NIce use of the wisps, great level design, but still a little to short!
Sonic has been doing really great when it comes to portable gaming, with the amazing sonic advance series, the fairly decent sonic rivals and the great sonic rush adventures by Dimps. Due to the successful formula of the Rush series, Sega decided to continue making a new DS title but with the same name of the Wii sonic game, Sonic Colors. Last time, we checked out Sonic Colors on the Nintendo Wii, and we saw how it implemented some ideas that made a nice sonic game, but one that still needed some polish. But is the DS version a different kind of story, or does it go too far away from the Sonic Rush engine? Read on and find out!
In terms of the gameplay, Sonic Colors on the DS is Sonic back to its glorious 2-D gameplay that made him such a well-known franchise from the start. With the additions that have been done by the Sonic Rush franchise like the great speed boost that gives you an excellent sense of speed. However, the very new addition to this title is the aliens called Wisp, which give special powers and abilities to Sonic. You might say, same thing as the Wii version, but not entirely as the DS version has exclusive wisps and different abilities to others you have seen before. The very first wisp you get is an exclusive one for the DS where Sonic transforms in a fireball and can hover in the air when he explodes on fire or break barriers he couldn't reach before. This means that the game features different paths to follow, depending on what wisps you use or decide not to use at all. The laser wisp also makes a welcome return here, but much more responsive and calculated then the one on the Wii version. In short, the wisp powers here work much more effectively and barely interrupt the frenetic fast pace of the game, contrary to the Wii version.
The most disappointing part of the game is the boss fights, they repeat themselves like the wii version, and tend to take some time to figure out how to destroy them. But they get a bit more interesting because they let you use wisps to destroy them, which makes the fight much more easily and faster. Meanwhile, the special stages are similar to Sonic Rush where you guide Sonic with the touch screen but this time around you have to collect a select amount of balls, but features less annoying obstacles and overall barely any challenge compared to the special stages of Sonic Rush. And while I won't spoil you much, the game does feature Super Sonic in a big last boss fight, something that was hugely missing in the Wii version of Sonic Colors.
Visually, Sonic Colors looks a lot like the Sonic Rush franchise, but with a bit of more fancy backgrounds, more colorful, and more action on screen that doesn't affect the frame rate. It also features some 3-D segments and its 3D bosses that if too close look very pixelated but in their normal view still look pretty decent. It's a little confusing however how is it hard to manage some decent 3d graphics in DS titles when Super Mario 64 3DS is a 3D game that has more enhanced graphics to the original n64 version, but oh well that's just me. Crazy opinions aside, Sonic Colors still looks nice in 2-D.
Music wise, Sonic always pulls it off with again some nice classic tunes, similar to the Wii version but of course with a more retro typed version of them. But the best part is the fact it does not feature voiceovers, this is due to the fact that the voice acting in the Wii version in general was plain awful. Sound effects sound pretty good, classic Sonic style as you can expect, although again the explosions sound a bit noisy, like the Sonic Rush titles. Granted, even though it sounds good, it doesn't sound that much memorable or epic as one can expect from Sonic, but Sonic Colors still manages to pull off some nice tunes.
The game's biggest fault is the fact that is too short; the game can be finished between 4 to 5 hours. While there are special stages that take you to a really epic boss fight, they are pretty easy to finish. Luckily the game does feature some added extra missions that are pretty fun as they feature a lot of sonic characters with some crazy dialogue. While Sonic's friends are not part of the main story, they still go to eggman's park and they discuss with each other about it, something that the Sonic Wii version failed miserably to do so. I mean, it's a theme park; it can't be for sonic only right? But all jokes aside, as a portable game it offers pretty decent amount of content, and is fun to replay over and over again.
Sonic Colors on the DS manages to keep Sonic true to its great energetic formula in 2-D following the footsteps of the Sonic Rush franchise. It also does a better job than the Wii 3-D version because it has better elaborated levels, much more responsive wisp powers, and much more challenging boss fights and a lot more extra exciting content rather than pointless missions with strange robots of sonic. If you love Sonic and the Sonic Rush franchise this is a must buy for you right now, it will keep you entertained and very much satisfied for that great Sonic speed you so much desire.