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

Yeah, this is what I hate about the Sega line that "oh, well not every game can appeal to every fan," Mario is a great example of why this is a faulty way of looking at things. Look at the Switch - you can play Super Mario Odyssey, New Super Mario Bros. U and Super Mario 3D World on it, all of which use vastly different formulas (classic 2D sidescroller, linear multiplayer 3D, single-player open-world 3D) despite being fundamentally Mario games. Each style has their own fans who prefer one or the other, but most importantly, they're all well-crafted games and of similar enough quality that most Mario fans can appreciate all three of them. (should be pointed out as well that 3D World and NSMBU are ports, but that's another can of worms - Nintendo did at least treat them as full-fledged releases and beefed up the Switch versions)

By contrast, a Sonic fan can play Sonic Mania or Sonic Forces on the Switch. Definitely not of similar quality! Even the classic Sonic sections play like complete ass compared to Mania, or even the classic segments in Generations. It's not a "well 2D fans like Sonic Mania, 3D fans like Sonic Forces" thing, Mania is pretty well-liked by every Sonic fan while Forces' reputation is mediocre at best.

 

That could actually make the case for a temporary lock, to be undone when solid info is announced. But that's not my decision to make, so...

 

Ya really hope they announce this or something soon. Ffs it's almost May. What the hell are they doing? Nothing says "yay 30 years" like... well nothing.

 

Watching the trailer again, this actually looks quite nice. Whether there's new content or not, I'm glad it's a proper remaster rather than something like Mario 3D All Stars was.

My extremely unlikely wish would be if they could rebalance the scoring system, ideally by cutting the act-specific time limits in half (1, 2, 3, 4 minutes instead of the current 2, 4, 6, 8 minutes) to eliminate grinding. Maybe make it a separate mode to avoid discouraging beginners with the tighter limits.

 

Well it certainly looks like they put more effort into this port than their past efforts (SA1 and 2). So that's good. Helps that besides the lighting everything else held up really well for a Wii game. I'll be getting the PC version because hopefully it means we have a whole new base that can be used for mods.

I look forward to the inevitable comparison videos lol

 

Not sure if I'm willing to make the jump to the Epic Game Store for Sonic Colors but once the modders get their hands on it maybe my opinion will change.

 

How the fuck do you take all the colour out of a game literally called Sonic Colours when porting it to more powerful hardware? The lighting is legitimately terrible.

 

I literary just mistook the og colours for the remaster good job sega!

 

Well the shaders are completely different. It's a tad dark in certain areas but overall I think it's an improvement.

Anyways, according to the Sega PR for this game, there's a new mode called Rival Rush. In said mode you race Metal Sonic for rewards, which is interesting because he was completely absent from the original. Certainly explains his appearance in the cartoon though

https://www.segadriven.com/2021/05/sonic-colours-ultimate-coming-to-ps4-xbox-and-epic-games-store/

 

lets hope this is more of a SA2battle improved 2 player thing over a SADX mission mode.

Online multiplayer would also be nice.

 

Ya if they're going to have you race him in levels I hope he's playable too. Be a damn shame if it's just an elaborate boss.

Curious what this means for the Sonic Simulator mode.

 

Also according to that...

That's interesting! We knew the Jade Wisp was on the boxart and the animation, despite being introduced in TSR. I wonder how it's going to actually be implemented into the levels.

 

I'm interested to see if the Mother Wisp final battle will be on this edition.

 

I think it'd be a selling point if we were getting DS content.

 

If we were getting all the DS levels, yeah, but one boss? I dunno, maybe not.

 

Lighting looks atrocious.

The other additions sound neat, but man on the visuals scale I think this just dwarfed SA1 vs DX. Just terrible, lmao.

 

Looks like SADX. :P

 

Have another pair of comparison images the fun of it. Ultimate comes from the trailer, the Wii version from a video of Colours running in HD on Dolphin:



I'm also not convinced that Sweet Mountain looks any nicer in Ultimate. It's got more advanced visual effects like bloom and depth of field, but the actual end result looks much worse. The lighting is flat and contrast turned up way high, so the bloom effects stand out in a really bad way whilst the rest of the colours look painfully washed out. This gets worse the more I look at it.

And holy shit look at how awful the shadows on the background (directly behind Sonic) look in Ultimate compared to Dolphin. And the shitty lighting/bloom mean that you can't see the metal framework in the background (level with the middle rainbow ring) at all. How has this awful looking port been allowed to pass?

The studio behind this is Blind Squirrel Games, who were responsible for Mass Effect and Bioshock remasters amongst others. I'm not really familiar with their work, but I've heard that whilst they are doing a relatively fin job of updating the graphical fidelity, the end result is often far removed from the original artistic vision and looks worse. Any opinions from people more clued in than I am?