Sonic Superstars Gets A Day One Update On Switch

Is NLife doing a review?

@CaleBoi25 They wrote an article the other day saying that they have not received a review code/copy yet, so their Switch review is delayed as a result of that.

Ughhh, release day and day 1 updates go together like lamb and tuna fish..

@NintendoByNature Nothing like rushing home, opening up your new game, then sitting for 15 minutes watching a patch download and install.

Have they started to distribute the Modern Amy skin codes yet? This will be my way to get said update.

I can't imagine the update changes anything significant, I've been playing on Switch Lite without the update and its really good! No crashes or wobbles at all. I'm extremely happy with the performance and how it looks on Switch. And it looks beautiful 😍

As for the game itself, its not perfect but its extremely good. On my first playthough, during the first half I was genuinely saying to myself "is this my favourite Sonic game ever? No, surely can't be..." 😱 Sadly the second half isn't quite as strong - however it also takes more risks in this part, switching up playstyles and adding a lot of variety, so I'm sure some will prefer it & find the early stuff too "unoriginal", or easy.

Surprisingly, the "story" is actually really cool, theres lots of cutscenes and really neat surprises and even when playing through as Sonic you have to do a single level as Tails, Knuckles and Amy at various points throughout the game, which move the story along and its really nice they are all properly involved not just an afterthought. Amy is as always my favourite character, and she plays really well!

To my surprise, Trip is a delight. I won't spoil why. Also, I should say the animation of the characters, their reactions and facial expressions etc are really good. They feel alive, not just stiff models being posed. Obviously the 2d animated intro is good and the ending animation is really great too. Music is really good, though none of it is stuck in my head yet...

I've seen some people complain about the bosses, but for me the only weak one is the final boss. All the others (including the mini bosses) I enjoyed and found fun and not frustratingly challenging. Some may think they are too easy, but for me playing through the whole game start to finish many times I'm glad I won't be dreading any of them.

Theres a lot of variety in the Zones ranging from "pretty good" to "amazing". No zone plays exactly like a previous Sonic game, each have unique and fun ideas, some of which could only be done with 3d graphics. Theres a really fun and very surprising homage to another early Sega mascot that I won't spoil, and I think many will appreciate the novelty, although personally I felt that section wasn't as polished as the rest. When the stages are amazing, I mean they are amazing. Up there with the best.

Its just a bit barebones in extras. Time Attack (very welcome in a Sonic game of course) and a very nicely presented world map that means you can revist any level at any time during a playthrough... but then thats it for Sonic content/modes.

The Sonic medals that you can try and find throughout the levels are a really nice challenge but unfortunately all they do is allow you to buy very basic upgrades for your generic robot in the "battle mode"... which is not very good. I can't imagine ever wanting to go back to it after a quick experiment, you can't use Sonic characters in it, so it feels weirdly tacked on. I'm sure some will get enjoyment out of it, especially in multiplayer. But to me it felt like an unrelated mobile game that I wasn't sure why it was there in my Sonic game 🤔

However, that doesn't take anything away from the main game. I think as a pure one player Sonic experience, its a 8.5/10 for me, and if pushed for a single digit I'd round it to 9. Still absolutely up there with the likes of Mania and the 16bit games for a fun playthrough and a game I'll play repeatedly for many years to come, just as I do with them. 🥰

@Vexx234
That is one of the worst things about modern gaming. At least Nintendo isn't as bad as Playstation, where you have to copy the entire game from the disk to the system before you can play it.

Watched a let's play last night of the Switch version. It was obviously docked, but still looked really good. Also, it stayed pretty close to 60fps for the most part. Will definitely pick this up on sale (hopefully on Black Friday).

@WhiteTrashGuy I've been playing on Switch Lite (so not docked) & its rock solid. Pleasantly surprised, I was expecting it to struggle in intense moments. That said, obviously I only played single player (so just one charcter on screen).

