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Description
SONIC SUPERSTARS.
Developed by: Sonic Team and Arzest.
Published by: Sega.
Genre: Platformer.
Rated: U (Suitable for everyone).

The best way to look at Sonic Team is that they’re the LucasFilm of the gaming industry: Nice ideas on paper, poor execution and they never learn their lesson.

Sonic Mania was an amazing throwback to the 2D side scrolling roots of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, while being criticised for nostalgia-pandering and offering little in terms of originality. Sonic Superstars is essentially what happens if you made Sonic Mania again, but failed to understand what made Mania great in the first place. It's alright, but the lack of polish holds it back from ‘superstar’ status (if you see what I did there).

I'm just going to get this out of the way now: I'm fully aware that Arzest also produced Balan Wonderland for Square-Enix. Because I haven't played that game, I am not going to mark Superstars down because of it. Also, I point the finger of blame for that title's failure at the feet of Yuji Naka: a notorious shitheel who's infamous for taking other people's ideas, that he’s basically the Carlos Mencia of the video game world.

This is gonna be a fairly straightforward review because, well, it's another 2D Sonic game. It's a bit like Ronseal; “it does exactly what it says on the tin.” If that's all you needed to hear, then you will love this game and I recommend it after a price drop.

The plot is: Dr. Robotnik is being a twat and Sonic has to stop him - The End. God, I love the Classic era. No open-worlds, no terrible voice acting, no convoluted bollocks about ancients, eldritch deities or Zelda plagiarism. Robotnik also recruits the talents of Fang the Sn-I mean Hunter. I actually liked his reintroduction here as it gives Sonic another villainous goon to throw down with. The Sonic series could do with more antagonists besides relying on Eggman all the time (something the film series is coming to terms with).

The game also introduces a brand new character known as Trip. I'd say the name is pretty uninspired and generic, but this is the franchise that gave us Tails, Knuckles, Blaze, Cream, Silver, Big, Jet and fucking Mephistopheles. They also kept her gender very ambiguous through most of the campaign, because I think Sega knows if they had revealed a new female character, there would have been about 500 pregnancy images on DeviantART before they even finished that sentence.

As far as new introductions go, she’s decent at best. A nice introverted character who’s very timid and constantly wants to hide. A nice contrast to how most Sonic characters act and speak these days: Irritating hipsters who need to be pencilled in for a sudden visit from the angel of death. If I had to criticise, her introduction leaves a lack of context. She’s working with Robotnik and Fang because [reason not given]. She dresses up like Go-Bot at first because [Reason not given]. She turns on Fang and aids Sonic because [reason not given]. And she knows how to seal the dragon at the end away because, you guessed it, [reason not given].

I get this is the Classic Era and you couldn’t fit in 20 minute cutscenes to explain shit, but you offer an interesting new character that left me asking a lot of questions I know I won’t get answers to. Other than that, her colour palette was also used for Marine the Raccoon and Sticks the Badger, so it feels a little uninspired.

The game gives you 4 playable characters: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy, but Trip also becomes playable upon completion of the main campaign. Trip also gains a solo story, but it's essentially "the hard mode." I don't think this mode is worth it if I'm being honest. All four characters play exactly as they did in Sonic Origins Plus, while Trip feels like a mashup of all four of them.

Another new edition is the complete reinvention of the Chaos Emeralds. You know how they’ve been called plot macguffins or a Dragon Ball Z reference? Well, Superstars decided to change that by giving each Emerald its own unique and individual superpower. You can have Sonic shoot through the air like a flaming bullet, summon a giant Poison Ivy plant out of the ground, travel through water as a weird blob, slow down time (which could be an early example of Chaos Control in this franchise) or summon a bunch of random avatars of yourself to run across the screen and get killed for no reason whatsoever. It's a nice idea and gives them some practical use besides turning Sonic into a Super Saiyan for the final battle, but it just feels poorly implemented and acts as a subpar version of the Wisps from Sonic Colors.

While there's thankfully no Green Hill Zone, the general level variety hasn't evolved for over two decades. There's your standard jungle level, water level, carnival/pinball level, snow level, factory/industrial level and of course "evil bastard space station" level. The only real new idea is a level themed around cyberspace and the internet that sees Sonic and pals turn into Minecraft models, jellyfish, rockets and mice - because?

