There's an absurd number of people who insist that the DS version of Colors is actually better than the Wii one, but I've yet to hear a single good reasoning for such a claim. It's always either "Shadow is there" or "The final boss isn't Eggman" and nothing beyond that. It really ticks me off when people are eager to start such a provocative dialogue, but refuse to go beyond the surface level. But my unpopular opinion is that it's still better than both Rush games because I don't think that either one is good. They're quite literally just Sonic 4 with Blaze. And since I don't give a rat's ass about Blaze, I have no reason to treat them any differently than Sonic 4.
Oh, don't get me wrong - the Wii game is by far the better of the two, but the DS one isn't a bad title. I'd forgotten Shadow was even in it, he's that minor a role.
"Eggman isn't the Final Boss" is an especially weird reason because Eggman hadn't been the final boss for ten years when Colours came out. Everyone was dead tired of Eggman awakening ancient evil, then being betrayed or overpowered. I'm not a fan of Sonic Colours, but I'll forever respect how it stuck to the plan and really made it all about Eggman's theme park.
Well, that's why these people prefer it nowadays, as they see its story as superior to Wii Colors. I'd be very interested in hearing the perspective of those who have preferred DS Colors since its launch in 2010.
Honestly it's my favorite of the 3 Rush titles, but I'm not sure if that's an unpopular take or not? I thought the more popular opinion was that Rush 1 was the best of the bunch (primarily due to Naganuma's musical work there - which yeah fair is really good). Outside of the kinda poopy 'Touch a Wisp!' segments, Colors DS is a great romp. It's Rush but much more streamlined since it trims Rush 1's Finale requirements (you only need to participate in the Special Stages) and lacks the element grinding Rush Adventure had. It also has a lot of nice 'Quality of Life' improvements. The additional 'stomp' move to instantly hit the ground just feels good to use and it felt so wrong going back to Rush 1 and realizing I didn't have it. You're also given the option to retry the Special Stages if you made the perquisites through the map screen, and you're given the option to refuse them if you don't want to do them right after the Act. The shorter Acts that people rag on the Wii version for having are 'tucked away' in the form of Missions with Colors DS, and contain slightly more unique objectives with fun character interactions. If you really don't want to do them, but you're still interested in playing the Mother Wisp boss, the game doesn't ask you to do them. The game actually becomes nearly identical narrative-wise to the Wii release if you ignore them. They're just there to give you a little more content to chew on without being intrusive.
Colors DS is definitely the best of the Rush games imo, largely because it trims a lot of the bullshit that Rush and Rush Adventure suffer from. Tbh I think Rush is the worst of the 3 by far, its almost as bad as Advance 3 when it comes to level design and the bosses are miserable to fight. If it weren't for the music and introducing Blaze, I'd probably outright hate it instead of just mildly disliking it. Rush Adventure improved the level design a lot(less bottomless pits and insta-kill obstacles, but they still exist later on in the game) but fucked up making the game a tedious grindfest. As for the whole Colors DS vs Wii thing, while I prefer the Wii version, I like that the DS version didn't try to pad itself out and end up compromising the quality of the game as a whole, you just get your 2 sizeable acts that are designed to properly showcase every wisp in a way that they won't feel overused, and optional content on the side thats there if you want it but won't negatively impact the game's perception. Just a straightforward Sonic experience, that's probably why some people like it more than the Wii version.
I liked what I played of Colors DS but never beat it, while I did beat the Wii version as well as Rush and Rush Adventure. I dunno lol I guess it was alright then.
Colors DS is quite good, I wish it had been included in Ultimate. That probably would have made the downgrades worth it for a lot of people. I have a bad feeling that game is going to rot even once the Advance and Rush games finally get ported. Ditto for Generations and Lost World 3DS, though I can't say I'm all that chuffed about that last one.
When you first play the first level, you don't even have boost, so it's Sonic 4 with a stomp instead. I don't think it's really any worse than the Rush games, just Different in an effort to match Colors more. It's only a little dissapointing that it introduced a move that would have helped further differentiate Sonic and Blaze in a rush game (The stomp) but does not have Blaze. The slide was also maybe underutilized. But otherwise it's still really fun to blast through.
Why haven't the Advance and Rush games been ported yet anyway? For Advance i know that they had different publishers across the regions, but THQ Nordic supposedly doesn't have the license anymore so Sega is probably in the clear to release them. Rush on the other hand i can kind of understand because of the gimmicky dual screen gameplay that might be slightly tricky to emulate on modern systems, but i think they could definitely find a way to get it ported if they really wanted to. Funny enough, i might have just answered my own question. They could port them anytime they want, but they haven't because they simply don't want to.
Hardly Anything released between Adventure 2 and now has gotten a port. Colors Ultimate kinda broke new ground in that regard, but they're basically still skipping an entire decade with Sonic X Shadow's Oiled-Up Twerk-Off Generations. The difference is that the home console games in the 2000s were not very well-received, where DIMPS's output did quite a bit better, but that's assuming that critical reception is more than just one piece of those games not getting rereleased, which we still don't know for certain anyway. Shot in the dark, I've heard it said (though I don't have a source) that the reason they shifted away from original handheld experiences to console knock-offs was the later Advance/Rush sequels selling poorly (Rush Adventure in particular). So maybe they just don't think they would sell well again???
