While we’ve uploaded a significant amount of off-screen snippets of Sonic Superstars, IGN Japan has uploaded an HD quality video containing both acts of one of the game’s levels, “Speed Jungle.” You can find the video here, but we’ve decided to take the time to highlight some interesting details from the video below:
The level has a grappling hook gimmick, which can be activated by hitting a yellow switch floating above it. It is then possible to run up it! There are also some badniks that disguise themselves as ring boxes, and fly when you get close.
Later on in the level, we see a few more gameplay elements. There’s a holographic pulley that the player needs to hold onto while a timer counts down to earn rings. There are four pulley, meaning up to four players can use it at once. We also see a spinning blue portal above a checkpoint post, which likely leads to some sort of bonus stage. Finally, there’s a part of the game level where you can see Tails running in the background. In footage our own Jason Berry took of this level, we saw Sonic running in the background at one point while someone played Amy. So maybe these moments are meant to convey other characters participating in the adventure during single player?
Next up, we see the first of those “ginormous creatures” mentioned in the PR materials: a fat flicky! He appears in a cutscene introducing Speed Jungle’s first mini boss, which utilizes a grappling hook similar to what was used in the level earlier. Sonic must spindash up it in order to hit the boss. Afterwards, the flabby flicky celebrates with Sonic at the end of the level.
Act 2 introduces a new gimmick, where Sonic must use a glowing butterfly to illuminate a darkened area of the level. We also get our first look at Sonic’s edge-of-the-platform animation!
Next up, we get to see how physics work on the games grinding vines! Rather than being automated segments with automatic momentum, or something you can fall through if you lose speed, Sonic will instead simply walk when he loses momentum. This is demonstrated when a frog badnik slows Sonic down and he has to regain his speed to grind again.
The final boss attacks Sonic with a extendo arm that goes through the ground, and missiles. Rather than attack the boss directly, Sonic has to avoid the arm until it eventually strikes the boss on its own, and can also damage the boss by knocking blue missiles into it.
Finally, we got a look at an end level cutscene! We got to see this game’s version of an animal capsule, as well as the in-game models of Fang and a mysterious new character (almost certainly the one that was designed by Naoto Ohshima). Fang and the newbie got a humorous little cutscene that also calls back to a trap utilized by Eggman in the first episode of Sonic Mania Adventures!