So ready to play!

honestly, while i get the day 1 update annoyance, i feel like its blown a bit out of proportion.

@HammerGalladeBro well SEGA did say that the code for the modern Amy skin will be released after the game is launched, but it didn't say what specific day.

@epicgamner I don't think people blow it out of proportion. It's another annoyance on top of many with modern games today.
CyberPunk is a great example along with king Bethesda, of gamers frustration.

Games aren't getting cheaper, while the quality of them is not improving. If you pay 70$, you shouldn't need a 30 day waiting period of patches upon patches.

Between releasing games in alpha state, charging micro- transactions, ontop of dlc, with patch after patch just to get a game in beta; It's very frustrating. As a consumer, you should just be able to come home, sit down and jump right into the game.

Just look are the switch port of MK1. This is another example of release now, fix it later culture.

@WaffleRaptor01 all im saying is that day-one patches for games that are stable with them and nothing more are OK. Yes, if it takes more than a week at the absolute most for the developers to work out the kinks, then its a problem. I'm just saying that the day 1 update itself isnt that crazy of a problem. Everything you said is absolutely right, im just not arguing that

Here's hoping one of the things they fix is the sound mixing. I watched a live stream of the PlayStation version a few days ago on Twitch and it was so terrible, the streamer kept exiting to the title screen to get to the settings and adjust the sound options, and no matter what they did it would just not sound right. Either the SFX were too loud or the music was drowned out or too loud. It was a common theme in the chat through most of the stream.

@Vexx234 it's the best part of modern gaming next to needing a constant online connection.

@samuelvictor
Yeah, I will rock it primarily single player as well. I imagine my kids will like it mainly single player as well on the Lite.

@Mauzuri I'm mystified by how much I hear this I can only assume they are playing badly and not trying to attack the bosses except when its explicitly obvious they are vulnerable. Thats like the "easy mode" Sega put in there for kids or beginners who can't play platformers. Sonic is about speed. For skilled players and risk takers, there are ways to make the fights go far faster. Most of them you can hit while they are attacking, sometimes multiple times per cycle. I'm looking forward to seeing what speed runners manage to work out.

I've completed the game twice and no boss even remotely took 10 minutes... I wasn't timing but I'm put money on not even 5. However there were a couple of them where on my first few tries I didn't realise you could attack them during certain attack patterns. Basically if you wait for their "down time" when they are briefly vulnerable, it could take ages, but thats just because you are playing safe and not experimenting.

But if you are brave and accurately jump over their projectiles, get to higher ground, or run underneath them and attack them from behind, you can breeze through them much, much quicker. Perhaps the bosses where you have to chase them would take a long time if you were bad at platforming so they kept getting away... though again, eventually they will wait for you to catch up. Easy mode.

The one exception is the last boss. Its not very original and the first attack patterns is tedious and it seems random as to whether you get the blue projectiles that you need to hit fall in the right place for you to be able to get them... unless I'm just being stupid and theres a specific place to stand to get it right. Assuming not, its just bad design. I didn't feel that about any of the other bosses or mini bosses. Its a shame that the very last boss leaves me with a bad impression (I also dislike the gimmick of the Act 2 level that leads up to it) but everything up to that point is somewhere between "perfect fine" and "actually thats really cool". I've not got all the emeralds yet, so I've not tried whatever the Super Sonic version of the last boss is, I hope its better, not just identical but longer.

Also bare in mind that in both my play throughs I didn't use the chaos powers a single time (I prefer the pure platforming experience, and frankly I forget they even exist. They are not needed to complete the game except the mini "tutorial" when you first pick up each one to learn what it does). If you are finding a particular boss is taking too long, just use one of the chaos powers, like in Streets of Rage where you can "cheat" and call in the squad to firebomb everything on screen! Thinking about it, I should have done this for the last boss when I started finding it annoying.

