75%PlayStation 5

I enjoyed Sonic Colors a fair amount when it released but replaying it a decade later, I’m pretty underwhelmed and think this isn’t much better than the maligned Sonic Forces.

This is a short game and like Forces, most of its levels are completely disposable. The boost levels are awesome to look at but are generally style over substance. They’re very linear and constantly take control away from you. There are some obnoxious sections that go on too long too. The 2D levels on the other hand slow things to a crawl for some awkward platforming and problem solving. Mario Galaxy was a clear inspiration but as always, Sonic Team simply can’t compete with Nintendo’s best and brightest.

The wisps are the main addition here, adding Mario style power ups that are required to reach certain secrets. Unfortunately, the linear nature of Sonic levels means you have to replay levels over and over to find secrets. Worse, you have to unlock wisps as you progress to use them on earlier levels. The red coin hunt is especially painful in Colors for all these reasons, requiring countless replays and likely a guide to find them all. On the other hand, if you don’t do the coin hunt, then you’re left with a forgettable ~5 hour game that doesn’t leave much impact.

The main thing I'd praise here is that the cosmic theme park setting is very cool and the soundtrack is firing on all cylinders. The story also aims lower than most Sonic games which is a good thing. The cast is small, the story is simple, and it doesn’t have any cringy elements like most of the franchise.

The remaster is fine but for the love of god, why isn’t side-step mapped to the bumpers/L1&R1 like the other boost games???

At the time of release, Colors was highly praised, likely because we finally got a Sonic game that wasn’t filled with bugs and obnoxious side characters that no one wanted to play as. However, I just don’t think this has held up. It’s not a bad game by any means but there’s very little that makes this compelling or special in my eyes. It avoids most of the awful tedium of Unleashed/Adventure1&2 but it never hits the highs of those games and it's sorely lacking in content like Forces. Moreover, Generations has held up significantly better over the years and was further bolstered by its remaster getting actual new content.

70%PlayStation 4

MUITO BOM,TRILHA SONORA PERFEITA,MAS OS CHEFÕES EXETO O FINAL SÃO REPITIDOS ENTÃO SÃO MAIS OU MENOS,TEM FASES MUITO BOAS MAS TEM FAZES CURTAS DEMAIS COMO EXEMPLO UMA É UMA VOLTA EM UM PLANETA E ACABO...

65%Nintendo Switch

A mediocre entry to the series with an annoying Sonic character portrayal.

Level variety is good but the signature high speed third person parts often had the fun momentum completely sapped by trial and error. Why would you want me to stop dead due to a small ledge I couldn’t possibly see coming at high speed? The 2D platforming is generally better, but there’s sloppy unpredictable movement and poor checkpoints to contend with.

The final zone is a melting pot of all of the game’s bad points and is a miserable drawn-out experience.

I'll admit I enjoyed the enemy lock on attack system, which often compliments the 2D platforming sections incredibly well.

Maybe worth a try on heavy discount for dedicated Sonic fans. If you do enjoy it, there is a lot of content and some great ideas. Unfortunately, I found the clumsy gameplay too detrimental and I was glad when the campaign ended.

70%PC

Level design is alright and the music isn't too bad. I haven't played the wii version so no bias but the game over all was okay and super short. My fav part was prob the last few levels was pretty fun to play. Overall 7/10 nothing crazy you're missing out but worth a play on sale.

75%PC

7.5/10 fun but too short

55%Xbox One

The game is good but Sonic games aren’t that great most of the time.

80%PlayStation 4

Played on PS5. It crashed during the credits sequence and didn't save the fact that I beat the game. So there's that. Still a fun game.

60%Nintendo Switch

I missed this one in the Wii days and always heard it held up as "the good one" of the era. When I finally played this remaster, I was happy enough with it but not terribly impressed. The game runs great and doesn't have any glaring technical or control issues, so its already above quite a few other 3D Sonic titles. Beyond that, the level design is good but never great, with many levels being remarkably short. I appreciate the alien gimmicks but I feel like more could have been done wit them. Then there's the cutscenes, which have some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard in a Sonic game (it's clearly targeted at kids, which is fine). Overall this is much more playable than Sonic 06 or Shadow the Hedgehog for me, but I still expected much more. It's not as good as the Adventure titles or Generations. I'd give it an edge over Unleashed and the Secret Rings game for handling much better, but with a caveat that I also think those games had more interesting ideas at play than Colors ever reaches. Overall, I find this a perfectly fine Sonic game.