In comparison to the last time Sonic Team tried their hand at 2D Sonic gameplay -that being Sonic Forces- this is indeed an improvement, but not quite on Sonic Mania's calibre. There's something about it that I can't quite put my finger on and the only way I could think to describe Superstars to Di’Aniss was “it's like driving a car, but there's butter on your tires.” Does that make sense?

A real area of contention are the boss fights. I know in Classic Sonic all the bosses could be cheesed in 15 seconds, if you knew what you were doing, but this feels like a massive course correct in the wrong direction. They're not terrible by any means, but much like that uncle that comes to visit you during Christmas and is still there by February: they really overstay their welcome. It's largely due to the fact the game slows down to a snail's pace; as in when you hit the boss, he takes a minute or two just to recover from the stun animation and then proceeds with the next phase. So what used to take fifteen seconds now goes on for about five minutes.

The final boss in particular being the worst offender, as it has two difficult phases that seem to go on for a bloody eon. I only managed to defeat it by dumb luck, but we’re talking after seventeen tries previously. Trip’s story has an even harder version of this boss. Yeah, thanks. but no thanks.

The funny thing is, neither is the final-final boss of the game. Once you somehow beat Trip’s story, a last story segment unlocks that sees Sonic throwing down with a giant Dragon that looks like a fusion of Dragonite and Zordrak from the Dream Stone (90’s kids will know what I’m talking about). While this dragon was teased in the animated feature that tied into Superstar’s release, the game itself really does nothing to set this up. Imagine finishing Ocarina of Time, but then Megatron appears as the credits begin rolling, demanding a punch up. It kinda puts it in the same frame as RoboCop: Rogue City if I'm being honet.

Before we get to the multiplayer I want to quickly talk about the soundtrack. I often consider Sonic and Mega Man to be the Tag Team Champions of the world when it comes to video game soundtracks, but Superstars OST doesn’t quite hit the mark for me. While the likes of Tee Lopes provide the absolute bangers, it's let down once again by Jun Senoue's inability to understand what made the Mega Drive’s tracks classics to begin with. I noticed this problem a lot during Sonic 4 (episodes 1&2) and in Sonic Forces. He tends to compose a track that lasts about ten seconds and then loops them to infinity.

While I could identify some really good tunes in both episodes of Sonic 4 (Lost Labyrinth Act II and Death Egg Mk.2), nothing about his contributions here really grabbed me or stuck out in my mind. Well, all except the boss music he composed, because I had to hear it for over five bloody minutes. Jun my man, just stick to what you're good at: jacking off with your guitar and leave the synthesiser shit to people who know what they're doing.

The multiplayer. Oh dear, the multiplayer.

Based on everyone's reaction online, I went into this mode with Di’Aniss expecting the absolute worst, but to be honest, two-player co-op in Superstars is just below average. It's not exactly the horror stories the internet had made it out to be, but maybe that's because we didn't have four player co-op with this thing.

I think the problem with four player drop-in/drop-out co-op with Sonic the Hedgehog is it's not designed to work with more than one person. Imagine you're eating a delicious bowl of spaghetti bolognese, but three other people are trying to eat from the same bowl as you at the exact same time. You can imagine what kind of clusterfuck that would produce, especially when everyone's trying to eat the meatballs first.

The main issue here is the camera locks onto one player and will off screen the other three before you can finish saying “IGN is bad at Sonic games.” The strangest thing is Superstars also addresses the issue with the battle mode multiplayer by giving the players split screen. How and why they couldn't do this for the main campaign baffles me, but I guess the answer involves “another rushed game out the door” Or as Sonic Team call it: “standard practice.”

Playing this in co-op kind of shows how much I'm used to Sonic’s shenanigans because Di’Aniss was having a miserable time getting to use the controls. We got as far as Pinball Carnival Zone before she declared “I'm bored” and we went back to Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

And lastly, something about the frame rate feels off. Maybe it's because we're playing the Nintendo Switch version -which is notorious for bad ports- but the game tended to chug harder than your mum at a sailor’s convention. Even completing acts would have the game load for a while before booting up Act 2. It's not Sonic 06 levels of terrible, but it's on the cusp.

