Sonic Superstars (PlayStation 5)

Back in my day, you were either a Nintendo child or a Sega child, it was Mortal Kombat with gore vs without gore, Streets of Rage vs Final Fight (without Guy), and of course Mario vs Sonic and as any 90s child will tell you, Sonic was cooler than cool. Sonic cycle be damned after the fantastic Sonic Frontiers, Sonic Team has decided to gift those “classic” Sonic fans with the newest title Sonic Superstars. 

In following the tradition of the classic Sonic games, there isn’t a whole lot of story here again in contrast to the last release Sonic Frontiers which had quite a deep narrative, especially for a title starring the Blue Blur. Eggman/Robotnik is once again up to his old tricks, now in a new area of the planet called The North Islands, he’s teamed up with Spin-off fodder Nack the Weasel, and a mysterious newcomer Trip the Lizard, it’s up to Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, and Amy to stop the Doctor and once again collect the Chaos Emeralds. 

The story is mostly told through beautifully drawn cutscenes with no dialogue, there are a few in-game cutscenes but despite being one of the most story-heavy “Classic” Sonic games there still isn’t too much of a narrative here outside of Eggman is evil and you must stop him, exactly how I like my “Classic” Sonic titles. 

Visually Sonic Superstars is beautiful, it has all the vibrant colors you could want from the Sonic franchise, characters animate fluidly and there will never be a feeling quite like precariously getting your character to the edge and watching them cling on with the tip of their toes. 

The stage designs are, for the most part, safe choices sadly. You have your basic field-like area in “Bridge Zone”, and “Speed Jungle Zone” brings back fond memories of the Sega Master System version of Sonic but in terms of actual original feeling zones, there is only real Cyber Zone which has pixelated character models galore done in a 3D style, it’s quirky and brought a smile to my face, sadly nothing here is quite on par with the original stages in Sonic Mania. 

Something Sonic has always been known for being fantastic soundtracks and sadly Sonic Superstars just phones this one in, outside of Nack’s theme there really aren’t too many stand-out tracks which is insane when you consider the classic games have some of the best video game tracks known to man.

Sonic Superstars features traditional platforming gameplay, you run from left to right, sometimes right to left, jumping on enemies, collecting rings and the few sparse power-ups until they reach the boss at the end of the stage, nearly every stage has a boss battle at the end of it rather than it being at the end of the zone. 

Stage design is fine at its very best, again nothing here really feels original and instead feels like a retread of previous gimmicks and set pieces from previous Sonic games just not done as well or with little context. As previously mentioned I feel there was only really one standout Zone in the 12 Zone selection, there is a fantastic gimmick on one of the stages where you play the entire level and then have to replay it backward, it is just a shame the game plays it far too safe before dropping the quirky ideas on players towards the end of the game. 

In terms of Power-Ups, there aren’t half as many as there used to be, 1-Ups are a thing of the past as Sonic Superstars doesn’t use a life system anymore, a basic shield, a magnet power up, and then the traditional 10 Ring box, this does leave quite a hole in the game pacing, especially after how far the series had come in this aspect with Sonic 3 & Knuckles and of course Sonic Mania. 

Boss battles fall into the more “Wait and figure it out” side of Sonic where you’ll have to attack at a very particular time or use something like a missile to damage the boss rather than the more traditional attack when you can. One of the main issues with these fights is how long they go on, especially in New Game + and this is because the bosses have giant invincibility frames. While there are a few fun bosses here, there are far more that start to test your patience while you wait for that exact thing you need to do to damage it. 

New to Sonic Superstars is that the Chaos Emeralds give you abilities that can be used this time around, one of them causes the screen to fill with clones, one slows time down, one grows vines, there are more but you get the idea. You can use these once per checkpoint then they get refilled, sadly some are more useful than others, the clone ability being the most helpful as it tends to trivialize some of the boss fights.

Sonic Superstars adores giving you Special Stages, you have the Chaos Emerald one which can be found by tracking down giant rings hidden in the stages, you are then thrown into a zone where you need to swing across the stage using spheres to catch the Chaos Emerald, fortunately, these are some of the easiest special stages in the franchise though finding them caused more than a few issues!

The classic Sonic 1 Special Stage is back only this time tied to one of the new game mechanics “Medals”, this is located by having more than 50 rings running through a checkpoint and jumping into the portal. Finally, some portals just seem to randomly appear and these produce a very quick “falling” special stage where you can boost your ring count. 

Medals can be collected and earned throughout the game and can be used in the in-game shop, you purchase cosmetics for a robot that you use in the game’s online multiplayer “Battle Mode” which puts you against 7 other players in various challenges as in “Collect X Amount of Rings” first. I didn’t delve into the shop or the online multiplayer and when I tried there wasn’t anyone playing it at the time which wasn’t a great sign!

The big focus of Sonic Superstars is the multiplayer aspect, while there is what I feel is tacked on Online Multiplayer, there is a fantastic Couch Co-Op where you can choose any of the 4 main characters and play alongside friends or family. Due to the nature of Tails being able to fly and Amy feeling a little like an “easy mode” character, this meant I was able to play with my children with ease and they had a whale of a time. 

Once you’ve finished the game for the first time you are given somewhat of a New Game +, you have to replay the game with a new character, carrying over your emeralds but the stages are slightly different and the bosses have more health and a few more attacks, the true ending is locked behind this mode and it does feel like excessive padding, bizarre when the game lasts around 3 hours, longer than a traditional Sonic game but maybe not quite enough to justify the full asking price. 

While I’ve enjoyed Sonic Superstars, I can’t quite shake the feeling that it wasn’t quite “enough”, the Zones just didn’t hit right and the bosses just did nothing for me. The new character is quite fun to play as are the differences between Sonic and crew but sadly the zones and bosses fumbled the ball here. It’s nice to see Nack the Weasel again but much like his debut Game Gear title, this game feels more like a Spin-off apology for the unique Sonic Frontiers rather than the next step in 2D Sonic games.