70%PC

Although underwhelming as a remaster in many areas, Sonic Colors Ultimate is still an extraordinarily solid game at its core. It allows access to one of the very best Sonic games to date on modern platforms, however the provided extra content feels unnaturally slapped in and is too isolated from the main game along with minor audio/visual issues. But past that, the game is still a solid one worth trying out.

+ Color Powers feel like natural extensions of gameplay instead of a "gimmick" and expand level exploration by offering multiples routes to the objective
+ Varied and creative level design with associated motifs
+ Flexibility to play levels/obtain Wisps in any order

- Awkward pacing with wildly varying level lengths
- Wisp acqusition make opening levels feel underwhelming, basically requiring a repeat playthrough to get the most out of

55%PlayStation 4

it's fine, but no really need to play it 5,5/10

50%Nintendo Switch

Buggy mess that should've been delayed. A fine game underneath, but it's hard to get through the visual and gameplay glitches to see it. General "off" feeling to it.

60%PC

Sonic Colours Ultimate is after 1.5 years out on Steam, and while they did fix most of the game breaking, or epilepsy-inducing bugs, this remaster still has lots of issues, but are these issues a dealbreaker, or can you still enjoy the game that people used to call one of the better Sonic games?

First, let's talk about the stuff "Ultimate" stands for.

The most obvious things are the visuals, higher poly models, UI changes that make this game look like a fan game, and a blinding amount of bloom that makes Discord light mode look like a saint. Bloom in this game is obnoxious. Instead of just implementing better lighting and shadows, Colours Ultimate instead aims to illuminate every single object in the room, even Sonic glows. It really bothers me how the entire color palette looks like it's washed out. Very few levels look better, most of the "Colours" fade away.
Whenever you enter a cutscene, you really see the difference the bloom makes, because the cutscenes weren't remade. They reuse the old ones from the Wii, which are lower poly, but much more colorful. It's kind of jarring to see how unreasonably bright the remaster is.

Additionally, you can't even turn off the bloom. You can't even change your graphics settings, except your game's resolution and if Vsync should be on or off. The PC port is the definition of bare bones, so if your game doesn't run well, then you only have 2 options 'til you can give up or refund it.

However, the biggest issues were the glitches. Faulty collision detection, visual bugs, like Sonic hovering while doing his little start animation, or the game stuttering whenever you collect a 1-up. Luckily, most other glitches were fixed, but there are still many left, and I doubt they care about them.

All this could've been prevented if they hadn't implemented additional content that you can barely see, or even play.
They added the Jade wisp from Team Sonic Racing to the game. Unsurprisingly, the game wasn't made with the Jade wisp in mind, so it hardly works, gets you soft locked, or simply feels out of place.
Cosmetics were also added. They usually change Sonic's aura, gloves or shoe color. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter, because Sonic is most of the time so tiny on the screen, that you cannot see your new skins.

Overall, the Ultimate part of this game is a joke, and if they hadn't spent so much time on cosmetics and implementing an out-of-place Wisp, then they would've had plenty of workforce to address the most basic of issues.

SEGA didn't remake the game for no reason, though. Maybe the essence of the game still reigns supreme?

Sonic Colours' theming is wonderful. It's one of the last times we had interesting Sonic themes that weren't blatant nostalgia pandering for the 5th time. Tropical Resort, Planet Wisp, Aquarium Park are all places that really look nice. They still have somewhat basic themes, but they make them look astonishing and memorable. Whenever you run past a section, you actually feel like you're going on a tourist trip to see the different places and sights, which is amazing.

The level design on the other hand is pretty messy. Padding is Sonic Colours' cornerstone. Each world has 6 levels and 1 boss, but there are only 4 unique bosses, and 2 or 3 levels that actually feel fleshed out. Most of the other ones are mandatory challenge levels that keep the game slow and uninteresting. Most levels heavily rely on their stop & go aspects, meaning you have 5 seconds of spectacle and 1 minute of mindlessly jumping from A to B or simply waiting. You will wait a lot in this game. Lasers that slowly circle around when you keep standing on a switch, platforms that slowly move upwards when you stand on a switch, auto-scrolling levels that let you wait around for way too long. They treat waiting as their unique gimmick, to the point that my mate and I acted hype whenever we had to wait for 5 seconds to go past a laser.
The issue is that boost levels go through areas really quickly, but it's not better to force the player to wait or go past the same landmarks multiple times in the same world, as if you aren't progressing. The challenge levels to pad out time are either the shortest levels in the entire game, or the lengthiest. As an example, I had to run around a ring for 2 minutes and kill enemies. Most of the level design elements in these levels look like they were made in some kind of "Sonic Maker" mod.
Wisps too are not well implemented. I get the idea of freeing Wisps the more you progress, and getting them in older levels to try and find new ways to save time, but if I want to grind a level then I'll just do it. I don't want to be restricted 'til I get another Wisp.

