Sonic Colo(u)rs Ultimate released for Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Epic Games Store

I watched some of his stuff a few months ago when there was some movie sequel news/leaks, and it wasn't...all bad, but the vibe he gives off irks me a bit. He has kind of a high and mighty attitude and often claims he's the number one source for Sonic news, when he seems to usually be a few days behind everyone else (cycling through a handful of raccoon PNGs in Vegas must take several days, I guess).

 

Here's a curious thought.

I believe it was Sony whom was caught using an emulator in their Mini PS1? (It could've been another similar console.)

I'm not sure if the licensing allows; but why didn't the developers simply just use Dolphin, upscale to 4K and add higher res textures?

There are obviously many fundamental aspects of this 'remake' that are just facepalm moments that clearly demonstrate no play testing occurred.

The lighting is all completely off. The stupid water level bug is annoying as hell. Why does it cover the whole screen? You can't tell me they never noticed that.

Ultimately, the real question is - with Sonic's reputation firmly in the toilet; why is SEGA dedicated to releasing software they've clearly not even tested?

 

people would still be complaining if they used an emulator because it would be "lazy" and "not doing enough"

 

Got through Planet Wisp and Aquarium Park. Random thoughts:

Now that I've used it some, I've really come to appreciate the Tails Save. It's not about saving time, it's about not having to recollect Red Star Rings and customization tokens.

The very first level is the ideal choice for the "No rings" achievement.

 

Tails Save is actually a pretty fair mechanic because of how many "GOTCHA" random pits and super accurate jumps the game sometimes throws at you with very little time to react.

Getting an S rank is still super hard because it saves you from pitfalls (which are usually unfair) but still punishes you for getting hit by enemies or killed by them (which is USUALLY fair but not always but whatever). I think the mechanic is balanced well and I won't mind it in future installments.

 

Dolphin at such high settings would be too much for certain consoles. Emulating takes a lot of processing power because you're not only running the game, but also the system itself, and then you're talking about pushing system you're emulating beyond its limits...
Wii emulation as is lags on the Switch, unless you custom build the emulator to optimize the game's performance, like how Nintendo did with Mario Galaxy. I don't have the chops to judge if that'd be more difficult than what Sega ended up doing

 

Simply put, emulation isn’t as easy as it’s often made out to be.

 

I used the Asteroid Coaster act where you go around the planet rings with motobugs. Super quick for anyone who hasn’t gotten it yet. You just need to be aware to double jump over the ring trail that appears at the end - it looks like you may not make it, but you will.

Outside of Shenmue HD and Persona 3/5 Dancing, this has been the only game I felt motivated to immediately platinum. I enjoyed the process so much I redownloaded Forces after so I could 100% that… The difference in level design quality is astounding. Even the controls in Forces feel stiff and less responsive coming off Colors.

I don’t want to veer off topic, so let me just say that as someone who used to dismiss the 3D boost games besides Generations, Colors Ultimate has really swayed my opinion of the game from my initial impression back at its release. I’ve completed a few Egg Shuttle runs since the platinum out of pure enjoyment. My only real gripe is that the game isn’t at its best until after beating it and having the Wisps available. That and the drift/sidestep controls.

(For anyone wondering, I did power through the red/number/moon rings on all modern and avatar stages on Forces. Couldn’t bring myself to play even one classic stage lol)

 

I finished collecting all the Red Rings and I have to say it improved my experience with the game. Honestly it all reminds me quite a bit of Super Mario 3D World — it's largely quite linear but there's a number of hidden alternate routes to find the secret collectibles, and honestly that's been my favorite part of it. Not sure if I will grind out the S ranks yet, maybe...

I was also surprised to find the Game Land / Sonic Simulator stages were actually quite fun, despite how bland they are aesthetically. Also, a bit sad that Super Sonic doesn't work in the Egg Shuttle mode.

 

I actually agree. It may sound weird, but when I played Colors back when it came out, I had more fun collecting the RSR than going through the campaign. I think it's because it made me appreciate all the alternate routes and secret areas they put in the levels, and also because it felt like it provided an actual challenge compared to the generally bland and easy campaign.

 

I always said that Colors really shines when you search for the red rings. The levels are more well-designed than they seem to be at first glance.

 

So I've been playing through the Switch version right after 100%'ing the PS4 version (which I do not recommend), and have noticed some odd differences, such as Sonic's jump height not being what it should be on the Switch. I thought I was just crazy the few times I noticed something felt off in other stages, but then I did some testing in Asteroid Coaster 5. Sorry in advance for the poor quality:


I mean...I'm not crazy, right? Someone please help corroborate this if you can.

 

How odd... the original game seemingly lets you get up there via walljump. (Can't tell if this is the 60fps patch, or video editing tricks tho.)

 

You're not crazy. The Switch version definitely has a lower jump height. I've noticed I've hard struggled with some jumps that I shouldn't be. I wonder if it's because it's 30 FPS compared to other platforms and/or just a porting error.

Speaking of FPS, when running Colors on Dolphin and using the 60 FPS patch, there's two noticeable bugs with running Colors at 60 FPS: 1) in Planet Wisp Act 1, the spring onto the dash-panel-wall-quick-step-segment in the beginning shoots Sonic to the right-most dash panel (it should be the center) and 2) in Aquarium Park Act 1, in the first part, Sonic sometimes will struggle to go past the opening loop. And these two bugs are also present from what I've seen in the 60 FPS Colors Ultimate versions but not in the 30 FPS Colors Ultimate Switch version.

 

I've always gotten up there that way on Wii (original hardware and Dolphin, but without the 60 fps mod). On Switch you have to use the height from one of the Egg Pawns to reach the wall and kick off of it, and tonight is the first time I've ever had to do that.

Edit: I'm both surprised and not surprised that the Switch version's credits sometimes don't load the background or the Wisps dancing across the bottom. I checked it three times, and then after closing and re-loading the game, the credits loaded correctly.

Edit again: Sorry for the extra posts, it turns out I was hitting Quote instead of Edit while posting from my phone. Bleh. Gotta be more careful in the future.

 

By the way, can we talk about the fact that the music pack DLC is the three Planet Wisp remixes (at least according to KingK, this isn’t something I’ve been able to find another source on and having the digital deluxe, I don’t know first hand)?

Like, that’s pretty scummy. I think the reason it’s not been brought up yet is because the majority of people in this thread may have bought digital deluxe, and this music is clearly meant to be part of the base game given that every other world has three remixes and three original tracks.

I know the price tag is fairly low and the content isn’t functionality based, but I hate this kind of nickle and diming. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth that SEGA keeps carving arbitrary chunks out of Sonic games to sell separately. I hope they backpedal on this like Super Sonic in Forces, which I’d argue isn’t as egregious since the Emeralds aren’t even in Forces proper, though it’s still shitty that they tried to sell people what’s essentially a chest code for god mode in a single player platformer.

 

We have debug mode now.

 

I guess “day-1 patch” doesn’t actually mean “day-1?”

 

Really didn’t take long to go from a guy saying “modders don’t really have any interest in this” to this already being the most versatile boost game for modding. Can’t wait to see how people use all the Wisps.