I've been a fan of the Sonic The Hedgehog series for years, arguably since I could first hold a controller. Been there since the 2D entries, the transition to 3D, watching Sonic X Saturday mornings on Fox, you name it I was probably there. Hell, even with it's faults and obvious warts, I still had a good time with Frontiers.
But I can't sugarcoat it, Sonic Superstars is a disappointment. I didn't expect something on the same exact quality as those Classic Genesis games, or Mania even. I went into it wanting to at least like it and have a decent game to play and come back to every now and then. What I got is a game that's serviceable for it's first half, and takes a nosedive in quality so bad in it's second half that it makes the level design in some of Dimps' Sonic titles seem fair and reasonable by comparison.
The gameplay is just what you'd expect from a 2D Sonic, you have 4 playable characters from the start each with their own unique abilities (Tails can fly, Knuckles can glide/climb walls, Amy can use her hammer and has a double jump etc.). That's mostly fine and dandy, if you've played a 2D Sonic, you know what you're in for. The momentum is something though. Sometimes it's fairly close to the original Classic games and you're hitting speeds very similar. Other times, you're going really fast (say, through a tube for example) and the game forces you back down to a base speed instead of letting you keep said momentum. The easiest way to explain it is to imagine Classic Sonic's gameplay in Sonic Forces, but tweaked to not be as egregiously bad as that game handled. I don't mean that in a good way.
Level Design goes from being pretty standard and occasionally interesting, to some of the worst levels I've ever experienced in a Classic Sonic title. When you get a level that's not bad you're usually having a fairly good time, maybe there was a gimmick or two that didn't land but you leave it feeling satisfied to an extent. When a bad level hits, the only thing on your mind is "I hope this ends soon" the farther you get into it. The final Zone of the game is genuinely the absolute worst about this. Without going into spoilers, it feels like Arzest just called in the developers for the Advance games to come in and design a Zone, and then they tweaked it after the fact to add even more unfun gimmicks to it.
Speaking of "unfun", the boss fights. Classic Sonic bosses, with some exceptions, all work the same in some fashion. The boss is always vulnerable, but there is usually an attack pattern to follow despite that. Superstars decided that it would be a perfect idea to make it to where you have to wait for the boss to expose their weak point before you can even get one hit in. Early on it's not that much of a problem, you can still mostly hit the bosses without waiting for their weak points to come out. It's when you get further into the game and each boss gets progressively longer and more obvious about this that it gets very frustrating.
Chaos Emeralds are naturally back. The Special Stages for them are the easiest in Sonic history, only one of them (Emerald 5) gave me any level of a challenge. They're fine for what they are honestly. Each Emerald gives you an Emerald Power that you can use, one per Zone. I'll be honest though, I only really used two of them in my entire playthrough. Avatar as it's basically a screen nuke that speeds up certain boss fights, and Bullet due to it being useful for getting to higher ground. The rest are either very useless or situational. The Bonus Stages, which you access by jumping into a portal over a checkpoint if you pass it with a certain number of rings, are just three Sonic 1 Special Stages taped to each other. I avoided these whenever I could, as I didn't really have much fun with them.
I don't think this game is outright awful, there's still some good to come of it. As stated prior, the first half of the game is mostly a decent time. The graphics and character animations are very good. One thing I hope Sega keeps for future games is that you can now fast fall when Tails is in a flying state which is so genuinely useful. While the music is mostly not worth writing home about, there's still some tracks that are good (Pinball Carnival Act 1 was exceptionally great). There's some things to like about this game, the last half genuinely being the way it is ultimately keeps me from recommending this however, especially at it's price point of $60. If you're wanting to give it a go, wait on a very big sale.
But I can't sugarcoat it, Sonic Superstars is a disappointment. I didn't expect something on the same exact quality as those Classic Genesis games, or Mania even. I went into it wanting to at least like it and have a decent game to play and come back to every now and then. What I got is a game that's serviceable for it's first half, and takes a nosedive in quality so bad in it's second half that it makes the level design in some of Dimps' Sonic titles seem fair and reasonable by comparison.
The gameplay is just what you'd expect from a 2D Sonic, you have 4 playable characters from the start each with their own unique abilities (Tails can fly, Knuckles can glide/climb walls, Amy can use her hammer and has a double jump etc.). That's mostly fine and dandy, if you've played a 2D Sonic, you know what you're in for. The momentum is something though. Sometimes it's fairly close to the original Classic games and you're hitting speeds very similar. Other times, you're going really fast (say, through a tube for example) and the game forces you back down to a base speed instead of letting you keep said momentum. The easiest way to explain it is to imagine Classic Sonic's gameplay in Sonic Forces, but tweaked to not be as egregiously bad as that game handled. I don't mean that in a good way.
Level Design goes from being pretty standard and occasionally interesting, to some of the worst levels I've ever experienced in a Classic Sonic title. When you get a level that's not bad you're usually having a fairly good time, maybe there was a gimmick or two that didn't land but you leave it feeling satisfied to an extent. When a bad level hits, the only thing on your mind is "I hope this ends soon" the farther you get into it. The final Zone of the game is genuinely the absolute worst about this. Without going into spoilers, it feels like Arzest just called in the developers for the Advance games to come in and design a Zone, and then they tweaked it after the fact to add even more unfun gimmicks to it.
Speaking of "unfun", the boss fights. Classic Sonic bosses, with some exceptions, all work the same in some fashion. The boss is always vulnerable, but there is usually an attack pattern to follow despite that. Superstars decided that it would be a perfect idea to make it to where you have to wait for the boss to expose their weak point before you can even get one hit in. Early on it's not that much of a problem, you can still mostly hit the bosses without waiting for their weak points to come out. It's when you get further into the game and each boss gets progressively longer and more obvious about this that it gets very frustrating.
Chaos Emeralds are naturally back. The Special Stages for them are the easiest in Sonic history, only one of them (Emerald 5) gave me any level of a challenge. They're fine for what they are honestly. Each Emerald gives you an Emerald Power that you can use, one per Zone. I'll be honest though, I only really used two of them in my entire playthrough. Avatar as it's basically a screen nuke that speeds up certain boss fights, and Bullet due to it being useful for getting to higher ground. The rest are either very useless or situational. The Bonus Stages, which you access by jumping into a portal over a checkpoint if you pass it with a certain number of rings, are just three Sonic 1 Special Stages taped to each other. I avoided these whenever I could, as I didn't really have much fun with them.
I don't think this game is outright awful, there's still some good to come of it. As stated prior, the first half of the game is mostly a decent time. The graphics and character animations are very good. One thing I hope Sega keeps for future games is that you can now fast fall when Tails is in a flying state which is so genuinely useful. While the music is mostly not worth writing home about, there's still some tracks that are good (Pinball Carnival Act 1 was exceptionally great). There's some things to like about this game, the last half genuinely being the way it is ultimately keeps me from recommending this however, especially at it's price point of $60. If you're wanting to give it a go, wait on a very big sale.