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Hands-on with Sonic Superstars’ delightfully unobtrusive stage gimmicks
L
Laura Kate Dale
Sonic Superstars definitely captures the feel of a classic 2D Sonic game, with stage designs that feel just as sprawling, colourful, and elaborate as ever. However, what surprised me about the two new stages that I played behind closed doors at Gamescom is how seamlessly its new mechanics—both general and stage-specific—feel at home in the experience.
Starting with the more general addition to the series formula, Sonic Superstars introduces players to "Emerald Powers," a selection of abilities hidden behind bonus stages which you can use per stage checkpoint. Based on the demo, these range from transforming into a meteorite and firing yourself in a set direction to summoning a screen-sized wave of duplicate characters that fly past and damage your enemies.
These abilities are very much optional; you can progress through levels without making use of them, but they open up several additional options. Sometimes they’re useful for reaching a hard-to-reach platform to access a new part of a level, and you can also use them in certain boss battles to make these challenging encounters more manageable.
For example, the new level Pinball Carnival follows in the rich Sonic tradition of pinball bumpers and flippers, along with the expected circus aesthetic. The level’s final boss—a robotic clown with a weak point on its head—can be brought closer to the ground by activating a series of discs within the arena. While you can do this with skillful platforming, you could always summon in an army of clones to activate a whole screen of them at once, or fire yourself as a meteor to gain extra height and skip the puzzle element altogether.
However, it's worth noting that these abilities typically don’t completely trivialize boss fights. They’re only usable once per boss fight, but they offer interesting (and optional) ways to engage with the enemy.
Getting into more specific stage mechanics, a new level shown to us at Gamescom titled Cyber Station features technological gates that transform Sonic from the hedgehog you know and love into a variety of unexpected alternate forms. These include a beautifully animated voxel Sonic that can travel as a 2D spark through wires, a voxel squid who can float or dash in any direction at will, a mouse who had to solve a dangerous maze, and even a side-scrolling rocket flying through boost pads.
Though I'm usually dubious when Sonic strays away from the series' core gameplay, this sequence really worked for me. Each new transformation feels satisfying to control, requires no explanation to understand, and doesn't outstay its welcome. They stick around just long enough before transforming Sonic back for another dose of running and jumping.
This is honestly the kind of Sonic game I have been hoping to see from Sega for a while. It feels classic, but with modern visual touches, like smooth windmill-style running animations for characters. These really help the cartoony art style pop; it feels modern, but I don't get the sense that it's desperate for any one mechanic to be the new future of the franchise.
Sonic Superstars' new gameplay mechanics are new, exciting, and modern, but they also feel at home in a classic Sonic game. That’s not an easy line to walk, and it has me excited for the full release.
Sonic Superstars releases Oct. 17 and can be found on the Epic Games Store.