@UltraZelda64 Interesting. Can't say as I noticed, but I've only been playing on the Switch Lite so far, and just through its speakers, so I wouldn't be able to properly judge. (I'm house sitting while my mum is on holiday.) If the sound mix is off, thats definitely something very important to fix, music is so important in Sonic titles.

BTW for everyone reading my posts here and elsewhere, I know some of my posts seem like I'm just sticking up for this game like a shilling fanboy but I'm not beyond noticing problems or things I'd like to be fixed or added. I'd never remotely claim its perfect, its typical modern Sega "its NEARLY great... BUT..." - definitely room to improve, even though I really like most of whats there so far.

@samuelvictor It's called single player, not "one player".

@blindsquarel Well the reason for that is games run way way faster off a SSD/HDD then a very slow Blu Ray disc. Wouldn't be shocked if the Switch 2 also requires installs as well.

So the physical copy is as good as useless ... oh well

@BTB20 Sure, I would usually describe a title as a "single player" game or a "multi player game". However, what I wrote started "I think as a pure one player Sonic experience...", the "pure" as a descriptive emphasis makes it read better in my opinion as "one" rather than "single", principally because this games does allow multiplayer, and indeed has been somewhat advertised to emphasise the multiplayer aspects, none of which I think are actually any good. So I was trying to make extra clear that my mini review of the game was only for if you are hoping to experience it purely by yourself. One person, even though its technically a multiplayer game and marketed as such.

If you are hoping to predominantly play this game as multiplayer... I'd probably drop my 8.5/10 to a 6. The main game play doesn't lend itself to multiplayer and the battle mode is frankly rubbish, imo.

@Mauzuri As I said, many (most? all?) of them, you can attack whilst they are attacking, and also, you can get multiple hits per cycle. I discovered this myself very simply in some of them. And considering I managed that in most, I'd hazard a guess that with experimenting, better players than be will be able to get it down to a fine art.

I don't really have a fully formed opinion on the soundtrack right now. When playing I was often thinking "this music is cool" but so far after 2 playthroughs and a lot of messing around with time attacks and trying different characters, none of it jumps out as instantly memorable, unlike, say, the first time I heard Green Hill Zone at a friends house and it was stuck in my head for months. I wasn't humming along with anything by my second playthough. I didn't think any music was bad, although I did notice a couple looped quicker than I'd have liked.

Again as per my comment above, I'm not going for the hard sale, I'm not mortally offended if people don't like the game or don't want to try it. But that complaint I keep seeing about the bosses simply isn't true. I even went into my first playthrough expecting the bosses to be tedious because of what I'd heard, and pretty much instantly realised people who were saying this were just kinda bad at the game, so I thought I'd mention that incase that was the primary issue putting you or others off.😅

Flexing about playing a pirated game on a hacked switch lite is not cool.

@r1chard If you mean me, I've made it very clear multiple times on this site that I pre-ordered physical shelf copies for Switch and PS5, plus Steam for the innevitable mods. Several people already have their physical copies a week ago because mom and pop shops don't care about release dates. I never once said I was playing a pirated copy, let alone "flexed" about it. I've bought physical copies of every Sonic game since 1991, and after 1995, all of them have been on launch day. In fact for most games I buy multiple copies to collect them, and get regional differences in packaging. I'm well known for being obsessive about this stuff 😂

However, in this case, yes I did download the leaked copy. I wouldn't have mentioned it as i don't want to encourage people to do the same, especially if they don't intend to buy. I want this game to sell well. Again, I've been very vocal about this. Both my Switch consoles are "jailbroken" not for piracy but because I literally develop commercial Switch games. I downloaded to try it 2 days early, simply because I want to spend as much time with it as possible before playing Mario (which I have also pre-ordered, and haven't downloaded, despite it leaking, because I'm playing Sonic). I'm buying myself 2 days of playtime so that I can further enjoy the other physical game I've preordered. As I said, I'm house sitting for my mum at the moment, but when I get home, I'll have 2 nice physical copies sat on my doormat. I have no problem with playing a game I've already paid £140 for (£60 on Steam, 2x£40 for the physicals, from Hit).

