Sonic Superstars review – To 2D, or not 2D

You have to hand it to Sega, as launching Sonic Superstars right before the arrival of Super Mario Bros. Wonder was a ballsy move. Like Nintendo’s iconic plumber, Sega’s Blue Blur is back in a new adventure that is both nostalgic and forward-thinking, a project that purposefully riffs on its past while attempting to put its best high-speed foot forward as it builds a new direction for the series.

It’s 2D Sonic with a new 3D coat of paint, and at its core, Sonic Superstars is still a wonderful burst of speed across colorful levels while it attempts to inject some new ideas into the mix. Some of these ideas are terrific! Some of them are baffling and terrible. But overall, Sonic Superstars is a fresh new start that charts an interesting direction for the franchise and occasionally stumbles in the execution of its more daring ideas.

At the very least, Sonic Superstars nails the signature feeling of speed that has defined the series, as breaking the sound barrier, executing a perfect dash attack, and defying gravity feels better than ever thanks to the nuanced 2D side-scrolling design. Sonic purists might scoff at the shift from 2D sprites to 3D polygonal models, but Sonic Superstars looks delightful in every pixel, and it uses those visuals to construct a colorful world of looping tracks and cities overrun with machines. It’s classic Sonic with modern sensibilities, and there’s no shortage of stages where the game achieves that perfect blend of speed and momentum.

No shortage of gimmick-laden stages bring said momentum to a screeching halt, however, as for every good idea Sega has in play in Sonic Superstars, there’s a bad one waiting around the corner to trip you up. Some stages are brilliant moments of imaginative engineering, like Cyber Station and its gameplay mechanics that encourage you to think outside of the box. Others are wet blankets that kill your sense of momentum entirely with cheap difficulty spikes and obstacle courses that have no sense of rhythm or flow to their placement.

And that’s a pity because Sonic Superstars has the potential to be a wonderfully replayable game in the series thanks to level design that places a greater emphasis on collectibles, introduces new elements of verticality, and has multiple routes for you to explore. Then there are the Chaos Emeralds, which return as new power-ups to unlock powerful skills that can be used a set number of times before you need to recharge them by whizzing through a checkpoint.

The problem here, though, is that they never feel necessary – a design choice that had to be made due to the very nature of how levels are built in Sonic Superstars. Chaos Emeralds are earned by visiting special stages–which by themselves are fun to play–but there’s no guarantee that you’ll spot one of the giant rings in a stage that will transport you to the level where these powerful artifacts are kept. As such, Sonic Superstars levels are designed to be completed without Chaos Emeralds, rendering them kind of pointless overall. Heck, I don’t even like using them that much as those powers have a long wind-up time and sap your momentum. They’re neat in theory, but forgettable in practice.

Sonic fans are no strangers to levels that require pinpoint precision and reflexes to navigate, but here, these examples stand out as frustrating barriers designed to leech hours off your lifespan as you attempt to overcome them. Boss fights also range from inventive clashes against Eggman’s latest creations, to tedious conflicts that rely on cheap tactics that suck all the joy from the room.

Co-op multiplayer isn’t much better either, as it forces the game into a lower gear so that multiple characters can be contained on the screen simultaneously. Sure, I adore Sonic’s pals Knuckles, Tails, and Amy, but a split-screen option would have been preferable here. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 figured co-op out brilliantly using that idea, and that was in 1992.

And yet, for its strange juxtaposition of good and bad ideas, I can’t help but like Sonic Superstars. At this point, a Sonic game without major issues would feel downright strange. When the game works, it works, and there’s a superb sense of velocity, wonderfully vibrant visuals, and a banger soundtrack. It’s just a pity that the more modern influences are far too inconsistent, levels can be incredibly hit-or-miss, and the cheaper boss fights should come with a voucher for a new DualSense controller because you’re going to be breaking a few of them.

Sonic Superstars is out now for all consoles (including PS4 and Xbox One), and PC.