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

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by MH MD, Apr 9, 2021.

  1. BadBehavior

    BadBehavior

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    It's interesting how Forces has some of the blandest, boring, phoned-in level designs in the series despite having fewer total stages than a game on a weaker console 7 years prior.

    It's a shame that we can forget ever getting either quality or quantity.
     
  2. Blue Blood

    Blue Blood

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    Forces' level design is like they said "what if we made every level Starlight Carnival?"

    I'm dogging on Colours quite a bit here, and that's a little unfair of me. About this time last year, I replayed Colours (via Dolphin) for the first time in years. I don't know when the last time I played it before that was... Probably not long after Generations came out. Best part of a decade regardless. Ever since Colours first came out in 2010, I was constantly calling it "over-rated" and "the worst good Sonic game". I got plenty of push-back at the time. But I'm glad that as the years have gone by, more people are recognising it similarly to me; it's not a bad game, but it's not remarkable and probably got most of its praise for what it wasn't. It was the first 3D Sonic game without extra characters/gameplay styles, it had a very basic plot and it was largely adequate.

    I expected to rather dislike it last year, but I didn't. I enjoyed the game. It was solid, simple fun. Even the dreaded yellow spring levels were enjoyable. I don't know what else I can say about enjoying playing Colours. It was just nice. Nothing more, nothing less.

    My favourite parts of Colours are its artstyle and graphics. It's all fantasy settings with realistic details. And all of the level themes are really unique for the series because of the overall setting. It's a joy to look at. And whilst I personally really, really hate food-themed levels in virtually any game, Sweet Mountain manages to look great and fit in thematically (quite unlike the disaster that is Lost World's Dessert Ruins). I greatly dislike the cartoony style they went with in Lost World and the... Whatever the fuck they did in Forces. Colours got it perfect, as did SA1 and Unleashed.

    Here's hoping that they give the visuals a nice upgrade without changing the artstyle.
     
  3. If its really called Sonic Colors Ultimate I'm going to be mildly annoyed. The name and tone of Sonic Colors are meant to imply fun and light hearted, adding the word Ultimate just makes it sound like they're trying to make a cute game sound cool? Sonic Generations Ultimate would work, but I think Colors should go with something like Complete or Deluxe. That's a minor nitpick, though, it wouldn't hamper my enjoyment of the game.

    If Sega really wanted to impress me (specifcally) without breaking the bank, they'd hire some modders to port the levels from Colors into Forces and package it as a remake. I'd settle for Colors running in the same emulator Ninty used for Mario 3D All-Stars, though. I'm not greedy.
     
  4. Linkabel

    Linkabel

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    Call it "Sonic Colors Bold."
     
  5. Fair enough lol. I didn't enjoy gens's missions enough to pay much attention anyway. Maybe that's how everyone felt playing colors the first time...?
     
  6. LucasMadword

    LucasMadword

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    I do feel as if Sonic Colours would be more fondly remembered if the filler levels were optional rather than mandatory.

    In Generations, I did 100% that back when I owned it on PS3, and that includes the missions. I didn't hate the levels, I fairly enjoyed playing through them all, but I haven't really revisited the missions since. But the fact that I could play the levels I enjoyed the most, inbetween trying to 100% it, I felt that improved the experience a fair bit.

    In Colours, on the other hand, I got part way through, and very heavily got burned out on the filler stages that I didn't really wanna play. I felt the same with Colours as I did with Unleashed; there's some real gems of levels in there, and if that was the entire game, it'd be short but solid. If they had spun off the side levels so I could pick the ones I actually wanted to play, I do feel as if the overall package would be much tighter, and I wouldn't feel obliged to try and tread through levels I didn't enjoy to get to the best parts of it. But you can't please everyone, and critics would probably complain. Ideally we'd get just the full-fat levels across the entire game, quality and quantity, but they can't do that apparently.

    I don't think any remaster/remake/port would fix those issues, very likely just would be a splat of paint to polish it up and they'd call it a day. I just hope they wouldn't charge a bunch of money for it, especially if they intend on doing the bare minimum of development to it.
     
  7. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    I know I did, the gimmick levels felt like pointless tedium. Even before the reveal that those were side stages retooled as acts, I could tell they were thinly disguised filler to pad the game.

    I'm with LucasMadword. The ones in Generations weren't much better, but I found them infinitely more bearable because they weren't shoved down my throat. To beat the story you only had to do one side mission per zone, and you could choose it. So I just picked the good ones (usually the ones that focused on speed, as the engine wasn't made for platforming) and skipped the rest. I did those later at my own pace during the post-game and I actually ended up enjoying them.

    Come to think of it, that's one thing the Colors remaster could do to improve the game. Relabel the gimmick acts as optional missions as originally intended, and maybe add a few new actual acts to keep the campaign from becoming too short.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2021
  8. Josh

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    I agree completely. Since I figured out I could just play the "real" stages, my opinion of Colors has shot through the roof, and I never liked it nearly as much as Unleashed before. I'll just quote myself...

