Sonic Colors: Ultimate - Announcement Trailer

[JezMM]

1 hour ago, Blue Blood said:

Planet Wisp looks mostly fine, but the flat 2D textures being used for the background in certain places looks really naff here. Like everything to the left of Sonic in this screenshot:

Looks fine on a 480p Wii game from 2010, but dreadful on a 1080p or 4K PS4/XB1/PC game in 2021, even if it's just a Wii remaster.

The 2D itself isn't inherently bad, I was perfectly willing to accept a lack of increase in polygon count so that would come with the territory (they probably should have added a subtle blur filter for distant scenery though to compensate for that in 4K maybe, or made it so 2D cut-out scenery always faces the player unless that would cause issue, but anyway).

What REALLY sticks out to me here is that numerous 2D texture bushes here have a black horizontal line above them, presumebly a part of said texture that shouldn't be visible.  Really amateur stuff.  Its clearer in motion but you can see them in the image too - one sticking out of the third tree from the left of the image, and two more at slightly different angles against the cliff to the left of the bit of lone industrial geometry in front of the foilage at the bottom of the image.

[Dr. Detective]

I have no clue what you guys are talking about but I guess I'll take your word for it that it's bad. I can't see anything looking at the third tree from the left in the background or whatever.

I've kind of resigned myself towards just waiting to play it and see. I only ever form an opinion on the way a Sonic game looks from playing it. I remember not being able to follow any of the technical talk when Forces was coming out too. Wish I was better at this stuff but I'm not.

[JezMM]

You can see the texture lines more clearly in motion, at 1:00 in the video.  It's far from a big deal but this kind of thing is just so RARE in games.  I associate that kind of missing polish from user-made maps in PC games, not SEGA's flagship franchise.

In the grand scheme of things it isn't important or game-ruining, I'm just astonished to see it because it's a visual imperfection that is incredibly rare to see in commercial products.  Kind of the video game equivalant of when you learn about a boom mic appearing in a shot of a movie and never being able to unsee it once you notice.

[shdowhunt60]

I believe you could see the texture lines with OG Colors if you play it in Dolphin, but at the same time that's not really an excuse for just leaving them there.

[Celestia]

My hottest take on this so far is that I like the idea they seem to have had with Tropical Resort. I say idea but who knows of it was intentional, uh. Anyway, it's like the park is closed, with only some of the lights on, and that actually makes sense in the context of the game.

All that said I don't think it was executed super well though, and hopefully they'll touch it up. Like, as Soniman pointed out, the road still being super bright.

Also the music is so weird but I'm self aware enough to know it's probably just that I'm so used to the originals. Just...man. It's weird!

[Blue Blood]

1 hour ago, shdowhunt60 said:

I believe you could see the texture lines with OG Colors if you play it in Dolphin, but at the same time that's not really an excuse for just leaving them there.

See, that's fine. The artifacts may have been present in the original Wii game, but running at native 480p resolutions they weren't visible. Or it may even be that they didn't even exist at all under regular conditions on Wii and are only the result of the textures appearing on higher resolution images. Emulating the game in Dolphin is making the game run in conditions it wasn't designed for. Emulation-induced bugs and other issues aren't really of any significance. 

There's no excuse for these problems in Ultimate, because the game is now designed to run at higher resolution and with higher resolution textures on top of that. But you can see seams all across the ground and walls in this screenshot:

That's bad.

And then there's just the general ugliness of the 2D textures used elsewhere, like on the jellybeans here:

The camera angle there is different to the one that will appear in-game, but I distinctly remember the 2D jellybeans being noticeable even on Wii back in the day. This is one of those areas where effort should have gone into creating new models and better textures, rather than just dolling up the original assets.

  

38 minutes ago, Celestia said:

My hottest take on this so far is that I like the idea they seem to have had with Tropical Resort. I say idea but who knows of it was intentional, uh. Anyway, it's like the park is closed, with only some of the lights on, and that actually makes sense in the context of the game.

All that said I don't think it was executed super well though, and hopefully they'll touch it up. Like, as Soniman pointed out, the road still being super bright.

Also the music is so weird but I'm self aware enough to know it's probably just that I'm so used to the originals. Just...man. It's weird!