(Conclusion).
Now we come to the part I know you're going to completely disagree with me, but all I ask is you at least hear me out. Because they were both released around the same time, it's natural to compare Sonic Superstars to Super Mario Bros. Wonder. I honestly had a better time with Superstars than I did with Wonder. Again, hear me out.
Upon completion of Wonder, I had no real desire to go back and play it again. It didn't grab me or stick out in my memory; in fact, my first thought was: “well, onto RoboCop: Rogue City!” I didn't hate my experience with it, but it hasn’t had a lasting impression. Superstars on the other hand kept me engaged to see it through to the end. I felt challenged by it and wanted to see what more it had to offer. I guess what I'm trying to say is: Wonder felt insultingly easy, while Superstars was surprisingly difficult.

To say something nice: I would recommend Wonder as a multiplayer experience, but not for a single player one. Superstars is the opposite as it made a wonderful single player campaign, but God help you if you try that multiplayer. However, they do share one thing in common though: they're both throwback games to a simpler time that don't quite hit the mark. They're good, but I've played better.

I'd like to close this review with the continued irritation I have whenever Classic Sonic shows his pudgy little face: The suggestion that everything from Sonic 1 up to Superstars will eventually lead into Sonic Adventure and the Modern era.

The main perpetrator of this bollocks is the head of Sonic Team, Takashi Izuka: a man who is, to use some All-Star lyrics for a moment, “ain't the sharpest tool in the shed.” His assertion that Superstars takes place after Mania, but right before Sonic Adventure leaves me scratching my head for a moment. So you expect me to believe that after the events of this game Sonic magically grows two feet in height, gains longer spines, loses the pudge and has green eyes out of nowhere, just in time to visit Tails’ Workshop in the Mystic Ruins for the release of Sonic Adventure? I'd say you're completely full of shit, but Rishi Sunak holds that title (well for now at least).

It's also a contradiction of what the series declared with Sonic Forces, by suggesting that Classic Sonic is from another dimension. I just want them to admit that Classic and Modern do not connect to each other in the slightest. That way, I can appreciate the Classic games and titles such as Mania and Superstars without having to worry about it eventually leading to the likes of Forces or Frontiers; in the same manner that Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts won’t lead into the Michael Bay Transformers movies.

It's a bit like telling someone their triple cheese, bacon and pepperoni pizza is going to lead to an extended bowel movement later in the evening. Why in fuck would you put that idea in there head while they're enjoying themselves?

Description
SONIC SUPERSTARS.
Developed by: Sonic Team and Arzest.
Published by: Sega.
Genre: Platformer.
Rated: U (Suitable for everyone).

The best way to look at Sonic Team is that they’re the LucasFilm of the gaming industry: Nice ideas on paper, poor execution and they never learn their lesson.

Sonic Mania was an amazing throwback to the 2D side scrolling roots of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, while being criticised for nostalgia-pandering and offering little in terms of originality. Sonic Superstars is essentially what happens if you made Sonic Mania again, but failed to understand what made Mania great in the first place. It's alright, but the lack of polish holds it back from ‘superstar’ status (if you see what I did there).

I'm just going to get this out of the way now: I'm fully aware that Arzest also produced Balan Wonderland for Square-Enix. Because I haven't played that game, I am not going to mark Superstars down because of it. Also, I point the finger of blame for that title's failure at the feet of Yuji Naka: a notorious shitheel who's infamous for taking other people's ideas, that he’s basically the Carlos Mencia of the video game world.

This is gonna be a fairly straightforward review because, well, it's another 2D Sonic game. It's a bit like Ronseal; “it does exactly what it says on the tin.” If that's all you needed to hear, then you will love this game and I recommend it after a price drop.

The plot is: Dr. Robotnik is being a twat and Sonic has to stop him - The End. God, I love the Classic era. No open-worlds, no terrible voice acting, no convoluted bollocks about ancients, eldritch deities or Zelda plagiarism. Robotnik also recruits the talents of Fang the Sn-I mean Hunter. I actually liked his reintroduction here as it gives Sonic another villainous goon to throw down with. The Sonic series could do with more antagonists besides relying on Eggman all the time (something the film series is coming to terms with).

The game also introduces a brand new character known as Trip. I'd say the name is pretty uninspired and generic, but this is the franchise that gave us Tails, Knuckles, Blaze, Cream, Silver, Big, Jet and fucking Mephistopheles. They also kept her gender very ambiguous through most of the campaign, because I think Sega knows if they had revealed a new female character, there would have been about 500 pregnancy images on DeviantART before they even finished that sentence.

