It was the little surprise of the Summer Game Fest: Sonic returns in a 2D adventure. It’s hard not to be excited at the time of the announcement, but the life of a Sonic fan is never easy and has often been filled with disappointments. Caution was required before you could put your hands on it, which is now done. After half an hour in the company of the blue hedgehog, we can confirm that the impression of seeing an experience of the level of Sonic Mania land soon is within the realm of the possible. If several characters were playable in this demo, each with its specificities of course, we made the choice to favor Sonic and Knuckles (our apologies to Tails and Amy).
We left like in forty
The big relief that we feel after five minutes on Sonic Superstars is this impression of playing an old-fashioned 2D Sonic. Movements, speed, controls… Everything is done to remind us of the 16-bit era from the first moments of handling. These aspects had been a recurring criticism for quite some time within the community, which had only been able to find solace when the release of sonic maniain 2017. For this demo, two areas were available (Bridge Island Area And Speed Jungle Zone) and each of them offered tons of possible branches each time in perfect symbiosis with the speed effect. Everything is fast, it goes in all directions, offering a real feeling of freedom: everything you are entitled to expect from a Sonic game.
We are going to be entitled to a few mini-games, some of which are in 3D and if some draw deeply on our nostalgia, others are not really successes – those of the emeralds precisely, on which we will come back later. What encourage us despite everything to explore every corner and avoid going straight to the end of the level. After a first confrontation against Robotnik to conclude this first zone already very varied in what it offers, we come out totally relieved by this grip. Failing to find memorable 2D in mustachioed competition, SEGA seems ready to occupy this niche successfully.
Welcome to the modern world
Do not believe that SEGA has not taken care to innovate by playing the security card. Rather than being satisfied with pure and hard 2D levels, Sonic Superstars will play a lot on perspective, for example when you take a loop while running up and down the wall in the background, dodging enemies to collect rings. The two levels that we were able to test were also very much characterized by their increased verticality. On the program, springs of course, but also acceleration ramps to give us a progressive acceleration. We could also count on the big novelty of this opus: the powers of the famous Chaos Emeralds.
We saw it in the trailer during the conference, Sonic and his gang can change shape or activate the power of emeralds. After a forgettable mini-game in which we swing from bubble to bubble to the precious in a limited time, an emerald will grant us special powers. From a radial menu accessible by pressing the trigger, it is for example possible to give an aqueous form to our character (to thus go up waterfalls) or to create a clone to destroy obstacles for us. If we didn’t have enough time to fully explore the second level, part of it was in the dark, lit only by a butterfly that follows us everywhere.
Finally, note that Sega has since confirmed the identity of the studio in charge of development. It’s about Arzest, the studio of Sonic co-creator Naoto Ohshima, emerging from a calamitous experiment with Balan Wonderworld. The team is assisted by Sonic Team, on the other hand the creators of sonic maniaincluding Christian Whitehead and Headcannon, are not involved in the production of this title.