Tropical Resort is definitely a lot darker in the opening FMV than in the original Wii game:

It's darker, but the lights and neon everywhere mean that the entire place is swimming in light and colour. Even the sky is illuminated with a blue glow. In Ultimate, it's just plain dark. Several objects and decorations glow, but they don't illuminate the surrounding area and the sky is pitch black. If their goal was to make Tropical Resort look more realistically dark ala the intro, they dropped the ball hard by missing the fact that the entire place should actually be incredibly bright with all the lights around.

Like, come on. Can someone tell me what in the actual fuck is going on Ultimate? It's too dark to see anything. None of the dozens of lights in the area are actually lighting anything up. You can barely even see the trees! But the water is, for some reason, pretty bright. It's a composite of bad lighting through and through.

Ultimate's Tropical Resort is just plain dark, which neither looks accurate nor good. The fact that the main path is randomly brightly illuminated while the rest of the level is cast in near total darkness tells me that the developers decided on this new look intentionally.

[Dr. Detective]

Okay, those I can see. 

I still lack the technical know-how to REALLY be cheesed off by any of this though. I'm mostly just in the camp that's just like, "Yup, this is definitely Sonic Colors again..." and not much else.

I've taken to noticing that the lights are off in Tropical Resort and not a whole lot more. 

I just... really wish Tails had been playable. That would have summoned an emotion from me aside from "Okay, this is happening I guess".

[Sonicka]

Yeah, this game.

Whilst it feels quite easy to just assume everyone is scrutinising minor quibbles (and let’s be fair, the sonic community does thrive off this sort of thing), at the end of the day it isn’t because everyone enjoys being overly critical, it’s because we want the best for the eventual product.  

What doesn’t help is knowing what has come before - so it makes these judgements and comparisons that much harder to ignore. 

For me personally, I can’t decide if I just have no standards when it comes to this particular HD port, because overall I can honestly say everything looks much better to me in the comparison videos and images shown off so far.

And whilst I can’t get behind the notion of this looking looking worse than the original release, I do understand what others are getting at with their more critical eye on the picture. 

I am also in agreement about the likelihood of decisions and/or concessions made where it comes to the brightening/darkening of the colour palettes in various zones - it does appear to be creative choices / interpretations by the dev team here when making the translation to Higher Definition. Weather this design sensibility works or not is just going to be of personal taste I think on a zone by zone basis. 

And hell, If you love bloom then this might just be the game for you. 

In any case I’m intrigued to play this more now. I know I really loved the base game back in the day and the videos seem nice and smooth so far. To this regard Colours Ultimate feels like they are playing it very safe by changing very little (eg. a full remake). So we at least know what we are getting here than the usual trial and error Sonic Team game Experience.

 

 

[Soniman]

This Super Monkey Ball remaster looks really good. It is very pleasing to the eyes and remasters the graphics in a way that are very vibrant and colorful without taking away anything or messing up what made the original titles stand out visually.

Oh this is this Sonic Colors topic? Ignore this then it's not related.

[iambitter21]

I think Colors Ultimate is looking to be pretty sweet, just a few things tho.

 This is the model of Colors Wii's sonic

 

 This is the model of the remaster

 

it's looks way worse than before. the shading is off, sonic has no visible mouth, and his eyes barely move. I hope this get's fixed in the full release.

[PickleBrows]

I'd definitely say refinements are still on the cards with this before September. We've already seen big steps in the right direction between the reveal trailer and the screenshots/E3 gameplay we've now seen. The reveal trailer was seemingly fairly outdated when it was shown but E3 builds for most games are also normally outdated once they're shown off because development on the full game keeps ticking over in the background. 

I also think that screenshot of Tropical Resort, while a prime example of the current lighting issues, is also a worst-case scenario. We've all stared at the screenshot and compared it to the Wii version but when I watched the gameplay of the level, this area passes by in seconds so it didn't feel as distracting.

Things like texture seams and artifacts though I do hope get cleaned up. They're not a huge deal but for a remaster these are sloppy things to overlook.

If the E3 graphics are what we get in the final game though I'm honestly curious to see what Super Sonic's gonna look like. You just know he'll either be too dark or be such a strong light source he actually puts the colour back into Tropical Resort as he goes by.



 

[Jango]

That new Sonic model is giving me major Unwished vibes. That's not a good thing in the slighest.

[Sonicka]

57 minutes ago, iambitter21 said:

I think Colors Ultimate is looking to be pretty sweet, just a few things tho.

