The Absolute Failure of Sonic Superstars Boss Fights

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The Sonic Superstars boss fights are even worse than you think. Here's why and how to fix them.
#sonicthehedgehog #sonic #SonicSuperstars
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Sonic the Hedgehog[a] is a video game series and media franchise created by the Japanese developers Yuji Naka, Naoto Ohshima, and Hirokazu Yasuhara for Sega. The franchise follows Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battles the evil Doctor Eggman, a mad scientist. The main Sonic the Hedgehog games are platformers mostly developed by Sonic Team; other games, developed by various studios, include spin-offs in the racing, fighting, party and sports genres. The franchise also incorporates printed media, animations, feature films, and merchandise.
Naka, Ohshima, and Yasuhara developed the first Sonic game, released in 1991 for the Sega Genesis, to provide Sega with a mascot to compete with Nintendo's Mario. Its success helped Sega become one of the leading video game companies during the fourth generation of video game consoles in the early 1990s. Sega Technical Institute developed the next three Sonic games, plus the spin-off Sonic Spinball (1993). A number of Sonic games were also developed for Sega's 8-bit consoles, the Master System and Game Gear. After a hiatus during the unsuccessful Saturn era, the first major 3D Sonic game, Sonic Adventure, was released in 1998 for the Dreamcast. Sega exited the console market and shifted to third-party development in 2001, continuing the series on Nintendo, Xbox, and PlayStation systems. Takashi Iizuka has been the series' producer since 2010.
While Sonic games often have unique game mechanics and stories, they feature recurring elements such as the ring-based health system, level locales, and fast-paced gameplay. Games typically feature Sonic setting out to stop Eggman's schemes for world domination, and the player navigates levels that include springs, slopes, bottomless pits, and vertical loops. Later games added a large cast of characters; some, such as Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, and Shadow the Hedgehog, have starred in spin-offs. The franchise has crossed over with other video game franchises in games such as Mario & Sonic, Sega All-Stars, and Super Smash Bros.
Sonic the Hedgehog is Sega's flagship franchise and one of the bestselling video game franchises, selling over 140 million units by 2016 and grossing over $5 billion as of 2014. Series sales and free-to-play mobile game downloads totaled 1.6 billion as of 2023. The Genesis Sonic games have been described as representative of the culture of the 1990s and listed among the greatest of all time. Although later games, notably the 2006 game, received poorer reviews, Sonic is influential in the video game industry and is frequently referenced in popular culture. The franchise is known for its fandom that produces unofficial media, such as fan art and fangames.
Link to intro music: • Micheal Jackson x Brun...

[@thehedgehognerd]

THE FINAL BOSS OF TRIP'S STORY IS THE REASON WHY I STILL HAVEN'T BEAT SUPERSTARS!!!! I really liked this game, but Boss Fights drove it down for me. Final Bosses are just unfair, have no checkpoints and INSTA KILL ATTACKS, that make you start everything all over again...yeah do better next time SEGA.

[@jordanpatton3622]

I’ll be honest, I still haven’t beat that boss 😅

[@FierceDietyLink100]

same me too

[@rollingstart_90s]

I feel you. I haven't been able to beat Trips final boss either. This is coming from a guy who's been playing these games since 1992.

[@thehedgehognerd]

@@jordanpatton3622 Whew, good to know I'm not alone on this 😅

[@thehedgehognerd]

@@rollingstart_90s So if even you have a problem to beat this boss....then something is really wrong with this Boss design 😒

[@LuffyMcDuck]

I've played games with much harder bosses in them but rarely I come across a game with as badly designed bosses with way too much HP for their own good. Truly one the Sonic games of all time.

[@grahamjhallaudio8198]

I really love game apologists comparison of original splash Hill zone music, to the remix done with teelopes. Collaboration is absolutely what it needed, rather than various artists submitting different takes of music in different styles

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

Mania was a collaboration when you think about it. it was mostly older sonic game music remixed to be CD quality.

[@DarkAnomaly]

This is one thing I can agree on. The boss fights are the main reason I'm always so hesitant to go back to it.

[@Brabbs]

Mecha Sonic is turn based but the difference between him and this game is that his attacks are very short. Making him one of my favorite bosses in the entire classic series.

[@camo6465]

and even then, during YOUR turn, you can hit him MULTIPLE TIMES!

[@Brabbs]

@@camo6465 you can hit him mostly twice unless you bruteforce/self damage your way to hitting him. But thats part of the fun of sonic bosses. Still though, Mecha is an amazing blend of both worlds Ive also heard people compare Mecha Sonic to Megaman bosses.

