Ironically given their track record, this might be the best game Arzest ever made.

Another reviewer pointed out that bosses stall so much because it would be over in like 10 seconds if the boss was always vulnerable with the potential of having 4 players at the same time attacking it at once and probably didn't consider just changing the hit point values with the number of players during gameplay.

7:26 "Some may call it a step in the right direction for the 50th time, not realizing with all these steps taken, one could call it 'walking.'" favorite quote from the video

Every time a Sonic game comes out and people say “it’s a step in the right direction,” they’re ignoring the fact that we’ve had dozens of steps in the right direction and things haven’t improved. Sonic is simply walking on a treadmill, facing the right direction but never going anywhere.

> A Sonic game without bangers That's illegal.

I've seen someone else say that this should be a 30 dollar 3DS game and I agree, games like this one really suffer from the axing of smaller consoles like the DS.

God I would love a hand drawn Sonic game.

I can't believe after not getting it right for 20 years, they got it right with Mania and when the fans said "yeah! more of this!" they give us this.

Sonic: Gotta go fast! Level design: haha Boss enemy: lol nope

It's funny how the level design seems more oriented to single player, but the bosses are make more sense for multiplayer. The slow wind up out of every hit makes sense for a co-op game since if the hurtbox was acting all the time you could easily beat every single boss in like 5 seconds with 4 players jumping all over the place. This is not me defending the game, really. Cause that just shows how confusing the focus of the game is to begin with.

The late game bosses really are goddamn annoying. I think Arzest actually did good with the stages and gimmicks but hoo boy, those Fang fights.

They almost had a hand drawn style for the game?!!? My dreams of a hand drawn official sonic game will never happen

My huge gripe with this game is the fact that it was advertised as a multiplayer game but I can barely play it with my wife. It just sucks so much that you have to share a screen with little to no distance between your characters if you want to explore. I really want to love the game, but I was so excited to love it with her.

A Sonic game without any tunes that totally rock? Even Sonic 06 didn't fail that hard.

"One could just call it... walking." Yes. One would. One probably should. I found this take enlightening.

Pretty bold of Sega to include a Silksong fan costume/bossfight, but here we are

I find the choice of background music ironic/funny when talking about the lack luster music. The best song out of the game by far (and it was made by tee)

This game is pretty much what I expected a game made by Arzest would look like. 😅

The zoomed in camera genuinely killed my interest it made it feel like if I wanted to have any amount of fun I’d have to memorize the levels

Why does it always feel like whenever Sonic releases something nowadays I have to stutter or put a giant asterisk when I say it was good? Like “Sonic Superstars is a good game… BUT-“ When are we gonna get a game that’s just plain good or even great? Like come on, the last game I could say that was just great without stuttering from its problems is Mania.

I saw a fan game that put a lot of effort into hand drawn sonic sprites and it looked AMAZING. I would have played this if it matched the animation style they used for the opening of Sonic Mania

I should note that Arzest is Naoto Ohshima's company, who was one of the creators of Sonic who was brought on to work on this game, so most likely part of the reason Arzest is involved this. Arzest was originally known as Artoon, as a note, who created the very underrated Blinx the Time Sweeper games.

Dude the reviews of this game are giving me fucking whiplash. I'm just gonna ignore people and play it myself. I can't tell who just is fucking obsessed with sonic or who fucking hates it anymore. I guess sonic is just one of those games you actually HAVE to play to understand if its good or not anymore.

literally, the multiplayer aspect would've been fixed with online multiplayer, because then if someone went off-screen, they just have their own screen, literally eliminating the entire problem the devs are talking about

People often use the "Mania was made by fans" rhetoric. The problem is Sonic Mania wasn't made by some Fan Game group. Mania was made by Christian Whitehead who made the Sonic CD re-release and Headcannon, before working on Sonic 1 & 2 Ports. It's annoying hearing people saying it was made by fans and how fans should takeover because they really shouldn't. It was made by “fans” in a sense that Sega hired a person who has made Sonic fan games in the past. And then he went on to have a career in the video game industry. It’s very much a professional, mainline Sonic game. That is worth clarifying.

Denuvo was also in Mania. Doesn’t make it okay but just pointing it out.

7:25 "Some may call it a step in the right direction for the 50th time, not realizing that with all these steps taken, one could just call it... walking." Oh my god you COOKED with that.

... I feel like online sonic could have helped with the screen issue. You wouldnt need to be a co-op or share the same screen, so it could be useful for players to race or explore on their own, or for someone to teach their friend tricks

Yeah some sound tracks aren't the best but I think speed jungle zone act 2 is probably one of the best ones.

