A pleasant sound game, if not exactly a super one.
Most sound games put the pedal on the metal, which allows you to drive at incredibly high speeds and at the same time avoid harmful on your way to the destination. Unlike its predecessors, Sonic Superstars exchanges this traditional fast-paced pace for new abilitys, more exploration, several mini-games and slightly more difficult bosses. Most of this stylistic change works well for most stories with several campaigns of about 15 hours Superstars-the new Emerald Powers of Chaos are a great addition to the formula and will help you get the most out of the stages that focus a little less on blind sprinting to the end the first time and more on hunting for secrets, as they do. But while this slightly different Sonic flavor may be fun, I couldn’t help but feel like superstars is not found the main thing I love about the show: speed.
Sonic Superstars offers three main game modes: a campaign with three individual stories that will be unlocked after after completing the previous ones, an eight-player action mode and a time trial mode. The story mode takes you through 11 areas in the new Northstar Islands and presents eye-catching levels, sometimes inspired by other well-known stages in Sonic’s story. For example, the Speed Jungle Zone brings back the use of vines from the original Sonic the Hedgehog jungle zone, Pinball Carnival adds a fun yet scary touch to Sonic 3’s carnival night, and the Press Factory is a more industrial version of Sonic Mania’s Press Garden Zone. They are all incredibly charming, and while the sets sometimes make it difficult to distinguish what’s in front of them, they nail down the classic sound aesthetic that fans like me have come to love.
I don’t think that one of the new steps will be at the top of my list of all-time sound favorites, but there are a lot of great additions to the series here, and I enjoyed that everyone has a cool quirk. One has a great snake sniffing through the level and giving you an easy jump, while another has patches of thick fog obscuring your vision, and the only way to get a partial view is to run through a group of butterflies that follow and help illuminate the way. Golden Capital was especially remarkable in that it made her turn the scene around, switch in the middle of foreground and background, filling it with rings at every step. I also really enjoyed Lagoon City, which looked like a great water theme park and made the most of the new hydropower of one of the Chaos Emeralds. Such things made me hope to see similar creativity in future sonic 2D games.
But although I undoubtedly enjoyed playing through these stages, they may have questionable placements of harmfuls and enemies, and their decision to focus on platform instead of speed is ultimately disappointing. There are several routes in each level: the higher you climb, the faster the route, while the lower routes are even more focused on the platform side. In the starting, it was fun to explore these lower roads and use different playable characters and the different emerald powers of chaos to explore their less simplified paths in search of secrets. But after I found out that my only honour for this exploration was either more rings or a currency used for cosmetics in lackluster multiplayer, there was not much incentive to navigate through additional harmfuls and enemies.
This meant that in the end I just wanted to stick to the good old way of driving fast, but even driving down the higher roads, I didn’t feel the speed I expected in Sonic’s last 30 years. It was only after the 15 hours that I had deleted the entire contents of the story that I was able to go back and find more efficient routes to get a superior feel for this speed. Still, it doesn’t help that it all feels a little too slow for your first playthrough, especially before you’ve found the Seven Chaos Emeralds and can become Super Sonic.
Collecting the Chaos Emeralds is easier than ever this time, as the increasing emphasis on exploration encouraged me to look for the great Golden Rings they hide on my travels. If you find one, play a short mini-game where you have to chase the Emerald of Chaos by swinging from point to point until you catch up with it and finally unlock it when you do. This was the only mini-game for which I did not mind quitting, as they were entertaining, and also honoured them in the form of new Chaos Emerald powers.
That’s right, Chaos Emeralds are no longer limited to granting Sonic alone the ability to become Super, since everyone now grants a unique power. The Avatar and lead abilities quickly became my favorites, as the former create clones that run across the screen, finish enemies, collect rings or break through walls to open new roads, while lead allows you to jump in the direction of your choice several times during the duration. lead has also become extremely useful when playing as Sonic, as it does not have the additional movement options that you get when playing as Tails, Knuckles or Amy. There’s also a new addition to the cast in the form of Trip, a secret new character (designed by Sonic and Eggman creator Naoto Oshima) who first travels with Fang before playing a bigger role in the overall story after completing the first of three campaigns.