[@camo6465]

@@Brabbs We talking the one from Sonic 2 or Sonic & Knuckles? Both fantastic fights, but it is SIGNIFICANTLY easier to cheese the one in Sonic 2, and that’s the one I was thinking of lol

[@Brabbs]

@@camo6465 yes Also wdym cheese? You dont have rings so if you screw up you die in one hit. LOL

[@camo6465]

@@Brabbs By “cheese” I mean “hit a lot of times on your turn” lol If you know how to time it EXACTLY right, you can hit the Sonic 2 one *FOUR TIMES* during its first windup!

[@SuperSonicWarrior93]

This game was a hassle to beat. But somehow I was finally able to beat Trip’s final boss with Metal Fang, after 130 tries. But after completing the Super Sonic finale, I am never playing this game again. I don’t need the stress.

[@picawood]

Some of those fights fell like a mario boss fight but you need to hit 5 times more

[@augustbornone]

Even they were more enjoyable then this.

[@noahmaldonado5461]

What's weird is most classic sonic bosses take 8 hits to defeat but the bosses in superstars only took 6 hits, yet that didn't stop them from being three times longer than normal

[@augustbornone]

@@noahmaldonado5461 That's messed up... that's seriously messed up.

[@faz10do]

No matter what you can tell me, they did not play manias boss fight

[@augustbornone]

@@faz10do Or Sonic Adventure's boss fights.

[@Girbekafecon]

Run fact: the fastest level in superstars is frozen base act 1, just before the final level

[@Amir66754]

The boss in this act is purely atrocious though so there’s a compromise here

[@NinjaElectro0]

Imagine if you have a level called Speed Jungle and it's not the fastest level in the game

[@chiptunepacifist5729]

the bosses EASILY drop the games score down to a 5/10 for me it’s crazy. i should never HAVE to get all the chaos emeralds just to make the bosses fun

[@mbdg6810]

Even then the bosses still are problematic

[@johncohagen2793]

The Final Boss of Trip’s Story almost made me mad enough to destroy my controller, Nintendo Switch and TV. SEGA, Challenging Gameplay does NOT always equate to FUN.

[@cliffturbo2146]

Sonic Rush had that same issue of waiting for a hit, but this is 10 times worse. I played this game with a friend, but I'm not getting it anytime soon.

[@esmooth919]

Sonic Rush was nowhere near as egregious.

[@sonicrunn3r895]

It's so funny how they had 3 chances to make a good final boss and managed to make all 3 range from painful to downright unfair

[@33pandagamer]

They made the boss fights more turn-based because of the 4-player local multiplayer. They didn't want the boss to be cheeseable just because you have more friends.

[@ericshun3926]

Everyone knows that is a stupid reason, like they could have just amped the hp of bosses according to how many additional players you have, but no they had to be ~special~

[@gamejitzu]

It's wild how after all this time and feedback, all they've really done is add region-locked skins instead of actually addressing the problems

[@derple8524]

Yep

[@stevenshockley4237]

Hoe bout the failure of its OST after we already said Jun sucked at chiptune? They didn't listen and now we got what's a half-baked unfinished soundtrack.

[@derple8524]

They really don't learn smh

[@mikdan8813]

Sonic Superstars: good gameplay, terrible boss fights Sonic Frontiers: mid gameplay, awesome boss fights

[@spritesensation]

The bosses take what wouldve been a solid 8 out of 10 game and bring it down to a 6.

[@roiitzkovich4545]