On the music front: That's because Jun Suneou is involved. The guy just takes the Genesis soundfont with the Sonic 1 drum snares and calls it a day. The dudes talented but has no idea how to make Classic music. Tee Lopes is the one responsible for the actually good songs in the soundtrack, he absolutely dominates the OST here.

Oh dear lord they dropped the ball on the music!?! That's such a sin

I also fought a giant robot clown, but it was unpainted (just like yours) so I went back to spice it up a bit and wound up fighting metal Sonic with a skirt, big meaty claws and a chimney instead

I feel like all recent Sonic games punish you for going blindly fast, which is silly when you think about it, but this game looks pretty fun

It's a shame you can't toggle the camera distance when playing single player. Having the bigger multi-player view would at least let you see hazards and enemies coming.

The Salt must flow.

Sonic frontiers: step in the right direction for 3d games Sonic superstars: step in the right direction for 2d games That's it SEGA! Preparations are complete! Please use this games to make amazing sonic titles!

You know I'm with you on the design of classic Sonic but for me it's less about the color and more the weird 3D he's got going on. Since generations his model has always looked like they were trying to baby-fy him, if that makes sense. He just always has a (0_0) blank expression and is too round and squishy looking. The lack of stylization really hurts the design

The bosses are very sonic rush esque where you have to wait for it to open up to hit it

So your new animation style basically boils down to "unholy lovechild between Vtubers and GoAnimate"? Man the stuff animators have to do to survive on this platform. I miss when you actually hand animated stuff.

Not having good, memorable music, is what is going to make me wait for a sale. Thanks for the review.

Isn’t it a good thing that the game punishes the player for only holding right?

you know it's serious when someone says the music in a sonic game is bad;;

As a 2D animator who spent this year teaching themselves 3D sculpting, 3D modeling and 3D animation, Its very frustrating when someone implies 3D animation is lazy (“They just wanted to save money”). The work intensity it takes to make GOOD models, rig them properly and animate them is such that, if you wanted to be “lazy,” it’d be easier to “reuse the old sprites and go 2D” (and this is ignoring the work that goes into making good environment and effects too!) And even then saying as much (“it’d be easier to go 2D cuz 3D is hard”) is revealing (which is why it’s in quotes), because to make GOOD 2D animation when re-using sprites, you’d have to do so much touch-up work that you might as well start fresh (to say nothing of the background/foreground transitions and/or other gimmicks/effects that wouldn’t translate well to 2D). And even if they had “started fresh” with new 2D sprites, I don’t think they’d be any more expressive or more thoroughly animated than what we got, because the work intensity would be about the same as making 3D models and animations. The point being: at that scale, the intensity and cost for creating animation is intensive enough that what you choose to go with is a creative choice, not a financial one, and anyone who suggests otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about because they don’t realize the cost/intensity is about the same. In this case, Sonic Team probably didn’t have faith in their 2D aesthetic translating well to sales for children (the game’s primary audience), and so went with what has been established as the “default” for modern industry platformers like Mario and Metroid Dread (Rayman is an outlier in this regard, as are indies). Could it have been done better? Yes (see: Super Mario Bros Wonder for comparison). But that was Sega/Arzest’s choice to make creatively, not financially. (And this entire rant doesn’t touch on how we DON’T actually know what the process was for making animations for this game, simplistic as it may seem from the outside) But suggesting they went with “3D to save money” and implying 3D is lazier than 2D is … even lazier.

Aw, you didn't reach Trip's postgame? But that's where the horror truly begins!

I have a question for anyone who is willing to answer, Was it me or did the momentum feel off to anyone? In my experience there were moments where you'd jump and be stuck in a direction not being able to move out of it. You'd stop and the character would move insanely slow to start back up... the characters felt like they had weights on them keeping them from feeling as responsive as older games have done.

This is the “competition” for Mario wonder?

Arzest made a game with unmemorable music? You don't say?

A Sonic game that is “okay” is good enough for me.

3:30 yeah, and I've seen some people praise this because it's more eventful... sure... but only the 1st few times, then it gets annoying on replays. Value in Sonic is his exploration and you go at your own speed. Even if he's always touted gotta go fast, being his tagline since competing with the likes of Mario and Mega Man back in the day. That's always been what Sonic's been about if you're a real Sonic fan, not to call people fake ones, just the big fans know that's what he's about. If you want to go slow feel free, you want dangerous treacherous route stick to a lower path, you want more rewards stick to the top, want a speedy fast route stick more so in the middle while taking up or down routes when necessary. The bosses themselves have always taken this into account too, this was the biggest draw behind Sonic 2 especially. If you want you can juggle enemies, or wait, even the final final boss in the egg Robo, you can wait for him to dip down every few seconds, or learn to time your jumping to avoid his spiky hands to get in more hits while he's walking at you. Forcing you to wait... not only the exact opposite of speed, which is Sonic's mantra, but it's also the opposite of being explorative which is what Sonic truly is about.

only sega could make origins + dlc seem like a good deal...

