I’m disappointed.
SEGA did it. They messed up another port. First, it was Sonic Adventure DX, then Sonic Genesis on the GBA, and now Sonic Colors: Ultimate.
Disclaimer: I am British, so I will refer to Sonic Colors as “Sonic Colours” for the duration of this blog. Don’t like it? I don’t care.
I should probably say this: this is not the fault of the people at Blind Squirrel Games - this is all on SEGA’s strict deadlines.
Crunch culture has been a massive problem within video game companies for a while. Look at Activision, Ubisoft, even Rockstar Games or Epic Games - they’ve all got a record of serious crunch culture.
SEGA is no different. Luckily, they seem to have eased up on it with the Anti-Crunch Culture initiative in recent years, but they are hardly a saint in the industry. Every company has its problems.
No, crunch culture is not necessary to make a good game. Rockstar, Epic and SEGA have all moved to more employee-friendly work hours, and companies like Nintendo and Square Enix have always openly avoided crunch.
I have respect for a lot of the people at SEGA - and I’m sure they’re cool people. But this port can not be forgiven. SEGA has consistently given us subpar quality games, but the line has been crossed when they decided to go back and start ruining old ones.
Let’s get into the specifics.
SONIC COLORS: ULTIMATE IS EMBARRASSING
Sonic Colours: Ultimate is not a good game. Sonic Colours is a good game. Let’s make that clear now.
Sonic Colours: Ultimate is a terrible excuse for a ‘remaster’. It has very few additions, and the ones it does include either don’t add to the experience, or actively make the game worse.
One thing that has improved is the graphical resolution. The game supports 4K at 60fps, and 1080p at 30fps on Nintendo Switch. A lot of textures have been upscaled, and the overall visual quality has improved, for the most part.
However, for a game called ‘Sonic Colours’, a lot of levels appear to be darker than before. The stages that were dark before? They’re completely dark now. Take a look at the very first level, Tropical Resort. It’s evident that the developers messed up with the lighting engine, because the whole level is darker than before.
There’s also a large amount of bloom (shader effect that is essentially very light, and replicates the image artifact of cameras).
“What’s the big deal?” You ask. Sonic Colours was a very pretty game visually, for the Wii. To see this beautiful game downgraded in a quote-en-quote ‘remaster’ is sad.
Okay, so what’s new? Remixed music - genuinely some really good stuff here, I really like the Reach for the Stars remix in particular. So catchy!
Metal Sonic Rival Races are here. Everyone hyped these up; they were gonna be so cool. But no, they’re completely filler, and there’s just a few of them.
Lives are gone, replaced by Tails Saves. Tails Saves are even more annoying than dying, because you’re forced to watch an animation of him saving you every. single. time. It seriously gives me Sonic 4: Episode II vibes.
For some reason they didn’t remove Checkpoints, despite Tails Saves negating their use. There is no sense of risk or danger in this game EVER - and this was already on the easier side. SEGA seems determined to market Sonic for 5-year-olds and 5-year-olds only.
Enjoy the world’s easiest game, made even easier!
There’s a new Wisp: the Jade Ghost Wisp. This Wisp lets you phase through walls to collect Park Tokens. It’s cool, I guess. Some Red Rings require it, so it can be an interesting mechanic, but to no-one’s surprise, this feature isn’t used to its fullest potential.
Not to mention that it's addition has further broken the game. Invisible walls in random spots, because those are now ghost wisp spots? Check. ‘New areas’ that are really just out-of-bounds areas from the original? Check. Flying hopelessly and blindly, desperately hoping that you’ll find the level again? Check.
What are Park Tokens? These are collectibles that unlock costumes for Sonic, and they’re littered EVERYWHERE. Costumes for Sonic sound cool. They could give him unique get-ups, like Mario Odyssey, but maybe using outfits from Sonic Dash and Speed Battle. But nope, it’s just different colours for his gloves and shoes. You can change the boost effect though, which is pretty cool.
The game has achievements, which is pretty good. One of those requires watching through to the end of the Credits. Sounds easy, right? Nope, the credits are half an hour long.
Now, let’s talk about glitches.
You’ve probably seen them plastered all across social media - Sonic Colours: Ultimate’s glitches are terrible, and it’s a miracle that this game was greenlit for release by SEGA.
“Well, they can’t be that bad! Sonic fans are just salty, there’s like one or two glitches..” But there isn’t. Let’s run through some of them.
Background geometry pops in and out of view. The underwater effect is broken. The intro to Starlight Carnival Act 3 is broken. The laser wisp can create another Sonic. Some large set-pieces in Planet Wisp, Tropical Resort, Aquarium Park and other levels randomly appear or disappear.
Enemies suddenly jumping down, when they should slowly glide down. Some enemies’ movement speeds are glitched. Some wisps can’t even be interacted with, Sonic simply clips through them. Sonic randomly slows down in scripted sequences, making the level much slower. Half-pipes - y’know, the mechanic that was perfected in the VERY FIRST Sonic game - are broken here too.
Oh, and then there’s the seizures. Yeah, there were legitimately seizure-inducing visual glitches that appeared in MULTIPLE areas in-game. Luckily, these seem to have been fixed by a post-release patch.
The game consistently crashes too, even occasionally corrupting some users’ save data (especially just after 100% completion), especially on the Nintendo Switch version.
This is an embarrassing game, and it makes it clear that SEGA doesn’t care what they release - because Sonic fans will just eat it all up anyway. I dread to see how Sonic Origins turns out next year.
By no means am I going to shame you if you buy the game, I just strongly advise that you don’t. Just avoid the port where possible. They are very slowly patching the game to fix the issues, but that doesn’t justify this shoddy job. The game should have been completed upon release, and I am disappointed that SEGA has, once again, provided a poor excuse for a Sonic game.
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