I don't think these bosses are bad. Maybe I just have more patience than other players, but I don't mind longer than usual bosses if I need to dodge attack patterns and find openings. I don't think dodging moves is boring. It only gets boring if the attacks themselves are slow. That's why some of my least favorite bosses in Superstars are the Sand Sanctuary boss and the auto-scroller with Fang in Golden Capital. The rest of the bosses aren't really slow. I also love how we can use the emerald powers to find early openings and beat bosses quicker. Another reason why I don't like the 2 previously mentioned boss fights is that the emerald powers don't really help to beat them quicker. The Sand Sanctuary boss mostly stays in the background and the Fang auto-scroller doesn't allow you to even use the powers. I do agree the avatar power is problematic though. In any other classic Sonic game, the avatar power would've eliminated the bosses in seconds, and the player wouldn't have had to do anything (making it very mindless). While giving the bosses a lot of I-frames solves this issue, it also makes them much longer. The avatar power creates more issues than benefits. However, I don't think it should be flat-out removed. Instead, I recommand for it to be pushed back. Replace the avatar and the extra powers in places. The extra powers don't make the characters too OP. It would've been better as the first power-up you get. Meanwhile, the avatar power-up, which heavily benefits the player, would've been much more fitting of a status of the last power-up you get. You can only get the 7th power-up in Press Factory AT THE EARLIEST. That means over 50% of the game is behind you at that point. This power-up wouldn't be THAT beneficial by than. I think it's really weird the game gives you a screen nuke so early, but a homing attack so late. Gotta say though, while I hate the Sand Sanctuary boss and the Fang auto-scroller, I DESPISE the purple dragon boss. This might just be my least favorite boss in the entire franchise. I'll take the Silver fights in Sonic 06 over this because at least I can comfortably manipulate him into grabbing the furniture and beat him fairly quickly. If I end up being stuck on a wall, I'mma just reset the fight (not much different than an insta-kill move from Fang's giant mech). The purple dragon on the other hand relies on so much stupid RNG, to the point skill doesn't matter. Other bosses, while slow, at least follow the typical "learn attack patterns, dodge moves and land hits when you can" formula. They might be slow, but at least they are consistent. Skill DOES matter (to a small extent). If the purple dragon fight doesn't give you enough rings, or (GOD FORBID) if he decides to flip the perspective just when Tails/Knuckles spawned in to give you some extra rings (which removes them from the screen), you will die regardless of your skill as a player. That's the worst kind of boss IMO. On another disagreement, I actually really like the final boss of Trip's story against Fang. Sure, the 1-hit KO moves can catch you off guard at first. However, after that first impression, you learn from that and dodge it. It's really no that bad. At this point, I got so good at this fight that I can beat him consistently. Unlike the purple dragon, your skill DOES matter. You won't die to stuff outside of your control. Really, many bosses in Superstars aren't as slow or long as some people claim they are. While I don't think power-ups should be the de-facto answer for making bosses quicker (because, as you said, players who don't have these powers will suffer), as someone who DOES collect all the powers along the way it doesn't bother me so much.

[@Bronotaprojack]

No wonder they added the new world map💀

[@DiscordedHaru]

No I’d say you aren’t more patient, you just have bad gauge of quality.

[@roiitzkovich4545]

@@DiscordedHaru That's an insult and I'll ignore your comment because of that.

[@supermaro2349]

If the bosses were designed around the powerup system in mind, I felt they should have just left it as you being able to beat them easily with the powerups. I view it in the same way as what Megaman does. Whenever you use an ability a boss is weak to, you do more damage and you reset them. Meaning that you essentially just demolish them if you have their weakness. But if you don't then its a standard boss fight. I feel superstars bosses could have worked similar to this and just let them be normal fights if you didnt have any powerups, but if you did you just basically demolished the bosses

[@DanielAntovski]

Why can't we have physics based boss fights? One of the best bosses in the series is casinopolis in sonic 2. We have these complex level designs and we just run into a standart mediocre platformer boss

[@derple8524]

I have no idea why that isn't a thing yet like jeez, that boss is so much fun

[@KaleBennett]

Regarding damage output, one thing I think could've made the bosses more interesting is letting you blindly attack them like in the older games, but also giving them weak points that you have to uncover by being strategic, such as baiting an attack to expose a weak point. Example: The swinging robot in Speed Jungle. As it stands, you can only damage it making it shoot a claw at itself. But reworking it, maybe you can defeat it by hitting it 50 times normally, but if you avoid jumping on it, it will do that claw attack which takes a third of its health. So it's up to you on if you wanna take the safe but longer path of normal hits, or the riskier but shorter path of making it attack itself. Something else could be that the bosses get more aggressive and difficult if you hit them normally, like getting slightly faster with every hit, so hitting their weak points instead of blindly attacking them would be more ideal. I think something like this could both be fun for single player and encourage cooperation and communication for multiplayer, as well as avoid the problem of giving the bosses long invincibility frames and drawn-out attacks that leave the player with nothing to do. I also think it would've been neat if there could've been a difficulty option that makes the rings work like Sonic Unleashed, where you can't pick up scattered rings, but you lose rings in chunks rather than all at once. The ring system makes it really easy to just brute force your way through bosses with one ring, so having a more substantial punishment for getting hit would be nice.

