SONIC SUPERSTARS - An effort to evoke your nostalgia
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Sonic Superstars (Reviewed)
Developer: SEGA
Publisher: SEGA
Released: Oct 17th, 2023
Price: $60 USD
SEGA is back with another installment in the Sonic franchise. This time around with Sonic Superstars, a retro-charged return to the classics, but like with most entries into their series, not all is well. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog knocked this game out of the park and that was an April Fools joke that actually was amazing.
It is critical for people to comprehend the relevance of a game that evokes nostalgic feelings in you, whereas someone like myself is not easily swayed by my youth.
I'll begin by stating the obvious. This isn't a sixty-dollar game. It's not even a $30 game. This much money is being paid for the brand, not the game.
Issues
Epic Games is forced on you
I don't have to repeat what has already been said. A game on Steam should not require the installation of Epic Games in order to run or play any game, including if it has online capabilities, which is what this is utilized for. It can be skipped but Online functionality will be disabled. The app is forced onto your computer no matter what.
Epic Games is known around the world as one of the most unethical organizations that really discourages people from wanting to play since they try to buy out practically every developers good title that is launched in the hopes that people will come to their side to make a lot of sales.
They are also known for handing out tons of free games every week, which is what lures people to their platform. Most games that receive their two years of exclusivity there frequently arrive to Steam 10x worse or with lingering issues to fix.
This is more of an issue because, while you can avoid signing in by pressing the (x) in the top right corner of the screen. This will have to be done every time you log in.
Consistency in speed
If you're familiar with the classics, you'll realize that bumping or jumping into anything that isn't an enemy will result in your momentum being entirely stopped. Making you walk and jog at a snail's pace till you can run again.
This destroys the enjoyment for me because I don't want to stop moving, but I also don't want to have to look at a map and learn the optimal route for speed running. I just want to run fast and see the colors fly by. You can't even walk up a small hill, you get slowed so much and have to stop to boost charge your spin to get over it, since jumping doesn't work like you would expect it to.
Unless you know exactly where you need to go and what is coming up next, it's a constant up and down slope of fast, slow, fast, slow. I would have thought that they would have at least tried something new to make the game feel fast.
You may argue that this is what the series has always been about, but I just can't get behind that, because I didn't feel that any level was worth replaying more than once, with the exception of the Casino level, which was aggravating.
Presentation
The sonic series is generally good
A large part of the appeal of these games originates from nostalgia. Seeing your childhood cartoon, or the clumsy and slow - quick movement controls as Sonic, Amy, Tails, or Knuckles. The music isn't great, but it's also not bad. It's merely repetitive.
According to what I can gather, each level has one song that merely repeats, but it's neither catchy nor makes you want to listen to it after the first few times you hear it.
I liked the cartoon panels despite the fact that they were all silent and exaggerated movements and sound effects. With Eggman and his minions continuously failing to stop Sonic and his friends, the whole old-school vibe is really sold here.
When it works, it looks fantastic
What makes this interesting and visually spectacular is the combination of 2D and 3D elements that move swiftly and wildly. However, as previously noted, the game constantly shifts between speedy and sluggish, as well as swift and snails pace. It is always detrimental to the atmosphere. Imagine driving a race car at the speed limit; that's not very fun, is it? I just wish it wasn't so slow, clumsy, and aggravating.
Gameplay
Doesn't really shine
It physically plays out like the classics, you can see right away it is attempting to affect you through nostalgia, but not in the way you would hope. There are numerous bugs, as well as issues with how slow and boring the bosses are. I kind of was hoping for something on the lines of Megaman, challenging and difficult bosses, but no.
You hop around, gather rings, look for hidden big rings and try to finish mini-games to earn power ups to aid you with the rest of the game. They don't really do anything, and you can complete the game without them.
It's just that needing to study every map to achieve a decent score by knowing what's coming up from ahead is what makes the gameplay frustrating at least from me, someone that wants to see things go faster.
Knuckles is well-known for his numerous bug in most of every sonic game. With his ability to climb up walls, he can hang off of any boss wall, allowing you to simply skip all mechanics and destroy bosses quickly without having to do anything but wait. It actually demonstrates that most of these bosses have nothing going for them.
Multiplayer / Co-op
These game modes allow you to make robots that mimic characters in the game such as Metal Sonic, as long as you have collected the many in-game coins available while playing through each level as Sonic, giving you a collectathon style focus that doesn't feel all that gratifying. Given the simplicity of the game types, hop, jump, stun other players, or race them to the end of a race or gather more stars. It's just boring.
Conclusion
It is not something I would recommend
Unless you're a die-hard Sonic fan, I wouldn't recommend it, and even if you are, I wouldn't recommend it until it's on sale for less than $20, because you're not getting a game worth $60 or more. It has nothing to show for it. The game largely relies on SEGA's brand as well as one of their long-time mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, who has degraded into a meme and joke to everyone who previously adored him.
Nothing they do here is done with sincere or genuine effort. It's always a mess or barely working owing to crunch and material being shipped out before it's even ready, and it sells because bad meme reviews resonate strongly with meme culture.
I haven't loved Sonic games since, and I can't recall the last time I bought one other than for April Fools and that was FREE. They were amusing for a while, but I quickly became bored of them because there were better things to do with my time.
This concludes my views of this game; while my opinions may be met with criticism, that is what distinguishes gamers; you don't have to like the same things as others, nor do you have to agree with them. If you want to catch me on one of my streams or locate me on social media, you may do so at the following locations, I'm always playing something new.
- Pawkt
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