Sonic Superstars: A New 2D Sonic Game (Fall 2023)

I preorderd Superstars and went dark on it about a week before it came out. I knew relatively little about the game, especially compared to other releases in the series over the past decade and half. I also knew nothing about its reception post release save for a Famitsu review score.

I can assuredly say I don't regret it. I thoroughly enjoyed this game from beginning to end, and after finally beating the final boss after several tries I was very satisfied and was ready to do it all over again, this time having collected all the emeralds. And so I am doing right now.

Could some things have been executed better? Absolutely; the audiovisual presentation is inconsistent, Knuckles' climbing and gliding is busted (really hoping that gets patched later on) and there are bits and pieces everywhere that I could nitpick about if I willed myself to.

But most prevalent to me is that the level design is mostly fantastic, it's reasonably challenging and the game itself is just a whole lot of fun. I really enjoy the energy of this game. It makes me happy.

Great job Artoo-, er, Arzest.

 

Half of the time I'm playing Mania I'm just holding down and waiting for the level to send me into the next bit of platforming. It absolutely doesn't encourage exploration, if you want to explore you actively have to fight the game propelling you forward through everything.

Which is weird, because I didn't really like the bonus stages and didn't go out of my way to play them, greatly preferring Mania's special stages.

Superstars does only let you hit bosses when it says so, but I don't agree that these are long periods nor are they untelegraphed. I never had any issues with BIZ2, outside of the transformation (which I agree is far too long) when you bonk him he flashes and bangs his fist on the console, when he's done banging his fists he's vulnerable again.

I've played through solo as each character (including Trip and the final boss) as well as co-op. I just haven't bought the game myself because it's triple the price it should be. Golden Capital's boss is definitely one of the bullshit ones though.

 

Yeah I couldn't disagree with you more. The bosses, especially the 'final bosses' of each story is as cheap and nasty as it gets. They're not even fun. And you can't cheese those bosses with the Avatar ability when it has a near 20 second animation between the hittable moments. In fact the cheese comes right back at you when the bosses can kill you even if you have rings. I don't understand how anyone can think that Mania's Flying Battery or Stardust Speedway bosses are more 'unfair' than Superstars' final bosses.

Buy the game, play through Trip's story and see for yourself. It's infuriating as hell and a real sour note to end the game.

 

I think it just depends on how much you enjoy old school "trial and error" game design. For some, learning those patterns and overcoming such a blatantly unfair challenge will be fulfilling. When

Spoiler

Fang smacked into the screen just like he'd made me do a dozen times, it was so cathartic that I jumped off the couch and cheered.

For other people, it's the most mind-numbingly frustrating thing a game can do, and the catharsis of overcoming it isn't remotely worth the frustration of pushing through it. Different strokes, you know?

One thing I'll say against it, though, is that it's not gonna be as fun to replay due to all the downtime between attacks. Sonic 2 had an absolutely BS difficulty spike at the end too, but once you know what to do and you get good enough, you can bust up Mecha Sonic and the Death Egg Robot in under a minute. The main campaign boss isn't as bad since you can nail it repeatedly in the second phase, but the final boss of Trip's Story? I'll probably only bother with that every once in a while.

 

At this point I feel like "nostalgia bait" just means "anything that comes from or looks like it came from a previous game".

 

So I just completed the game completely. Beat the true final boss. I found the penultimate boss significantly more annoying than the final boss but that might just be me.

Overall, I find it hard to say what I think about this game. I initially said it was a 6/10 dragged down to 5/10 because of the horrendous bosses. But to be honest I just don't think it makes a good impression. I really do think it is an incredibly ugly game. The bosses are awful and go on for way too long, even if you can skip some of the tedium with emerald powers (which I can appreciate more now I am more experienced in the game). Some of the levels are a bit weird and the game has some bizarre quirks such as its obsession with fruit. It's weird that they give such focus on the medals when you can't play as the robot in story levels. But Superstars is also...fun? Strangely fun. It's ugly, makes an awful first impression, but has a great personality .

The rest of this post will be why I like this game in many ways. If you want my criticisms of the game I've made them before and still stand by them. But I kind of like this game now

I actually enjoyed Trip's story a lot. Hated the bosses, but I thought that the more difficult levels were actually fairly well balanced and also were made in such a way where you could use the emerald powers in a variety of ways to minimise the difficulty of the challenges presented to you. And it all felt very organic! A difficult post-game story mode which was a well-balanced challenge, outside of the bosses!