Scott: Boss are bad Sega: why Scott: I can't cheese them Sega: .... uh huh

I think the co op is only great if the people playing are on a similar skill level. I wish they did increase the despawn zone though, as when I would play other classic, I would be Tails, and I've gotten to the point that I can often keep up with my brother, even being able to navigate a bit of the level while I'm off screen to catch up. In Superstars, the moment a character is fully off screen they despawn. As for the music, I think Tee Lopes outshines the rest of the ost, as songs like Speed Jungle Act 1 and Bridge Island Zone are memorable and do stand out, but anything Jun Senoue composed sounds like it came straight out of Sonic 4 because he uses the same instruments from those games and it really bogs down his songs. The bosses can be annoying because of the waiting, and I know that's because of the multiplayer, but some of them can be cheesed using the Emerald powers in appropriate places. I think green and red are most useful for navigation, and purple sucks because it is the most situational ability in the game. That gold level did suck, but otherwise, I feel I'll come back to Superstars more than Mania What I find most interesting is the fact that everyone seems to take away a different opinion on this game, which is interesting.

I want Sega to either make modern sonic games, or make them like sonic rush. I know sonic rush isn't classic sonic, but if you're gonna do 2d sonic, make it sonic rush.

Funny that both Wonder and Superstars have boss problems.

It's so nice to hear other say that the boss fights start getting annoying (im currently stuck on the one in space cus i keep dying after getting to phase 2 and rage quitting after a couple tries). I did not pay 70 bucks to have the same experience in sonic 2 with the final boss.

So what I'm hearing is this is sega's "we have mania at home"

In regards to the soundtrack, I think that Jun Senoue should stop using the Sonic 4 instruments. Also I guess ScottFalco didn’t know of Sonic Omens when he suggested giving Sonic to fans.

Sonic fans try to be happy with a well made game challenge: impossible

2:47 being punished for holding right is a odd critique. Usually if you can hold right and not pay attention to what your doing that's considered bad game design.

So many right steps that they are going in a circle 👀

This game's soundtrack got Senoue'd bad. They really need to file a retraining order against him coming within 100 meters of a Genesis soundfont.

Really seems like the sonic franchise peaked with a return to the classic format in Sonic Mania (that actually respected Sonic 1 - 3 & Knuckles in artstyle and design) and now they're just pumping out "classic" sonic slop thinking that as long as it looks like classic sonic it'll be good and not realising what made the original trinity + mania so good despite being so old (or inspired by the old).

Releasing this so close to Mario Wonder was such a bad idea.

Great video! Can't agree on your color assessment though haha. I think he looks way better in this lighter more pastel blue!

I was really looking forward to playing this game, until I saw the price tag...

Tails can descend while flying? Well done SEGA, you've managed to so something that Sonic Robo Blast 2 has had for at least 20 years now.

Scott being partially blue colorblind is truly an interesting factoid.

project 06 mad me thought that sonic 06 was a good game when I was a bit younger and then bought the game and realize they were not the same

My avatar is Metal Sonic. No I will not apologize for bringing him back. Edit:The final boss is JUST the Death Egg Robot in Death Egg.

It took until playing the game and my friend asking what my favourite stage(s) were, where I went "uh... hm..." Even aesthetically, it's shockingly muted for the most part. But yeah, the bosses really drained me and is basically the reason why I don't think I'll ever come back to this entry.

Yeah this tracks with my own feelings and what I'm seeing across the board. The game is very safe. I just wish the bosses didn't take as long as they do and why are half of them autoscrollers?! Bought it at full price because I love my Sonic but I'd definitely recommend folks wait for a sale if they can.

one could just call it walking lmao

First thing I do when a new Sonic game releases is listen to the soundtrack. None of the music stuck in my head this time

I think it might be your color deficiency. The blue has never been a problem across all media for me and all of my friends that like sonic.

Shout outs to the spindash being completely broken at FPS's above 60 and Sega trying to gaslight me into thinking it was intentional

the true cardinal sin is once again not adding a chao garden

His blue looks fine, Great review this looks fun to me I think ill grab it

I cant for the life of me think about paying full asking price for the game

I do think that sonic superstars is in the unfortunate position of being in immediate comparison to super mario wonder.

wait superstars was gonna be hand-drawn instead of 3D? WHAT THE FUCK?????