 This is the model of Colors Wii's sonic

 

 This is the model of the remaster

 

it's looks way worse than before. the shading is off, sonic has no visible mouth, and his eyes barely move. I hope this get's fixed in the full release.

I... don't get it? 

To me the newer version looks superior here. It's much cleaner for one thing with lighter colours whilst the Wii version looks... Janky? (I mean, this was acceptable for the time). 

From this angle Sonic's newer model looks more or less in line with what we have currently. I personally prefer that I suppose which is why I don't mind so much. 

[Blue Blood]

19 minutes ago, Son-icka said:

I... don't get it? 

To me the newer version looks superior here. It's much cleaner for one thing with lighter colours whilst the Wii version looks... Janky? (I mean, this was acceptable for the time). 

From this angle Sonic's newer model looks more or less in line with what we have currently. I personally prefer that I suppose which is why I don't mind so much. 

Sonic's mouth is missing in Ultimate, and his eyes don't move, so he's looking dead ahead of himself rather than looking at the camera like he's supposed to. His Ultimate model isn't properly animated, and if his eyes aren't animated at all then it's actually lacking a significant amount of detail too. The whole point of Sonic's pose on the results screen is that he looks at the camera. And without a mouth, he's pretty much lacking all expression.

In the interest of being fair though, I'll still note that despite having no mouth in this footage and a painted-on mouth that's not animated during gameplay, a fully modelled and animated mouth is clearly visible in results screen from some of the other footage.

The lighting in the example also looks fine. It's lacking the unique styling of the originaland is a bit different (it's certainly flatter), but I'm hard-pressed to say that the lighting is worse in Ultimate. It's just different. The other aspects concerning animation and detail are much worse in Ultimate though.  

[PSI Wind]

Honestly, I always preferred Sonic to have a lighter shade of blue. I don't like how he looks in OG Colors because of that.

[VO.SUPER]

I wouldn't doubt the game isn't going gold until August. Judging by how rough individual parts of this footage can be as is, I expect small things like cleaning up Sonic's lighting to keep happening all the way to release. Other than that, this is reflective of the final product.

[Sonicka]

7 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Sonic's mouth is missing in Ultimate, and his eyes don't move, so he's looking dead ahead of himself rather than looking at the camera like he's supposed to. His Ultimate model isn't properly animated, and of his eyes aren't animated at all then it's actually lacking a significant amount of detail too. The whole point of Sonic's pose on the results screen is that he looks at the camera. And without a mouth, he's pretty much lacking all expression.

In the interest of being fair though, I'll still note that despite having no mouth in this footage and a painted-on mouth that's not animated during gameplay, a fully modelled and animated mouth is clearly visible in results screen from some of the other footage.

Ahh, the dead eyes. I see. He is rather reminiscent of the Robot version of himself from Eggman's Virtual Arcade 

But even then, I oddly, I still prefer lifeless looking Sonic here. Not sure what it is... the colour perhaps?

Like you say, apart from the opening sections and results screens we're mostly looking at him from behind or at the side anyway during gameplay anyway so it doesn't matter all that much (to me anyway). I will say if they could spruce up the animation it would be nicer for sure though.

The cutscenes is where this is going to be interesting I think. 

[Blue Blood]

25 minutes ago, Son-icka said:

Ahh, the dead eyes. I see. He is rather reminiscent of the Robot version of himself from Eggman's Virtual Arcade 

But even then, I oddly, I still prefer lifeless looking Sonic here. Not sure what it is... the colour perhaps?

Like you say, apart from the opening sections and results screens we're mostly looking at him from behind or at the side anyway during gameplay anyway so it doesn't matter all that much (to me anyway). I will say if they could spruce up the animation it would be nicer for sure though.

The cutscenes is where this is going to be interesting I think. 

FWIW, the cutscenes in Colours are all pre-rendered. They aren't played out live in-game at all. Blind Squirrel will have had to re-render all of the cutscenes or remake them to be played out live in-engine. The Wii cutscenes would look wrong in Ultimate. They're all 480p. And even if SEGA has higher resolution versions available to (which isn't unlikely tbh), they'll all look like the original game instead of like Ultimate with its new visuals.