    So yeah, it's a really good time, and I'm still playing through it every few weeks!

    That being said. I still think Sega probably made the right move for the time by making the game longer.

    The primary complaint leveled against Unleashed (at least, when critics were actually reviewing it fairly and not just dunking on Sonic) was that it was too padded with Werehog segments, medals, and hub levels.

    The primary complaint about Generations was that it was over too quickly.

    Colors hit a sort of critical sweet-spot. The padding was there, but it wasn't so different from the main game as to be off-putting. On the contrary, for people more familiar with traditional (read: Mario-style) platformers, these gimmicky platform stages were often praised as a welcome change of pace. To quote IGN's review:

    So yeah. While making the filler levels optional surely would've made ME as a diehard Sonic fan like the game better, and it would've been more-fondly remembered by fans now... I think what we saw as a detriment was probably more of a strength for its mainstream reception.

    I still hope Ultimate, if it happens, might give you the option to JUST play the original stages, though. But hey, if Sega doesn't do it, I'm sure modders will! :D
     
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  9. Sid Starkiller

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    I'm not gonna get my hopes up, but probably the ideal solution would be to replace the short filler junk with new full acts.
     
  10. BadBehavior

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    I mean... what Mario games was that guy playing? Even most of the NSMB stuff didn't force the player to play every single solitary scrap of content to reach the end credits.
     
  11. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    This remaster should be called Sonic Colors: Over Saturated edition
     
  12. Laura

    Laura

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    I'm not really that interested in a remake of Colors. I feel really hypocritical for saying this because I've criticised the Adventure games a lot recently, but even though I would have many worries about a remake of Adventure 1 and 2, I would actually feel somewhat excited for them because of their cultural significance. Does Colors have any cultural significance? I agree with what @Blue Blood says, it's a good game, but I don't really have any stronger feelings than that.
     
  13. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    @Laura, no, but it's a game people enjoyed, and I think their logic is just that. A rerelease of something fun to hold people over for something else. Prob an easy win for them, all the other games they could rerelease have some form of controversy associated with them (what's left of the 3D stuff, SA1 and SA2 are on PC and the only way those get touched again at this point is if it's a full on remake, as SADX and SA2B are no longer acceptable in the age of all these other remakes, the Heroes/Shadow/06 era, they won't touch that, maybe Unleashed but due to the Werehog prob not, and after that everything started getting PC releases by default).

    I mean if they wanted to go 2D they could get a quick win prob bundling Sonic Advance 1, 2, and 3 and slapping that up somewhere. Hell the Switch alone, perfect.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2021
  14. Blue Blood

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    Not entirely sure what you mean about "cultural significance", but they'd at lady be far more interesting as remakes. They're much more expansive, rich games than Colours. Colours is a mixed bag of levels in six zones, a very "blink and you'll miss it" plot and... That's it. There's just not much to it. The Adventures offer much more.
     
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  15. Oh if only...
     
  16. BadBehavior

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    In the interest of peeking out of the bubble, I took a gander at the r/games thread on this and noted down some of the common responses.

    • Love for Unleashed, not so much the Werehog.
    • Good for the time, but it's repetitive, content stretched thin, repeating boss fights.
    • Solid B or 7.5/10.
    • Generations is better.
    • It's a 2D game masquerading as a 3D game.
    • Really easy
    • Really short
    • "Just port the PC version of Heroes, it already exists".
     
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  17. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

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    I find this pretty funny considering that a common criticism in reviews from back in the day was that the game was too hard
     
  18. Metalwario64

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    I will say that I'd been hoping for a PC port of Unleashed so that I could check out the HD version on my path to play through all of the Sonic games I passed over the years, but it looks like I will need to stick with the Wii version in Dolphin and the 60fps cheats for the foreseeable future, and then the Unleashed Project for the HD Daytime stages afterwards.
     
  19. Blue Blood

    Blue Blood

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    Was it? I'm don't remember that. Colours is pretty easy, with most of the difficulty coming from the janky double jump either halting all your momentum or doing the opposite, so you'd often mess up your jumps.
     
  20. Josh

    Josh

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    I like how almost all of your bullet points came from just one comment. :V The two comments with the most upvotes by a mile are:

    upload_2021-4-12_1-19-13.png

    The r/NintendoSwitch thread is also worth perusing to see how less... uh, vigorous fans might react. A surprising amount of people saying Unleashed/Colors/Generations are their favorite Sonic games ever (and an unsurprising "what," from the older crowd), the usual hope for Adventure remakes, and a lot of genuine enthusiasm that the Switch could finally get a good modern Sonic game.

    It's nice to see things outside of our echochamber. :P
     
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