Sonic Colours Ultimate isn't a great remaster, and after the consensus shifted over the last few years, it's a mediocre game at best. Sonic Colours DS still reigns supreme, but we will probably never see a remaster of that game. 6/10

90%PlayStation 4

Some awful bugs that interfere with trophy hunting. With patience you can get them all. Hopefully there will be patches for future players

60%PC

Some of it is good, some of it is not. A very hit or miss game in general.

80%PlayStation 4

Fun

70%PC

Sonic Colors. I'll be honest and say I have never played much of the Wii version however I will say motion controls annoy me to no end.

The game looks pretty and it's much more playable when I have the option to turn off motion blur. The game has weird stutters and hiccups for such an old game. Ran solid 60fps and above most of the time.

The game feels like it has odd bugs/behavior compared to other 3d sonic games like Generations/LostWorld/Forces/Frontiers. Inertia only works when it wants to, sometimes you drop like a rock. These bugs and glitches are minor and pretty much easily ignoble if playing casually. Loopty loops sometimes just don't work, sonic uncurls and falls.

The OST is pretty good... when you can hear it. The sound mixing is atrocious, it's about as bad as Sonic Adventure 2 Battle (PC/PS3 Port) The sound effects are just way too loud. Sometimes the sound effects don't play at all, or play in one speaker only. Unfortunately SFX and Music are tied to the same control, so there's no way to balance the audio yourself. This is a basic control and should be in every game.

I like this game. It's imperfect but if you like sonic, give it a try. It's def a different flavor with tons of 2D and experimentation with power ups. I didn't go for a full red ring chaos emerald clear but looks like that could take up a lot of time if you're into that.

This version is better than the ps4 version I played on launch.. but it still inherited a ton of issues from the console ports.

70%

40%Xbox One

Game is broken

70%Xbox Series X/S

Solid, by the books modern Sonic game. This game has some of the better 2D and 3D Sonic levels since the Adventure games. I don't think the levels meet the highs of the day levels in Unleashed or some of the recreations in Generations, but there are no werehog stages or poorly shoehorned "old Sonic" levels like in Forces, and there are no gimmicks like the other Sonic Wii games. It's a short, lighthearted experience that will satiate your 3D Sonic fix. I like the remake as well. It was much more enjoyable to go through this time around compared to the Wii version. No bugs on Xbox like what I heard the Switch version was riddled with

40%PlayStation 4

bad

40%Xbox One

It's Sonic Colors but worse. To me, Sonic Colors was already an extreme product of its time, answering complaints that fans had constantly had over the series until that point ("Sonic has too many friends" "Sonic's plots are too serious and moody" "Sonic games should just be the daytime stages from Unleashed" to name a few), but those complaints don't really exist in todays day and age so I think remaking Colors of all things was just a bit of a strange move. This game is up there with Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania and Sonic Origins as HD remakes that kinda sorta become less than the sum of their parts due to lack of polish and strange development choices. They overhauled the visuals to be FULL of bloom and oversaturated lighting, they kept the controls pretty much the same as the wii game despite the clear opportunity to allow sonic to control exactly as he did in Unleashed, Generations, and Forces, and they shoehorned in some weird race with metal sonic mode that only happens on one level in each world and never again. The game is also buggy. Very buggy. Even on the latest update, which is what I played. Planet Wisp didn't have a skybox once. I fell through the floor on multiple different occasions. There just doesn't seem to be very much polish put into this game to give it the same merits as the original, and even then I think the original was kinda eh. That all being said, if you HAVE to play sonic colors and don't have a wii, or if you are a kid or have a kid that wants to play sonic colors, this is sonic colors. I played Sonic Adventure DX as a kid and that games graphics were butchered to all hell and back and I wasn't aware, so I'd imagine to the casual player, this is as good a sonic colors as any. I just wish they put a bit more effort, and picked a different sonic game to remake.

80%Nintendo Switch

It's slitghly too short and too easy. Ultimate additions are lackluster except for the FPS bump and improved visuals. It's still a solid game though.

70%PC

Game is good but the port isn't that great had to mod it to make it look good lmao

30%Nintendo Switch

This port is complete garbage, glitches that ruin the game, soundtrack carries though

60%PlayStation 5

20% of this entire game is literally just the credits

50%Nintendo Switch

Game will have records of time spent in each level but will not record overall time spent inside and outside of levels. I finished the game in a couple days, so I will hopefully remember to edit this with however many hours it says I have played it.

