Sonic Colors: Ultimate - Announcement Trailer

[shdowhunt60]

38 minutes ago, Ming Ming Hatsune said:

In all honesty, I'd rather Sega done a straight up port of Sonic Colors. Like what they did with Sonic Adventure DX/2 on PS3/360.

Yes it won't be in 60FPS and this game is a dream on 60FPS (like on Dolphin) but I would HAPPILY sacrifice that.

Because the Colors Ultimate port does not improve the original, and I was about to say this is a lazy port but...what I described on the first sentence is a lazy port. This is actually worse. Sloppish.

The thing is, since the devs had to apparently sit there and recreate a bunch of assets for godot, that wouldn't really fix the issue. The issue is that they had to retool the game for the new engine, and did a really poor job of it. I don't know what went wrong, but something apparently did.

The issues on Switch are especially inexcusable, because Sonic Colors was originally an exclusive for the Wii in the first place, and was honestly one of the most technically impressive games for the system.  So for the game to basically be unplayable on the latest generation of Nintendo hardware is pretty damn baffling just from the standpoint of the legacy of Sonic Colors itself.

I'm just kind of dumbstruck the game is in this state. This was apparently originally planned to come out a year ago. Between the game that we have now, and the game that was originally showed early this year, I'm just kind of left wondering how they were originally going to accomplish that goal, because the state of the game is pretty damned dire.

[McGroose]

9 minutes ago, Rocketjay8 said:

I don't know why the fuck people keep doing this. I'm at a lost on just how Sega keeps getting away with this.

I'm partially guilty of this, I said I would never buy Sonic Forces and it's currently in my game library. Of course I paid nothing for it because I sorta got it for free via PS Plus as one of the two free games of the month, but I regret being a +1 in Sega's databank now for technically owning it. I'm worried I might relapse into old habits and buy the game for a dollar once it's in the bargain bin please don't judge. 

But really, this franchise is unique to me because I'm mostly here to recollect about the good old days and laugh at how bad the new days are while praising the fans for picking up the pieces and actually treating this franchise with some resemblance of quality control. That's why I haven't left. It's quite the ride.

 

[NoKaine]

6 minutes ago, shdowhunt60 said:

The thing is, since the devs had to apparently sit there and recreate a bunch of assets for godot, that wouldn't really fix the issue. The issue is that they had to retool the game for the new engine, and did a really poor job of it. I don't know what went wrong, but something apparently did.

The issues on Switch are especially inexcusable, because Sonic Colors was originally an exclusive for the Wii in the first place, and was honestly one of the most technically impressive games for the system.  So for the game to basically be unplayable on the latest generation of Nintendo hardware is pretty damn baffling just from the standpoint of the legacy of Sonic Colors itself.

I'm just kind of dumbstruck the game is in this state. This was apparently originally planned to come out a year ago. Between the game that we have now, and the game that was originally showed early this year, I'm just kind of left wondering how they were originally going to accomplish that goal, because the state of the game is pretty damned dire.

A large proportion of the development issues is most definitely COVID-related, including the use of the Godot Engine instead of engines developed for the Switch.

Without COVID, it would definitely be more presentable by now.

Though yes, I genuinely do not know how they expected it to release last year. I'd also ask why push it back a year but not again?

[shdowhunt60]

18 minutes ago, NoKaine said:

A large proportion of the development issues is most definitely COVID-related, including the use of the Godot Engine instead of engines developed for the Switch.

Without COVID, it would definitely be more presentable by now.

Though yes, I genuinely do not know how they expected it to release last year. I'd also ask why push it back a year but not again?

The Switch isn't anything magical, it uses standard commodity hardware. It's just very, very weak hardware. The issue isn't Godot specifically.

But the fact that they used Godot does beg the question of why they didn't just use Sonic Team's tools to develop the game. Sonic Colors uses a modified form of the hedgehog engine, which Sonic Team designed in the first place to be portable, and we know for a fact that Hedgehog Engine games do work on Switch.

