Although Sonic the Hedgehog is easy to regard as an iconic video game character, it is difficult to say that a lot of recent Sonic games, riddled with bizarre gimmicks, prove the character is deserving of such a status. I have nothing against game companies trying to modernize their characters and keep them fresh, but once you start turning a character that used to run around Saturday morning cartoons talking about how much he liked chili dogs into a screaming werewolf monster, it seems like things have gotten slightly out of hand. To be fair, Sonic Colors, a new 2D platformer for the Nintendo DS, is not free of such gimmicks, as it has Sonic teaming up with suspiciously Mario power-up-esque aliens in order to save the world from Doctor Eggman’s latest needlessly complicated evil scheme, but by sticking close to what popularized the series in the first place, it works much better than some other recent Sonic games.
The basic gameplay in Sonic Colors is not terribly different from that found in Sega Genesis Sonic games. You run really fast, go in loops, and then, when you hit an enemy, you pop up in the air and rings fly all over the screen. Sure, old school platformers are pretty common right now, and new Sonic games in this style have been gracing portable consoles for years, but it’s still fun to jump in and play a brand new game that feels like it could have come out in 1993. Not even the new features, such as the Wisps which give Sonic new powers, seem out of place. Though their powers range from doing things such as making Sonic run faster to turning him into a Katamari style monster blob, they function in a way that keeps them necessary without making them annoying.
That being said, there are some aspects of Sonic Colors which are quite irritating. The boss battles are tedious and repetitive, usually having Sonic run around a ring to fight a slightly round-ish robot that throws stuff at him or putting Sonic on a track to fight a vaguely train shaped robot that throws things at him. Each boss does find a way to work the power you learned into the previous set of levels into the fight, but even that doesn’t make the battles seem interesting or unpredictable. If you can jump before a large, slowly moving object falls on you and then make Sonic ram into the aforementioned object, you’re set for every boss in this game. The intense difficulty spike at the end of this relatively easy game was also jarring, since it seemed a bit more like the game was taunting its players than having them throw together everything they’d learned playing it for the final set of challenges. Then again, I might just be letting the fact that the last platforming level was remarkably similar to one of the carnival levels in the oft-derided Bubsy negatively impact my perception of the game’s end.
Though presentation isn’t really a problem in even the worst of the Sonic games, the graphics and sound in Sonic Colors are still very well done. Even though the outer space theme park isn’t exactly a sunny wonderland, the graphics are still bright, colorful, and well animated, lending the whole thing a cheerful and cartoony look decidedly newer than the gameplay feels. The game’s sound is also nicely executed, with cut scenes featuring clear sounding voice acting from the usual Sonic cast and peppy music that, while not exactly to my taste, sounds nice and is at least better than the vocal selections found in such older games as Sonic Adventure 2. Nothing about the visuals or sound in Sonic Colors is particularly amazing, but it would be difficult to find anything to complain about in regards to either.
If you’re looking for a Sonic the Hedgehog game to grace the screen of your DS, you could certainly do worse than Sonic Colors. An online racing mode is included, and while it runs wel, the difficulty of finding an opponent and the fact that the mode just isn’t that much fun make it seem a bit pointless. The main game is also relatively short, but doing every post-level mission, collecting all of the Chaos Emeralds and perfecting your level ranks is a task that adds hours upon hours to the game’s length, making it an excellent value for completists, while the unlockable artwork and cameos from series characters found in the side content will likely be appreciated by series fans. It’s true that Sonic Colors is an imperfect game, plagued by dull boss battles and uneven difficulty, but it’s still an enjoyable DS title with enough similarities to 16-bit Sonic games to keep both old and new fans of the franchise entertained.
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