This means happy - is that what you meant? The tone of the post made it sound like you don’t care if the 3DS Lost World ends up ported somewhere but this threw me off. Anyway, I’m glad you’re optimistic about Sonic Advance and Rush getting ported. I’d love to see that. Advance I think we’d see within the next 5 years but I can’t picture Rush happening with the work that’d be required removing the dual screen features. Maybe if we ever got a collection of early 3D Sonic games, they could be included similarly to the GG games in Mega Collection Plus, but I don’t see a rereleases of those games happening without being updated to the point that they’d need to be standalone releases as opposed to a compilation. Also… what was your old username? This is the first I’ve seen this new one and I already forgot what you were lol. Apparently I just recognize people here from their pics.
Wow, I've been using that for years and never noticed it means the exact opposite. I think I may have been mixing it up with feeling chafed. I am? I didn't intend to give that impression. That makes me 0/2 I guess. I actually have very little confidence in any of this happening. One of the projects I've wanted to work on for a while is a definitive guide on how best to play every Sonic game (at least the canon ones) on PC, and you bet that almost none of that is going to involve the official versions SEGA gives you in their unaltered state. That's part of the reason I hate Dream Team's business model, even if it were still exclusive to other devices, they're devices that are built to gatekeep it from PC users, even though they can play just about every other Sonic game ever made. The games industry haaaates releasing anything past the fifth generation of console games as a collection, they'd rather make remasters and remakes so they can show differences in texture quality and polycount (regardless of whether the art style looks any good). I would love to see an Adventure collection with every portable game as DLC, but the problems with that are A. They'd need to put in the work to make them not just SADX and SA2B crappy again, and the only way to do that is either to re-port the DC versions or else just license the fuck out of the mod community (which they should do, but they won't) B. There are nine games in that portable lineup not counting Chronicles, and when they're not half-hour experiences like the Game Gear games, those could sell a collection on their own...except three of them being portable versions of home console games would probably confuse people (name changes perhaps?) C. SEGA couldn't even be bothered to include the last seven 90s Sonic games in their "definitive" Origins collection. Spinball, Mean Bean, 3D Blast, R, Fighters, SegaSonic and Chaotix have been completely hung out to dry, despite all of them (except Mean Bean) being canon, three of them being as simple as dropping in a genesis ROM, and one of them already having a modern port. Make no mistake, there's nothing that SEGA won't arbitrarily not port. I was Shaddy, but I've had no reason to use that name for like ten years, so I'm just Devin now.
Then just don't remove them? When Mega Man ZX and Mega Man ZX Advent were ported, the second screen wasn't removed. With the caveat that the second screen isn't as essential in those games, of course. Side note: Sonic Rush and Sonic Rush Adventure. Mega Man ZX and Mega Man ZX Advent. The naming scheme similarity is funny.
Oh, the way this was written, “even once the Advance and Rush games finally get ported,” with the word, “once,” rather than, ”if,” sounded like you thought it was an inevitability. Also, regarding what you mentioned wanting to do: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Uk5U8jY_RPZF9m_gmPfSOfCngAOSAxy393dsQVPoOyQ/edit?gid=0#gid=0 Pariah695 from YT has this. I don’t play on PC much so I can’t vouch for everything, but from what I do know, the recommendations are solid. Never played them. I’ll look it up to see how they did it, but I can imagine it’s not the best looking. Ideally for me, a remaster of Sonic games going forward would adapt things for the display like Origins/RSDK releases do. I wouldn’t want the action of Rush to be confined to what’s essentially a 1/4 of the screen at a time.
Sonic Rush has two screens, but the action essentially treats it like one, really long vertical screen. So if anything, what they should do is line them up exactly, then just expand the boundaries until it's in widescreen. It'll be really zoomed-out, but that's probably what you want for a game that fast anyway. Listen, we'll never make progress without those who are willing to brave the depths of the unknown. I'm not sure Sonic is ever going to die as a franchise, so I do imagine that everything will technically get ported eventually. Just, y'know, not in the next decade, because there's literally too much to cover. It's entirely possible they're going to keep jerking off the four classic games for years until eventually releasing, I dunno, a Sonic Heroes remaster, and then in fifteen years you'll still need to download the mod loader for a modicum of playability for SA1 and 2 anyway. Oh I'm sure multiple guides like this exist, I wanted to do an actual video with my own takes, especially since I'm not suuuper into this guy's takes overall.
Fans are decompiling Sonic Advance and Sonic Advance 2, right? If we're going to see any ports, they'll probably be by fans. First there was emulation to preserve games, but it seems that these days there are more and more efforts to decompile games to preserve (and enhance) them. The first well-known example being Super Mario 64. A whole community has since formed around decompiling N64, GameCube, and Wii games. There's also a growing community for decompiling PlayStation 2 games. Some of the current efforts I'm aware of are decompilations of Fatal Frame (Project Zero), Parappa the Rapper 2, and Kingdom Hearts. There's even some guy who almost fully decompiled Sonic CD.