Thinking about the levels, there are some which are just great on the first playthrough (Bridge Island, Speed Jungle, Pinball Carnival). But there are also a fair few which grew on me over repeated playing (Press Factory, Golden Capital, Cyber Station). There are a few outright duds mind, like Frozen Base, which is absolutely awful. But every Sonic game has at least one or two boring levels.

The game clearly has some influences of Sonic CD, most notably apparently in Speed Jungle. Sonic CD tends to have a significant focus on vertical exploration and trapdoor pathways that lead either to nowhere or just knock you back. Complete experimentation in level design and often breaking of the rules. A pipeway that leads...backwards and nowhere! There's not really much of that in Superstars, Yet some of the levels in CD are often made entirely around a gimmick: Wacky Workbench is famous, but Stardust Speedway and Metallic Madness are similar. This clearly influenced Superstars in levels such as Pinball Carnival 2, Amy's Lagoon, Press Factory, Cyber Station, etc. The level gimmicks have a clear personality and are a focus of some levels.

But the level design on a fundamental basis is a lot more of Sonic 1 meets Sonic 3. And that's honestly why I like the levels. They have the difficulty and precision of Sonic 1, with a lot of mandatory platforming to progress. You don't just run forwards all the time like in Sonic 2 and Mania. But this design is merged with the open-endedness, pathway choice making, and balanced speed focus of Sonic 3. The levels even often reward you with speed setpieces in exactly the same way as Sonic 3. Honestly I feel like Superstars really nails a lot of the level design. It successfully merges the best elements of Sonic 1, CD, and 3. I love Sonic 2 but it's nice to play a game which takes a lot of inspiration from Sonic 1. I'm a huge fan of Sonic 1.

As a sidenote, Superstars is also similar to CD, in the fact it is fundamentally flawed and will probably garner a similar cult appreciation, despite playing very differently. In the same way as CD has poor time travel implementation and strange, often mystifying level design, Superstars is similarly flawed in its awful, tedious bosses, poor presentation, etc. But Superstars is also enjoyable despite these clear flaws, much like CD.

And on the bosses. As annoying and tedious as they are, in concept they are actually well designed . They just go on for way too long and have incredibly obnoxious invincibility frames.

I'm also growing quite fond of the soundtrack, maybe I really have lost it! But I think Speed Forest Sonic, Lagoon Amy, Golden Capital Act 2, for example, are quite lovely songs. I stand by my opinion actually that Tee Lopes's compositions are quite mediocre by his high standards.

 

I know what you mean about the soundtrack growing on you. Initially there were songs I loved, and songs I wasn't as keen on. But after a few days, music mods started coming out, and I combed through the soundtrack and realized... oh no. There are only a few (most notably the early game boss music) that I still want to replace. Once I spent enough time in the levels, the songs became too irrevocably tied to them, and even the ones I didn't initially care for kept getting stuck in my head.

 

I honestly think Tee Lopes was right on his tweet saying HIS work was better in Superstars than Mania. And his doing in Mania were already amazing.

Like, Speed Jungle Act 1, Sand Sanctuary and Lagoon City Act 2 are songs that can really get stuck on your mind. I honestly loved he made his song feel different enough from Mania but still sound like "Classic Sonic songs". His takes on "Eletronic" music honestly sounds so awesome.

Rintaro Soma and Hiro deserves some credits too for the awesome songs they have made. I think in a way, even Jun deserves some credits too, because while it was Tee who arranged Bridge Island theme, it was Jum himself who composed it and it's a good melody that sounds like a 90's song. Also, it was Jun Senoue who invited Tee Lopes to the soundtrack itself.

So, yeah, despite its inconsistence, I still think it's a nice soundtrack. I just wish it could be finished as whole.

 

Tee’s tracks for Superstars are good, but personally I still prefer his work on Mania. Granted, I’ve said they enhance the atmosphere of their levels much better than Superstars, but maybe it’s just as simple as they’ve been around to get stuck into my head longer. Either way, every original track in Mania (and all the arrangements) are pretty much seared into my head at this point. Then again, both acts of Bridge Island and Speed Jungle Act 1 are ones I’ve found myself humming a lot since hearing them.

 

I found the final boss adrenaline inducing, in a way that hasn’t happened since Sonic 2 decades ago. The challenge was a welcome factor to me, really having to learn the ins and outs of the boss. Took me three nights of having a few tries and putting it down so as to avoid burnout.