[@With2Ls]

The bosses are the reason I haven’t beaten the game I love the regular gameplay but the bosses are so infuriating that I just don’t wanna deal with it

[@Starrmonster02]

Same I’m still stuck on trips story on this wyvern boss why are they so hard to defeat

[@beatziegraham6928]

As much as I hate these bosses, I like to jokingly headcannon that this is Eggman getting smarter and implementing an invincibility period on his mechs so sonic takes longer to beat him and that there can be a small chance of eggman winning. And with how hard the final bosses are, I think it worked in his favor.

[@teaboy0996]

When I first heard the boss theme, I literally said "Really? That's it?"

[@grahamjhallaudio8198]

34:02 this is epic I could play these boss fights again and again with that music.

[@jjsponge1202]

The bosses were so overwhelming that I decided to check out spoilers of the final bosses for Trip and Super Sonic and then abandon this game straight after. That’s how badly designed they were.

[@atsilv]

Sonic having restrictive boss fights is kinda ironic since one of the themes I take from the series is "Chaotic freedom vs. Orderly control"

[@DaWrecka]

I think Medibot from the pokecapn LP's posse summarised this best in one of the Sonic Unleashed videos; "Dear developers. Don't make wait-around bosses. It's just inconsiderate."

[@lukchem]

I think Sega could have made classic boss fights with the blue emerald power up. I think the blue (and red) emerald should be one of the last ones that you collect. So then the players could decide if they they want to learn the boss fights to annihilate them in a few seconds or go out of their way to collect the all the emeralds to obtain the over powered power to wipe them with the press of a button.

[@glitchtron4453]

Aside from a few misses, I loved the boss fights in this game. Especially the final ones. They were hard as hell but beating them gave me more satisfaction than almost any other Sonic boss in the other games. The dragon was definitely my least favourite out of the three though.

[@doctormodder]

Don't get me wrong, I do believe Sonic Superstars is a great game, but the only boss I actually had fun with is Lagoon City's bosses. Otherwise they all take too long to beat. AND I HAVEN'T REACHED TRIP'S FINAL BOSS YET.

[@borederlands5387]

never thought i'd hear pup be a fan of the final boss

[@comicfan1324]

I actually agree that they should’ve swapped out the avatar ability for something else. Personally, I think having the cast emerald give you an ability similar to the electric shield would’ve been pretty neat. Don’t give it a double jump since that is Amy and Trip’s signature moves, but it could act as a normal shield that attracts rings to you. That way it’s useful as you essentially have a one-time-use spare shield at the ready whenever the emerald is charged but it isn’t completely broken. It would be a very low level ability that just helps introduce the concept of the emerald powers. (also sonic 06 did the same thing with the yellow gem shoes so I don’t think it’s that much to ask)

[@szszabolcs9582]

The way how they an fix the bosses is...make the invincibility frames is singleplayer exclusive to the avatar power-up Give slight differences between the singleplayer and multiplayer bosses...mainly the more players are playing the more hits the boss takes and more invincibility frames the boss has... Example: a normal boss would be 8 hits and no i-frames while 2 player has 10 hits and a second I-frame...AND FOUR PLAYER WOULD HAVE 14 hits and 3 seconds of i-frames Let certain bosses open the whole time, like giving speed jungle act 2's boss a cockpit you can hit at points where you can jump into it

[@comicfan1324]

On one hand I can understand why they wanted to add these invincibility frames. After all if you’re playing for player Co-Op and everyone is spamming attacks the machine boss could’ve been beaten within a matter of seconds. but I Think invincibility frames still should’ve been a little less invasive. Let’s say the boss can take eight hits. If you were skilled enough you should be able to get three or four hits in for each opening. That way while the machine is not vulnerable you get to see it attacks but the fight doesn’t feel like it’s dragged out

[@Austinator0630]

That's why the speedrun for this game involves skipping almost all of them.

[@musicmashups]

Aside from the incredibly short campaign and 5th Chaos Emerald Stage, this was also my biggest problem with Superstars. The "hard" boss fights are such an absolute grind and not fun to play at all. The complaints about the nusic are also very valid, espeiclwly showing how much better Penny's boss themes were. Oenny in general is just a much better Sonic game than Superstars (or most 3D Sonics tbh) and I wish Sega had gotten Whitehead back for this game instead of hiring Arzest. Pro tip: Amy's double jump makes alot of the bosses easier and I definitely recommend playing the campaign with her.

