We tell you about it in the Sonic Colors Ultimate review.Two things happen with video game returns of the past: the elements that made a video game great in its original time are highlighted or we find that video games are works with an expiration date. On which side of the scale is the latest Sega premiere?
Last year they were promised happy for the hedgehog: box office success and the months leading up to a certain date and excited fans waiting to see a new video game that would meet the expectations of such a date, as Sonic Adventure 2 did in the tenth anniversary. 20 years has already behind him the premiere of Shadow! We get old, but more Sonic. That the COVID has disrupted the plans of the 30th anniversary of Sonic is more than evident.
Do you remember the proposal of Sonic 2020 in which Sega promised to offer news of the hedgehog every month? If everything had gone well, today we would surely know more about his new video game and we would not have to settle for the re-release of Sonic Colors with his versionSonic Colors Ultimate that, make no mistake, has been celebrated by practically the entire community.
However, I have not stopped wondering since I have sat down and put at their controls the role that nostalgia has played about software. Yes, the good was there, but there were many things that my brain had covered up forever, as if my mind had forgotten all the negative elements of the original Wii adventure and only the good had grown over the years. Why?
Well, surely, for many reasons: the hunger that had then to cling to a decent Sonic game , some fresh ideas that were imposed on the most questionable elements of Colors or, simply, the awareness of being playing on a Wii and admitting things that then they were admissible and today they are not.
At the controls of Sonic Colors Ultimate it has been impossible for me not to ask myself the million dollar question: Maybe we all exaggerated a little in 2010?I must admit that I have been, inadvertently, proof of my own experiment . You just have to go through the latest trailer for Colors Ultimate to see my full emphasis on replaying it on current consoles and comparing it to today’s reflections. It also didn’t help that the revival, sponsored by Blind Squirrel Entertainment , was somewhat vague. Is Sonic Colors Ultimate worth it in spite of everything?
Heir to the Wii times
Sonic Colors was the third video game in the Sonic saga on Wii after The Secret Rings and The Dark Knight . It narrates an adventure in which Doctor Eggman opens an amusement park in space and Sonic, who knows for good fact that the egghead does not plan anything good in the stars, is accompanied by the intrepid Tails to investigate such a show of kindness.
Our friends will soon discover a treacherous plan with the aim of enslaving a whole race of little aliens to obtain their powers and dominate the galaxy : it will be up to them to stop them. Although playably he moved away from his previous productions on Nintendo’s revolutionary console, he did inherit some vices of titles based on the Thousand and One Nights and the Arthurian Chronicles.
Many of us had forgotten it and others will not recognize it , but I think that when we played certain video games on Wii we changed the chip and tried to understand a context of the moment in which developers were forced to grapple with game options for the Wiimote and its audience.
This circumstance resulted in two situations: an idyllic one in which the game was practically irreproducible on any other console and another in which the contribution was forced and did not contribute anything to what was playable. I would also venture to say that many developers developed their games on Wii with the prospect of knowing that they would reach a wider demographic than on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC., which forced them to make design decisions that, in many cases, crystallized in more candid titles with their future clients.
Well, what happens when you find yourself playing a Wii game without a Wii on the table and without a Wiimote and a Nunchaku in hand ten years after the revolutionary fantasy of the Kyoto people? That I live a very different perspective from the one I enjoyed in his day. You will not read me to say that Sonic Colors Ultimate is a bad video game , but I do admit that removing nostalgia from the equation has not done it any good, at least in my case.
I think I’m not exaggerating if I tell you that the production contains some playable elements that are the true antithesis of Sonic , debatable decisions and far from what any hedgehog lover expects to see in his adventures of platforms and speed.
It is inevitable to stop at the Sonic jump , a real headache for the developers of any chapter of the brand. It is clumsy, slow, and in the sections where some expertise is required it shows an imprecision that I had completely forgotten about. There are levels with bouncing platforms that result in jumping ad infinitum on them avoiding different obstacles in the mapping without any grace or interest, betting on a stillness for Sonic’s pet that is pure antonym for the hedgehog.
Not to mention some places where we have to press buttons to move platforms that move at an exasperating slownessin which it is difficult to fail, but before the unlikely failure, it translates into authentic playable boredom. First in platform design. Also surprising are some short screens with puzzle formula that are unable to contribute more than a few minutes of play to the product.
