Is this the Ultimate Sonic outing?
The evil Dr. Eggman has built an interstellar amusement park – but he’s powering it with a captured alien race called “Wisps.” Use Sonic’s speed to free the Wisps and gain their amazing powers as you explore six colourful unique worlds.
I’ve been a Sonic fan since the original Mega Drive game, I still even have my collection of the UK’s version of Sonic the Comic and despite the many hurdles he has hit during switching to 3D, I will always give Sonic the benefit of the doubt. Sonic Colours was originally a Wii game that was at the time, the best 3D Sonic game since the Adventure games and I always hoped it would make its way to other consoles, so it’s great to see it finally do so with the Ultimate version.
Stages switch between 3D and 2D perspectives, much like more recent 3D Sonic games like Generations, which is a nice balance between Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic gameplay. The Wisps are aliens that give Sonic abilities for a short period of time and are a decent addition to the formula. They can make Sonic cling to surfaces, launch upwards like a rocket, turn into a monster that eats and gets bigger the more it eats and so on.
Getting used to the Wisps’ abilities will take some getting used to but are essential for grabbing all the Red Rings that are scattered throughout the levels and you’ll need all 180 of them to nab the Chaos Emeralds to become Super Sonic. The story itself won’t take you too long to get through, but it’ll definitely take you a lot longer to 100% the game. 3D Sonic’s gameplay has always been a mixed bag and while that’s still the case with Sonic Colours Ultimate, it handles well compared to the past 3D outings.
I played the game on my Xbox Series X, so I had the extra benefit of performance from the console, and it ran smoothly while looking impressive. My major gripe was with the cutscenes that clearly had not got the remastering treatment and even worse, played out at a much lower volume than the main game so I had to keep adjusting the TV volume to hear what Sonic and the others were saying.
The Verdict
Sonic Colours: Ultimate is definitely the best looking and running version of the classic Wii title. It may be glitchy in places, but luckily, I didn’t come across anything as bad as has been reported so far and it’s still the best 3D Sonic game out there, making it a must-have for any Sonic fan.