Sonic Superstars

Sonic Superstars is a side-scrolling platform game similar to the Sonic the Hedgehog games released for the Sega Genesis in the 1990s. The player must complete a series of levels across several zones, presented from a 2.5D perspective, to defeat Doctor Eggman, who has hired Fang the Hunter and Trip the Sungazer to capture the North Star Islands' giant animals so he can build a powerful army. There are four initial player characters, each with their own unique abilities: Sonic the Hedgehog can roll into a dash after a jump; Miles "Tails" Prower can fly; Knuckles the Echidna can glide and climb; and Amy Rose can attack enemies with a hammer and double jump. Players unlock an additional character, Trip, by completing the main campaign once; her moveset combines Amy's double jump with Knuckles' climbing.

The North Star Islands comprise 12 zones, which house 26 levels ("acts"). The number of acts in a zone varies between one, two, and three. Each contains elements such as springs, vertical loops, collectible rings that serve as health, and shield power-ups. Some zones feature unique elements, such as a jungle with vines the player can grind on and a futuristic zone where they transform into a voxel creature, and some feature acts exclusive to the selected character.

The idea for Sonic Superstars originated with Sonic Mania (2017), a 2D game developed by Christian Whitehead, PagodaWest Games, and Headcannon. The Sonic series' producer, Sonic Team's Takashi Iizuka, was surprised by Mania's success and saw it as confirmation that fans were still interested in the series' "classic" style. Sonic Team and the Mania developers, who formed Evening Star Studio in 2018, began discussing another collaboration following Mania's release. They did not want to make a Mania sequel since Iizuka felt casual audiences would dismiss it as a rehash; he wanted to abandon Mania's pixel art style as Mania had been intended for hardcore Sonic fans, and he thought a new 2D game needed to appeal to a broad audience.

Whitehead said that Sonic Team and Evening Star "agreed early on that we should try to make something fresh", such as using a new art style like traditional animation or 2.5D graphics and not reusing content from prior Sonic games. Evening Star created a 2.5D prototype that experimented with depth using its in-development Star Engine. However, Sonic Team and Evening Star eventually decided against developing the prototype into a full product, and Evening Star moved on to develop Penny's Big Breakaway (2024). Whitehead denied rumors that the decision was caused by creative differences and said that Evening Star's relationship with Sega remained friendly.

According to the review aggregate website Metacritic, the Switch and PlayStation 5 versions of Sonic Superstars received "mixed or average reviews", while the Xbox Series X/S version received "generally favorable reviews". On the aggregator OpenCritic, the game has a "Fair" approval rating. In Japan, four critics from Famitsu gave the game a total score of 32 out of 40, with each critic awarding the game an 8 out of 10. The Guardian described the reviews as "solid appraisals", though not acclamatory.

Critics felt that Superstars successfully replicated the classic Sonic gameplay from the Genesis era, but criticized its additions as unnecessary or poorly implemented. Comparisons to previous 2D Sonic games were common; critics generally regarded Superstars as an improvement over Sonic the Hedgehog 4 but inferior to the Genesis games and Sonic Mania.