As far as new introductions go, she’s decent at best. A nice introverted character who’s very timid and constantly wants to hide. A nice contrast to how most Sonic characters act and speak these days: Irritating hipsters who need to be pencilled in for a sudden visit from the angel of death. If I had to criticise, her introduction leaves a lack of context. She’s working with Robotnik and Fang because [reason not given]. She dresses up like Go-Bot at first because [Reason not given]. She turns on Fang and aids Sonic because [reason not given]. And she knows how to seal the dragon at the end away because, you guessed it, [reason not given].

I get this is the Classic Era and you couldn’t fit in 20 minute cutscenes to explain shit, but you offer an interesting new character that left me asking a lot of questions I know I won’t get answers to. Other than that, her colour palette was also used for Marine the Raccoon and Sticks the Badger, so it feels a little uninspired.

The game gives you 4 playable characters: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy, but Trip also becomes playable upon completion of the main campaign. Trip also gains a solo story, but it's essentially "the hard mode." I don't think this mode is worth it if I'm being honest. All four characters play exactly as they did in Sonic Origins Plus, while Trip feels like a mashup of all four of them.

Another new edition is the complete reinvention of the Chaos Emeralds. You know how they’ve been called plot macguffins or a Dragon Ball Z reference? Well, Superstars decided to change that by giving each Emerald its own unique and individual superpower. You can have Sonic shoot through the air like a flaming bullet, summon a giant Poison Ivy plant out of the ground, travel through water as a weird blob, slow down time (which could be an early example of Chaos Control in this franchise) or summon a bunch of random avatars of yourself to run across the screen and get killed for no reason whatsoever. It's a nice idea and gives them some practical use besides turning Sonic into a Super Saiyan for the final battle, but it just feels poorly implemented and acts as a subpar version of the Wisps from Sonic Colors.

While there's thankfully no Green Hill Zone, the general level variety hasn't evolved for over two decades. There's your standard jungle level, water level, carnival/pinball level, snow level, factory/industrial level and of course "evil bastard space station" level. The only real new idea is a level themed around cyberspace and the internet that sees Sonic and pals turn into Minecraft models, jellyfish, rockets and mice - because?

In comparison to the last time Sonic Team tried their hand at 2D Sonic gameplay -that being Sonic Forces- this is indeed an improvement, but not quite on Sonic Mania's calibre. There's something about it that I can't quite put my finger on and the only way I could think to describe Superstars to Di’Aniss was “it's like driving a car, but there's butter on your tires.” Does that make sense?

A real area of contention are the boss fights. I know in Classic Sonic all the bosses could be cheesed in 15 seconds, if you knew what you were doing, but this feels like a massive course correct in the wrong direction. They're not terrible by any means, but much like that uncle that comes to visit you during Christmas and is still there by February: they really overstay their welcome. It's largely due to the fact the game slows down to a snail's pace; as in when you hit the boss, he takes a minute or two just to recover from the stun animation and then proceeds with the next phase. So what used to take fifteen seconds now goes on for about five minutes.

The final boss in particular being the worst offender, as it has two difficult phases that seem to go on for a bloody eon. I only managed to defeat it by dumb luck, but we’re talking after seventeen tries previously. Trip’s story has an even harder version of this boss. Yeah, thanks. but no thanks.

The funny thing is, neither is the final-final boss of the game. Once you somehow beat Trip’s story, a last story segment unlocks that sees Sonic throwing down with a giant Dragon that looks like a fusion of Dragonite and Zordrak from the Dream Stone (90’s kids will know what I’m talking about). While this dragon was teased in the animated feature that tied into Superstar’s release, the game itself really does nothing to set this up. Imagine finishing Ocarina of Time, but then Megatron appears as the credits begin rolling, demanding a punch up. It kinda puts it in the same frame as RoboCop: Rogue City if I'm being honet.

Before we get to the multiplayer I want to quickly talk about the soundtrack. I often consider Sonic and Mega Man to be the Tag Team Champions of the world when it comes to video game soundtracks, but Superstars OST doesn’t quite hit the mark for me. While the likes of Tee Lopes provide the absolute bangers, it's let down once again by Jun Senoue's inability to understand what made the Mega Drive’s tracks classics to begin with. I noticed this problem a lot during Sonic 4 (episodes 1&2) and in Sonic Forces. He tends to compose a track that lasts about ten seconds and then loops them to infinity.