I'm wondering if the cutscenes have actually all be entirely remade with this in mind. The lip-syncing in Colours was notoriously bad at times. And the other thing is that we know Ultimate will be receiving new European language dubs, as one of the original leaks was from the German dubbing studio. Sonic games didn't get German and other European language dubs until Generations, so this is new to Ultimate. All this leads me to believe that the cutscenes could well be fully remade.

Whether the cutscenes are pre-rendered or live, they won't look like the original game. Unless Blind Squirrel and SEGA got lazy and cheap and did just choose to reuse the original Wii cutscenes despite how inconsistent they would be...

[Sonicka]

17 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

FWIW, the cutscenes in Colours are all pre-rendered. They aren't played out live in-game at all. Bound Squirrel will have had to re-render all of the cutscenes or remake them to be played out live in-engine. The Wii cutscenes would look wrong in Ultimate. They're all 480p but even if SEGA has higher resolution versions available (which isn't unlikely), they'll all look like the original game instead of like Ultimate with its new visuals.

I'm wondering if the cutscenes have actually all be entirely remade with this in mind. The lip-syncing in Colours was notoriously bad at times. And the other thing is that we know Ultimate will be receiving new European language dubs, as one of the original leaks was from the German dubbing studio. Sonic games didn't get German and other European language dubs until Generations, so this is new to Ultimate. 

Whether the cutscenes are pre-rendered or live, they won't look like the original game. Unless Blind Squirrel and SEGA got lazy and cheap and did just choose to reuse the original Wii cutscenes despite how inconsistent they would be...

Exactly, that's why I wonder what their approach here will be. Although they're pre-rendered - it's one of those cases of the animated halfway house approach of not using complete cinematic CGI to do cutscenes, nor the live in engine approach... yet it uses the in game engine (if you know what I'm saying) to somewhat produce something in the middle.

Will they completely reanimate these based on the updated models in game? I'd hope so. Otherwise it's gunna look hella weird.

[VO.SUPER]

If they are going out of their way to redub Colours in multiple languages, Tails has a new actress, and they have to rework them anyways for modern displays, they may as well just reanimate them. This might be one of those times where starting from scratch is just simpler than working otherwise.

[Blue Blood]

5 minutes ago, VisionaryofSUPER said:

If they are going out of their way to redub Colours in multiple languages, Tails has a new actress, and they have to rework them anyways for modern displays, they may as well just reanimate them.

Also on that note, Higgins is once again voicing Tails in Rise of the Wisps, so I would imagine that SEGA got her back for Ultimate if there are any new/rerecorded lines from Tails in there. 

[azoo]

Sega really said "hold my beer" to their butchering job of SADX, man. Jesus creezus the utter lack of polish in this port.

[VO.SUPER]

23 minutes ago, azoo said:

Sega really said "hold my beer" to their butchering job of SADX, man. Jesus creezus the utter lack of polish in this port.

Nope, nope. Absolutely not. Nothing will top breaking the ambient lights, replacing all the colorful textures, and making clashing styles by only changing the main character models. 

[azoo]

40 minutes ago, VisionaryofSUPER said:

Nope, nope. Absolutely not. Nothing will top breaking the ambient lights,

Literally every screenshot of Colors Ultimate, specifically Tropical Resort and Asteroid Coaster, has been this.

Quote

and making clashing styles by only changing the main character models. 

IDK about "clashing styles", but replacing the Colors model with a slightly-higher-poly one that doesn't emote as well and radiates neon blue sounds PRETTY identical to DX.

[VO.SUPER]

1 minute ago, azoo said:

Literally every screenshot of Colors Ultimate has been this.

IDK about "clashing styles", but replacing the Colors model with a slightly-higher-poly one that doesn't emote as well and radiates blue sounds PRETTY identical to DX.

The only level that we've seen as such a big betrayal has been Tropical Resort, even here on this forum everything else has gotten a large "shrug, its Colours".

This isn't like removing the atmospheric lights in Twinkle Park, Sky Deck, Final Egg, Ice Cap, etc. Which comprise the majority of the content. 

Then breaking the textures in Red Mountain and Twinkle Park to be significantly worse than their originals. 

Like the sheer scale of fuckery in DX is off the charts compared to the ugly sneeze of this. 

And those character models clashing against the lower poly everything else, like how Eggman still doesn't have a mouth, or all the lip sync being kept as that hideous format. The technological gap between releases warranted so much more or less than what DX got. 

Colours at least is functional looking when not nitpicking. DX never looked right even on original release.