Sonic Colors: Ultimate - Announcement Trailer

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

20 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Characters from future games added retroactively - check

What???

On what charge?

[VO.SUPER]

5 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

What???

On what charge?

I was confused on that too, but then I remembered the jade Wisp is from TSR.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Just now, VisionaryofSUPER said:

I was confused on that too, but then I remembered the jade Wisp is from TSR.

That's a bit of a stretch if we're considering that a character.

[Graystripe2000]

Yeah. Side note: I’m fairly sure Adventure DX only had one character from a later game show up as a small cameo.

[VO.SUPER]

It looks like this port will have even more changes to enemy behavior. In the new Act 2 Sweet Mountain footage, the enemies fall faster than they did in the original when you activate the switch.

(They also lost their little chef hats. )

[Jango]

8 minutes ago, VisionaryofSUPER said:

(They also lost their little chef hats. )

Literally unplayable. 

[Blue Blood]

20 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

That's a bit of a stretch if we're considering that a character.

It's also a bit of a stretch to call Creams inclusion in SADX stretch because she literally appears in the background for like 3 seconds. I was half-joking, and I think @Sonikko was as well.

 

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

12 minutes ago, VisionaryofSUPER said:

It looks like this port will have even more changes to enemy behavior. In the new Act 2 Sweet Mountain footage, the enemies fall faster than they did in the original when you activate the switch.

(They also lost their little chef hats. )

The leader had one on.

[JezMM]

The Aquarium Park remix is great (it's also so funny how Ohtani is using emojis in their twitter responses to make it clear they also do not approve of the Sweet Mountain remix lol).  Although if they are using a combo of old and new music across each zone, I'd rather it be that the original is used for the first appearance of a song and the remix is used for the second - or the original is used for the "long" stage that uses the track and the remix is used for the "mini" stage that used that track (I feel "Asteroid Coaster Act 3" was clearly composed with Act 6, the final proper stage, in mind, so it'd be weird to only have it on the silly little saturn ring racing stage that comes halfway through the zone - a more generic thumpy remix would suit that mini stage more than the fully featured final stage).

The remixes so far seem to be going for more of a "bonus track" sort of feel, which slightly lack the sense of atmosphere that the original compositions evoke.  I actually can't think of a song that sounds more like what the stage looks like in the entire franchise than Aquarium Park - Ohtani absolutely NAILED that track.  It would be a shame if the new remix replaces that first impression, especially for first time players - since it doesn't quite capture that same atmosphere of this massive dome environment in the same way. 

It's worth mentioning that Tomoya Ohtani composed Aquarium Park originally too, whereas Kenichi Tokoi was responsible for Sweet Mountain. Tokoi also has a track record for excellent music though, so I'd be surprised if the new remix is their work.

 

[Blue Blood]

1 hour ago, JezMM said:

I actually can't think of a song that sounds more like what the stage looks like in the entire franchise than Aquarium Park

Okay yeah so I just want to highlight how perfect this statement this is.

The new remix surprisingly does the job just as well, although it leans slightly more into the Japanese aspect with the new strings and other instruments whilst the original leans more into aquatic/underwater theme with its synths. 

1 hour ago, JezMM said:

The remixes so far seem to be going for more of a "bonus track" sort of feel, which slightly lack the sense of atmosphere that the original compositions evoke.

Also some of the original tracks in Colours sounded really like bonus stage music, especially Tropical Resort 2 and Aquarium Park 2. Not really got a point here; just mentioning it cause I thought it was relevant. 

[Sonikko]

True, Aquarium Park is definitely in my top 10 video game songs ever, a real masterpiece.

Speaking of sound, apparently there's some issues with the sound channels during the result screens:

 

Looks like the music is only coming out of the left channel and all the SFX is coming out the right channel, kinda weird.

[Blue Blood]

Hot damn look at this mess:

Anyone still wanna tell me that this looks just as good or even better in Ultimate?

[Soniman]

Time is a flat circle 

[KHCast]

1 hour ago, JezMM said:

I actually can't think of a song that sounds more like what the stage looks like in the entire franchise than Aquarium Park

I’d say maybe Dragon Road (both day and Night) come extremely close. Not sure if they top AP’s atmosphere and music synergy

[Jango]

They're gonna fucking delay this. 

