomes even worse when you face gimmicks that you have already met in a previous zone.

The good one

The levels that feels like the most fresh gimmick-wise, is Cyber Station. The "digital transformations", while I was concerned they would feel out of place to play, are really fun instead, kinda like the snowboard section in Sonic 3's Ice Cap, for example. The problem is that they are sometimes not well designed enough (think of the rocket transformation, it goes too fast and the obstacles are too hard to predict, they can be dodged easily if you play well, but it's still annoying and everything instantly kills you on touch), but the idea is great and has a lot of potential. I wonder why the heck didn't those Breakout sections from Sky Temple appear in Cyber Station instead, that's where they would naturally fit the most.

Callbacks and returning concepts

Speaking of inspiration from past games, I was surprised by how many references to modern games there seem to be... Many emerald powers and some stage gimmicks, along with Trip's climbing move, seem to be based on wisps, plus some levels, both aesthetically and mechanically, seem to have many callbacks to, surprisingly, Dimps games! Intentional or not, I've seen a lot of game elements that give me flashbacks of Sonic 4, Sonic Rush, Generations 3DS, Lost World 3DS, and even a little bit of the Advance games. Obviously, as I said, Mania is referenced a lot too, as well as the other classics, for obvious reasons. With the first two zones having "Bridge" and "Jungle" in their names, and Fang being in the game, I wonder if this game was supposed to be a sort of Sonic Generations of the handheld games in disguise. I honestly appreciated this, really.

Boss Design

It's... horrible, definitely the worst thing of the game. I won't get much into detail, I'll just say that there are no good bosses in the game, just a couple of passable ones. Think of Big Arm from Generations 3DS... that one is miles better than any boss in Superstars, so 2.5D and Classic Sonic aren't an excuse for this.

Most bosses are super boring, you have to wait for an opening and then hit them just once at a time, then repeat until it's destroyed. Some bosses also have unintuitive mechanics, and cheap instant death moves. The final bunch of bosses can take you more than 10 minutes each, for each attempt, and are both hard and unintuitive, which means that you have to trial and error a lot before realizing how to survive and attack them... 10 minutes each attempt, yeah it's that bad.

Multiplayer (but also the Avatar move) is probably the cause of the long wait times and limit of 1 hit at a time. With 4 characters on screen, if it was possible to continuously damage a boss, they would deal 4 hit in less than a second, and if a boss had just 6 HP, that boss would be obliterated in less than 2 seconds. They put some limit because wanted the boss to be long enough. Some of the most fierce and brutal bosses in the game, which have many instant kill moves, are probably designed for multiplayer, in hope that at least one of the 4 players would survive so the fight could continue even if someone else was defeated. The result is that the bosses are just boring and frustrating, both in single and multiplayer modes. From many decades, bosses that increase their HPs according to the amount of players exist, but apparently they didn't think of such solution for Sonic Superstars... so, let's wait for Fang to finish his missile launch animation for the 50th time and hope that the instant kill laser won't spawn in a weird unpredictable way and kill me, again.

Story

I think that the story is kinda ok for a classic-styled Sonic game, if not for one thing... what the heck is goin' on?

There are a lot of nice moment, like the cute interaction between Amy and Trip, or the animated shorts at the beginning and end of the game. They story though, the game does a very poor job at explaining what's actually going on. Where is that dragon coming from, why did Trip align with Eggman's faction and how precisely did she decided to attack Eggman instead of working for him, where the heck that huge spaceship comes from and why does it seem crash-landed on that ice area instead of being in a sort of launch base? What's that hourglass gimmick and what is Eggman trying to accomplish with it (it must be related to the dragon, but how?)... etc. the story is even more confusing than Mania's.

But even without fully understanding it, it still feels nice, like a classic game's story, regardless.

Characters

The familiar characters are all as you expect them to be, the storytelling is so minimal that there's not much to say about them. The animations are ok but nothing special, their moveset (about the playable ones) is very basic and unimpressive, but that was expected from a classic game (if anything, I'm impressed that Trip doesn't glitch the game more, besides a couple of situation that I encountered).

Fang

I think that this game doesn't make him justice enouhg. Before I complained that Mania abused of rubber hose animations and style, but freakin Wile E. Coyote of the Sonic Series, the character whose uniqueness consists in being the one who brings rubber hose humor to the cast... the only one who should massively rely on that style as a way to express his personality, is the same one who in this game is a lot more bland and rigid than in all his former appearances. He pilots a mech that seems to come out from a 90's or 2000's anime (I'm talking of the first phase of that final boss), and shoots lasers, force fields, missiles, and all sort of mecha stuff that really don't fit with the character, who used to be clumsy, to boast and laugh at you, to hit you with a cork gun (a toy). This is not really Fang IMO, Triple Trouble 8bit (a fangame, I know) got the character right unlike this game.

Trip

What do I think of trip? I don't know yet. In-game, she's just as rigid as everyone else, and not much expressive, though in those cutscenes she can be cute and funny. I find it a bit weird that she seems to be completely unable to do anything, can't hold a lance, starts crying when lost in a room of the ruins, and messes everything up by tripping and being clumsy, yet, as you unlock her, she becomes one of the most broken characters in the series. I think that this contrast of being so weak and clumsy and then all of a sudden canonically becoming a death machine and a dragon with Super Sonic's powers, seems a bit out of place and kinda badly written. It's the same character, but feels like two different unrelated characters that switch conveniently depending on the situation.

Lore-wise, she's just another Knuckles, or Blaze, whatever. A guardian of some powerful ancient relics, on a mysterious abandoned island full of ancient ruins... I dunno, it feels unoriginal, even though I like that they introduced some new mithology in the franchise that's not just the chaos emeralds once again. Maybe with some bits of Tikal.

Design-wise, she seems to be the amalgamation of several different other existing characters:

- On a first sight, she resembles Marine the Raccoon, with an extremely similar color scheme and pattern

- She also looks somewhat similar to Tikal, vaguely

- but has eyes shaped like Blaze's

- and has some details which remind me of Cream (the golden armrings attached to her gloves have those small circles that resemble the yellow buttons on Cream's gloves, that spiked brown part on top of her head resebles Cream's orange stripe on the same place of her head, and the fact that their dress/armor can be simplified as looking like a triangle, in both characters)

-she also somewhat makes me think of Sticks, both for the color scheme and the fact that she lives in the wild

But also, she doesn't really look unique enough in my opinion... I might get used to her design some day, I'm slowly doing already, though the first thing I thought when I saw her unmasked was "looks like... does that like..."; the character is very derivative of others and that's her weakness I think. Let's see what they will make of her in the future, I just hope that she won't steal the spotlight to some of those existing characters who seems to be inspired from (or maybe just happen to resemble by coincidence).

On a side note, she definitely looks like a modern character, beside the "chibi" proportions.

Comparing her with the source animal she's based off is interesting, I can see where they took the idea of making her all spiky, though it's weird to see her face not being lizard-like at all.

Artstyle

Visuals

Besides the technical quality of the game being cheap (something that I already commented in the previous sections) and the visuals being compromised due of that, the artstyle itself is kind of ok, but nothing special. Sometimes I thought I was playing a worse looking version of Kirby's Return to Dream Land instead of Sonic... well it's looking like a generic mascot platformer, it doesn't have much artistic identity besides maybe screen transitions and menus. There are some levels that, despite the small amount of details and rough graphics, look very nice, such as Lagoon City act Amy.

In general, I think it looks like Sonic but a bland one... think of Sonic Rivals, Sonic Boom, or something like that.

Music

I don't really want to comment too much on this, there have been countless discussion in the fanbase already. Sometimes it's Sonic 4 sounding stuff, sometimes it's nice music, the game is inconsistent. I liked a couple of songs, but most of the Sonic 4-like ones are forgettable or outright bad. The game doesn't have a strong sound identity, it mixes several clashing styles and brings sound effects and jingles from Mania.