@DennisReynolds
I guess that makes sense, but why require the disk to still be in after the initial copy?

@blindsquarel To prevent people lending the game to friends to install, returning it to the shop or selling on their physical copy after installing it. The physical game is basically primitive DRM for many games.

@samuelvictor Honestly, I just assumed your retail copy arrived a few days early, and if you didn't post anything, I believe most people would have assumed the same if they have noticed your posts about the game over the last few days. Yeah, I was aware the leaked copy was out there, but with the amount of passion you put into your posts, you downloading it to get a few days of an early headstart didn't cross my mind.

I got both the Switch and Xbox versions of the game and have given them both a brief try. The Switch version actually looks better to me on my HDTV than the Xbox Series X version because it doesn't have that blurry effect in the background of most of the levels. It's much sharper and the detail is given the chance to pop out without the blur.

On the other hand, some of the bigger enemies seem to be much lower polygon models on Switch and don't seem to look as good as they do on Xbox. The d-pad is obviously the way to go in this game no matter which system you play it on, but due to some of the areas early on that I've seen so far that rely on using diagonal directions (moving across wide loops), the Series X controller's d-pad is noticeably better than the Switch Pro controller's d-pad in those sections. I didn't try the NSO Genesis controller yet, but it or a Retro-Bit Genesis or Saturn style controller would probably be excellent for the Switch version (or PC).

The Xbox version also won't let me load or use any of my DLC; maybe it involves this day one update, which probably didn't update and when I check for updates it says there are none. I also can't seem to find the digital artbook anywhere on the Xbox. Don't know what's going on, maybe Sega just really screwed up the release of this one on the Xbox. Hopefully later today it sees an update and all this stuff loads, because I paid for it and it is all installed.

@Nua Thanks! Its not something I've ever done before, but its very frustrating having Sonic and Mario arrive so close to each other, and being I've literally bought 3 copies already, I feel entirely morally justified! As I said, I wouldn't have even mentioned it, I thought most people would just do what you did and assume it arrived early, as many people's copies have. Also, people know I'm in the industry, and work on games tv shows and media, so I may even have had a review code. If I thought me posting a mini review one day early meant people would think I was encouraging piracy, I wouldn't have done it! But it seems a stretch to me, I dont' know why they jumped to that 😂

I would never download a current gen game that I don't buy. I do sometimes download Switch games that I own physical copies of, but this is so that I can play them on PC, usually if the performance is bad or for accessibility reasons - notably Links Awakening to improve the framerate and be able to use a D-Pad, and Animal Crossing so I can feel secure that I won't ever lose my island. I'm autistic and the idea of working for literal years on making the perfect island only to lose it when the servers go down is heartbreaking to me, my villagers are alive! lol. But again, I feel entirely fine doing this, because I always buy the physical game. Almost always brand new, retail price, launch day.

I've made clear that I DO play roms and abandonware for old games, but we've discussed the moral implications of this at length on Time Extension, and its a far deeper subject than should be handled in this post. I'm also well known in retro circles for having a very extensive collection of retro items anyway, I mostly use roms for convenience. However, I don't think the person calling me out would have an issue with me doing this anyway, being that they themselves post a lot about jailbreaking their devices and playing roms on them.

@UltraZelda64 The blurry background is usually called "depth of field" or "shallow DOF" and may be able to be turned off in the options / accessibility? If not, thats another thing Sega should patch in and should have been there since day one. Many people like it, as it looks like a movie with selective focus, but for others it gives them motion sickness. I actually really like that effect, but its definitely a matter of taste when it comes to games and its very easy to code a toggle.

