Sega Superstars Tennis is a tennis game and the second title in the Sega Superstars crossover series. It is also the first in the series developed by Sumo Digital, crossing over numerous Sega franchises, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Alex Kidd, Space Channel 5 and 12 more. It was released in March 2008. In 2013, Sega and Feral Interactive announced that the game was available for Mac OS X on its following summer along with Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. The Mac OS X version of Sega Superstars Tennis features online multiplayer by using Game Center.
Gameplay[]
- Superstar Mode allows the player to play missions in the worlds of SEGA which include exhibition matches, tournaments and tasks based around a specific Sega game including Sonic the Hedgehog, Puyo Pop Fever and Virtua Cop. Completing missions unlocks items such as courts, stages, soundtracks and characters.
- Exhibition Mode offers the chance to challenge a character to a match on one of many courts, including Sonic's home court of Green Hill Zone, or Amigo's Carnival Park court. Whichever court is chosen, there are a host of Sega celebrities cheering them on from court side.
- Tournament Mode allows the player to play in a series of matches against opponents chosen at random by the computer in an arena also chosen at random.
There are several playable minigames in Sega Superstars Tennis, including ones from Sega games such as a House of the Dead meets Space Invaders game, in which the player has to hit moving targets in the form of zombies, a Space Harrier game, a Puyo Puyo game, and a Virtua Cop game.
Each character has their own unique special attack giving the player more chance of scoring a point. For example: Gilius throws a magic bottle in the air and covers the opponent's side with thunderbolts, if they touch one the character will be stunned for a brief moment, or Sonic's signature "Super Sonic" attack, which causes the tennis ball to zig-zag in various directions around the court when he hits the ball.
Platform differences[]
The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions both have online play, while the Wii version has three different control schemes (motion control, Wii Remote sideways, and Wii Remote with Nunchuk). The Nintendo DS version of the game can be played with , or utilize the stylus. Between the HD version and the Wii version visual-wise, the models in the latter are of low quality, making the spectators' limbs jagged (mostly Silver and Blaze's). The lighting on the models overall, including the models, especially when doing special poses, are likewise very poor. Also, whereas the shot balls have yellow trails on the HD version, the shot balls on the Wii version display specific trails (yellow, blue, green) depending on its power.
The number of missions also varies between the HD version and the Wii version, and the former has more missions than the latter. In addition to that, the HUD of the Wii version is simpler than that displayed on the HD version.
Characters[]
Playable characters[]
Sonic series[]
- Amy Rose (Unlockable by winning the second mission in Sonic the Hedgehog)
- Dr. Eggman
- Miles "Tails" Prower
- Shadow the Hedgehog (Unlockable by winning the last mission in Sonic the Hedgehog)
- Sonic the Hedgehog
Other series[]
- AiAi (Super Monkey Ball)
- Alex Kidd (Alex Kidd) (Unlockable by winning the only mission in Alex Kidd)
- Amigo (Samba De Amigo)
- Beat (Jet Set Radio)
- Gilius Thunderhead (Golden Axe) (Unlockable by winning the only mission in Golden Axe)
- Gum (Jet Set Radio) (Unlockable by winning the last mission in Jet Set Radio)
- MeeMee (Super Monkey Ball) (Unlockable by winning the eighth mission in Super Monkey Ball)
- Nights (Nights into Dreams)
- Pudding (Space Channel 5) (Unlockable by winning the first mission in Space Channel 5)
- Reala (Nights into Dreams) (Unlockable by winning the second mission in Nights into Dreams)
- Ulala (Space Channel 5)
Superstar States[]
Character | Superstar State | Type |
---|---|---|
Sonic | Super Sonic | Speed |
Dr. Eggman | Electric Spike Ball | Power |
Tails | Whirlwind | Spin |
Amy | Lover Heart Stun | All Round |
Shadow | Super Shadow | Speed |
Nights | Nightopian | All Round |
Reala | Nightmare | All Round |
Ulala | Morolian Invasion | Control |
Pudding | Guitar Showdown | Control |
Amigo | Maraca Madness | Power |
Gilius Thunderhead | Golden Hit | Power |
AiAi | Banana Blitz!!! | Spin |
MeeMee | Flower Power | Spin |
Beat | Graffiti Floor | Speed |
Gum | Police!!! | Speed |
Alex Kidd | Rock, Paper, Scissors!!! | Control |
Cast[]
Role | English voice actor | French voice actor | Italian voice actor | German voice actor | Spanish voice actress |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Announcer | Casey Robertson | Anna Orra |
Role | English voice actor |
---|---|
Sonic Characters | |
Sonic | Jason Griffith |
Shadow | |
Tails | Amy Palant |
Dr. Eggman | Mike Pollock |
Amy | Lisa Ortiz |
Super Monkey Ball Characters | |
Aiai | Kaoru Morota |
MeeMee | Konami Yoshida |
Nights Characters | |
Nights | Julissa Aguirre |
Reala | Casey Robertson |
Space Channel 5 Characters | |
Ulala | Apollo Smile |
Pudding | Sumalee Montano |
Jet Set Radio Characters | |
Beat | Casey Robertson |
Gum | Julissa Aguirre |
Other Sega Characters | |
Alex Kidd | Julissa Aguirre |
Gilius Thunderhead | Casey Robertson |
Courts[]
Sonic courts[]
There are two courts featured in this game from the Sonic the Hedgehog series, both originating from the first game.
