Sonic Superstars

Sonic Superstars is a 2023 platform game developed by Arzest and Sonic Team and published by Sega. It features side-scrolling gameplay similar to the Sonic the Hedgehog games released for the Sega Genesis in the 1990s. As one of four player characters—Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, and Amy Rose—the player completes side-scrolling levels as they set out to defeat Doctor Eggman and Fang the Hunter. Superstars introduces power-ups that the player can obtain by collecting the seven Chaos Emeralds and four-player local multiplayer. Sonic Team's head, Takashi Iizuka, wanted to modernize Sonic's traditional side-scrolling formula so it could continue independently from the 3D games. After plans for another collaboration with the developers of Sonic Mania (2017) fell through, Iizuka began discussing a collaboration with Arzest, a studio founded by Sonic co-creator Naoto Ohshima. Development on Superstars, which marked Ohshima's first contribution to a Sonic game since Sonic Adventure (1998), began in 2021. Arzest sought to replicate the Genesis Sonic gameplay while innovating with new game mechanics, with the Chaos Emerald powers introduced to encourage players to seek all seven. Sonic Superstars was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on October 17, 2023. It received average reviews from critics, who felt it was superior to the previous 2.5D game Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (2010) but inferior to Mania. They praised its replication of the Genesis-era Sonic gameplay but criticized its new mechanics.