On Switch Lite I've found I naturally switch between the Dpad the majority of the time and occasionally to the left analogue stick in parts where I'd naturally use the rolling of the d-pad on a Sega controller. I don't have the Megadrive Switch controller yet but I do have several of the Retro Bit MD and Saturn pads, looking forward to playing Superstars with them when I get home. It really does "feel" like the 16bit titles to me, so having the "right" controller in my hand for them will be great!

I'm sorry to hear about the DLC not working for you. Again, thats really bad and Sega need to fix that asap. Hope you get it sorted 😀

@samuelvictor Your enthusiasm certainly comes through! I'll most likey buy it digitally on Switch as my only other option is PS4, am just glad it sounds like the game runs well portable as well as docked. I'll most likely contribute some views once I've played it, but good to hear it sounds like long time fans of the classics will enjoy it.

@Ristar24 Haha thanks. I know I talk too much about this stuff, but some people seem to enjoy my ramblings. Someone actually suggested I do one of those crazy 10 hour long "reviewing everything in a series" YT videos where I cover the entire history of Sonic games. I'm half considering taking a day to do just that, to celebrate Superstars, and why its important. Sonic's come a loooong way, and its been a very bumpy road. While its easy for people to say "oooh another ok-ish Sonic game" there's actually a definite recent uptick in quality, and while there are flaws, it gets the basics right and gives a good, fun, polished Sonic experience. Thats not something you can say about every title, and I want to encourage it... so I hope its a sales success, and being the same week as Mario doesn't hurt it too badly.

@samuelvictor Yeah, I'll be picking up Sonic before Mario, the nostalgia is strong for me. I appreciate the enthusiasm, ha, I pretty much buy and play every Sonic game that comes out and as you say some are better than others. Either way, Sonic is still one of my favouite video games, particularly the original Mega Drive and 8-bit versions and I'm always interested to see the next game arrive, even now, 30 or more years later. Will post once I have a chance to play it and share my views!

@Ristar24 Lookingforward to hearing what you think! I'm definitely more of a classic fan than modern, but I still buy and play every game and see teh ebbs and flos. Obviously excluding Mania, this is the closest I've felt to recreating what made those 8 and 16bit titles so great - far exceeds the sidescrolling areas of Generations, Colours or Forces, or any of the 3d sidescrolling handheld titles, imo.

@JohnnyMind I'm really glad you're enjoying it so far! One thing I guess I should have mentioned above is that while there aren't any real extras to unlock, there is an entire "new game plus" mode. Its not that different, and its basically playing through the same game again with some minor changes that make it arguably worse run (though certainly more challenging...), but there is a very nice surprise that makes it worth it which I won't spoil here.

I think for a full start to finish playthrough, Mania and of course Origins are better, but I think I'll replay many of the stages in Time Attack over and over in Superstars, so I can experience the bits I love, and skip the bits I'm not as keen on. I'll definitely get a tonne of replay value from it.

For anyone interested but doesn't have the game yet, there's a free download of a LEGO Sonic skin for Sonic. If you download it, you should automatically get the update as well, even if you don't have the game, as it will show as a HOME Menu icon.

Also, SEGA this time decided to release a Digital Deluxe Update DLC, much like Square Enix and their recent releases.

@JohnnyMind And it includes everything? If that’s so my worries have been elevated!

@HammerGalladeBro Thanks for this info, I was hoping this would be the case. I felt sure it would be, but glad to have confirmation.

@JohnnyMind Thanks! Yes I'm still really enjoyign it so far. I can see me getting a lot of replay value from it for years to come, which is what I was really hoping for. 😀

@samuelvictor Thanks for posting this - I'd like a physical copy for posterity, but I wasn't sure if it was too rough before the patch. I'll be picking it up now thanks to you!

@brakeman90 Hey no worries! I honestly can't tell any difference between patched and non-patched, it must have been very minor bug fixes or something but I played it solidly for 2 days before updating and it was rock solid.

The alpha SMB Wonder don't need no day one patch.