For the actual review, this gave was a great game when it was originally on the Wii. I didn't have many console games to play at that time, so I would replay this game a lot. Especially the specific area where you could do all the levels back to back. However, while this was a good nostalgia trip, I am giving it a low score for not adding new content to the story and only adding cosmetic stuff and simply improving the graphics. Luckily, I did play this way after it got updates to fix the major bugs/glitches, yet I still don't see the need to re-release the game with just updates and not new content. When I played the original version of this game, I planned on getting all the Red Star Rings but it never happened. Before I started playing this version, I had the same plan but quickly lost motivation for it once I learned there were hardly any new content for the game.

If you never owned a Wii or never got the chance to play this game, It's a decent Sonic game. Just wasn't the "update" I was looking for.

60%Nintendo Switch

Good game at its core but extremely unpolished remaster. Patches significantly improved the quality but the fact that it released like this is a huge disappointment.

70%PlayStation 4

This was a painful playthrough full of a ton of frustration. Expectations were high as this is called the "Best 3D Sonic Game Ever" outside of Sonic Adventure. Unfortunately I'll have to respectfully disagree. This was a real slog in the end.

The controls felt a bit floaty and slippery compared to many 2.5D Sonic games. The platforming sections really kill momentum. The sound effects are way too loud that it covers up the extremely good background music. Some levels design felt really really strange with no sense of focus. (The ocean levels come to mind.) In the end I mostly enjoyed it, but I felt so exhausted by the end.

100%Nintendo Switch

I loved every moment of it

50%Nintendo Switch

I'm surprised how mediocre it is.

The game has a nice idea with the Wisps and the levels are really meh. Sometimes you have only 2D levels, rarely 3D & 2D mixed and sometimes 30 sec levels in which you only wait for a platform to come. The level design often looks terribly ugly and doesn't go well with the environment. At some point you really feel like "okay this is a level, not a planet". To add up to that, the acts are often built around waiting for a laser or a platform so you can progress, you'll often find yourself waiting for something to happen. Only a few acts are truly fun.

The bosses are mostly recycled so you end up with 7 worlds and 4 bosses, 3 of which you'll fight twice with only minor changes.

Sonic himself controls too sensitive. I think his movement during speed sections is sometimes a bit too sensitive, drifts are weird and you might fall off a cliff, his double jump is terrible. They added this barely height generating second jump, problem with that is how sensitive Sonic is after that, you press in a direction and he just flies through, it feels really weird, I prefer Generations approach with a high enough jump.

The fact that they haven't remade the cutscenes and ended up scaling them so awkwardly is definitely noticeable and honestly everything else they added is just not even worth mentioning. You can customize Sonic, however it is really limited and you only see it in the acts, since you're so tiny and fast you won't notice having different shoes, or gloves. Adding Tails instead of lives gives it a more modern approach which I appreciate. Metal Sonic's races aren't even worth mentioning, it's a simple time trial with Metal Sonic who appears in every Sonic Game nowadays, he's such a forced character...

The graphics on S W I T C H are fine, but holy shit, why can't I turn off the motion blur during boosts? I can't see ANYTHING, not enemies, NOTHING, boosting makes it almost unplayable!

In conclusion: Sonic Colors Ultimate is a remaster that really isn't a game changer, anything added is not worth mentioning, I wouldn't recommend playing it on Switch, and the motion blur is horrendous. I feel the level design is mostly 2D, but so much just doesn't look good, is re-used or stretches the playtime for no apparent reason. I'm playing Sonic, I don't want to wait 2 minutes for a button to give me the platform I wanna jump on. Instead of playing Sonic Colors Ultimate or Sonic Colors Wii you should definitely pick up the DS Version instead, this here is just a flawed game.

70%PC

Between the original and Ultimate, the best version of Sonic Colors lies somewhere, but the original is frankly the more polished experience, even if Ultimate adds a lot of awesome bonuses.

70%Xbox Series X/S

Runs great on XSX, but still a bit buggy. Decent remaster of a Sonic game I have fond memories of. Some of the music remixes aren't that good, cosmetics are out of place and forced Tails assist system replaces lives.

80%PlayStation 5

As a remaster, Sonic Colors: Ultimate throws in a decent amount of new stuff, but nothing beyond the frame rate and resolution bump really add up to anything that elevates the experience beyond what it was on the Wii. That said, it was already great in 2010, and still holds up as one of the best modern Sonic games to date thanks to its imaginative level designs, a laser focus on the things that make the series fun, and the addition of power granting Wisps that add a ton of variety to each level without compromising the speed that should define a Sonic game.