20 Nov, 2010
Everybody is aware of Sonic’s decade long slide into oblivion. It got so obvious that even SEGA publicly admitted it and vowed to turn things around for the blue blur. This year Sonic has been in a renaissance with Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing, Sonic 4: Episode 1 and now Sonic Colours. SEGA seems to have done what many didn’t think was possible and that’s make a Sonic game work in the modern-era with that fancy third dimension.
Sonic Colours sees Sonic and Tails break in to Dr. Eggman’s galactic theme park with suspicion that not all is what it seems. Eggman claims to have built the park as a way to make it up to people for the years of evil plots and dastardly deeds, but you can guess that he might be telling lies. In actuality, he is capturing an alien race known as “Wisps” to harness their energy to power a mind-control machine to enslave the galaxy. It’s now up to Sonic and Tails to save the Wisps and stop Eggman.
The script is clearly focused on a younger audience with a “Saturday morning cartoon” vibe with slapstick humor and unoffensive jokes. It never crosses into cringe-worthy territory thanks to an all new voice cast that prevents things from being grating. Some of the jokes can cause a chuckle but most of all; Tails no longer sounds like a girl, which is a big improvement. The more mature player is likely to skip the cinemas, but if you don’t mind cartoon antics, you won’t feel like tearing off your own skin, that speaks volumes compared to other Sonic stories.
If you played Sonic Unleashed, you know what to expect here as Colours is entirely made from the day sections of that game. Sonic runs in a 3D environment on rails for cinematic presentation in exchange of control, with seamless transition to 2D platforming. The sense of speed is strong when you boost through the various levels and the 2D sections have thoughtful level design for the most part that evolve the game as you make progress through the story.
New this year are the Wisp powers. There are eight in total giving Sonic powers such as turning into a rocket to get a big vertical boost or turning into a drill to burrow through soft ground to seek hidden areas. Not all the powers are fun, the pink spikes can cause some headaches. Thankfully though they’re all optional and none necessarily break the game, they’re more used for the ability to seek out alternative ways to progress through stages or find hidden collectables like red rings.
The biggest issue with Sonic Colours are the numerous difficulty spikes seen throughout the game. Colours is not a particularly long game, as it is possible to beat in about five to six hours. There are stages where bad level design comes into play and can cause black-holes where numerous lives can be lost causing you to throw your controller at the TV. Unlike other platformers though (Mario says hello), in Colours you need to beat every stage to progress through the worlds. This means you need to tough it up and persist through the more frustrating sections, possibly causing you to flat-out not like the game at times. This is too bad, as there are many things to like and appreciate, only to have it spoiled by a poorly designed section.
Collecting the hidden five red rings in each stage lets you unlock challenge rooms where you can try difficult stages for fast times. This is a great idea for the Sonic hardcore and the thoughtful inclusion of online leader-boards with Nintendo WiFi-Connect gives incentive to keep trying. The additional two-player inclusion is not so welcome. There is simply not enough screen real estate for two Sonics, there’s hardly enough room for one!
Sonic Colours is one of the prettiest games on Wii this year, just behind Super Mario Galaxy 2. The setting of an amusement park allows Sonic Team to create interesting and visually creative environments that blaze at impressive speeds, even if the game sticks to 30 frames-per-second. Strong use of colour and the Hedgehog engine powering the special effects push the Wii hardware without technical problems. Unfortunately because of that, aliasing is everywhere which makes me want to beg SEGA to bring this to an HD console to do it justice. Besides the annoying theme tune, the rest of the pop-rock music fits into the Sonic lore but nothing stands out.
SEGA clearly saw that they were on the right path with Sonic Unleashed, as Sonic Colours is more a refinement of a good idea and for once it is left alone to focus on it does well without being hampered with crap nobody wants. (Goodbye Werehog!) If you can look past the difficulty spikes, Sonic Colours can be seen as a peace offering to lifelong Sonic fans as a way to apologise for the years of abuse towards the blue mascot. If you are willing to accept SEGA’s apology, you’re in for a great experience.
[Rating: 4/5]
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