168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sonic Superstars might be a pretty good Sonic game, but it’s a fantastic Amy Rose game. Going from a damsel in distress to a fully-fledged member of the gang, she’s the onl𝔉y character in the Superstars roster to keep up with the times. Knuckles still wall climbs, Tails continues to fly, and of course, Sonic has always gotta go fast. No change here since the Spin Dash was introduced in Sonic 2.

But Amy has to be different. She’s rarely playable in the series’ 2D ou🌠tings, and in 3D, she’s often just pink Sonic with a hammer for good measure. Superstars is a platformer where every character is blessed with their own abilities, Amy included. So, she gets a double jump, and it’s🌱 the single biggest innovation in 2D Sonic since the 1990s.

This is the crux of every issue Sonic Superstars has. Finally, Sega brings Sonic into the modern day with new level designs, instead of rehashing the old in half-baked remasters and the admittedly brilliant nostalgia of Mania. There are new game modes, abilities, and reasons to backtrack to get all the revamped Chaos Emeralds. But with so many features setting the stage, Sega awkwardly pushes the OG 🀅Sonic trio back out front, and they have nothing new to show for themselves. They’re stuck in the past, clunkily making their way through stages that don’t feel made for them. But Amy is a character made with this modern platforming formula in mind.

Sonic Superstars comes so close to what a 2D Sonic shoul💛d be. All of th🐼e ingredients are there, it just needs to know how to mix them.

You’d hardly notice this if you’re playing Sonic Superstars the way that is clearly intended: co-op. The new stages seamlessly open up new paths for each playstyle, making every member of the squad feel important. But when you’re blasting through the story mode on your own, it’s frustrating. It can take almost ten minutes of gliding through a level as Knuckles, only to then realise you’re now up against a boss that he wasn’t designed to take on alone. Try as you might, his slow acceleration is no match for the bad guy’s lasers, leaving you feeling completely ou💟t of control. If you want to swap heroes, you’ve got to scrap all of your progress in the level so far and go back to the main menu.

Sonic Superstars' cranked-up difficulty is one of its strongest points, as are its co-op offerings. But hastily mixing the two together without accounting for those of us playing alone squanders most of its potential.

Emerald Powers are one of the few saving graces when playing solo. For something so new to the series, they fit in effortlessly. Some of them are incredibly situational - like the ability to see hidden items - but otherwise, you're let loose to experiment to your heart's content. I felt like a genius, using the boost you get from the Blast power to snipe an enemy in between attacks, landing a blow when I usually wouldn’t be able to. Other times, I used Avatar to cheese my way out of a boss fight, letting the horde of Sonic clones whale on Eggman while I fled to safety. It ended the fight instantly and would definitely upset whoever designed the encounter. But the fact that the game let me do it didn't feel cheap. It's like a reward for thinking about how you can use these new powers. Believe me, if you try cheesing it with the wrong ability, you'll know about it.

Emerald Powers aren’t enough to remedy being locked ❀into playing as a terrible character, though. After dozens of attempts, and about a million different experiments with said powers, Knuckles still couldn’t take down a boss not designed for his character. It’s no fun walking into a wall and hoping it breaks, but in single-player and with no idea what any given stage will throw at you, it’s hard to avoid these frustrating moments.

Sonic Superstars is at least honest about this. From Act 2 of the f📖irst stage, my Amy-only playthrough was brought to a halt by a platforming segment clearly not made with her in mind. There was at least a sense of pride in brute forcing it and getting through the level anyway, but that wasn’t always the case. It forces you to try everyone, but it could be clearer about who to switch to and when.

Classic 2D Sonic knew how to make the most of what it had on offer, whereas🍌 Sonic Superstars thinks it’s enough to just have🍌 a bunch of great new gimmicks. It’s not - you have to use them well.

Superstars’ best ideas aren’t fully realised either. Multiplayer is the best way to play, but you can only jump into co-op if you’ve got a buddy and a second controller handy - online play is versus mode only. Speaking of, these battle modes are great, but you can only join a lobby with a code, even though the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fall Guys-esque minigames are perfect to play with randos. There’s eꦆven a ranked system! What’s the point of that?

In a similar vein to other Sonic games, the issue isn’t so much what it does, it’s how it does it. Sonic Superstars is an incredibly polished experience - easily the best-performing Sonic game at launch in some time. When it finds its footing, it speeds along with pride, prov𓄧ing that Sonic Team still has something to offer the genre.

But it’s hard to escape the feeling that the 2D games of the ‘90s accomplished more with less. For all of Sonic Origins' faults, it packaged up these old gems in the best form we’ve ever had. Sonic Superstars, on the other hand, knows it should be trying new things, but seems too cautious to fully commit. After all this time, the series has no need to be this uneasy - particularly when Sonic Frontiers just showed that the Blue Blur is at his best when reinventing himself.

Sonic Superstars isn’t holding back the series after the positive reception to Frontiers. It’s more than enough to keep it trucking along. Sega is sensible to be cautious about shedding too much of Sonic’s retro identity, but it needs to realise that none of us have hung around this long for Knuckles’ terrible recovery speed, or the strange instances where a single hit reduces our ring count to zero. Sonic Superstars brings us so agonisingly close to the definitive 2D Sonic game, but for 🍎now, it’s a good foundation to build on.

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