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SEGA decided to finally give us a new 2D Classic Sonic game after 6 years, but this time developed by Arzest, known for plenty of titles, most notably one of the worst games of 2021 "Balan Wonderworld", but hey, maybe that was an accident.
First, of course, the graphics.
This is the first proper 2D Sonic game that doesn't use pixel art since Sonic 4, and it looks okay.
The character models are pretty well animated for the most part, it's also pretty colorful, however the zones themselves have fairly generic themes and the graphics don't help them convey anything else. They almost feel totally empty foreground and background-wise, it's odd how the Sonic games with pixel art have way more detail and charm.
The music is also subpar, especially for a Sonic game.
They hired the Avengers of composers to make one of the most forgettable soundtracks imaginable, the only memorable track is the Zone clear theme that they ripped straight from Mania, and it sticks out, cause the rest of the OST doesn't have that style. Jun Senoue went to work and whipped out that synth and drums to desperately make music that sounds like the old Classic Sonic games to no avail, it ends up being forgettable with a complete lack of identity.
Now to the gameplay, you don't need to worry about the physics, they are almost a 1:1 copy of the physics from Sonic Mania, but good physics doesn't mean good level design.
The level design completely misses the mark, in concept it understands that multiple paths = Sonic game, but in its execution it feels more like Sonic CD where half the act is a literal labyrinth. It's very stop & go, you can only really go fast when the game allows you to do so, and it doesn't help that the camera is so zoomed in that you have trouble seeing what's ahead of you. Sure, this is a critique that many Classic Sonic games have had over the years, but in this game it especially rings true. Furthermore, getting the optimal path is synonymous with automation, there are so many moments where you just watch stuff happen, or you hold to the right with nothing happening, but when something happens oh well, it's over. This game LOVES instant death traps that crush you. Let me tell you, making your later zones harder doesn't mean making them full of instant deaths, it's cheap and unavoidable, after all, you got that limited vision to deal with. Even cheaper are deaths caused by going too fast, due to the gimmick being the floor "spawning in".
What's even more embarrassing is how Sonic Superstars boasted about having original zones, and then decides to instead rip-off gimmicks from older games. You aren't being original, you just moved your copy & paste problem to another part of the levels. Now we have the bubbles, ice and the weird spinning balls from Titanic Monarch from Mania in this game, and it's just such a blatant rip-off that I can't even consider this a "nod to the series". Additionally, we have a worse drill than the drill Wisp from Sonic Colors.
Another issue is the pacing. Some zones have 1 act, some have 2, and some even 3. They already figured out in 1993 that 2 acts are more than enough for a zone, after that it drags on, despite that they even made 1 act long zones drag on. There's no reason for a Sonic game to have levels that take 5–8 minutes to complete, even with the perfect route. The levels aren't even that interesting, why do they take so long?
The answer is: The bosses. These are some of the worst bosses in the series. Some of them take two minutes, but there are even ones that take longer than the act they're in, with one of them clocking in at 5 minutes. You can't even speed up the process. They removed the option to do multiple hits during a boss' phase, so it's just a game of how long you have to wait 'til you get another hit in. They take the wind out of the sails and make you want to replay the game less and less.
Let's move on to the Special Stages, cause at least they aren't the worst.
They aren't good, they aren't bad, just kind of there. You have to homing attack floating objects and swing yourself to the Emerald. There are occasionally springs sprinkled throughout the stage that help you get to your destination faster, but that's it. Just press A and you will make it eventually.
Chaos Emeralds not only grant you Super Sonic, but you also get a Special Ability from each Emerald. These range from fine to being so situational that you won't use them even once during your playthrough. The only useful ones are the ones that help you speed up the bosses or go to another path, although they still are so optional that you don't even need to use them at all, they could've been a neat mechanic, but they end up being more of an underutilized gimmick.
The worst part about the Chaos Emeralds, though, is that you need to finish the game twice to actually fight the true final boss. Why change something that’s been a staple of this franchise for decades? You’re just trying to make me play that shoehorned in slightly harder mode that barely has any merit.
However, the worst part of this game is easily the Coop. They marketed it so much and it’s so undercooked, it’s one of the worst cooperative multiplayer experiences I, and my friend ever had.
The game does NOT let you leave the screen for even a millisecond. The moment you go off-screen, you despawn and have to respawn next to your mate. The bigger issue is that it doesn’t even zoom out when you’re far apart. This is not intuitive for a Sonic game, where you can be on the other half of the screen by simply touching a spring or bounce pad.
Even the gimmicks in the level are controlled by the player the game currently considers the “main player” which you can’t know. There’s for example a torch gimmick in Speed Jungle Act 2, surprisingly only one player gets the torch and the other stays in the dark, the light isn’t even that bright, so you easily end up staying in the dark, not knowing where you're at.
To add insult to injury, there are SINGLEPLAYER ACTS IN THE COOP, so you have to tell your friend to sit in the cuck chair while you’re busy for the next 5 minutes or so. These acts are character specific ones that are designed after the character’s abilities, but why couldn’t you just add 4 different colors for each character to ensure that your as coop advertised experience is actually coop? It's a punch to the gut, since I think the character specific levels are a neat idea.
Obviously, to make this the least cooperative coop, the game simply doesn't allow you using the Chaos Emerald abilities individually, including Super forms, leading to your friend enjoying a speed and jump distance boost, while you keep respawning for being too slow.
I am not someone who encounters bugs often, even in buggy games. Sonic Superstars differs, by being undoubtedly one of the most unpolished and buggy 2D Sonic games ever conceived.
There are so many glitches that I had to open a text file to keep track of them. The most obvious one was simply falling through the floor during the final boss, even the rings did that on occasion, meaning I had to retry it multiple times for something that isn’t my fault.
Other bugs include not being able to respawn, getting soft locked, music stops playing after using an Emerald power, drowning through air, enemies not spawning in, except for their projectiles, enemies thinking the floor is a suggestion and clipping right through it, them crediting people, but there's literally no name, and other visual glitches like the pause UI not appearing.
The one thing that wasted the everyone's time wasn't a bug, it was the devs forgetting about a skip credits button. These are 10 minutes long, and if you want to fully finish the game you need to sit through them thrice, enough for me to go out and get some groceries.
Superstars is at best mediocre & at worst atrocious to play. It does everything wrong that Mania perfected 6 years prior. 4/10.