Sonic's 30th anniversary: Sonic Colors

Sonic Mania gets all the love, but Sonic Colors was quietly the best Sonic title in ages when it released in 2010. There's a reason that's the post-Sega-console release getting a remaster.

On June 23, 2021, Sonic the Hedgehog turned 30 years old. I’ve spent the week looking back at some of Sonic’s finest outings across those 30 years, one from each era of the anthropomorphic hedgehog’s existence. First up was the original Sonic the Hedgehog, then the last Sonic game to appear on a Sega console, Sonic Adventure 2, and last, the best Sonic Game since his heyday, Sonic Colors.

Sonic Adventure 2, as we’ve been over, was (and is) a fun game despite its flaws. The home console Sonic games that followed… well, I would prefer not to talk about them, but I guess I did promise some contextual history to go along with this game write-ups to celebrate Sonic’s 30th birthday. So, here we go.

Sonic Heroes was the first multiplatform Sonic game designed to be such a thing, and we’ll just say that reviews were mixed. In comparison to the reaction that the Sonic the Hedgehog reboot game from 2006 received, though, Sonic Heroes might as well have been Sonic 3. Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) is included on a Wikipedia list of games that are “notable for negative reception,” and truly, it deserves its place there. As much as I dislike something like Metacritic, it is useful here for some context. Sonic 2006 scored just a 46 out of 100 on the 360 and a 43 out of 100 on the PS3: for a more modern comparison, that’s right around where the recent various Balan Wonderworld releases ended up scoring: the reaction to that game might be sending Sonic and Balan creator Yuji Naka into retirement. Just a tidal wave of deserved revulsion for a game that might have had some good ideas, but executed none of them in an enjoyable fashion. Even the official Sonic Twitter account makes fun of this game now!

On the bright (?) side, this was definitely rock bottom for Sonic. On the less bright side, it took a long time for Sonic Team to claw their way out of the hole they’d fallen into. The Wii escaped having to endure Sonic 2006, but they had their share of exclusive disappointments. Sonic and the Secret Rings arrived on the little white console in 2007, and, like with Sonic Heroes, one of the best things you can say about it is that it’s not Sonic 2006. Sonic and the Black Knight would follow in 2009, and yes, that’s the one where Sonic has a sword, which was only slightly more enjoyable than Shadow the Hedgehog with a gun. Sonic Unleashed would be a shared nightmare for owners of all three consoles — this is the one where Sonic is a werewolf sometimes, and what made it a real problem is that it felt like Sonic Team had actually solved some of the issues with 3D Sonic for it… and then made it so you weren’t playing like that half the time, but were instead dealing with the unenjoyable “Unleashed” stages instead of just playing what could have been a solid Sonic game for the first time since the Dreamcast existed.

Sega made the decision in 2010 to delist all of the Sonic games still available at retailers that had average or worse scores on Metacritic, in an attempt to raise the value of the Sonic brand. So, you know, everything they had done that console generation to that point. Essentially, they didn’t want anyone accidentally buying Sonic and the Secret Rings and tying that game back to Sega in the process. They even admitted that there was money to be made on selling copies of things like Secret Rings and Black Knight, in spite of the critical reception, but that it made more sense for them to just bail on those titles and instead hope that the next slate of Sonic games would turn things around for the franchise on a number of levels.

Honestly, I have no idea if that strategy worked: you could still find used copies of these games at Gamestop or your local retail chains, or rent them from Gamefly, or what have you, and you know parents were going to gravitate toward the discounted used game for their kids even if there was a big sticker on it said that “this stinks!” But at least Sega was willing to admit that they were peddling broken wares, and needed to do more than just add a werewolf or “storybook” element to Sonic in order to fix that. That’s where Sonic Colors came in.

Sonic Colors was a game made exclusively for Nintendo systems. Well, two games, actually: there is a Wii version and a DS version, and while they share plenty of similarities, they’re also completely different games, each worth playing for different reasons. Sonic is the lone playable character, and he does not turn into any kind of creature or arm himself with historically appropriate weaponry in order to shake up the gameplay. It isn’t just a throwback or anything like that, either: Sonic Colors actually pushed the series forward, meaningfully, and to me, was and is the best Sonic game produced since the 1990s. Sonic Mania, the fan-made title that honors Sonic’s past by re-imagining a whole bunch of stages and elements you remember into something new, is deservedly praised for being the return to form in 2D that Sonic the Hedgehog 4 failed to be. I do feel, though, that its existence has caused people to forget that Sonic Colors had already reversed course for Sonic years before, and that it did it by creating something entirely new, and successfully so, in a way that everything post-Adventure 2 had failed to do.