[JezMM]

23 minutes ago, KHCast said:

I’d say maybe Dragon Road (both day and Night) come extremely close. Not sure if they top AP’s atmosphere and music synergy

It's something about the pianos on Aquarim Park that get me the most, the recurring opening melody, and synths both independently evoke the Wutai aesthetic and underwater stage feel as Blue Blood said, but the piano solos are the big player for me (specifically 0:44 in Act 1 and 0:16 in Act 3) - the layered feel that the echo(?) on them provides, as well as the weird but soft backing synth that comes in behind them after a bit, just, so absolutely encapsulates that feel of being in a watery-indoor-swimming pool-esque location but on an absolutely massive scale due to the size of the glass domes that the stage takes place in.

I mean, don't get me wrong, there is plenty of Sonic music out there that comes exceedingly close for me too, much of Unleashed's soundtrack achieves this feel too, Dragon Road a stand-out as you say, but Aquarium Park springs to mind when I think of this vibe of a song just absolutely putting me mentally in the game's location every time I listen to it.

54 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Also some of the original tracks in Colours sounded really like bonus stage music, especially Tropical Resort 2 and Aquarium Park 2. Not really got a point here; just mentioning it cause I thought it was relevant. 

I observed this too actually - Tropical Resort, Starlight Carnival, Aquarium Park and Asteroid Coaster all follow the pattern of Act 1 and Act 3 sounding like a main theme and a reprise version, with Act 2 sounding like an upbeat fun n' games version seperate from the other two.  On Colours DS, the tracks are specifically used this way, with "Act 1" and "Act 3" serving as the themes for the main two acts in each zone, and the chipper "Act 2" serving as the music for the three bonus missions.  This almost seems like a conscious decision (be it for the DS version's sake or just as a general musical direction) and the memo was missed when Tokoi composed Sweet Mountain and Planet Wisp, which don't follow this pattern at all, having every act be entirely unique spin on the zone's song.

It's a shame they couldn't be more consistent about this, although gun to my head I'd go with the SM/PW route over the other four.  Tropical Resort and Starlight Carnival in particular have their Act 3 mixes feeling way too similar to Act 1 to the point that I might have trouble telling them apart if you started them halfway through.

[Whatever the WhoCares]

18 minutes ago, Jango said:

They're gonna fucking delay this. 

We can only hope

[McGroose]

All we need now are collision detection bugs and we can now officially call it Sonic Colors DX. The comparison between SADX and Ultimate regarding their changes to their original respective games is mostly fitting. 

Except SADX, for all it's disappointing changes aside, had several cool features included that Colors Ultimate can't match.  Ultimate lets you race Metal Sonic, SADX lets you actually play as Metal Sonic. Ultimate's rewards are cosmetic changes to gloves and shoes, SADX rewards the player with entire games, with there being around 3X more Sonic games unlockable in SADX than are even provided in Sonic Origins. Some (and I have to emphasize here, SOME, not all, just SOME) of the graphical changes in SADX are nice, whereas I don't like a single thing I've seen in terms of graphical enhancements to Ultimate. Hey, at least some of you guys get a cute baby Sonic keychain, so it's all worth it.

I'll take SADX over Colors Ultimate any day lol 

It'll be interesting to see how this game will be reviewed. SA2B and SADX received poorer scores compared to their previous iterations both because people thought the gameplay didn't age quite as well and because of some additional bugs (i.e, collision detection issues) introduced in the ports. I'm wondering how people will review Colors Ultimate in comparison to the old Wii game. I'm expecting 6-7/10 across the board. Who knows, maybe even less.

Honestly if this is the product we're gonna get, I'll just stick to modding Generations with the Unleashed project. I don't want Sega to touch Unleashed, they'll just bastardize it probably even worse than what they're doing here.

5 minutes ago, Jango said:

They're gonna fucking delay this. 

If they're smart, they will. But I have a strange suspicion that something tells me that they're not exactly smart. 

[Sonikko]

Nah, they aren't gonna delay this, they need a title this year and this is clearly a way to patch the hole left by the internal Rangers delay.

[Blue Blood]

8 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

Nah, they aren't gonna delay this, they need a title this year and this is clearly a way to patch the hole left by the internal Rangers delay.

Not to mention that if the rumours are to be believed, namely the one that leaked this game with several accurate details, it was due for release last year originally and got delayed before it was even announced because the porting job was so bad (and covid probably didn't help either). 

