I haven’t been the biggest fan of the Wii-exclsuive Sonic games. Both Secret Rings and Black Knight were leaps and bounds ahead of their HD console brethren, but they had a tendency to show their hand early in the game. Creatively bankrupt, they had zero room to grow after the initial appeal wore off.
Sonic Colors, while not officially associated with either Secret Rings or Black Knight, appears to take the base formula of those games and then add several layers on top of it. While traditional exploration isn’t really the name of the game, Sonic doesn’t seem as predisposed to get fast and out of control at the drop of a hat. He still progresses down fairly linear (though beautifully disguised) paths as he jumps over or homing attacks toward enemies, but now that’s merely part of the game, rather than the whole game. And not to fear, his trademark speed is quite intact, incase you were starting to worry.
As the name implies, the endearing hook of Colors lies with various colored Wisps throughout each level. The cyan Wisp granted Sonic the power of a laser, which was good for a few uses. The most obvious, a line-of-attack guaranteed to combo kill every badnik in visible range, was useful, but that was far from the extent of its power; whenever I saw a crystal floating around the level, the laser transported Sonic inside some sort of computerized shortcut that transported him to an otherwise hidden part of the level. True to form, Sonic Colors act’s feature a wealth of divergent paths, both obvious and hidden, with exploration being encouraged wherever possible.
The other Wisp power on display was the yellow drill. Should Sonic be standing on hollow ground, be it dirt or cake, he can burrow beneath the surface and explore the layers below. It’s kind of hectic because Sonic can’t slow down when he’s doing that, but it also lead me to completely hidden paths or little bonus areas.
We managed to see two different levels. Two acts of Tropical Resort along with a fairly intuitive boss battle along with one act of Sweet Mountain were on display. The Amusement Park theme is omnipresent throughout the art direction, and Sonic Colors is definitely better for it. The series has flirted with casinos since the early 90’s, but a solid commitment could do it well. From a technical standpoint Colors looked awesome. Black Knight and the Wii version of Unleashed had the tendency to look washed out and blasé, but Colors was vibrant from every angle. Even on a fifty-plus inch TV it still managed to look pretty darn good, which is a rare feat for Wii games.
Perhaps the most interesting of Color’s facets was its potential irrelevance. Colored Wisps added a ton of flavor to the gameplay, but we were told in an impromptu interview that they will not be required to pass every level. You’ll miss out on countless secrets, potential replayablity, and a myriad of rewards but, theoretically, one could play Sonic Colors in its entirety via traditional means. That sort of freedom, or at least the ability to do something other than exactly what the developers intended, had been absent of late Sonic games.
We were also assured that Colors would be a Sonic-only affair. Different friends are supposed to appear between the DS (which was said to be more like Sonic Rush and less like the daytime Sonic Unleashed) and Wii version, which is cause for relief amongst the Sonic faithful. When his friends are left on the sidelines it’s usually for the better.
At the end of the day Colors left me with a better impression than Sonic 4, which was the opposite of what I was expecting. Look for it in stores and here for a full review in late 2010.