There’s a reason this is the one game from this particular era in Sonic that is getting a remaster, is the short way of saying it. Sonic Colors was a success for Sega, both critically and commercially, but they’re in a much better position now to capitalize on its greatness post-Sonic Mania, after the rate of Sonic releases slowed, than they were when it was being used more for trying to salvage the brand.

The gimmick of Sonic Colors — the colors in question, really — are Wisps. These Wisps can be collected throughout the stages, with some of them simply there to boost your power meter, which can be used for, and will be used most often for, dashing. The color-specific ones, though, grant Sonic some temporary powers that help him traverse the environments he finds himself in. There is the laser, which lets you pick an angle to shoot Sonic at, and then he bounces off of surfaces, destroying enemies in his path and collecting rings and items along the way. There is the rocket, which launches Sonic high into the air, giving him a bit of verticality and speed that simple wall jumping cannot: he can also float through the air after this launch, which lets you reach some areas and rings you otherwise might not be able to. There is the drill, which lets you move through soft earth or water with ease, the purple Wisp that turns Sonic into an object-and-enemy-eating cloud that grows in size and power the more it consumes — there are eight Wisps in total, and they are a lot of fun to utilize, especially if you want to move Sonic off of the more default path in each stage.

The Wisps working is huge, since whatever shakeup element Sonic Team had introduced in previous games had not for far too long. However, you only enjoy the Wisps because the basic, core gameplay is right. The controls work. The camera works. The story does not make you cringe or regret any of your life choices or make you hope no one walks into the room you’re in and sees you playing this game. Everything just… works? Like it is supposed to? Madness, I know, but still perfectly legal for Sonic Team to manage, despite the mountains of evidence that strongly suggested otherwise.

On the Wii, Sonic Colors is a hybrid 3D and 2.5D platformer. The 3D parts never veer too far into feeling like an on-rails experience: you feel in control, even when the game has taken a little bit of it away from you. Rail grinding works superbly, with the focus more on timing jumps to collect rings and items than on balance, and while there are some big loop-de-loops that take control out of your hands for a moment, you need to stay on your toes for when they’re over, whether it’s to set up your path for a jump or rings or to avoid the next wave of enemies. Jumping is pretty easy to do in the 3D portions, with the homing attack playing a huge part in your movement through the environment. It helps keep your momentum going, even as you stop running, and also allows Sonic to skip jumping in favor of the far more accurate bouncing from enemy to enemy.

The game really shines when the camera perspective shifts to make Sonic Colors play as a side-scrolling platformer, though, and the effect is a seamless one. The blending between the two play styles works so well, with no jarring transitions that leave you confused or finding your bearings again: it’s all just so smooth that it’s hard to believe the same people made this game that also made all of the ones Sega had to publicly renounce the existence of. It reminds me a lot of the transitions between the 3D areas of Super Mario 3D World and its more side-scrolling, traditional platforming elements and stages. Except, in Colors, you’re moving at Sonic speeds, making it all the more impressive that it was pulled off so well.

That Mario might have pulled a little bit of inspiration from Colors for their next major 3D Mario outing would not shock me, but the real connection between the two here, the one we for sure know exists, is the other way around. Sonic Colors was a Nintendo exclusive for a reason: Sega wanted to court the kind of audience that would buy a Nintendo system, rather than attempt to make a game that could satisfy all audiences that might be interested in Sonic. You could do a lot worse than focusing on pleasing the kind of people who buy a system to play Mario games, you know. In Colors, Sonic is no longer such an obvious product of the 90s, full of attitude and such, but is instead a bit more relaxed, dropping jokes with puns in them and hoping to get a reaction so he doesn’t have to explain the joke. It’s all actually pretty entertaining, to see Sonic interacting with the hapless villains working for Dr. Eggman, and these interactions all feel unforced and self-aware, too, which helps all of it so much.

Sonic Colors Wii even has an orchestral soundtrack during menus and level completion screens, which, coming off of Mario’s jump to orchestral soundtracks for Super Mario Galaxy, probably wasn’t an accident, especially since this particular Sonic adventure also takes place in space. The level music itself feels much more Sonic, befitting the speed and spectacle of the gameplay, but the key thing is that it all makes sense in context.

