Sonic Colors: Ultimate

I went in expecting a clean, no-fuss port of one of the hedgehog's most fondly remembered outings, and what I got was something more complicated. Sonic Colors: Ultimate is the 2010 Wii platformer rebuilt for modern hardware by Blind Squirrel Entertainment, and the base game underneath is still genuinely good. The structure is linear, stage-by-stage action where Sonic tears through six themed worlds, each with six acts plus a boss, mixing 3D rail-runner sections with snappy 2D side-scrolling. That 2D-to-3D camera pivot can blindside you on a first run, but once you know it's coming it flows well enough. The core loop - go fast, grab rings, hunt Red Rings for S-ranks, replay stages with newly unlocked Wisp powers to find alternate routes - holds up. Completionists will find real mileage in that loop. The Wisps are the design hook that made Colors stand out in its era, and they still work. Each color does something distinct: Cyan turns Sonic into a ricocheting laser, Yellow lets him drill underground through dirt and water, the Drill Wisp in particular feels great in motion. The new-to-Ultimate Jade Ghost Wisp lets you phase through certain walls by locking onto nodes, but it is honestly underwhelming and barely integrated into the level design. The Rival Rush mode, where you race Metal Sonic through a specific stage against the clock, sounds exciting on paper but amounts to the same level with a timer slapped on it. New content is thin. Here is where the Mixed Steam verdict makes sense. The remaster launched on other platforms in a rough state, and the PC version that arrived in February 2023 inherited a complicated legacy. The visual overhaul is inconsistent: some lighting looks genuinely upgraded, but elsewhere the colors wash out and the bloom is aggressive with no way to tune it, since graphics options are barebones. Cutscenes were not remastered and look noticeably muddy. Audio mixing is awkward too, with sound effects and music sharing a single slider, meaning the new Perfect Homing Attack sound can drown out the soundtrack entirely. Performance-wise the PC build is playable, with stuttering linked to shader compilation that smooths out after the first run of each stage. Most of the serious launch bugs from 2021 have since been patched, but a handful of 60fps-specific oddities remain baked in. Who is this for, then? If you never played Colors on Wii and want to experience it without hunting down old hardware, this gets the job done. The fundamentals, fast movement, homing attacks that actually connect reliably, multi-route stages rewarding mastery, are solid enough to carry a playthrough. Stage quality is uneven across the 30-plus acts, with some genuinely thrilling speed runs and others that grind momentum to a halt with fiddly platforming. Boss variety is poor, with the same handful of fights recycled across the six worlds. For series fans chasing a clean definitive version, the Wii original is still the sharper-looking experience in some respects, which says something unflattering about this remaster. Approach it as a decent way to revisit a good game, not as the definitive celebration it marketed itself as.

Alex · Scout Team

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