Final thought

Without the solid core gameplay of the classics and a lot of effort spent into it, this game had the potential of being a total disaster. It has the spirit of a 5/10 game, though there's a lot of content, variety, the game is solid enough and the gameplay is a perfect copy of the one seen in Mania, that may not be innovative, but plays well at least. All those elements improved my opinion on the game a lot.

Usually, the mediocre Sonic games feel like they are full of issues due to being rushed and incomplete... this one (musics aside) instead feels very complete, it feels like the development team did the best they could, they outdid themselves. The problem is, I can't see a sequel of this game getting better than this... from there, I think it can be the same stuff over and over, or go downhill. The team was already struggling with keeping each stage and boss fresh that they at some point had to rely on questionable design choices to bring new ideas.

This is not the right direction for Sonic, 2D Sonic needs to evolve and become something new, something high quality again, something that's not stuck in the past. Quantity over quality is a wrong mindset as well... the game definitely didn't need 11 zones if they couldn't keep the level of quality high enough: I would have prefered 4 less zones and more care put into level design, and game design in general.

This game is a clumsy mess, that just happens to play well because the physics are copied from a different game that plays well. It reminds me of Baldo, a game that tried to be way bigger than what the development team could handle... the only difference is that the gameplay in Sonic Superstars is good and solid, and you won't get stuck (until you reach those final bosses, at least), Baldo instead was the total disaster that Sonic Superstars could have been without those positive traits... the two games have the same vibes to me regardless (luckily, Sonic Superstars didn't go wrong).

Final Score

7/10

EDIT: I noticed that there are some writing errors, especially around the characters section. I'm tired now so I won't correct them, I don't know if I ever will.

And I know this is a series of unpopular takes (possibly controversial too), I don't expect anyone to agree with me, I just wanted to tell my honest opinion.

It took me a few hours to write it lol.

I am going to have to be honest; that is a fair score, even though I would give it a point higher, but still, you do you.

[Jango]

Wait, Mania had alt right propaganda?

[Indigo Rush]

Evening Star will make Sonic great again 

[Sonictrainer]

Don't know if anyone already mentioned these but

Apparently, Tails Doll is just floating around an area of Pinball Carnival Zone Act 2

It took me a minute to realize this but Frozen Base Zone Act 2 is literally a reference to the Fantasy Zone.

Finally, The End appears in the background in the Egg Fortress Zone.

[joe_schmoe99]

11 hours ago, Iko said:

I want to make a "little" review of this game. It's going to be filled with spoilers obviously, so be aware.

  Reveal hidden contents

SEGA is not proud anymore but still presents Sonic Superstars

Yeah, they finally got rid of that "proudly presents" thing in the marketing, it sounded like alt-right propaganda.

Sonic Superstars makes a big step forward in the general mood and style compared to Mania, it goes back to feeling like Sonic and less like a Cuphead wannabe with continuous rubber hose references. Also, we didn't need references to real life politics and war practices in Sonic: you know that Sonic levels, when done right, can tell a story through gameplay, right? Mania implied through stage design that Eggman attempted to take control over media (television and press) to make propaganda for himself, he's depicted as if he was a sort of aspiring dictator but still a funny one that we should like and love. That trait of the game was annoying personally, and I'm glad we got rid of it.

Sonic is great already, there was no need to make him great again.

General

Sonic Superstars does not feel like an high quality game. It's fine, can be fun at times, but through the whole game there's this feel of cheapness and bare minimum, everywhere. Arzest seems to have copied homeworks from Sonic Mania too... Sonic Mania had gold medal grinding through bonus stages? check; Sonic Mania had Puyo Puyo? Let's take another classic Sega franchise and base another boss around that, it's Fantasy Zone this time; Mania had the 5th chaos emerald as the hardest to get, and you can't get it unless you figure out the trick? (go left at the brach every lap) Ok let's do the same but worse; Mania has annoying and often bad designed bosses that last for too long? Let's make the same error and push it even futher! Everything in the game feels like if it's there because they followed the blueprints of Mania, and not due to the developers' creativity; especially, some of Mania's bad ideas were ported to this game, and this shows that the team didn't know what they were doing beside just blindly copying (they just brought content from Mania without understanding if they were good or bad).

Gameplay

The core gameplay itself is good. It's the faithful recreation of Classic Sonic's gameplay from the classics, or at least from Mania and the remakes developed by Christian Whitehead. That's fine, though I'm not a big fan of the concept of sticking with that gameplay without evolving it.

For example, some games in the series allowed Sonic to (slowly) walk and stand on 45 degrees slopes, while this game doesn't allow for it, turning most slopes into another form of soft-automation or at least something that pushes the player into a direction preventing backtrack... it took decades for someone to notice the "jump lock" when jumping out of rolling, and remove it for a better experience (I suggested that since the times of the Sega Forums), and the slopes physics are another of those details. Faithful recreating the original gameplay goes against this type of innovations, and while it doesn't really stop them from happening (jump lock was removed from classic gameplay in Mania after all), it still makes it harder to change the core gameplay to accomodate new ideas and fresh experiences. This also regards changes to the characters' movesets: Tails still can't interrrupt a flight that maybe was accidentally triggered, Knuckles still lags for one second after landing from a glide, etc... no matter how annoying they are, those details are still there because it's Classic Sonic.

So, I count the lack of innovation in gameplay as a flaw.

Aside of the core gameplay, there are other aspects that deserve to be inspected:

the Emerald Powers:

The emerald powers are very situational and cluncky to use. Through the game, at some point you will likely forget that they are a thing, and simply ignore them, because they're not well integrated, they feel redundant and like a last minute addition. Selecting them is annoying, especially since you have to use your right hand to move the analog stick and leave the finger away from the jump button, which means that you have to stop in place and select the ability because you won't have control on regular platforming while you select. You can also scroll through powers with L and R, but it's a lot slower and takes much more mental effort, something that just doesn't work in a game where most of the level design is reflex-based. Occasionally, the game suggests you the power you should use by selecting it automatically, but this is just a cheap work around to a problem that was not fixed at all; at least they realized that there was something off I guess.

They also break the single button rule of Classic Sonic, not that I care much of it. For decades, as a fan of the Advance games, I've been told that the movesets in those games were overdesigned, that Sonic doesn't need melee attack moves, that single button is better, and so; Through my playthrough of Superstars, I often felt the lack of a little punch move with Knuckles, or an air trick to break an automated section, and so... those moves introduced in the Advance games worked very well with Sonic's gameplay and were way better designed and integrated compared to emerald powers. In Superstars, Knuckles can actually punch at some point, but, you know, you have to select it, make sure to not get hit else the selection will be lost, then activate it, then you have a limited time to punch, else you can't activate it again until you reach another checkpoint... in the Advance games, if you are on a tiny platform (so you couldn't spindash or roll without falling) and some hazard got too close, you could just punch the hazard with the press of a button, without selecting anything. This game is definitely a step backward.

On a side note, tails' extra move obtained through emerald power allows him to finally break the flight status and free fall. It took 30 years and it's still an unintentional feature it seems... Cream had it in 2002.

The gameplay loop

It's the same as the other classic games, there's nothing bad about it. There's some annoyance though: Just like Sonic 3 and Sonic Mania, there's an overflow of special and bonus stages every few seconds, and if you decide to enter them all, the gameplay will have a lot of interruptions and little loadings, that summed together can ruin the overall flow and experience of the game. "Just ignore them"... heeehhh you can ignore them, but the emeralds are needed for completion and unlocking powers (which are required in Trip's story because there are progression walls), and gold medals are required too if you want to play the competitive mode, because the pieces of your prototype cost way too much, and if you don't get some medals during your playthrough, you will need to grind them later, a lot, and waste hours of your life into it. I finished my playthrough (both main story and Trip) with about 300 medals, and in average the prototype parts cost around 50 medals each, meaning that with a whole playthrough I can only buy more or less 6 parts.

Multiplayer

I was already concerned about this since the announcement. If 2 players on the same screen already don't work well in Sonic, how could 4 work? Simple, they don't.

The multiplayer was shoehorned into the game for marketing reasons, and no thought was put into it, absolutely zero effort. It's unplayable.

