![]() Finding one sends you off to play a short minigame where you have to chase the Chaos Emerald by swinging from point to point until you catch up to it, finally unlocking it when you do. Still, that doesn’t help the fact that everything feels a bit too slow out of the gate for your first playthrough, especially before you’ve found all seven Chaos Emeralds and are able to go Super Sonic.Ĭollecting the Chaos Emeralds is more straightforward than ever this time, as the increased focus on exploration encouraged me to seek out the giant golden rings that hide them during my travels. It wasn’t until after the 15 hours I spent clearing all the story content that I was able to go back and start to finding more efficient routes in order to get a better feeling of that speed. ![]() That meant I eventually just wanted to stick to some good old fashion going fast, but even when I took the highest routes, I didn’t feel the speed I’ve come to expect over the past 30 years of Sonic. ![]() ![]() But after discovering my only reward for that exploration was either more rings or a currency used on cosmetics in the lackluster multiplayer, there wasn’t much incentive to try and navigate the extra hazards and enemies. At first it was fun to explore those lower routes, using different playable characters and the various Chaos Emerald powers to explore their less streamlined paths for secrets. There are multiple routes to take in each level: The higher you ascend, the faster the route, while the lower routes focus even more on the platforming side. Things like this made me hope to see similar creativity in future 2D sonic games.īut while I undoubtedly enjoyed playing through these stages, they can have some questionable placements of hazards and enemies, and their choice to focus on platforming over speed is ultimately a disappointing one. I also really enjoyed Lagoon City, which felt like a giant water theme park and made the best use of the new water power granted by one of the Chaos Emeralds. Golden Capital was a particular standout by having you flip the stage, swapping between the foreground and background, and showering you with rings every step. One has a giant snake burrowing throughout the level that gives you a slight bounce when moving along it, while another has patches of thick fog that obscure your vision, and the only way to gain partial vision is by running through a group of butterflies that follow and help illuminate the way. I don’t think any of the new stages will crack the top of my list of all-time Sonic favorites, but there are a lot of great additions to the series here, and I enjoyed that each one has a cool quirk to it. They are all incredibly charming, and while the backdrops sometimes make it difficult to differentiate what's in front of you, they nail the classic aesthetic Sonic fans like myself have come to love. For example, the Speed Jungle Zone brings back the use of vines from the original Sonic the Hedgehog’s Jungle Zone, Pinball Carnival puts both a fun and spooky twist on Sonic 3’s Carnival Night Zone, and the Press Factory is a more industrial version of the Press Garden Zone from Sonic Mania. The story mode has you traveling across 11 Zones all over the new Northstar Islands, showcasing flashy levels that occasionally draw inspiration from other well-known stages in Sonic’s history. Sonic Superstars has three main game modes – a campaign with three individual stories that unlock subsequently after finishing the previous one, an eight-player battle mode, and a time attack mode. But while this slightly different flavor of Sonic can be fun, I couldn’t help but feel like Superstars was missing the main thing I love about the series: Speed. Most of that stylistic shift works well for the majority of Superstars’ roughly 15-hour multi-campaign story – the new Chaos Emerald powers are an excellent addition to the formula, helping you make the most of stages that focus a little less on sprinting blindly to the end the first time through and more on hunting down secrets as you do. Unlike its predecessors, however, Sonic Superstars trades that traditional breakneck pace for new abilities, more exploration, multiple mini-games, and slightly more challenging bosses. Most Sonic games put the pedal to the metal, having you travel at blindingly fast speeds while avoiding hazards on your way to the goal.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |