Collecting Chaos Emeralds in Sonic games as a child always felt special. I have fond memories of leaping over falling spiky logs to discover a shimmering gem behind a waterfall in Sonic on the Master System, my first Sonic love. Then there was corkscrewing down a tunnel in Sonic 2 and collecting blue orbs in Sonic and Knuckles, that squelching sound imprinted on my brain. Chaos Emeralds were an achievement for only the most dedicated Sonic players.
Not so with Sonic Superstars, the latest from Sega. That's because each jewel is paired with a special ability like summoning duplicate characters, or swimming up waterfalls, or revealing hidden platforms. These abilities could have added depth to gameplay, but they're totally optional to complete the game and, ultimately, a superfluous and underutilised modernism. After grabbing the first couple with ease, I forgot they existed. They're an opportunity squandered, but unfortunately that's Sonic Superstars on the whole.
Returning to 2D side-scrolling once again, it's clear Sega wishes to revive classic Sonic but with modern sensibilities. It has all the right trappings: a gorgeous animated introduction; a verdant hedgehog utopia of an opening level with loops, twists and chequerboard hills; familiar ring chimes, jump sounds, and a death stare from an impatient Sonic if he's left waiting. But it has the wrong ones too: a laughably bad special stage with poor perspective, cheap difficulty throughout, and level gimmicks that too easily break momentum.
For me, the best Sonic zones are not just about speed but flow and momentum. Platform challenges combine with impressive obstacles to overcome at high velocity, Sonic rarely pausing to take a breath. There are reasons to explore for secrets, but how quickly can you collect them? How optimal is your route? Playing a Sonic game should feel like a rush, the hedgehog leaping, swooping, spiralling, pushing the limits of the screen and the player's control. Give me a Chemical Plant Zone, a Stardust Speedway, a Flying Battery Zone. Flow is fundamental to Sonic. And it's missing from Sonic Superstars.
In part that's down to Sonic himself. The feel of control and momentum is akin to the Mega Drive classics, but he's just slightly too sluggish, too slow to accelerate, too quick to stop. Even at top speeds he never shifts from the centre of the screen to intensify the pace. More so, it's down to level design. There are some fun stage gimmicks in Sonic Superstars and Sega deserves to be applauded for its inventiveness and pushing boundaries. Yet for every good idea there are a myriad of bad ones that slow Sonic to a crawl, be it shifting sands, steam-powered mechanisms, or blasts of air. And, as always, Sonic's biggest nemesis is water.
Take Speed Jungle: it features twisting, looping vines to dash along, but its second act is a slow slog through the dark where you can't see ahead. Sky Temple has fun sections based on Breakout, but elsewhere swirling fans lift Sonic like a stone. Press Factory's second act cleverly requires players hit a series of buttons to prevent a machine in the background from self-destructing the entire level, but the first act has repeating slams that launch Sonic (usually into spikes) and interrupt the flow. The final zone has a fun time travel twist, but that means floating through zero-gravity all over again.
It's clear Sega is attempting creativity to modernise the experience. That peaks with Cyber Station, a futuristic level that turns characters into little voxel bundles and then morphs them into different forms: a floating jellyfish, a shooting rocket, and a cute mouse in a nod to Chu Chu Rocket. It's playful and fun, a smart way to vary the game's tempo. Elsewhere, though, zones too often have a staccato rhythm at odds with Sonic's key ability: running really fast.
Flow is hindered further by cheap difficulty and infuriatingly placed obstacles. Spike traps are positioned to interrupt your speed; enemies fire projectiles at just the wrong moment; and tiny platforms positioned over gaping chasms demand precision. These elements have always been present in Sonic games but serve only to slow and frustrate the player. Here, they wreck the pacing and it's not helped by a camera that's too zoomed in.
That cheapness impacts bosses too. They're a welcome challenge and feature more complex designs, but they go on for far too long and slow Sonic down to heighten difficulty by holding him in the air, on floating platforms, or underwater, forced to simultaneously leap obstacles and avoid incoming projectiles. That culminates in the tedious final boss, though cheapness extends to the player too - after countless attempts I simply summoned the Avatar Emerald power to defeat the boss for me, the only time I used it.
Of course, there's always been an element of exploration to Sonic games, on top of speed, that demands precise momentum. Sonic Superstars features welcome verticality, multiple routes and a greater emphasis on collectibles. There are the aforementioned Chaos Emeralds, found in Special Stages warped to form giant rings, and there are golden coins hidden away in both hard to reach areas and golden enemies. Some are also obtained by winning rotation puzzles that return from Sonic 1, though here they're vastly improved with logical designs and switches to flip layouts. The issue, though, is zones are visually unappealing and bland. Bridge Zone might make for a lush opening, but later levels are clichéd and lack the detail and character of the classic pixel environments, while the accompanying music is similarly unmemorable. Most fans will have their favourite zones from past games, but in Sonic Superstars I had no desire to replay any of them, for speedrunning or exploration.
Co-operative multiplayer is another reason for the slower pace. Sonic Superstars can be played by up to four players, taking on the roles of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy, all sharing one screen. For me, co-op is antithetical to Sonic. Nobody wants to play as Tails, struggling to keep up, falling off the screen, spending more time warping to the lead player than actually running and jumping. The slower pace may well be aimed at containing multiple players at once, but split screen (as conceived way back in Sonic 2) would have been preferable to either holding back other players or being held back yourself. In addition, there's a simple battle mode in which you control a customised robot shooting at or racing against others. I played for five minutes and won't return.
For all its issues though, at times Sonic Superstars still brings back joyful memories. I adore the 3D character models and smooth animations that feel authentic to the Mega Drive days. I love that you can switch out the menu wallpapers for retro artwork. Some levels in single player show other characters in the background to give a sweet sense of teamwork. I finished levels with a familiar fanfare, and left Sonic teetering on the edge of the capsule spring as I always used to.
And still, Sonic Superstars pales in comparison to the classics it's aping - and their reimagining in Sonic Mania. It's a perfectly predictable Sonic adventure with decent enough platforming, but in it Sega clings to outdated design from the past, and its modernisms are too inconsistent in quality. It's disappointing being a Sonic fan when Sega once again doesn't quite hit the mark. Sonic Frontiers - for all its faults - felt free and offered the fantasy of high velocity exploration. I loved it from the start. Sonic Superstars, by contrast, is a step backwards and misinterprets what makes its mascot fun. Sonic should be fast and cool. Instead, it lacks thrilling level design, funky tunes, and - most importantly - flow.
A copy of Sonic Superstars was provided for review by Sega.
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