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By Ben Clarke // Â鶹ԼÅÄ The Social contributor // 1 September 2021

2021 marks Sonic the Hedgehog’s 30th anniversary and one of the ways SEGA is celebrating the occasion is by releasing a remaster of one of Sonic’s most pivotal titles – Sonic Colours.

Sonic Colours: Ultimate aims to provide a modern experience for this once 2010 Nintendo Wii exclusive. However, all isn’t as it seems, as this has got to be one of the most problematic remasters I’ve ever experienced. Just what makes it such a let down?

To give the remaster some credit, it’s not all doom and gloom. On PS4, the visuals have been updated from the Wii’s measly 480P and 30FPS performance to a locked 60FPS with a crisp 4K resolution output. This is expanded even further with some new effects, such as light rays appearing from the ceilings of Sweet Mountain, and extra neon lights in Tropical Resort. Add this on top of some nice texture improvements, and it’s obvious that work has been done to try and make the game look a bit more modern.

Alongside the visuals updates, almost the entire soundtrack has been remixed, with many new takes on beloved music tracks from the original game. While not all of the remixes sound great, the ones that do are a highlight of this game, with Terminal Velocity being my personal favourite of the bunch.

New gameplay additions have also been introduced, with one of the biggest inclusions arguably being the new Jade Ghost Wisp. In the original Sonic Colours, the “Wisps” were introduced as new power-ups for Sonic to use, gaining access to brand new abilities that expanded the stages even further. This includes power-ups such as the Laser Wisp, which fires Sonic at super-fast speeds, and the Drill Wisp which allows Sonic to both dig underground to uncover hidden collectibles and swim quickly underwater.

Now with the new Jade Ghost Wisp, Sonic can go through walls and areas that were previously inaccessible, making for a much more interesting play through for Colours veterans such as myself.

The last worthwhile addition has to be the new customisation features. Sonic’s appearance can now be changed, whether it be his gloves, shoes, boost, and more. These pieces of gear can be purchased with the new Park Tokens that have been added to every stage, encouraging exploration even further. This feature was definitely a nice, if not a bit insignificant, but does help to make the experience a bit more personalised.

With all that said, let’s tackle the many, many issues I faced while playing this game. Even though stages have had a visual update, many of them don’t stick their landing. Tropical Resort now looks like a closed-down theme park, with the once luscious greenery appearing almost black in many instances throughout the stage. There’s also Sweet Mountain’s insanely bright and flat looking interiors, and Starlight Carnival’s distractingly bright and less detailed light road – just to name a few.

At points, the visuals directly impacted my gameplay, with the Laser Wisp’s trail being so dim that it made it difficult for me to aim where I was going. In the Wii original, many of the stages look a lot more dynamic and richer, making these stages feel more grounded and pleasing to look at.

Sonic himself also looks worse, with his model now casting a huge field of light that affects every single stage. This makes him contrast really poorly with the game’s areas, as it doesn’t look like he’s affected by the lights and shadows around him. This applies to the enemies too, making them look like they simply don’t belong. It’s all of this that makes me wish that this remaster had preserved the original game’s resolution and simply updated it to be in 4K and running at 60FPS, as I believe that would’ve been much more impressive.

However, by far the biggest issue I faced in this game was simply the abundance of glitches that were present throughout my whole experience. In almost every single stage at every single turn, there would be a glitch that hindered the game.

To name just a few, Sonic would disappear at points, stages would show distracting flickering effects, some effects would be downright missing, I’d be launched way-high into the sky by boost pads, objects would go missing before they were off-screen, the pause menu’s appearance would change at random, and so, so, so much more.

These glitches even go for some of the other new additions of the game. Rival Rushes have been added to the remaster, letting Sonic go head-to-head with his robot counterpart – Metal Sonic. However, not only do menus for this mode look out of place, but sometimes the tracker that shows the player’s progress compared to Metal Sonic simply doesn’t work. This is dependent on what path I took in a stage, as some paths would simply break this tracker and show Sonic being at the starting position, even as I was nearing the end of the stage.

There’s also only six of these races present in the entire game, which is especially disappointing as Colours has over 40 stages that they could’ve worked with.

This isn’t even to mention the consistent sound issues that I experienced. At many points throughout the game, the music would simply stop playing, whether it be on the title screen, game menus, and in the game itself when using a Wisp.

Not only is this glitch present, but the sound mixing itself is really, really bad. Often, sounds would only play on one channel, or would be downright missing. This was a constant distraction throughout my entire experience with the game, and actively ruined my enjoyment with it. It’s baffling to me how messy the game is currently is, and I truly hope that these issues can be addressed in future game patches.

I haven’t even got to the biggest deal-breaker yet – game crashes. In at least eight different instances, the game flat-out crashed on me, causing me to restart it entirely. Even worse, at one point it corrupted my save data and deleted it, causing me to have to restart the game entirely. This was a pivotal moment in my experience with the game, and left me with my jaw wide open.

When it comes down to it, it all reminds me of the fiasco of Sonic 06 – an infamous title known for its rushed development and abundance of bugs present throughout the game. This game simply doesn’t feel finished and it’s one of the buggiest experiences I’ve ever had with a Sonic game.

Outside of all of this, the remaster makes some bizarre decisions that seemingly make no sense.

The cut-scenes don’t resemble the graphics of the game itself, and instead look incredibly blurry and compressed. This seems to be because it’s directly using the Wii’s pre-rendered cut-scenes, rather than re-rendering them with the new graphics engine. These cut-scenes also can’t be viewed in full-screen when going back to replay them, with them being shown in a small window instead. The only way to view them in full-screen is if it’s your first time watching them with a new save, and since now there’s only one single save file when the Wii had multiple, it makes this a tricky process.

The music can now be listened to through a player outside of the game which is definitely a great addition, but even the music isn’t safe. You now can’t toggle back between the original music and the new music in the stages, with each level now having its own music. While this was a nice idea, it’s a huge shame that I can’t listen to some of my favourite music on my favourite stages anymore.

Finally, there has been the introduction of the Tails Save. With this, Tails swoops in to rescue you when falling into a pit, dropping you off right before the pit you fell into in most instances. Although this is a nice addition for beginners, it’s an active hindrance for those looking for more of a challenge. You retain all of your rings and score after falling into a pit, and worst of all, it can’t be turned off whatsoever – it’s simply a part of the game. This makes going for S ranks somewhat trivial, as you can be completely reckless and still come out on top.

While on the subject of rankings, there are also no online features. No online leader-boards to compare your rankings with other players, nor is there any online multiplayer within the multiplayer-centric Game Land mode. It all feels like a massive missed opportunity, and gives the game far less reply value.

Overall, Sonic Colours: Ultimate really disappointed me. Sonic Colours is such a great game and excellent for beginners, but this remaster has butchered it so much that it actively ruined my experience with it. Although the game is technically playable, there are far too many issues to look past to save it.

I truly wanted to love this remaster, I really did, but all it did was make me appreciate the original game that much more.