[@krackkokichi]

i can't even beat the cyber station boss yet 💀 the thought of the fang boss and the giant eggman mech makes me break out into hives

[@markjrcolin1210]

On the note of power up mentality. I think I got very lucky, I got an early emerald and realized the power ups are key. So I was extremely vigilant, finding an easily accessible special ring per world, and replaying levels to reach those rings if I failed getting an emerald. This early adopted method made bosses less of a headache, however, due to the recharge mechanic, I never used the power ups a lot. Because I wasn’t familiar with the bosses and always feared some BS attack that they might potentially have, like the egg slammer thing killing you with its bouncing platform if you land wrong after hitting it and stop beneath a platform after a slam. I’ve literally died unable to control my character because the boss was doing a defeated animation as I had landed the last hit. Do I think the power ups were necessary? No. The game is far from perfect, and without the right caution or foresight, it can screw you. But I still enjoy it, besides most bosses. Edit: thanks for addressing the music. Sonic is, in my opinion, a franchise with generally awesome music. But superstars falls flat on its face at every song. But the boss drone indoctrination music is the worst blunder of the soundtrack entirely

[@SAGEtheGOD01]

I collected all the emeralds early and had no issues with the bosses, plus this is my favorite classic sonic game because of Trip.

[@nickgamer2693]

You can’t beat Golden Capital Act 2 in Normal Story without taking damage.

[@augustbornone]

This was a very well in-depth review of the bosses there Channel Pup, having beat Sonic Superstars today, I can 100% agree that the bosses are indeed the worst part of the game. I mean the first half of the bosses were OK, there not the best but they were at least decent, but the second half, as well as both the bosses from Trip's Playthrough and the Last Story's True Final Boss.... Oh. My. God. They were utter hell, screw the waiting game on all three of the final bosses, screw the Fang Boss fight and also... SCREW THE INSTITE KO MOVES THAT THE FRECKING TRIP'S STORY MODE FINAL BOSS HAS, IT TOOK ME HOURS TO BEAT THEM!!!!!!!!!! Because of this, I think I'll be sticking to Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episodes 1 & 2, or heck, even Sonic Mania to get my taste on 2.D Sonic Games. (Side note: Can we PLEASE get a Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 3 right now?)

[@BopSteady]

OMG I am SO SO glad I found this video by random, the entire thing and everything you said is ALL that Sega needs to hear! I can't believe i'll say this but I haven't replayed this game after the main campaign, normally I can play Sonic 3 and all the others like once every 2 month with no problem, why? Because it's enjoyable and it's me who is in control of the speed it takes to do what I do. Yes it is a KEY element, bashing that bosses are too easy is so wrong because in our first battle not understanding them it can take a while but then as you said so perfectly we are REWARDED next time by being able to speedrun them as fast as possible so that we can start enjoying the next Act or Zone and THAT's the entire appear of Classic Sonic game and what it's all about the pleasure of the Zones and what you run through! Superstar takes all of that completly away, "I want to play that act it was so great!" "Oh yeah well I remember the 5 min boss ugh time trial then to play the Act..." And when this is what happen with 90% of the game you end up having literally only the time trial to enjoy the Acts with constant interuptions because you can't just start from the start and end at the end of the game like it would playing in the campaign. I was hoping I could've relied on the debug mode to fix that by adding an end panel at every end of Acts which I would have tolerated to play in that way but with the *coughs* crappiest useless debug mode we got that's not possible to do, and deleted all possible replayability for me and i'm sticking with the originals, Mania, Origins, AIR. Absolute and co unless fans fix Superstars in its totality to make it become what it deserves to be and absolutely wasn't.

[@garsrandom4358]

6:06 actually, what I thought happened is that, isntead of the « sonic can beat these boss too quickly after enough training » argument, it was « 4 players and the avatar power can beat these boss too quickly near the first try » Which means: the first argument is a proof of skill, the second is just something called cheesing

[@jt_9999]

Still haven’t finished trips final boss

[@earlyriser03]

Super powers MASSIVELY improve this problem by trivializing the bosses and making most zone replays more fun. However, it’s still a shame that they were made this way. I will never do a new run of Superstars because of the ridiculous bosses.

[@vengeflyking2722]

I really only minded the longest ones, excluding the regular final boss. I never made it past Trip's final boss though... Anyways I would simply make it so power ups simply can't deal more than a certain amount of total damage and Eggman like, activates some kind of crazy device that cancels your emeralds like the one he got in the Sonic Unleashed intro.

[@NovaWild]

Sonic superstars is like that game that once ur done, YOUR'RE DONE, U put it away to n3vr touch and do again unless paid to do OR forsome reason a group of people wanna team up in it.