I didn't try it personally, but even by watching videos on the web, it's extremely evident of how bad designed and glitchy the multiplayer is: there are gimmicks that outright don't work in multiplayer, like the rollercoasters in Pinball Carnival.

It's not just a problem confined to the multiplayer modes themselves, that stops being a thing by playing alone: the multiplayer has affected (for the worse) the level design and boss design. I will comment later on this, when I will talk about level design.

There's also a competitive mode, I know very little about it because I didn't play it, but from what I've read around, it's not much better than co-op.

Level Design

The level design is not horrible, but nothing special either. Some levels are better crafted than others, a few of them are outright bad in my opinion, but there are a few which I liked as well.

Platforming

Platforming itself is veeery basic. Most of the open stages are made of randomly placed platforms, that can be climbed from below because aren't solid. The game rarely uses solid walls to make platforming challenges, and this is most likely because of multiplayer: they wanted to avoid someone to be stuck into some level geometry so that all the players on screen can stay close to each other at any moment; Bridge Island Zone is the worst case of this... it's so random that you can just hold right and spam jump mindlessly (I mean, not so literally, but you got the idea).

The challenge is very generic... most of the times there's not a well designed platforming challenge, it's mostly just tiny platforms you have to bounce from one to another, and in the case of Trip's story or Act Knuckles, vertical corridors that you have to climb by switching from one wall to the other in order to dodge spikes, in a similar but slower way as what you could find in a Sonic Lost World 3DS 2D level.

A lot of levels have climbing sections that are just tiny platforms (sometimes moving) spammed in the air without a precise logic beside just letting you climb. In Speed jungle it's not just platform but also vines, the idea is the same.

At times there are linear sections without alternative routes; it doesn't happen often, but there are some levels where this is a thing, such as some passages of Sky Temple, and the final level of the game.

A few levels such as Speed Jungle and Press Factory act 1 have sections made of S-shaped terrains (rail vines in case of Speed Jungle)... they are uninteresting IMO.

The game rarely takes advantage of curved and angled terrains to add depth to the gameplay: there are some curved and angled terrains, a skilled player can occasionally take advantage of them to reach something, but overall, I didn't find many cases of challenges intentionally designed around the physics system like that. Most of the times, angled terrains are used as a cheap and annoying form of difficulty during bossfight, to annoy the player because the acceleration is influenced by the slopes and you are supposed to dodge bullets while trying to predict what your speed will be like at the moment when the bullets are near you, and what precise angle the jump will get in that same moment because sometimes you also need to jump in order to dodge. Yeah it's mostly just basic bullets and sometimes lasers, never anything deeper than that. I'll go into boss design later.

There's a decent amount of unfair instant death caused by bottomless pits and other unfair hazards in the game, most of them are by surprise in moments when you think that you are safe, like during that giant fish miniboss in the first zone of the game, when at some point the ground breaks and you die unless you know from prior attempts and jump before the thing happens (trial and error + memorization difficulty). The infamous rollercoasters of Pinball Carnival are even worse, especially in multiplayer.

Overall, platforming in this game is very bland, and also bad at times.

Gimmicks and level themes

All the zones are original and have new gimmicks, but most of the times they feel kinda weak: it's hard to explain, but it feels like the developers went creative bankrupt and scrapped the bottom of the barrel in a brainstorming session in order to get new ideas because they had to do it, not because they were inspired or anything. A lot of gimmicks are variations of existing ones from past games, some are completely unique but still very basic, such as a bouncy floor, platforms made of moving blocks, ON-OFF switches... there's nothing too much flashy that doesn't come from a past game: one of the most visually interesting gimmicks in the game, the spinning wheels in Pinball Carnival, seems original, but in fact they are just the wheels that you can find in Scrap Brain in Sonic 1, slightly changed. I like the way how they were used though, as a sort of creative elevator to move from upper and lower floor... that's pretty unique; There's also the snake in Desert Sanctuary, that's clever too (though it's still just a visually creative bouncy floor).

Though, I won't blame them much from taking inspiration from past gimmicks and past stages: the series had many games and now it's really hard to invent something that's completely new, so I understand that. My only issue is that, as I said, many of those gimmicks feel very basic and uninspired, or totally out of place just because they had to be unique at any cost.

Level-wide gimmicks

There are a few levels which have a level-wide gimmick... think of the ghosts in Sandopolis, the fire in Mania's Oil Ocean and so on; they don't feel particularly good in this game, it seems they're there because the developers were forced to push variety in every level at any cost.

The press in Press Factory act 1 especially, that one makes very little sense and the geometry of the level doesn't take much advantage from it beside pushing you in a dead end a couple of times; it's mostly just a useless annoyance. The nonsense of this gimmick is especially evident in some sections that loop vertically... the press will force you to the upper routes, but since the level is just like 3 S-shaped routes looping infinitely, switching from one to another is really pointless, both as a reward and as a punishment.

Then there's a level that plays backwards while the time is rewinding itself. That's a pretty creative concept and very unique, though gameplay-wise it doesn't add much aside of making frustrating situations with unexpected hazards coming out of nowhere and those missile badniks that now apparently can't be hit anymore and will damage you on touch most of the times. The level is very linear and unfair, with instant death traps everywhere and boring closed rooms where you have to wait 20 seconds stuck into an elevator.

Recycled gimmicks

The game occasionally recycles gimmicks between levels. For example, there are 2 different zones based on pinball mechanics, and they have bumpers and flippers that are copy-pasted beside a change of color; the long loop that will let you to switch between background and foreground is brought back in several zones too. This is not very bad of a thing, but sometimes, an already bland and boring zone like Golden Capital, becomes even worse when you face gimmicks that you have already met in a previous zone.

The good one

The levels that feels like the most fresh gimmick-wise, is Cyber Station. The "digital transformations", while I was concerned they would feel out of place to play, are really fun instead, kinda like the snowboard section in Sonic 3's Ice Cap, for example. The problem is that they are sometimes not well designed enough (think of the rocket transformation, it goes too fast and the obstacles are too hard to predict, they can be dodged easily if you play well, but it's still annoying and everything instantly kills you on touch), but the idea is great and has a lot of potential. I wonder why the heck didn't those Breakout sections from Sky Temple appear in Cyber Station instead, that's where they would naturally fit the most.

Callbacks and returning concepts

Speaking of inspiration from past games, I was surprised by how many references to modern games there seem to be... Many emerald powers and some stage gimmicks, along with Trip's climbing move, seem to be based on wisps, plus some levels, both aesthetically and mechanically, seem to have many callbacks to, surprisingly, Dimps games! Intentional or not, I've seen a lot of game elements that give me flashbacks of Sonic 4, Sonic Rush, Generations 3DS, Lost World 3DS, and even a little bit of the Advance games. Obviously, as I said, Mania is referenced a lot too, as well as the other classics, for obvious reasons. With the first two zones having "Bridge" and "Jungle" in their names, and Fang being in the game, I wonder if this game was supposed to be a sort of Sonic Generations of the handheld games in disguise. I honestly appreciated this, really.

Boss Design

It's... horrible, definitely the worst thing of the game. I won't get much into detail, I'll just say that there are no good bosses in the game, just a couple of passable ones. Think of Big Arm from Generations 3DS... that one is miles better than any boss in Superstars, so 2.5D and Classic Sonic aren't an excuse for this.

Most bosses are super boring, you have to wait for an opening and then hit them just once at a time, then repeat until it's destroyed. Some bosses also have unintuitive mechanics, and cheap instant death moves. The final bunch of bosses can take you more than 10 minutes each, for each attempt, and are both hard and unintuitive, which means that you have to trial and error a lot before realizing how to survive and attack them... 10 minutes each attempt, yeah it's that bad.