[Soniman]

25 minutes ago, McGroose said:

Except SADX, for all it's disappointing changes aside, had several cool features included that Colors Ultimate can't match.  Ultimate lets you race Metal Sonic, SADX lets you actually play as Metal Sonic. 

Not gonna give Colors credit for something it hasn't shown yet but the idea of racing Metal is a lot more appealing to me than playing as Sonic with a Metal Sonic skin that  you only get after 100% completion 

[Sonikko]

Given the state the port is in now, less than 3 months before release, I have no trouble believing it was outright unplayable last year.

That said Covid has shaken everything up, so I'm not gonna blame them for it. Adjusting to work from home must have had an unbelievable impact on all developers.

I wonder if the issues Ultimate has are on the devs, or SEGA being greedy and giving them a tiny budget.

The devs don't exactly have a great track record, so there's that, and to me it seems that SEGA really wanted to resell the game at full price somehow, so they made sure to have a checklist of features to write on the back of the box.

Nintendo gets a lot of shit for how their remasters are priced, but, to be quite honest, they're basically the only ones doing the remaster thing right, most of the time.

[VO.SUPER]

1 hour ago, Blue Blood said:

Hot damn look at this mess:

Anyone still wanna tell me that this looks just as good or even better in Ultimate?

It looks just as fine, just different.

You asked.

 

27 minutes ago, McGroose said:

Except SADX, for all it's disappointing changes aside, had several cool features included that Colors Ultimate can't match.  Ultimate lets you race Metal Sonic, SADX lets you actually play as Metal Sonic. Ultimate's rewards are cosmetic changes to gloves and shoes, SADX rewards the player with entire games, with there being around 3X more Sonic games unlockable in SADX than are even provided in Sonic Origins. Some (and I have to emphasize here, SOME, not all, just SOME) of the graphical changes in SADX are nice, whereas I don't like a single thing I've seen in terms of graphical enhancements to Ultimate. Hey, at least some of you guys get a cute baby Sonic keychain, so it's all worth it.

You play as Metal Sonic after a very broken mission mode whose requirements are glitched to hell and back. Also requiring the Chao Garden medals to complete for a Metal Sonic skin on top of regular Sonic who changes nothing but the cosmetics. Ultimate also has cosmetic changes too for Sonic without such a drastic requirement.

Those game gear games were useless content when played on the Gamecube's D-pad, and even then also were available on several Sonic collections at the time without the need to unlock them.

I'll leave the part on looks alone, because I like how Sweet Mountain looks generally. But again, if you think parts of SADX look good, who am I to say otherwise.

49 minutes ago, Jango said:

They're gonna fucking delay this. 

They are not. This content is not that big of a deal to the public at large and will not, ABSOLUTELY NOT, hamper any first time playthrough of Colours.

  

2 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

Given the state the port is in now, less than 3 months before release, I have no trouble believing it was outright unplayable last year.

That said Covid has shaken everything up, so I'm not gonna blame them for it. Adjusting to work from home must have had an unbelievable impact on all developers.

I wonder if the issues Ultimate has are on the devs, or SEGA being greedy and giving them a tiny budget.

The devs don't exactly have a great track record, so there's that, and to me it seems that SEGA really wanted to resell the game at full price somehow, so they made sure to have a checklist of features to write on the back of the box.

Nintendo gets a lot of shit for how their remasters are priced, but, to be quite honest, they're basically the only ones doing the remaster thing right, most of the time.

 

One of the producers on the game did go a lot into the impact on COVID with development so I wouldn't doubt it.

[Wraith]

54 minutes ago, Jango said:

They're gonna fucking delay this. 

It's already a year off schedule. Who's going to pay to keep it in development?

It's clearly targeted at kids who wont even know there's anything different about it anyway. Might as well rip the band-aid off and take another 56. Best you can hope for is all the controversy nets you some kind of post launch update.

[VO.SUPER]

1 minute ago, Wraith said:

It's already a year off schedule. Who's going to pay to keep it in development?

It's clearly targeted at kids who wont even notice the shit wrong with it anyway. Might as well rip the band-aid off and take another 56. Best you can hope for is all the controversy nets you some post launch update.

56? Do you mean the Forces Metacritic score?