[@33pandagamer]

Good music can make even the most frustrating boss fights bearable.

[@aijahlonbolyn7843]

It would have been better if they would have ditched the mini bosses and had 1 boss for each zone with its own act. A big part in what makes these bosses so draining is the that they come at the end of a level.

[@mbdg6810]

Exactly that would do so much better.

[@derple8524]

This whole game felt like a cheap cash grab as I have a lot of problems with it, but after playing some indie games that actually make speed running levels fun with engaging boss fights I'm gonna be WAY more cautious of future Sonic games as I know there are smaller developers that know what they're actually doing compared to whatever Sega and their developers are doing

[@nathansos8480]

Or just play sonic fangames.

[@michaelfalcone7110]

The Fang mech fight made me quit the game. 26:47 That Fang fight only has one thing I like about it. The background. I like that you can see the mech in the background and that in between you can his bike being modified. Other than that, I don’t like it.

[@ChannelPup]

All completely based.

[@chuckymunsterstudios]

I really like the new thumbnail style!

[@shaankelly1302]

My solution. Just play as Amy. Her doublejump can take down most bosses in half the time. Far more tolerable bc this is a solid game outside them

[@shahrouh]

Just completed Trip's final boss after a solid hour and the true final boss today. For some reason couldn't get the timing of the homing attack at the very end of the true final boss forcing me to restart multiple times. Painful as it's a long fight. Definitely agree with the hitbox of the Robot in his flying mech, I just kept going through him to fall through offstage. During Fang/Nack's fight I hated his headbutt move, one time it removed pretty much the entirety of all the platforms even though I was standing at a safe spot. While I did enjoy a number of moments from this game, I just had played Sonic Origins previously and I found the fun factor, boss and level design for the games in Origin to be leaps and bounds better.

[@Beastmd]

Disagree that the powerups are a bad idea for the bosses, it was nice relying on them and it made them all way easier

[@ReGo001]

The boss design feels like it was a choice to offset the game having infinite lives

[@JaySurf27]

5:12 caught me off guard 😂😭

[@Umbra_Ursus]

Feel the need to tack this on: Sonic Forces had better bosses. You're just allowed to attack, and I may be misremembering, but I think the final boss did have checkpoints. As bad as it could be, every single boss felt better in every way, with better music to boot (Other than the Egg Dragoon. They butchered it's track).

[@ChannelPup]

Yeah Forces finale had checkpoints, and they didn't have excessive I-frames. Heck, the Infinite Bosses were genuinely cool.

[@augustbornone]

When Sonic Force, a game that's known for being underwhelming, has much, much, MUCH better boss fights then Sonic Superstars, you know somethings wrong.

[@LucasHopkins2006]

I’m not gonna lie, of all the Sonic games I’ve played, the Eggman final boss of this game may just be my least favorite Sonic boss fight, I’m not kidding. And yes I’ve played 06, I’ve fought Silver, I still think that felt more doable and even enjoyable than this piece of crap. The first time I tried it I spent like 10 minutes hitting the blue missiles back at him only for him to swat them away not realizing I was supposed to go behind him and even when I finally figured out what I was supposed to do there was still so much going on that took up too much of the platforms that I just rage quit, and to this day I tried again once, after a couple of tries declared “Yep, this boss fight is some of the stupidest crap I’ve ever seen in a Sonic game, I’m done” and I still haven’t beaten it and I still haven’t gotten past that story and just because of that even if I do beat it one day in maybe 10 years, I’m not doing Trip’s story, frick that crap

[@bbguy2245]

I like the entire game tbh: hot take its better than mania. But the boss fights 100% pull it down and make levels almost unreplayable

[@Gnidel]

Thankfully there is time attack mode which lets you skip bosses.

[@LiveHedgehog]

I really enjoyed a good chunk of this game, but honestly the tedium of these boss fights (and the fact I've still got Trip's Story and the Last Story to go) is honestly making me consider making this the first Sonic game I just gave up on. Absolutely disappointing.

[@LiveHedgehog]

I wish mods actually tackled these issues, instead of just being character skins...

[@sparky6757]

I had a 4/10 experience with the game. And it's sad, because I only had a few issues with the game - they were just really, really bad. Boss fights were generally horrible. The final bosses of each story were agony. Band-aid fix, cut all bosses' HP in half and retool the final bosses to have quicker cycles to hit them. The screen is too zoomed in for singleplayer. Zoom it out twice as far, and there you go. Power up system would be much better if they only lasted for a few seconds, and recharged over time rather than with checkpoints. This wouldn't make the game perfect, but it would be an 8/10 game with an amount of content that justifies the $24 I spent on it.

