Game Informer has kicked off a month of exclusive coverage of SEGA’s upcoming modern 2D Sonic revival, Sonic Superstars, having played through a significant portion of the game and spent time with the developers at Sonic Team’s California studio.
As part of that coverage, GI has revealed the entirety of Sonic Superstars’ new Emerald Powers, which rethinks the Chaos Emerald system of classic 2D Sonic games by rewarding players for each of the seven Chaos Emeralds they collect through Bonus Stages rather than making them wait until they’ve obtained all of the Chaos Emeralds to gain any new power. They range from being able to create clones of your character, climb waterfalls, reveal hidden secrets and more.
Here’s the full list of the Emerald Powers you’ll get to use when the game launches for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch and PC at an unannounced date later this year:
Full List of Sonic Superstars Emerald Powers
Avatar creates clones of players’ characters and sends them flying across the screen, taking out enemies along the way. You can see an example of this in the game’s initial announcement trailer being used against Eggman.
Bullet allows players to rocket forward in a particular direction .Game Informer says that they found it helpful in both tricky platforming sequences as well as boss battles where your goal is just out of reach.
The Water Emerald Power allows players to more easily traverse underwater areas and even climb up waterfalls.
Ivy lets players grow vines from anywhere to reach new areas. Co-op teammates can use a friend’s ivy as well.
Vision can be used to reveal hidden platforms and rings. Sonic Team creative officer Takashi Iizuka tells Game Informer this power will “really play into the replayability aspect of the way these stages were designed.”
This one goes by its namesake and slows down everything on screen. Game Informer suggests this can be used for more difficult bosses or platforming sections to give players more time to react.
The final Emerald Power unlock opens up a character-specific ability. Sonic gets his iconic Homing Attack, Knuckles gets a Punch, Amy gets her Hammer Throw and Tails is given the Tornado Spin.
As with most games that include the Chaos Emeralds, once you collect all seven of them, you gain access to the ability to turn into a Super version of your character. Each character can turn Super, and their movesets remain the same (for example, Tails doesn’t gain super-powered Flickies as he did in Sonic 3 & Knuckles). Instead, each character turns invincible and becomes faster, with rings depleting over time.
[Header image via Game Informer]