Multiplayer (but also the Avatar move) is probably the cause of the long wait times and limit of 1 hit at a time. With 4 characters on screen, if it was possible to continuously damage a boss, they would deal 4 hit in less than a second, and if a boss had just 6 HP, that boss would be obliterated in less than 2 seconds. They put some limit because wanted the boss to be long enough. Some of the most fierce and brutal bosses in the game, which have many instant kill moves, are probably designed for multiplayer, in hope that at least one of the 4 players would survive so the fight could continue even if someone else was defeated. The result is that the bosses are just boring and frustrating, both in single and multiplayer modes. From many decades, bosses that increase their HPs according to the amount of players exist, but apparently they didn't think of such solution for Sonic Superstars... so, let's wait for Fang to finish his missile launch animation for the 50th time and hope that the instant kill laser won't spawn in a weird unpredictable way and kill me, again.

Story

I think that the story is kinda ok for a classic-styled Sonic game, if not for one thing... what the heck is goin' on?

There are a lot of nice moment, like the cute interaction between Amy and Trip, or the animated shorts at the beginning and end of the game. They story though, the game does a very poor job at explaining what's actually going on. Where is that dragon coming from, why did Trip align with Eggman's faction and how precisely did she decided to attack Eggman instead of working for him, where the heck that huge spaceship comes from and why does it seem crash-landed on that ice area instead of being in a sort of launch base? What's that hourglass gimmick and what is Eggman trying to accomplish with it (it must be related to the dragon, but how?)... etc. the story is even more confusing than Mania's.

But even without fully understanding it, it still feels nice, like a classic game's story, regardless.

Characters

The familiar characters are all as you expect them to be, the storytelling is so minimal that there's not much to say about them. The animations are ok but nothing special, their moveset (about the playable ones) is very basic and unimpressive, but that was expected from a classic game (if anything, I'm impressed that Trip doesn't glitch the game more, besides a couple of situation that I encountered).

Fang

I think that this game doesn't make him justice enouhg. Before I complained that Mania abused of rubber hose animations and style, but freakin Wile E. Coyote of the Sonic Series, the character whose uniqueness consists in being the one who brings rubber hose humor to the cast... the only one who should massively rely on that style as a way to express his personality, is the same one who in this game is a lot more bland and rigid than in all his former appearances. He pilots a mech that seems to come out from a 90's or 2000's anime (I'm talking of the first phase of that final boss), and shoots lasers, force fields, missiles, and all sort of mecha stuff that really don't fit with the character, who used to be clumsy, to boast and laugh at you, to hit you with a cork gun (a toy). This is not really Fang IMO, Triple Trouble 8bit (a fangame, I know) got the character right unlike this game.

Trip

What do I think of trip? I don't know yet. In-game, she's just as rigid as everyone else, and not much expressive, though in those cutscenes she can be cute and funny. I find it a bit weird that she seems to be completely unable to do anything, can't hold a lance, starts crying when lost in a room of the ruins, and messes everything up by tripping and being clumsy, yet, as you unlock her, she becomes one of the most broken characters in the series. I think that this contrast of being so weak and clumsy and then all of a sudden canonically becoming a death machine and a dragon with Super Sonic's powers, seems a bit out of place and kinda badly written. It's the same character, but feels like two different unrelated characters that switch conveniently depending on the situation.

Lore-wise, she's just another Knuckles, or Blaze, whatever. A guardian of some powerful ancient relics, on a mysterious abandoned island full of ancient ruins... I dunno, it feels unoriginal, even though I like that they introduced some new mithology in the franchise that's not just the chaos emeralds once again. Maybe with some bits of Tikal.

Design-wise, she seems to be the amalgamation of several different other existing characters:

- On a first sight, she resembles Marine the Raccoon, with an extremely similar color scheme and pattern

- She also looks somewhat similar to Tikal, vaguely

- but has eyes shaped like Blaze's

- and has some details which remind me of Cream (the golden armrings attached to her gloves have those small circles that resemble the yellow buttons on Cream's gloves, that spiked brown part on top of her head resebles Cream's orange stripe on the same place of her head, and the fact that their dress/armor can be simplified as looking like a triangle, in both characters)

-she also somewhat makes me think of Sticks, both for the color scheme and the fact that she lives in the wild

But also, she doesn't really look unique enough in my opinion... I might get used to her design some day, I'm slowly doing already, though the first thing I thought when I saw her unmasked was "looks like... does that like..."; the character is very derivative of others and that's her weakness I think. Let's see what they will make of her in the future, I just hope that she won't steal the spotlight to some of those existing characters who seems to be inspired from (or maybe just happen to resemble by coincidence).

On a side note, she definitely looks like a modern character, beside the "chibi" proportions.

Comparing her with the source animal she's based off is interesting, I can see where they took the idea of making her all spiky, though it's weird to see her face not being lizard-like at all.

Artstyle

Visuals

Besides the technical quality of the game being cheap (something that I already commented in the previous sections) and the visuals being compromised due of that, the artstyle itself is kind of ok, but nothing special. Sometimes I thought I was playing a worse looking version of Kirby's Return to Dream Land instead of Sonic... well it's looking like a generic mascot platformer, it doesn't have much artistic identity besides maybe screen transitions and menus. There are some levels that, despite the small amount of details and rough graphics, look very nice, such as Lagoon City act Amy.

In general, I think it looks like Sonic but a bland one... think of Sonic Rivals, Sonic Boom, or something like that.

Music

I don't really want to comment too much on this, there have been countless discussion in the fanbase already. Sometimes it's Sonic 4 sounding stuff, sometimes it's nice music, the game is inconsistent. I liked a couple of songs, but most of the Sonic 4-like ones are forgettable or outright bad. The game doesn't have a strong sound identity, it mixes several clashing styles and brings sound effects and jingles from Mania.

Final thought

Without the solid core gameplay of the classics and a lot of effort spent into it, this game had the potential of being a total disaster. It has the spirit of a 5/10 game, though there's a lot of content, variety, the game is solid enough and the gameplay is a perfect copy of the one seen in Mania, that may not be innovative, but plays well at least. All those elements improved my opinion on the game a lot.

Usually, the mediocre Sonic games feel like they are full of issues due to being rushed and incomplete... this one (musics aside) instead feels very complete, it feels like the development team did the best they could, they outdid themselves. The problem is, I can't see a sequel of this game getting better than this... from there, I think it can be the same stuff over and over, or go downhill. The team was already struggling with keeping each stage and boss fresh that they at some point had to rely on questionable design choices to bring new ideas.

This is not the right direction for Sonic, 2D Sonic needs to evolve and become something new, something high quality again, something that's not stuck in the past. Quantity over quality is a wrong mindset as well... the game definitely didn't need 11 zones if they couldn't keep the level of quality high enough: I would have prefered 4 less zones and more care put into level design, and game design in general.

This game is a clumsy mess, that just happens to play well because the physics are copied from a different game that plays well. It reminds me of Baldo, a game that tried to be way bigger than what the development team could handle... the only difference is that the gameplay in Sonic Superstars is good and solid, and you won't get stuck (until you reach those final bosses, at least), Baldo instead was the total disaster that Sonic Superstars could have been without those positive traits... the two games have the same vibes to me regardless (luckily, Sonic Superstars didn't go wrong).

Final Score

7/10

EDIT: I noticed that there are some writing errors, especially around the characters section. I'm tired now so I won't correct them, I don't know if I ever will.

And I know this is a series of unpopular takes (possibly controversial too), I don't expect anyone to agree with me, I just wanted to tell my honest opinion.

It took me a few hours to write it lol.

.......alt right propaganda? dude, what?

Spoiler

"Mania implied through stage design that Eggman attempted to take control over media (television and press) to make propaganda for himself, he's depicted as if he was a sort of aspiring dictator but still a funny one that we should like and love."

my man, you're reading way too far into something that isn't even there. Eggman is ridiculous and funny sure, but his MO throughout the whole entire series has been global conquest. it's not some bizarre commentary on American politics, it's a kids' game where the bad guy is funny (but still bad) and the good guy stops him. simple as.

[JezMM]

Finished the true ending today.  Man, I've never had such a complete 180 on my feelings about a Sonic game this hard.