[@sonicthomasgamer]

Eggman could know about these abilities and try to counter them, but Sonic shows up ahead of schedule So he only negates them a little bit or not at all and just try to avoid them not having enough time to counter them Or throws up a shield that Sonic can bash away to recover some of his emerald power

[@orangeiris64]

This video deserves a like from everyone in the world for the thumbnail alone

[@nan0smm646]

Really hope the Ballan devs never make a Sonic game after this again

[@SSF124Animates]

They were so close. Good level design, good physics, buuut... the boss fights. They were so unnecessarily tedious, with it deciding over difficulty over actually fairness. Take Sonic Mania, for example. All the boss fights were memorable, well designed, and had a nice balance between challenging and fair. But this is just unfair, tedious, and whatever other synonyms there are. Maybe next time, they'll learn, seeing as they already managed to get the physics done right (pretty much)

[@THISCHANNELISRUNBYNOBODY]

What if these bosses were IMPOSSIBLE?!

[@CupNStr]

16:07 Cuphead did this and it worked great

[@chrisharriscreations]

My god, the difference the Pennys Big Breakaway music makes is impressive, sure like you say - its still flawed gameplay - but I don't want to tear my hair out as much.

[@Grovicalsoda]

you know what they should have just done for the clone attack? just let it be op as hell. cream can cheese the bosses to all hell in advance 2 & 3 & it was memorable for it or i dont know just make the move last less time

[@SophiaXiaoyuAralaCran]

Yeah really the Speed Jungle Main Boss battle was one I was first actually struggling a bit with even alone. Mostly fumbling of how to knock a missile back in his face took a bit of a while on my end since it's randomized when and where he fires them, and if bumping the blue one in the wrong direction happens well "Miss!" oops. ...and yes tbh the "Main Boss" theme is rather weak compared to most parts, sounds more like suitable for the mini boss battles instead. Last request: got a mod for the edit you did at the end on 33:33 ?

[@comicfan1324]

Gotta be honest, I was never bothered by the 25 2nd Loop. Objectively I think it’s a bad idea to make the boss theme only 25 seconds and loop it endlessly, but I’ve never really noticed that loop in gameplay. I just think to myself. “OK that’s a decent boss theme but nothing in the right home about.”

[@ScalyRaptor1944]

my honest reaction to the boss fight themes is the mr krabs clip "oh please make it sto-o-op!""

[@willy24able]

You should've played Freedom Planet 2 instead of the disappointing Sonic Superstars. You should've known that GalaxyTrail succeeded in the highspeed platforming design than Sega's pisspoor ideas & constant milking. Go buy Freedom Planet series just to see the difference in quality control of Sega's incompetence & GalaxyTrail's superiority.

[@33pandagamer]

The Egg Fortress robot is very buggy in 4-player multiplayer. The amount of times my siblings and I died due to the floor glitching out of existence, is too much.

[@TheAnchorArmsChad]

You think they'd make the Debug mode WITHOUT a Catch

[@100organicfreshmemes5]

Probably not going to buy Superstars unless it goes on a big sale on Steam, but I have to say I like the prospect of longer and more difficult bosses. Being able to destroy a boss in several seconds is very anti-climactic and boring. That said Superstars clearly goes about it in the wrong way where there's bad telegraphing and a lack of interactivity.

[@UltimaMan]

Let's be honest, we could have had Sonic Mania 2.

[@ICader7194]

What gave Frontiers a letter grade up gives Superstars a letter grade down.

[@B00TLEGSF0RALL]

I had to skip trip's final boss

[@DarthCobalt55]

The bosses really abrupt the flow of the game

[@Angiemation]

I still can't get past Fang's auto scroll section. I wish there was another checkpoint halfway through because it's such a slog to get through. I even managed to get all the emeralds before that stage and then they're taken away!😡 I've also have to mute the game when playing because of the repetitive music.😫 I don't even want to try finishing this game anymore.