While I could identify some really good tunes in both episodes of Sonic 4 (Lost Labyrinth Act II and Death Egg Mk.2), nothing about his contributions here really grabbed me or stuck out in my mind. Well, all except the boss music he composed, because I had to hear it for over five bloody minutes. Jun my man, just stick to what you're good at: jacking off with your guitar and leave the synthesiser shit to people who know what they're doing.

The multiplayer. Oh dear, the multiplayer.

Based on everyone's reaction online, I went into this mode with Di’Aniss expecting the absolute worst, but to be honest, two-player co-op in Superstars is just below average. It's not exactly the horror stories the internet had made it out to be, but maybe that's because we didn't have four player co-op with this thing.

I think the problem with four player drop-in/drop-out co-op with Sonic the Hedgehog is it's not designed to work with more than one person. Imagine you're eating a delicious bowl of spaghetti bolognese, but three other people are trying to eat from the same bowl as you at the exact same time. You can imagine what kind of clusterfuck that would produce, especially when everyone's trying to eat the meatballs first.

The main issue here is the camera locks onto one player and will off screen the other three before you can finish saying “IGN is bad at Sonic games.” The strangest thing is Superstars also addresses the issue with the battle mode multiplayer by giving the players split screen. How and why they couldn't do this for the main campaign baffles me, but I guess the answer involves “another rushed game out the door” Or as Sonic Team call it: “standard practice.”

Playing this in co-op kind of shows how much I'm used to Sonic’s shenanigans because Di’Aniss was having a miserable time getting to use the controls. We got as far as Pinball Carnival Zone before she declared “I'm bored” and we went back to Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

And lastly, something about the frame rate feels off. Maybe it's because we're playing the Nintendo Switch version -which is notorious for bad ports- but the game tended to chug harder than your mum at a sailor’s convention. Even completing acts would have the game load for a while before booting up Act 2. It's not Sonic 06 levels of terrible, but it's on the cusp.

(Conclusion).
Now we come to the part I know you're going to completely disagree with me, but all I ask is you at least hear me out. Because they were both released around the same time, it's natural to compare Sonic Superstars to Super Mario Bros. Wonder. I honestly had a better time with Superstars than I did with Wonder. Again, hear me out.
Upon completion of Wonder, I had no real desire to go back and play it again. It didn't grab me or stick out in my memory; in fact, my first thought was: “well, onto RoboCop: Rogue City!” I didn't hate my experience with it, but it hasn’t had a lasting impression. Superstars on the other hand kept me engaged to see it through to the end. I felt challenged by it and wanted to see what more it had to offer. I guess what I'm trying to say is: Wonder felt insultingly easy, while Superstars was surprisingly difficult.

To say something nice: I would recommend Wonder as a multiplayer experience, but not for a single player one. Superstars is the opposite as it made a wonderful single player campaign, but God help you if you try that multiplayer. However, they do share one thing in common though: they're both throwback games to a simpler time that don't quite hit the mark. They're good, but I've played better.

I'd like to close this review with the continued irritation I have whenever Classic Sonic shows his pudgy little face: The suggestion that everything from Sonic 1 up to Superstars will eventually lead into Sonic Adventure and the Modern era.

The main perpetrator of this bollocks is the head of Sonic Team, Takashi Izuka: a man who is, to use some All-Star lyrics for a moment, “ain't the sharpest tool in the shed.” His assertion that Superstars takes place after Mania, but right before Sonic Adventure leaves me scratching my head for a moment. So you expect me to believe that after the events of this game Sonic magically grows two feet in height, gains longer spines, loses the pudge and has green eyes out of nowhere, just in time to visit Tails’ Workshop in the Mystic Ruins for the release of Sonic Adventure? I'd say you're completely full of shit, but Rishi Sunak holds that title (well for now at least).

It's also a contradiction of what the series declared with Sonic Forces, by suggesting that Classic Sonic is from another dimension. I just want them to admit that Classic and Modern do not connect to each other in the slightest. That way, I can appreciate the Classic games and titles such as Mania and Superstars without having to worry about it eventually leading to the likes of Forces or Frontiers; in the same manner that Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts won’t lead into the Michael Bay Transformers movies.

It's a bit like telling someone their triple cheese, bacon and pepperoni pizza is going to lead to an extended bowel movement later in the evening. Why in fuck would you put that idea in there head while they're enjoying themselves?