The initial playthrough?  It was good.  I enjoyed the platforming, the animations and characters are charming.  Trip is a lovely new addition I want to see sticking around.  The levels are frequently creative with some great overarching gimmicks like the jumpy floor of Press Factory or the time reversal of Egg Fortress.  Some fantastic Mania-esque unexpected fanservice surprises like Golden Capital and the Fantasy Zone stage.  Heck, even the bosses were really creative!  A little slow and open to attacks too rarely maybe, but nothing too major (I thought).  The final boss was a massive spike that seems unreasonable but it's actually very consistent in it's attack patterns once you learn them and I got there eventually.

They did a lot of fine work here, I ended the game thinking "hey I can see the debate on which is the better classic follow-up between this and Mania having some real substance to it".

Then I dove into Trip's story.  Oh boy.  Again, I still enjoyed the platforming well enough, but platforming wasn't what I was doing most of the time.  What I was doing most of the time was fighting bosses longer than the stages that came before them multiple times, using Trip's super form to try and get through unscathed was always a foolish decision as unless I had rings well in the 100s it would barely last half the fight since they're only ever vulnerable at designated times, even to an invulnerable fire breathing dragon.

On the alternate final boss I finally caved and began looking up tips not even halfway through the fight.  I was sure with the OHKO attacks being thrown out from the start, he was definitely going to do some dickhead surprise attack near the end that would start me over again (I was right, and at least I was prepared for it).  Luckily through doing so I also learned that your emerald powers reset between phases, which at least allows you to speed up getting to the hardest part a little.

Then your reward is a true final boss that's even worse.  11 minutes of autoscrolling, RNG deciding how many rings you can get (Tails and Knuckles love to show up before the camera shifts to chase the boss down, denying you rings - on one playthrough Tails and Knuckles just weren't showing up at all, and I've read Amy or a bird (or Amy with a bird?) can show up and grant you 40 rings... I played this boss for an hour and never saw her once), and then to top it all off we end with a vague QTE finale with really strange timing and feedback, where again on every failed attempt the boss just SITS THERE for 5 seconds when you likely already reached this point with only enough rings on the clock to get one or two cracks at it, or else that's 11 minutes of your life that the game just owns now.

And again... I really love a lot of these bosses in theory!  They're full of imaginative attack ideas, just 1 or 2 less HP, a checkpoint during longer ones, more opportunities for extra attacks, no pointless little flavour animations and just sitting there for a few seconds between attacks - any combination of these could fix so many of them.

Just what a shame the goodwill of the platforming stuff just gets completely shat all over by these awfully executed bosses.  And I think what grinds my gears is that they all feel like they're intentionally this way - it's not just an unfinished game or short on time.  These things are polished, they got playtested, they knew what they were doing.

 

 

And to top it all off... yeah this is one of the worst soundtracks in Sonic history.  It's all so bland, tbh even the tracks that don't seem to be Jun's signature Sonic 4 style are incredibly mid to my ears.  They all feel like rough drafts or like the Lego Dimensions off-brand version of what's trying to be a classic Sonic quality banger rather than the quality banger itself.  There are a few exceptions, no doubt, but this isn't one that I can see myself listening to outside of the game, which is an incredibly rare thing for a Sonic soundtrack.  Love that the game caps off with a Sonic 4 garbage medley of a bunch of songs that were salvaged by other composers, just to really make sure we don't completely enjoy ourselves about that.

 

Just, hoo boy.  What a sour taste this one left in the end.  Not a Sonic game I ever think I'll revisit the full "new file to final credits" experience of ever again, which is again a rarity for me.  I'm not losing any more hours of my life to those bosses.  Here's hoping the modding community finds some way to make it a more balanced experience, for us PC players at least.

[Sonicka]

9 hours ago, Indigo Rush said:

Evening Star will make Sonic great again 

Evening Star *without background interference from Sonic Team* will make Sonic great again. 

Honestly, I would have LOVED to have seen a full blown game from them as I really enjoyed the creativity and designs of their Zones and layouts.

Superstars is enjoyable enough to cruise through because the characters play nice. But far too often do the rollercoaster level designs lose their flow (in a non productive way). I think that a lot of their level ideas and gimmicks are pretty interesting really... but because nothing is cranked up to it's fullest potential I often feel cheated out of a really cool idea that wasn't fully realised.

I'm quite certain Arzest worked really hard on this game - but way too often does the production and quality have a feel of "this will do, let's move on" - especially towards the end of the game. It might be that the Arzest and Sonic Team made conscious choices that everything was above standard and therefore good enough, but I do think deadlines had a factor in this as well.

I mean goodness, I paid less for Mario Wonder and that platformer is firing on full cylinders. In the build up to both game releases I was actually looking forward to Superstars much more than Wonder. But post release? One of these titles had me sighing in frustration every so often whilst the other has me constantly smiling or laughing. There is a huge difference of effort allocated to ideas and concepts within Mario Wonder that it sadly eclipses everything Sonic Superstars was trying to accomplish in it's new retro approach.

There is no roundabout simple answer to this, but it is becoming clearer year on year that games without release deadlines can at least afford the teams time to experiment and iterate to make the best product possible. Nintendo absolutely demonstrated that this is true with Wonder, and barring any internal developer creativity issues, I'd like to think the same can be said for Sonic titles as well. 

[Shiny Gems]

So, I am playing through Trip's Story, and I am getting close to the end. Still, my thoughts are...

Spoiler

It is nowhere near as bad as others (especially those here) say it is. It is hard some, but I actually like it, and it is fun.

 

[Soniman]

I’ve always kinda rolled my eyes whenever someone states a game ”doesn’t respect the players time” because a lot of time it just feels like impatience or arrogance in refusing to genuinely engage with a games mechanics in lieu of instant gratification 

….

Sonic Superstars is quite easily the most textbook case of “does not respect the players time” I ever seen, ever. Bad Sonic bosses are nothing new to this series, heck most of them are! But by the end of Trip’s Story I honestly think the player might have spent more time in those bad bosses than actually playing the rest of game? It’s actual insanity 

[LegoFedora]

Idk if story spoilers should still be hidden but HERE WE GO

Spoiler

Something that caught my eye that I don't think anyone has mentioned yet, Fang getting a death egg of his own.

I'm assuming this is the same robot (or a finished version of, anyways) that Trip destroyed when she went Super in the story mode. Eggman was clearly aware of its production at that point.  Has any other villain that eggman's teamed up with in the past gotten their own death egg mech?

Makes me wonder if Eggman either:

A) Saw Fang a permanent partner had they succeeded, hence the massive resource dump it'd take to give him a death egg mech

B) By this point, Eggman has dealt with sonic so much that he knows he can't win easily. Maybe this is the first instance of Eggman going all out with his endgame/last resort measures that he'd eventually become known for with his finales. Even if it means giving a possibly untrustworthy partner a mech on the scale of death egg, maybe the means justify the means as long as it means Sonic loses.

Side note: The whole Multiplayer Bot mech at the end of Cyber Station. Eggman really had a strange liking towards large robots this time around, didn't he?

 

[Palas]

2 hours ago, Soniman said:

I’ve always kinda rolled my eyes whenever someone states a game ”doesn’t respect the players time” because a lot of time it just feels like impatience or arrogance in refusing to genuinely engage with a games mechanics in lieu of instant gratification 

….

Sonic Superstars is quite easily the most textbook case of “does not respect the players time” I ever seen, ever. Bad Sonic bosses are nothing new to this series, heck most of them are! But by the end of Trip’s Story I honestly think the player might have spent more time in those bad bosses than actually playing the rest of game? It’s actual insanity 

This. "This game doesn't respect my time" is basically always an idiotic complaint. However, Superstars decided to add long wait times as a mechanic, probably in order to compensate for multiple players beating a boss up and using emerald powers and super forms. It tries to remedy a problem that a) doesn't exist b) they created anyway, all in the name of a proper challenge.

The game is screaming "engage with me on my terms! See everything I did! I worked so hard to make these bosses" and doesn't even consider that classic Sonic basically always yielded this kind of control to the player. Superstars doesn't really get that. The chaos of having four players completely destroying a boss in two seconds would've been part of the fun.