Also, I honestly don’t miss being able to “cheese“ a boss. In the classics, they’re over in seconds. I enjoyed the change in origins, where you couldn’t beat robotnik in ghz before he has the ball out. Added challenge is a good thing if you can learn to enjoy it.

Now, Crash Bandicoot 4 is almost infuriating even for a person like me, they took the challenge too far, but maybe playing that is why I found the kind of challenge superstars has to offer more enjoyable.

 

I'm similar (right down to the tedium with Crash 4). Press Factory 2 and its boss is another example of a retro type difficult challenge, and while it was indeed quite infuriating, I kinda appreciate it being there as that noteworthy spike in the game. I dunno I have this kind of lethargic relationship to recent Sonic games besides Mania, even ones that are arguably quite good they feel kinda unmemorable, while Superstars I think starts off kinda similar but ups its game as it goes along without being too relentlessly frustrating.

The engine needs some refinement however, especially the PS4 version which just CAN'T handle multiplayer right now. Playing as Knuckles and trying to climb is also unjustifiably cumbersome.

 

I've legitimately no idea how this managed to slip by anyone on the development team. For some reason, Knuckles will not climb up/down a wall if you are even slightly pressing left/right. It's infuriating and makes climbing a real stop-start-stop-start process.

 

Yup, agreed. I was on the edge of my seat avoiding the webs and shots in the second phase of Trip’s final boss. Very satisfying to defeat.

 

I said this a few a weeks ago on another site, but I really have to wonder how people would feel about Sonic 2 had it came out today based on the reactions to Superstars.

 

I mean, Sonic 2 did come out again last year, and I thought it was stupid to not give the player rings in Death Egg zone, the same way I did when I first played it.

 

Sonic 2 has far less annoying bosses than Superstars. Even the hardest ones, like Wing Fortress, can be clearly attacked at any moment.

The only boss which is comparable is Death Egg, which was always notorious for being difficult. But that pales in comparison to Trip's final boss.

 

Well put, I was actually about to say pretty much the same thing. The bosses of the classics were mostly effortless encounters and weren't the highlights of their respective games except for their incredible accompanying music. The bosses in Superstars actually involve effort to beat and it is satisfying getting their patterns down, especially Death Egg Robot Grande. The much-longer window of opportunity of dealing damage makes them awkward encounters the first time through, but after getting acclimated I do enjoy fighting them. They just tend to drag on a little too long. Especially the later ones. Also, the early boss music doesn't leave a good first impression.

The only boss I really don't care for is the monkey one. Way too much down time, there.

 

I mean I definitely think that, say press factory is way more engaging than oil ocean or metropolis that have way too many cheap hits and almost none of the S2 bosses are interesting!

 

Bit of insight from Tee Lopes about the music for Speed Jungle Act1 (which he composed):

https://twitter.com/TeeLopes/status/1718677539424550954

"This theme was inspired by the Amazon Forest with many of its instruments imitating animal sounds, and many South American elements (pan flute, cavaquinho, Samba drums, etc) over an EDM beat and a dancy synth bassline. Prob one of my favorite works!"

 

This one guy made a video reacting to the Superstars soundtrack and pointed out the animal sounds didn't sit right with him. He said it sounded stereotypical etc., and in a bad way. Tee Lopes actually replied to that video, saying the intention was to be as if animals -- a choir of jungle animals (think gorillas, bears, cuckoos, and other birds), he said -- were chanting, "Broadway style", and not everything should be over analyzed.

But I have to say: the animal sounds did not, in fact, sit right with me either. "Broadway style" makes it worse, actually, because the aesthetics roots of that tradition are deeply rooted in colonialism. And Tee Lopes being Portuguese -- that is, from the country that violently destryed indigenous cultures for over 300 years in Brazil and Africa -- makes it even worse to me. There are indigenous chants and instruments based on local animals' sounds that he could have studied and used, and here is the thing: there are no bears or gorillas in South America (EDIT: oh okay there is exactly one bear species in South America. They live in the Andes though). So it sounds like a catch-all "Jungle" theme, mixing up elements from all around the world, that doesn't refer to any culture or biome in particular and doesn't quite pay respects to any musical style that originated there.

If you are going to do that, fine.¹ But don't get on the Internet, bold-faced, and talk about the South American influences on the music when they do not refer to the cultures or the animals that live here. The brownie points you get are ill-gotten gains. It does sound narrow-minded and stemming from a typical colonialist mindset. It is worth overanalyzing.

¹ It's not, in fact, fine. But even if we let it slide,