Green Hill Zone: Green Hill was fitted with a tennis court with various characters making cameo appearances around the field, mainly Chao, but also Blaze the Cat, Silver the Hedgehog, Knuckles the Echidna and Big the Cat. This is where many missions in Sonic's world in Superstar Mode take place, including a singles tournament with various Sonic characters. The court features four unlockable music tracks of levels from previous Sonic games: Seaside Hill, Ocean Palace, a System Screen Select and Green Hill Zone.
Scrap Brain Zone: Having not used this place for about 15 years there is no reason for Eggman not to turn his old fortress into a tennis court. On one the side of the court is the machine Eggman used as the final boss from Final Zone, still moving up and down. Spectating from the sideline is Metal Sonic and the Egg Gunners from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). This is also the location of many of the missions in Superstar mode. In these missions, Egg Gunners fire at the player while the goal is to collect rings and avoid bombs. There are a number of unlockable music tracks for this court from different Sonic games, such as from Final Fortress, Bullet Station, Egg Fleet, and Scrap Brain Zone.
Other courts[]
- Space Port 9 (Space Channel 5)
- Splash Garden (Nights into Dreams)
- Coconut Beach (Outrun)
- Carrier Zone (After Burner)
- Curien Mansion (The House of The Dead)
- Super Monkey Ball (Super Monkey Ball)
- Shiubuya DownTown (Jet Set Radio)
- Carnival Park (Samba De Amigo)
Mini-games and side-missions[]
- Puyo Pop Fever: In this minigame, the player plays Puyo Pop but controlling the popping gun as a racket with the character of choice to clear the Puyo wall.
- Space Harrier: In this minigame, the player must throw the ball against a number of series of robot, alien, machines and meteorites the constantly come time by time when difficulty increases.
- Virtua Squad: In this one, the player plays a classic game of the original Virtual Cop but with a tennis racket and a ball, aiming at the cardboard thieves that will shoot you in a time of 10 second each.
- Jet Set Radio: The player gets a spray color from a grinding man how throws them at you, when you get those time by time, you are to hit the ball across the net in to an opacity graffiti to match its colors.
- Sonic the Hedgehog: In this one, the player can free roam on the court and dodge electric spikes thrown by robots and collect as many rings as possible. Several monitor power-ups like Invincibility and Speed Shoes are available.
- Super Monkey Ball: The player has to counter large balls and collect bananas and hand them into time gates before time runs out.
- Chu Chu Rocket: The player has to guide mice into rockets, using tennis balls to change the arrow's direction.
- Curien Mansion: The player must defeat zombies and rescue civilians to survive.
Achievements[]
These are the achievements for the Xbox 360 version of Sega Superstars Tennis:
Reception[]
Reception | |
---|---|
Aggregate scores | |
Aggregator | Score |
Metacritic | 67% (X360)[2] 67% (PS3)[3] 70% (PS2)[4] 71% (Wii)[5] 65% (DS)[6] |
Review scores | |
Publication | Score |
Sega Superstars Tennis received mixed reviews from critics, with the games score on Metacritic sitting at 67% for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions,[2][3] 70% for the PlayStation 2,[4] 71% for the Wii version,[5] and a 65 out of 100 for the Nintendo DS version.[6]
Trivia[]
- In Doctor Who Adventures Magazine issue 56, this game was given away as one of the two competition prizes.