Which is why my conscience is absolutely clear about completely skipping Trip's final boss.

[Red Hot Jack]

Trip's story is kinda what I wanted from a DLC, nice that it's included in the game but I'm kind of annoyed I have to do that boss at the end to unlock the last story.

Besides, while the first phase is easy, they should have at least had a checkpoint between phases in the boss since it takes so long, it took me a lot of time.

The rest of Trip's story was okay, it's not "bad", it's hard. It's the usual discourse of "we have been complaining about easy games for a decade and now we complain about the opposite thing", I didn't mind Trip's story outside of few frustrating moments, I like that it's built on her skill plus being a legit hard mode.

Trip's story > Encore Mode (for me)

[Shiny Gems]

I have to say one thing...

Spoiler

While everyone has a right to their opinion, (and guess what, I respect that) I wish to say something about those not liking the difficulty of Sonic Superstars. I am not going to straight up say this is true, at least not yet. With that, I will put the first part of what I will say like this: I am not sure how many people have experience with, or are used to difficulty and trial and error in Sonic games, and I am not sure how many have actual tolerance or the patience for these kinds of things. Glitches aside, I did not find the latter half of Sonic Superstars to be hard. Furthermore, while I did tolerate what I am about to bring up, the towers in The Final Horizon in Sonic Frontiers, on hard mode, were more grueling compared to what Sonic Superstars turned out to be; especially the first two towers. Anyway, there may have been a bit of unfairness in Sonic Superstars' harder parts, but it is not the most difficult thing in the world as those towers in Sonic Frontiers' final update or even some of the hardest classic NES games of old. Now, there may BE some other problems to the game, but I am not sure how many people do realize that hard difficulty and trial and error are not necessarily what makes games bad, especially if the difficulty is done right.

For the record, though, my main complaint; which is about the bosses of Sonic Superstars; is that those bosses tend to be too long, or way too long in terms of the final bosses of each story.

 

[JezMM]

27 minutes ago, Spooky Gems said:

I have to say one thing...

  Hide contents

While everyone has a right to their opinion, (and guess what, I respect that) I wish to say something about those not liking the difficulty of Sonic Superstars. I am not going to straight up say this is true, at least not yet. With that, I will put the first part of what I will say like this: I am not sure how many people have experience with, or are used to difficulty and trial and error in Sonic games, and I am not sure how many have actual tolerance or the patience for these kinds of things. Glitches aside, I did not find the latter half of Sonic Superstars to be hard. Furthermore, while I did tolerate what I am about to bring up, the towers in The Final Horizon in Sonic Frontiers, on hard mode, were more grueling compared to what Sonic Superstars turned out to be; especially the first two towers. Anyway, there may have been a bit of unfairness in Sonic Superstars' harder parts, but it is not the most difficult thing in the world as those towers in Sonic Frontiers' final update or even some of the hardest classic NES games of old. Now, there may BE some other problems to the game, but I am not sure how many people do realize that hard difficulty and trial and error are not necessarily what makes games bad, especially if the difficulty is done right.

For the record, though, my main complaint; which is about the bosses of Sonic Superstars, is that those bosses tend to be too long, or way too long in terms of the final bosses of each story.

 

That is literally what people are complaining about though.  I'd be fine with very hard bosses if there just wasn't so much waiting around between attacks, particularly on the final ones where the bosses do just sit there for a few seconds after every single thing that happens.  The arenas are barren, there's nothing for the player to do during this time - if you got hit you probably missed that attack cycle anyway and are done recovering rings by the end of the attack.  Every attempt starts with two cut-scenes you have to hold a button to skip with an unskippable drop into the arena between them.  Trip in particular has this long period after the first phase where just nothing happens for a few seconds, as if after the original game's boss we're at all going to be surprised that there's a second phase.

 

Unrelated to the above, if it helps anyone, some advice for Trip's Final Boss while it's fresh in my mind:
 

Spoiler

With good timing you can jump through the spinning OHKO laser blocks when there's only two of them during phase 1.  Using the fire dash makes this significantly easier for one hit.  Use Avatar to get another free hit in as soon as Fang arrives on the circular track with you (recommended for phase 2, when the lasers are more plentiful and take longer to walk under).

Slow and Extra (Trip throws Mario-esque fireballs) can be used to cheese the attack where you hit him as he flies downwards to destroy the ground.  As long as you don't miss any of the OHKO laser phases (which are 99% consistent and easy to dodge) that takes care of both of them you'll get.  Don't use Avatar on this attack - they'll just die hitting the OHKO lasers on the sides of the screen.

Your powers refresh for phase 2, so use them as you please in order to speed up phase 1.  Good usage can take you from a 5 minute wait time for another attempt at phase 2 to a slightly more tolerable 3 minute wait time.

In Phase 2, the powers aren't super helpful.  Avatar and Extra can be used on the headslam attack (you want to be like, 20% from the left/right to dodge it when Fang's nose glows yellow) to ensure a hit without the stress of jumping.  When he starts headslamming, it'll be the only way to damage him, but you're only 2 hits away from victory.

His most infuriating attack is the three targets followed by energy webs.  If they target a triangle shape to your left/right and above, wait for them to materialise, try not to move, and he'll usually go straight to firing his OHKO corks at you instead of creating more webs.  If so you only have to worry about jumping over one web and then legging it to dodge.  I recommend getting into position at the top of a hill when he begins this attack to make the escape easier.  If he does the inverted triangle where one is targetted on you, only a well-timed jump will get you out of trouble - have Slow ready if you're not confident.  In this case he will target more webs at you, so keep moving a little bit and jumping through them - you don't want them to stack up all around you so there's nowhere to run/jump through.  If you nail hitting him at every other opportunity hopefully this'll only happen once or twice.

 

[Shiny Gems]

1 minute ago, JezMM said:

That is literally what people are complaining about though.  I'd be fine with very hard bosses if there just wasn't so much waiting around between attacks, particularly on the final ones where the bosses do just sit there for a few seconds after every single thing that happens.  The arenas are barren, there's nothing for the player to do during this time - if you got hit you probably missed that attack cycle anyway and are done recovering rings by the end of the attack.  Every attempt starts with two cut-scenes you have to hold a button to skip with an unskippable drop into the arena between them.  Trip in particular has this long period after the first phase where just nothing happens for a few seconds, as if after the original game's boss we're at all going to be surprised that there's a second phase.

 

Unrelated to the above, if it helps anyone, some advice for Trip's Final Boss while it's fresh in my mind:
 

  Reveal hidden contents

With good timing you can jump through the spinning OHKO laser blocks when there's only two of them during phase 1.  Using the fire dash makes this significantly easier for one hit.  Use Avatar to get another free hit in as soon as Fang arrives on the circular track with you (recommended for phase 2, when the lasers are more plentiful and take longer to walk under).

Slow and Extra (Trip throws Mario-esque fireballs) can be used to cheese the attack where you hit him as he flies downwards to destroy the ground.  As long as you don't miss any of the OHKO laser phases (which are 99% consistent and easy to dodge) that takes care of both of them you'll get.  Don't use Avatar on this attack - they'll just die hitting the OHKO lasers on the sides of the screen.

In Phase 2, the powers aren't super helpful.  Avatar and Extra can be used on the headslam attack (you want to be like, 20% from the left/right to dodge it when Fang's nose glows yellow) to ensure a hit without the stress of jumping.  When he starts headslamming, it'll be the only way to damage him, but you're only 2 hits away from victory.

His most infuriating attack is the three targets followed by energy webs.  If they target a triangle shape to your left/right and above, wait for them to materialise, try not to move, and he'll usually go straight to firing his OHKO corks at you instead of creating more webs.  If so you only have to worry about jumping over one web and then legging it to dodge.  I recommend getting into position at the top of a hill when he begins this attack to make the escape easier.  If he does the inverted triangle where one is targetted on you, only a well-timed jump will get you out of trouble - have Slow ready if you're not confident.  In this case he will target more webs at you, so keep moving a little bit and jumping through them - you don't want them to stack up all around you so there's nowhere to run/jump through.  If you nail hitting him at every other opportunity hopefully this'll only happen once or twice.