[@hildamarston4077]

28:06 Definitely i can agree with you. The boss themes for this game are just a massive let down compared to the ones from the other classic games (including Mania). It's short, underwhelming, and super repetitive. When i first saw this game i thought "Oh wow, i'm sure the boss themes will have the same Sonic Mania quality on them!" But then i automatically got dissapointed when most of the bosses had this shitty ass song. This might just be, the worst boss theme of the series so far, even worse than the ones from Sonic 4 Episode 1 & 2. Oh and also, i wanna just come here and say that i'm working on a google doc with a reimaginated script of the story of Superstars. Might as well do something else after that.

[@mechajay3358]

This boss battles are beyond mid. They're basically what's keeping me from going back to Superstars.

[@migueloourico2011]

heh, I dont think you want to be some guy in brazil

[@cyanidethefox2160]

i 100% forgot about powerups.

[@GiovanniSchedgick-dv1wf]

Honestly me personally I enjoyed the superstar boss fights. Obviously there some bad ones but I enjoyed the majority of em.

[@TylerBR97]

It would’ve been at least SLIGHTLY less annoying if the bosses weren’t attached to the level. I hate that all classic games are like this

[@NanoTechBlueJ26]

If your gonna make the boss fights stronger, all you have to friggin do is just give them more health! That’s it! Why the hell does he need invincibly frames PLEASE TELL ME WHY THIS IS RIGGED

[@ninjamaster9094]

Surprised you really didnt have much of an issue with the dragon final boss. "Giant space flea from nowhere" story issues aside, it has the exact same pacing issues as most every other fight in this game. You can't hit him until he allows you to hit him. What's especially egregious about this fight though is that you are on a time limit, being your ring limit keeping your super sonic state like in other super sonic fights. This means that all the wasted time waiting for the boss to do something you can respond to is actually detrimental, and it doesn't help that half his attacks literally have no effect, they just waste time whether or not they hit you. This isn't a fight where you are speeding through as fast as possible to outrun the time limit, this is a waiting game where you will likely just pathetically sputter out and die. Sure, rings can constantly be found throughout the fight, especially through Tails and Knuckles, but where they spawn or even if they spawn feels so luck based that its difficult to rely on them, and you've got certain segments where you have to chase down the boss where rings don't spawn at all, so even then you can just be screwed for no real reason. And lets not forget that dashing wastes rings as well, so if you want to speed up the fight at all (or even hit the boss in the case of some of the later chase segments) then you are actively punished for it. Also there's insta kill black holes, because of course there is. And there's a random, out of nowhere QTE at the end, in a game or even series (classic sonic series at least) that never had any QTEs, that will waste even more time if you don't react fast enough, because of course there is.

[@KoreeluStromboli]

1:34 I died the exact same way in that zone.

[@andyreeves6771]

Am I hallucinating or did he gloss over the Super Sonic boss and think it was cool?!?!?!? What? It’s everything he doesn’t like the rest of the bosses for, a 8 minute slog thst you can’t speed up and ends on having to pull off consecutively QTE under a time limit and will fail if you hold the button even slightly between them. Enjoyed the rest of the video other than that

[@acelyag8594]

Oh good, they imported the two things I hated the most about Sonic 4 besides it's undeserved title: Bosses I can't hit and shitty Casio keyboard music that sounds worse than the original Genesis hardware it claims to replicate.

[@augustbornone]

Well give the fights in Sonic The Hedgehog 4(both Episodes 1 & 2) credit at least they don't take as long as the ones in Sonic Superstars.

[@turbog2217]

When’s your recycle a part of your old essay and make a new one out of it

[@mk8-mkwil117]

I feel like this was slapping together so quickly just so they could go against Mario and other games but ended up being so bad because of the boss fights and I still the multiplayer 4 players on screen just didn’t work in a good where they are different paths in a stage that wasn’t designed for that at all and I don’t understand what they are aiming towards lol like to be a new super Mario bros but just don’t work in a 2D sonic game I play a few minutes of it and stop being I just can’t do it with the boss and went back to Sonic origins and mania I kinda wish they just stuck to the pixel art design for this game but nope I kinda want a Sonic 4 episode 3 than this.

[@LunaMinuna]

Another reason bosses have invulnerability is because of multiplayer

[@peterjohnson7625]

I beat both Main Story and Trip Story, but I haven’t beaten the Dragon Final Story Boss as I feel that boss is hard too.

[@SonicTheCutehog]

The Emerald Powers and 4 Player Multiplayer forced them to make the bosses like this, which is not good game design

[@Sonic-q6i]

Don't agree unless it's the fang bosses and frozen blaze act 2 boss but i literally sped through the bosses in superstars in a night and not just any night but during the night i got it so is are the good bosses just a skill issue or what 😁