- Oddly, in the demo of this game, Shadow is one of the few characters the player is able to play as. In the actual game, he is an unlockable.
- Quotes from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) were used in this game such as "My, that's a pretty snazzy performance there!" (Sonic), "Who are you, and how do you know my name?" (Shadow) and "See, I told you I could do it!" (Tails).
- Knuckles, Big, and Metal Sonic all were cameo characters in this game who later became playable characters in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing.
- Silver and Blaze also appear in the game as cameos.
- In the opening cinematic, Amigo is seen using his maracas as a racket. However in the gameplay, Amigo uses a real tennis racket.
- In the opening cinematic, Eggman uses a backpack with tennis rackets on it. In the game, he does not use such a thing.
- This is the only game where it has different ratings from the ESRB in each console. It has an E10+ rating on the home console version and an E rating on the Nintendo DS version.
- The rackets used by the characters seems to be based on a classic racket used in the late 1960s, as opposed to modern day rackets.
- Sega Superstars Tennis was ported to Mac OS X along with Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. However, Sega Superstars Tennis was never released for Microsoft Windows.
- Both games have since had their Mac OS X versions delisted from Feral Interactive's storefront due to subsequent macOS releases from Catalina and onward having removed support for 32-bit applications.[7]
- Due to the series being banned in Germany, this game referred the House of the Dead series as Curien Mansion. This is carried over to future Sega Superstars titles.
- All 16 characters in this game are all playable in Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed.
- Dr. Eggman and Shadow are featured in the Special Stage after completing the Doubles Tournament.
- Pudding's quotes were reused from Space Channel 5 Part 2, but her design is from Space Channel 5.
- When the PlayStation 2 version is played on a software emulation-based backwards compatible PlayStation 3, character models will always have flickering textures and stretched out polygons, and the game often freezes after a while.
- Though the PlayStation 2 version of Sega Superstars Tennis has an in-game widescreen setting, only the menu and HUD elements are adjusted for widescreen; the in-game display is stretched from 4:3.
- Sega Superstars Tennis is the only game featuring Sonic on the PlayStation 2 that prompts the player if they would like to activate progressive scan without the need to hold down a button combination—Sonic Mega Collection Plus, Sonic Riders, Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, and Sonic Unleashed all require the player to hold down and during start-up to bring up the prompt, and Sega Genesis Collection requires the player to access the Options menu to enable it.
- Sega Superstars Tennis and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) are the only Sonic games released on the PlayStation 3 that lack trophy support.
- Sega Superstars Tennis and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) are also the only PlayStation 3 Sonic titles to have some of their button mappings swapped from their Xbox 360 counterparts; in the Xbox 360 version, Superstar States are activated with the triggers ( or ). In the PS3 (and PS2) version(s), they are instead mapped to the shoulder buttons ( or ), regardless of the four in-game controller configurations.
Videos[]
References[]
- ↑ Game, set and Mac! SEGA Superstars Tennis out on October 17th!. Feral Interactive (3 October 2013).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Sega Superstars Tennis (Xbox 360). Metacritic.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Sega Superstars Tennis (PlayStation 3). Metacritic.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sega Superstars Tennis (PlayStation 2). Metacritic.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Sega Superstars Tennis (Wii). Metacritic.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Sega Superstars Tennis (DS). Metacritic.
- ↑ Why have some older titles been removed from sale?. Feral Interactive. Retrieved on 13 September 2022.
External links[]
- Sega Superstars Tennis at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Playable characters | Sonic | Tails | Amy | Shadow | Eggman | Alex Kidd | AiAi | Amigo | Beat | Gilius Thunderhead | Gum | MeeMee | Nights | Pudding | Reala | Ulala | |
---|---|---|
Courts | Green Hill Zone | Scrap Brain Zone | Spaceport 9 | Splash Garden | Coconut Beach | Carrier Zone | Curien Mansion | Super Monkey Ball | Shiubuya DownTown | Carnival Park | |
Items | Chaos Emerald | Item Box | Pudding's Guitar | Ring (Power-Up) | |
Other | All-Around Type | Asteroid Belt: Go! Go! "Astrobeat Jr." | Control Type | Exhibition Mode | Power Type | Superstar Meter | Superstar Mode | Superstar State | Speed Type | Spin Type | |
V·T·E | Category |