Sonic Superstars is a relatively fun experience, but perhaps too tame in terms of what it puts up to offer. The main story is short, and all stages can easily be completed in under 5 hours. For collectibles, there are Chaos Emeralds which give you unique abilities as well as Medals which are used in the Shop.
The Chaos Emerald abilities can be activated throughout each stage to varying effect and are fun to play around with (although somewhat limited in utility). The game will occasionally show an icon for a certain ability urging you to use it at a certain point in the stage, which helps to show off what they can do, but I felt that they were lacking in impact on any given stage. You might find some hidden Medals with their help, and speaking of Medals...
Medals can be collected in mini-games (we'll get to these later) and hidden throughout stages. Unfortunately, their use is very limited as the Shop only contains customization parts for your multiplayer mode robot. If you don't care about multiplayer or robot cosmetics, they are completely meaningless. I would have appreciated any kind of other unlockables, even just concept art or music tracks in Sound Test (neither exist in this game).
The bonus stage mini-games you can access from checkpoints (very common) and giant rings (rare) are simply not fun enough to warrant their frequency. You can get Medals for completing them, but in my opinion this is hardly a motivator as I don't actually think the mini-games are any fun (and Medals useless). Rather, they felt like a chore and I quickly learned to avoid them altogether.
The story and characters are extremely basic, and scenes are acted out exclusively with gestures and motion. I felt that the story could benefit a lot from even just a little bit of voice acting in the mix, but SEGA have made it clear that they want to keep the classic Sonic characters completely silent.
The boss battles, while their mechanics are varied, felt a little bit too repetitive. I would say that they took a few too many hits to defeat, leading you to play through certain attack patterns multiple times over.
I think that 2D Sonic fans can have a good time with this game, but it's nothing to write home about. At best, it's average. Personally, I was left feeling a little bit disappointed.
The Chaos Emerald abilities can be activated throughout each stage to varying effect and are fun to play around with (although somewhat limited in utility). The game will occasionally show an icon for a certain ability urging you to use it at a certain point in the stage, which helps to show off what they can do, but I felt that they were lacking in impact on any given stage. You might find some hidden Medals with their help, and speaking of Medals...
Medals can be collected in mini-games (we'll get to these later) and hidden throughout stages. Unfortunately, their use is very limited as the Shop only contains customization parts for your multiplayer mode robot. If you don't care about multiplayer or robot cosmetics, they are completely meaningless. I would have appreciated any kind of other unlockables, even just concept art or music tracks in Sound Test (neither exist in this game).
The bonus stage mini-games you can access from checkpoints (very common) and giant rings (rare) are simply not fun enough to warrant their frequency. You can get Medals for completing them, but in my opinion this is hardly a motivator as I don't actually think the mini-games are any fun (and Medals useless). Rather, they felt like a chore and I quickly learned to avoid them altogether.
The story and characters are extremely basic, and scenes are acted out exclusively with gestures and motion. I felt that the story could benefit a lot from even just a little bit of voice acting in the mix, but SEGA have made it clear that they want to keep the classic Sonic characters completely silent.
The boss battles, while their mechanics are varied, felt a little bit too repetitive. I would say that they took a few too many hits to defeat, leading you to play through certain attack patterns multiple times over.
I think that 2D Sonic fans can have a good time with this game, but it's nothing to write home about. At best, it's average. Personally, I was left feeling a little bit disappointed.