One of Wisps, please
And while I discovered all the aforementioned inconveniences, I kept asking myself, “Toni, what led you to value Colors so well in your day?” And the answer was right under my nose: the Wisps were an addition to the saga of the imposing and valuable hedgehog , perhaps little used in later installments of the franchise, and their use are, without a doubt, the most celebrated moments, playably, of the adventure. The great secret and success of Colors , in fact, is in the exploration of levels already surpassed in which we can combine the abilities of the different Wisps and execute maneuvers and abilities that in the first round could not be executed.
As I said in the upper lines, I ask you not to misunderstand me: Colors is the opposite of being a bad game; I just sing the mea culpa and I admit that perhaps we exaggerated a little in his day . In what we are not exaggerating, for example, it was in the level design of the game, with some very interesting constructions that respected many of the good topics that you expect when you start playing a Sonic. Naturally, all peppered with a galactic atmosphere , which lends a breath of fresh air to its colorful settings and gives a unique identity to the Wii production.
Not content with bringing it back adapting it to current platforms, Blind Squirrel Games has dared to create a new Wisp and add a new gameplay with Tails unreleased in the original production. The new alien turns Sonic into a kind of ghost; The appearance of the two-tailed fox translates into an aid that allows players to be rescued from unfortunate falls. Speaking of falls … the developers wanted to highlight them in red , ending a problem in the original work, in which it was not always clear when there was a cliff on the stage.Although they are not very spectacular additions , I believe that good intention must be rewarded.
What can be put in the face of the developers in their role of bringing Sonic back is how little ambitious they have been with the production visually: if they have dared to add any playable element, would it have been unreasonable to give it a face lift more in line with current technology ? In fact, they have not even been able to recreate the CGI scenes in contemporary resolution, so the result of the story moments is overshadowed by poor image quality. Of course, in perfect Spanish, as usual with Sonic in Sega.
The honeys from Sonic Mania
Sonic Colors Ultimate, in short, is a product of its time that, I must admit, was better in my nostalgic head than spinning the disc on my current generation console. I think the change in my judgment also has a lot to do with the playable and sales success of one of the latest Sonic titles.
Do you know what I think? That Sonic Mania has healed so many wounds that in the end it has ended up hurting us. The team of Christian Whitehead showed a stroke that all complex saga that had been dragging since the death of Dreamcast were milongas if behind was a team wanting to make the game that certainly deserves our hedgehog .
For years I have thought that the Sonic Team, despite the name, is not the team capable of giving it the greatness that it undoubtedly deserves . They are special dates and I do not have much faith in what they indicate. We will have to wait to see if the new Sonic of 2022 is more in the lands of Sonic Mania or Sonic Forces .
The fact of being announced on Switch, PS4 and Xbox OnePresumably it will subtract some technical shine to the proposal, but it is too early to position itself with the little that is still known about the new adventure of Sega’s mascot. It remains to be patient and take the opportunity to re-enjoy Sonic Colors in its Ultimate version, which although it has lost some of the magic it had in its original premiere, it is certainly a Sonic adventure worth knowing.
Sonic Colors Ultimate brings back a Sonic from another time to today’s consoles. Although the mechanics and characteristics of Wii developments are somewhat outdated, the production of Sonic Team continues to maintain some keys that make it a unique video game within the long-lived hedgehog saga. The Blind Squirrel port adds some new playable elements, but is undoubtedly lazy when it comes to taking advantage of the current machines. It was probably a better game in our memory, but the presence of the Wisps and some great level designs justify its return.
5 things you should know:
- It’s not what it was in 2010, but it’s still a one-of-a-kind Sonic that deserves to be tested.
- The port adapts to current resolutions, but is somewhat lazy in its execution.
- The Wisps are a unique element in the saga that magnifies Sonic’s space adventure.
- Wii’s own mechanics look out of date and out of place in 2021.
- A proper advance to celebrate Sonic’s 30th anniversary. What comes next?
Duration: 8-10 hours
Players: 1-2 (Competitive: Home)
Language: Texts in Spanish and voices in Spanish and English