Well at least this makes it easier to decide wether to play this or Mario wonder 🗣️🔥

The Mega Man 11 of Sonic games

The bosses in this game are honestly some of the best designed bosses in the series from a design standpoint. Almost every boss in the game uses the same gimick that you just learned about throughout the level, but now with a little twist that you have to use to hit the boss. It was such a joy seeing how they would turn the level gimick into a boss gimick and I enjoyed every single one except for the sand boss and the cyber boss. Those are the only ones that don’t use some form of the level gimick in their attacks.

honestly, superstars is going in my top 5 sonic games. i had a blast playing the story mode. i also don't have any online friends, but it's still a great time alone. in my opinion: the visuals are charming, the soundtrack slaps (especially Speed Jungle Zone Act 1, boy that's a tune), the gameplay physics are just as good as mania, the stages are creative and fun (except for Golden Capital Zone), the emerald powers, while sometimes situational, are fun to use, the Chaos Emerald special stages had a nice style and gameplay mechanic that i enjoyed quite a bit, the extra character (name withheld for spoiler reasons) is fun too, especially in the post-game extra story, the bosses are fun to beat; it was so satisfying to learn their combat patterns and defeat them with my newfound experience, almost like the bosses in cuphead, the animated cutscenes are just gorgeous (another thing inspired by mania), the only negatives i can think of are Golden Capital Zone (not one of my favourites), and the lack of elemental shields. but damn bro, this was a good game! i actually prefer this to super mario bros wonder so far, please don't arrest me.

5:07 Classic sonic was always meant to be cyan, its just on printed media that sonic appears more darker blue because it doesnt have a good cyan color

The final boss packed my crap so hard

I got the the Cyberzone boss and got so fucking pissed off that I've sworn it off. Life's too short. I give them props for trying but I have no idea how you can have Sonic Mania and NOT build off it. Baffling.

Why the hell did Sega choose the devs for Balan Wonderworld for this when fans have proven time and time again they can make better Sonic games than professional devs? It would cost less and the game would be more well received which means more sales and money. I don't understand how some of the ppl in the gaming industry who make these types of decisions are in their role to begin with

Amy's hammer attack was NOT nerfed from origins, its actually way better now since you can build momentum with it.

Why tf can't they just give sonic online coop so it doesn't matter how fast he goes? 30xx did an amazing job of this

Having boss fights end in like 2 seconds flat always kind of sucked in my opinion, I rather like what superstars did with them because it forced me to experience the phases of the fight and made for some tense moments, the game is so low stakes as it is with infinite lives and generous checkpointing it was refreshing to see SOME challenge squeezed in there for those of us who have been playing these damn games for near 30 years. You can still cheese the fights if you use the emerald powers though so it's not like the option isn't there. Also I almost closed the video when you said the game had no good music because Lagoon city zone act 2 exists and you are wrong.

while im sad this isnt some new smash hit, i am just legit happy theres another platformer in the vein of OG sonic and mania to a lesser extent…of course if the next one continues a downward trend i probably wont be getting thay

Its funny you mention the 3D models bevause the entire reason why Modern Sonic was specifically designed to make sonic stylized and good looking in a 3D space for Sonic Adventure 1. The sonic franchise knew classic sonic didnt work in 3D in 1998.

a problem i dont think most people point out is how this game handles color, the foreground and background are both the same saturation making everything mesh together in a way, which is why it feels off when you look at it.

Imagine if the Oil Ocean boss in Sonic 2 had the same invincibility frames as Superstars. I wonder how long that boss battle would take. Probably still shorter than anything in Superstars.

Why is sonic smack dab in the center of frame on a game that wants you to hold right?

I don't understand why they feel the need to work to mimic the Genesis sound chip. The samples are easy to rip from the old games, and the synths can be directly copied out of the game music files archived at Zophar's Domain by using VOPM. All of this is available for free, without any licensing or royalty requirements. I can do it, and I'm at the very bottom of the bargain bin of internet musicians. Just let me do it, Sega. Please. I need work.

The boss fights being stall happy is a critique I’ve heard from several reviewers and… yeah. I think I’m getting Mario Wonder first.

Pepper and garlic needed too 😅

THATS WHAT IVE BEEN SAYING I'm not a Sonic fan but i want to be, he has a lot of potential but SEGA is the ball and chain keeping him from reaching his peak, but without Sonic SEGA will collapse so they will never get rid of their blue cash cow