 

Oh, OH! Well, that is indeed a valid complaint. I do like the ideas of landing more hits than one per a long period of time. I also would like bosses to be shorter than they were in Superstars myself.

By the way...

Thanks for the advice for Trips final boss. I am tackling that boss today, and I need all the help I can get.

[Sonicka]

Thanks for the tips @JezMM- I'll keep that in mind!

The bosses were a sore point for me mostly because some of them took longer to beat than the levels (as mentioned above). It is painful when you are trying to learn the attack patterns but also have to wait for an opening, or worse, do nothing in between phases.

It's a shame you can't get in those daredevil "cheeky" hits like in the classic titles (and I tried so often and to no avail which made me feel confused). I think what is frustrating is when you make a mistake or are caught off guard and die - especially after finally making it through a tough phase, then wait for the transition, and immediately die. Being put back to phase one from 5 minutes ago feels like a slap in the face of your accomplishment. I don't really have time for games that do this to me, and checkpointing is a more commonplace implementation. This really needed to happen for a few of these fights. 

@Spooky GemsTo be honest, I don't actually think the game is that hard - it just has some frustrating design choices in a few areas (for me). 

I'd happily admit that my patience / tolerance levels have decreased somewhat since the old days, because back then I'd have one single (Sonic) game to play and master between the birthday and Christmas events. There was little in the way of extra choice or game-passes or the dreaded back catalogue build up that gamers have at their disposal these days. No, back in the 90's you played a game until you practically memorised it, and due to the short arcade style of game Sonic is it meant that you learnt levels and mastered them like a Pro. 

There is that "mastering" element in Superstars for sure - and I think the more you play, the easier this game will become since you will know what will be upcoming, it is a very reflex based / reactionary platformer after all). BUT, the flip side is that there needs to be a certain pull for the gamer to want to go back and master the levels no matter the difficulty, especially these days when you gaming library is so full. It's a different era.

I think classic Sonic titles have this pull, Sonic Mania has this pull, heck - Frontiers Update 3 had this (for me anyway, I know others will disagree), but Sonic Superstars... doesn't give me that pull for repeat runs or patience of mastery sadly. That won't be the case for everybody though - I've seen plenty of reviews and videos that suggest this is their Sonic game of all time - so it clearly does click people which is good. 

[Shiny Gems]

26 minutes ago, Sonicka said:

Thanks for the tips @JezMM- I'll keep that in mind!

The bosses were a sore point for me mostly because some of them took longer to beat than the levels (as mentioned above). It is painful when you are trying to learn the attack patterns but also have to wait for an opening, or worse, do nothing in between phases.

It's a shame you can't get in those daredevil "cheeky" hits like in the classic titles (and I tried so often and to no avail which made me feel confused). I think what is frustrating is when you make a mistake or are caught off guard and die - especially after finally making it through a tough phase, then wait for the transition, and immediately die. Being put back to phase one from 5 minutes ago feels like a slap in the face of your accomplishment. I don't really have time for games that do this to me, and checkpointing is a more commonplace implementation. This really need to happen for a few of these fights. 

@Spooky GemsTo be honest, I don't actually think the game is that hard - it just has some frustrating design choices in a few areas (for me). 

I'd happily admit that my patience / tolerance levels have decreased somewhat since the old days, because back then I'd have one single (Sonic) game to play and master between the birthday and Christmas events. There was little in the way of extra choice or game-passes or the dreaded back catalogue build up that gamers have at their disposal these days. No, back in the 90's you played a game until you practically memorised it, and due to the short arcade style of game Sonic is it meant that you learnt levels and mastered them like a Pro. 

There is that "mastering" element in Superstars for sure - and I think the more you play, the easier this game will become since you will know what will be upcoming, it is a very reflex based / reactionary platformer after all). BUT, the flip side is that there needs to be a certain pull for the gamer to want to go back and master the levels no matter the difficulty, especially these days when you gaming library is so full. It's a different era.

I think classic Sonic titles have this pull, Sonic Mania has this pull, heck - Frontiers Update 3 had this (for me anyway, I know others will disagree), but Sonic Superstars... doesn't give me that pull for repeat runs or patience of mastery sadly. That won't be the case for everybody though - I've seen plenty of reviews and videos that suggest this is their Sonic game of all time - so it clearly does click people which is good. 

I understand, though can you name those frustrating design choices for me, before I continue to say anything else?

[Sonicka]

1 hour ago, Spooky Gems said:

I understand, though can you name those frustrating design choices for me, before I continue to say anything else?

Sure thing

• Bosses. We don’t need to go into this anymore. I’ve think it’s covered.

 

• Camera. I love it every-time the characters go into the background layer because it gives me more to see and extra reflex to change paths or avoid a surprise attack. It’s also the one good advantage to multiplayer. The camera is sadly too zoomed in during single player. This feels like a conscious choice that was made because of the background paths, but as multiplayer exists it then becomes a redundant decision. Would have been nice to have an option at least. 

 

• Cheap Deaths. The OHKO ceiling crushers are a good example. If something is going to crush you, then you die when you get crushed, not when you touch the ceiling before it descends on the character. 

 

• Level gimmicks 1)  I don’t think these are all terrible, but a lot of these are either out of place, aren’t taken far enough, or just don’t work. Press Factory Act 2 sticks out to me as an example. I didn’t like these sorts of things in S&K and Sonic Mania either (with the light / vent pull switches) as they just serve to slow the pace of the player down. However, at least they had an aesthetic and level narrative purpose in those titles (and also you weren’t outright killed if you let it go on for too long). I see no logical reason for a self destruct droid to follow the team around after Press Factory already blew up in act 1, it also makes zero sense for there to be giant green switches in the level that reset the timer of this one droid. It’s a shame as I really liked PF act 1. 

 

• Level Gimmicks 2) Seeing Breakout used was another bizarre one in Sky Temple - wouldn’t this have been better in Cyberstation? Or are they alluding to the ancient civilisation having weird technology? (like the construct robots). It’s great and all… but why is this here? Actually it would have been far better to be placed into one of the pinball levels like Pinball Carnival and Golden Capital…

 

• Level Gimmicks 3) Golden Capital’s upside down level twists were a cool effect… but it felt very random and was barely used. This could have been a really cool counterpoint level to what Death Egg Act 2 did in S&K by going upside down. 

 

• Level Gimmicks 4) Egg Fortress Act 2. I really like the idea of a time reversing level, genuinely I think this is a cool idea. However I don’t know why it is happening, and I felt that Egg Fortress Act 1 was overly long and repetitively structured as it was. In actual fact, I thought I was looping the station at first in Act 1 (this would have been a better idea considering it was falling apart)… but then I realised it was just a very samey 3 act… erm, Act. So I groaned when I realised I was going to have to do the entire Act all over again in reverse  Again, great idea and concept… but maybe not the best level for it.

 

• Special Stages. I need some sort of indicator for how much progress I am making towards getting the emerald. It feels incredibly random when I actually get it as I don’t know what I’ve done differently to before. There are so many instances I missed out on where visually it looks like I am right in front of it for the lock on… but it never appears. I think perhaps there is some sort of artificial meter that dictates when it is you can actually grab the emerald, maybe it’s time based? I don’t know, the rules of this change each time so I can’t tell what I am doing wrong on these. 

 

• Emerald Powers. Not a fan of the selection wheel, I don’t think it’s suitable for this type of game. However I appreciate that an automatic choice of power does come up which means you don’t have to select the power yourself… but then that sort of defeats the object right? It just makes them purely situational. Also, the instructions of use weren’t clear to me - in the training section underneath how to activate the power it also tells you how to stop/cancel the power. So I was pressing L1 + R1 to cancel the power during Avatar or Second sight and thinking the controls were busted. No, it actually meant cancel/reset your selected power you have prepared BEFORE you activate it. Weird. 
   

