Watch 10 minutes of Sonic Superstars and see exactly how faithful it is

I've never been a Sonic fan, but I thought Sonic Superstars looked pretty good at Geoff Fest earlier this week. It's an old-fashioned sidescrolling platformer rendered in a 3D art style faithful to the original games, and it's playable in co-op.

Now there's ten minutes of gameplay footage to let you watch a couple of levels played through in nearly their entirety.

This footage is all over YouTube and I'm not sure where it originated, but here's a GameSpot upload:

I think if you're a Sonic fan, this is pretty reassuring, right? It certainly looks like Sonic as I remember it in Sonic 1 and 2, both of which I've revisited recently, from spring pads to enemy types to the style of the boss fights. All of the footage is played solo, which means there's no sight of the co-op pals Tails, Knuckles or Amy Rose that were shown in the trailer. You do get to see a brief bit of Dr Robotnik, though.

As a non-Sonic liker, it almost entirely reversed the positive impression I was left with by the earlier trailer, though. Mainly because of that faithful level design, which seems to require a lot of leaps of faith into areas where you can't anticipate or avoid enemies or obstacles that may be lurking within. I know from experience that I will bump into things, feel cheated, and get frustrated. They say these days that you shouldn't "yuck other people's yum", but if I don't yuck Sonic then they're going to keep making them and I'd rather they stopped.

Sonic Superstars is due to launch this autumn on Steam and the Epic Game Store. It'll cost £55, which honestly ought to count as Sonic yucking himself.

NotE3 and Summer Game Fest 2023 is over for another year. You can find out all the latest news by visiting our E3 2023 hub, or you can catch up with our round-up posts of everything that was announced at Summer Game Fest, the Xbox Games Showcase, the PC Gaming Show, Day Of The Devs, and our top highlights from the Wholesome Direct.