The DS version of Sonic Colors is all side-scrolling platformer. If you can’t enjoy 3D Sonic, even the better versions of the concept, then the DS version of Colors is the one for you. It was developed by Dimps, who you might know as the team responsible for every worthwhile Sonic game that released in between Sonic Adventure 2 and Colors. They developed the entire Sonic Advance trilogy on the Game Boy Advance, as well as the two Sonic Rush titles on the DS. All of these games perfectly understood what made the Genesis (and Sega CD) Sonic platformers work, but they also knew how to push the series forward, or incorporate elements of the 3D gameplay into a 2D space, so that each entry felt fresh even if it was decidedly based on a concept from the early-to-mid-90s.

Colors DS uses not just the Sonic Rush engine, but also combines some of the core gameplay elements from that title with those of the Wii’s version of Colors. You have the Wisps and their powers here again, but you’ll probably focus a lot more on speed and boosting in the DS iteration of the game than in the Wii one. There are multiple paths for you to follow, some accessible only with the help of Wisps, some only through some curiosity or built-up speed, and the verticality of the levels is significant, since the game leans on the dual-screen nature of the DS. Sonic games on the DS were not designed like many others, which would use one screen for a HUD or map and the other for a clean gameplay display. Sonic Colors uses both screens, the entire time, for platforming that isn’t just side-to-side, but also up and down.

Sonic will sometimes be on the top screen, sometimes on the bottom one. You have to follow him with your eyes from top to bottom, depending on whether you’re traveling upward or downward, and you can do that at great speeds thanks to the speed boost effect — one which also makes you impervious to damage from enemies, as you can bowl right over them while boosting — and the various Wisps that shoot you into the air or let you drill through the earth or what have you. You’re moving fast, often, but it’s not the kind of fast you can just sleepwalk through passively. You need to stay on top of things, boosting when appropriate, changing course, attacking enemies, finding hidden items and lives and rings along the way, while determining if you want to be traveling up or down by glancing at the terrain of the screen Sonic isn’t currently on while you’re rushing side-to-side on the other.

It gives Sonic a sense of speed and control over that speed that just didn’t exist back in the 90s, and absolutely never existed in a 3D space. It’s wonderful to play and replay, which you will do in order to earn higher rankings on the levels, or to collect all of the Chaos Emeralds. And you’ll actually want to do that in Sonic Colors DS, since the special stages are their own kind of fun, too.

They’re reminiscent of the special stages from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Genesis, with you collecting a certain number of colored orbs in order to earn the Chaos Emerald at the end of the stage, but there are some key differences. There are jumps and boosts and special kinds of orbs that boost your orb collection or grant you opportunities for bonus ones. And while there are multiple laps of the area, all of the orbs for each lap are there from the beginning. You first have to collect the red orbs, but if you touch any of the blue or yellow orbs then, they’re knocked off of the stage, and you can’t collect them later. So it’s an on-rails obstacle course where you have to figure out the path that’ll get you only the orbs you need without losing orbs you will need later, and you have to try to save some of the bonus stuff for later when the number of orbs you will need is higher, too. They’re really wonderful, and collecting all of the Chaos Emeralds from them will unlock the game’s “true” boss, one more difficult than your standard end-game Eggman encounter.

As a general rule, the bosses in this game are great, too, just like Rush’s were. Really thoughtful use of Wisps, stage design, and so on. Dimps generally knew what they were doing during the aughts.

In addition to the special stages, there are also “missions,” which are challenges you attempt to complete within the stages you’ve already finished. Collect 200 rings in 30 seconds, defeat however enemies in a short window of time, collect the flags in order, that sort of thing. They’re entirely optional, but they are fun and worthwhile, and can help you learn how to approach some particularly difficult portions of stages you’re trying to earn higher ranks on, anyway. And you’ll also want to return to stages you’ve already completed later on, after you’ve unlocked the various Wisps, to see where those powers can take you in levels you played before said unlocking.

You can get Sonic Colors on the Wii without it costing you all that much, but it might be worth it for you to just wait and pick up the remaster when that drops in HD later this year, too. It’s one of the finer looking games on the Wii, and plays extremely smoothly, too, but hey, an HD Sonic that plays in 3D and doesn’t suck is a thing that literally does not exist yet, so give yourself the chance to see this unicorn out in the wild once you can. The DS iterration isn’t getting a remaster, since there is no dual-screen system still in production, so if you have a DS or a 3DS already, I cannot recommend going out to buy it for those systems right away. It’s a killer 2D Sonic game, and even if you prefer Mania or the 90s titles stylistically and gameplay-wise, I think you’ll find yourself surprised by how good this game is compared to how little noise was made about it.

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