So yeah, that’s just a few of the little nuggets of joy that ate away at me on the play through. Hate that they did… but they did

[Shiny Gems]

2 minutes ago, Sonicka said:

Sure thing

• Bosses. We don’t need to go into this anymore. I’ve think it’s covered.

 

• Camera. I love it every-time the characters go into the background layer because it gives me more to see and extra reflex to change paths or avoid a surprise attack. It’s also the one good advantage to multiplayer. The camera is sadly too zoomed in during single player. This feels like a conscious choice that was made because of the background paths, but as multiplayer exists it then becomes a redundant decision. Would have been nice to have an option at least. 

 

• Cheap Deaths. The OHKO ceiling crushers are a good example. If something is going to crush you, then you die when you get crushed, not when you touch the ceiling before it descends on the character. 

 

• Level gimmicks 1)  I don’t think these are all terrible, but a lot of these are either out of place, aren’t taken far enough, or just don’t work. Press Factory Act 2 sticks out to me as an example. I didn’t like these sorts of things in S&K and Sonic Mania either (with the light / vent pull switches) as they just serve to slow the pace of the player down. However, at least they had an aesthetic and level narrative purpose in those titles (and also you weren’t outright killed if you let it go on for too long). I see no logical reason for a self destruct droid to follow the team around after Press Factory already blew up in act 1, it also makes zero sense for there to be giant green switches in the level that reset the timer of this one droid. It’s a shame as I really liked PF act 1. 

 

• Level Gimmicks 2) Seeing Breakout used was another bizarre one in Sky Temple - wouldn’t this have been better in Cyberstation? Or are they alluding to the ancient civilisation having weird technology? (like the construct robots). It’s great and all… but why is this here? Actually it would have been far better to be placed into one of the pinball levels like Pinball Carnival and Golden Capital…

 

• Level Gimmicks 3) Golden Capital’s upside down level twists were a cool effect… but it felt very random and was barely used. This could have been a really cool counterpoint level to what Death Egg Act 2 did in S&K by going upside down. 

 

• Level Gimmicks 4) Egg Fortress Act 2. I really like the idea of a time reversing level, genuinely I think this is a cool idea. However I don’t know why it is happening, and I felt that Egg Fortress Act 1 was overly long and repetitively structured as it was. In actual fact, I thought I was looping the station at first in Act 1 (this would have been a better idea considering it was falling apart)… but then I realised it was just a very samey 3 act… erm, Act. So I groaned when I realised I was going to have to do the entire Act all over again in reverse  Again, great idea and concept… but maybe not the best level for it.

 

• Special Stages. I need some sort of indicator for how much progress I am making towards getting the emerald. It feels incredibly random when I actually get it as I don’t know what I’ve done differently to before. There are so many instances I missed out on where visually it looks like I am right in front of it for the lock on… but it never appears. I think perhaps there is some sort of artificial meter that dictates when it is you can actually grab the emerald, maybe it’s time based? I don’t know, the rules of this change each time so I can’t tell what I am doing wrong on these. 

 

• Emerald Powers. Not a fan of the selection wheel, I don’t think it’s suitable for this type of game. However I appreciate that an automatic choice of power does come up which means you don’t have to select the power yourself… but then that sort of defeats the object and makes them situation doesn’t it? Also, the instructions weren’t clear to me - in the training section underneath how to activate the power it also tells you how to stop/cancel the power. So I was pressing L1 + R1 to cancel the power during Avatar or Second sight and thinking the controls were busted. No, it actually meant cancel/reset your selected power you have prepared before you activate it. 
   

So yeah, that’s just a few of the weird little niggles that ate away at me on the play through .

Some of these do not bother me, even though I can understand. I will address some of those that might be, or are valid.

The Emerald powers I loved so much, though I will agree on the selection wheel. Other than what you may have said, it was unnecessary. Maybe use the D-Pad instead like in Shadow's game and maybe Sonic 06 for the Custom gems? As for cancelling a power, I have yet to try that myself, so I sadly can't say much about it.

The bosses, as needless to say as they are, I would actually like to land multiple hits rather than just one per chance.

I understand about Press Factory's Act 2 gimmick. I did not mind it, but it was not necessary, in my opinion. Then again, didn't Oil Ocean in Act 2 of Sonic Mania have something similar? Granted, I don't recall it causing instant death, but you get the picture. Now, what did you think about Press Factory Act 1's gimmick? The one where the background slammer keeps launching you into the air while you are on the ground?

And yeah, whether glitches may account or not for some of these, some deaths were indeed cheap.

I think everything else is fine, even if half of those to me are really fine while the other half needs addressing. I would not be opposed to addressing some of those things.

That said, barely anyone talked about bottomless pits. Seeing what happened with the ceiling crushers, are they the new "bottomless pits" to Sonic fans?

[Sonicka]

6 minutes ago, Spooky Gems said:

Some of these do not bother me, even though I can understand. I will address some of those that might be, or are valid.

The Emerald powers I loved so much, though I will agree on the selection wheel. Other than what you may have said, it was unnecessary. Maybe use the D-Pad instead like in Shadow's game and maybe Sonic 06 for the Custom gems? As for cancelling a power, I have yet to try that myself, so I sadly can't say much about it.

The bosses, as needless to say as they are, I would actually like to land multiple hits rather than just one per chance.

I understand about Press Factory's Act 2 gimmick. I did not mind it, but it was not necessary, in my opinion. Then again, didn't Oil Ocean in Act 2 of Sonic Mania have something similar? Granted, I don't recall it causing instant death, but you get the picture. Now, what did you think about Press Factory Act 1's gimmick? The one where the background slammer keeps launching you into the air while you are on the ground?

And yeah, whether glitches may account or not for some of these, some deaths were indeed cheap.

I think everything else is fine, even if half of those to me are really fine while the other half needs addressing. I would not be opposed to addressing some of those things.

That said, barely anyone talked about bottomless pits. Seeing what happened with the ceiling crushers, are they the new "bottomless pits" to Sonic fans?

That’s fair enough, we all got different things that do or don’t bother us

In honesty the emerald powers I have no formed opinion on just yet as I’ve barely used them. If it’s anything like the wisps though I’m sure I’ll enjoy them. 

To be honest, the “cancel power” instruction could just be a misread on my part. But actually there probably should be a way to shut them off when you want. 

I did enjoy Press Factory Act 1 and it’s Gimmick. The forced bump jump shook me up some pathways I wasn’t expecting.

Interestingly I wasn’t killed off by too many bottomless pits that much in this game, so I don’t have much issue on that side of things. 

[Shiny Gems]

4 minutes ago, Sonicka said:

That’s fair enough, we all got different things that do or don’t bother us

In honesty the emerald powers I have no formed opinion on just yet as I’ve barely used them. If it’s anything like the wisps though I’m sure I’ll enjoy them. 

To be honest, the “cancel power” instruction could just be a misread on my part. But actually there probably should be a way to shut them off when you want. 

I did enjoy Press Factory Act 1 and it’s Gimmick. The forced bump jump shook me up some pathways I wasn’t expecting.

Interestingly I wasn’t killed off by too many bottomless pits that much in this game, so I don’t have much issue on that side of things. 

Yeah, canceling powers would actually be a good thing, as well as, and I admit, something to let you know you are close to a Chaos Emerald in special stages.

I also think Press Factory Act 1's gimmick was enjoyable, too. It did get a little annoying in Trip's Story as I tried clinging to walls as her...a little, that is.

I did not have much of a problem with bottomless pits too, though fans have had issues with them in the 3D games, and Sonic 4. That is why I was asking everyone, not just you. So yeah, I was wondering if people were still not liking bottomless pits.

Also, I do not think, in terms of bosses, Sonic fans like the classic Sonic fans are used to long boss fights. Not that I think it should be a thing, at all, (for I don't think it should be) but at least make bosses fun if you plan to make them long, if with more chances to attack. There are other bosses in Sonic games like Egg Viper from Sonic Adventure, but those were fun, and were nothing like Sonic Superstars' bosses.

That said, I liked the length of the levels, though I think they should be done so that they don't easily take over 10 minutes, but less than 9 minutes to complete; bosses included.