[SBR2]

Apparently a lot of the seizure looking glitches were being faked by running the game through an emulator and honestly I am sincerely disgusted. This is something that is only to ruin the games reputation by making the bugs look far worse than they actually are. This is honestly reprehensible.

[Rocketjay8]

2 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

Apparently a lot of the seizure looking glitches were being faked by running the game through an emulator and honestly I am sincerely disgusted. This is something that is only to ruin the games reputation by making the bugs look far worse than they actually are. This is honestly reprehensible.

While some people have faked by running it through an emulator, others like this person has proof that they ran it on official hardware

So it looks like this game is still cursed.

[KHCast]

I don’t get the game delivered to me until Tuesday. I’m getting the PS4 version for my Pro. Am I in for a good time or is that version also pretty buggy?

[SSF1991]

I don't even know what to say, honestly. It's a remaster of a damn 11 year old game.

What an absolute mess.

[Winston]

14 minutes ago, KHCast said:

I don’t get the game delivered to me until Tuesday. I’m getting the PS4 version for my Pro. Am I in for a good time or is that version also pretty buggy?

It's not as bad as the Switch version from my experience. I did have the game freeze twice and I had to force restart it, but other than that, just the music from the Wisps wouldn't play every once and a while on certain levels for me. I am playing on PS5 though, but I doubt it'd make that huge of a difference compared to PS4 Pro besides maybe slight difference in load times. No visual glitches or anything from my whole playthrough, but I'm not fully sure of experiences others have had with it. My experience was pretty smooth outside of the freezes towards the beginning of my playthrough. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

9 minutes ago, KHCast said:

I don’t get the game delivered to me until Tuesday. I’m getting the PS4 version for my Pro. Am I in for a good time or is that version also pretty buggy?

Been playing the game for the last two days, and apart from the wisp music bug and some random visual bugs, I've had no glitches. Can't say that's the situation you'll have (I'm on PS5 compared to Pro), but still. 

Switch version is the one that seems particularly bad.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

It should come as a shock to nobody that glitches would be more common on an emulated game, but you'd be hard-pressed to call all that stuff an intentional hoax so much as negligence in specifying that you're using an emulator.

[KHCast]

 

Not sure if this was covered already, but uh…yeah that’s a yikes 

 

[azoo]

Just in case it ever comes to discussion a matter of "did Sega rush Blind Squirrel?" let me post this article: 

https://soahcity.com/2021/05/06/rumor-new-sonic-colors-ultimate-details-leaked/

A report of notes from August 2020, documented several months later (the article itself predating Colors Ultimate's announcement by a month). Mentions that it was going to be announced in September that year and slated for a December release, but was delayed due to quality assurance deeming the game "unplayable".

With this in mind, it's worth noting that Sega actively delayed the project, giving a total of anywhere from 6-9 extra months of development.

Where Sega can be blamed on this project is not for crunching the team, but relying on them in the first place. Blind Squirrel's reputation precedes them, with their dodgy work on the Mass Effect remasters and their infamous port job of the Switch version of WWE 2K18. And yet, Sega went with them anyways. Go figure!

Could Sega have realized how it was going and canned it? Probably. But considering that things take time, it's worth noting that Sonic Team likely had started to create the new remixed music, assets (Metal Sonic model and animations, Jade Wisp etc), concepts (the Rival Rush) and even an animated short for it, and at the point of considering scrapping it probably thought of it to be a sunk cost (or "too much time and money spent to throw it away" for the folks at home), pushing it out at it's closest-to-acceptable form anyways.

Does this explain everything about what happened here? Not really, but I think this info will help people get a clearer, more informed idea as to what happened. You know, without shots in the dark or conspiracies of self-sabotage and all that.

Spoiler

On that note, if Iizuka really did sabotage Boom, then Good. Proud of him.

 

[Nix]

Honestly, the Mass Effect remasters are actually pretty good though. I'd recommend the remastered ME1 over the original any day.

[Wraith]

At the end of the day sega still let that garbage ship instead of delaying it so there's no point in splitting hairs trying to figure out who's fault it is. If it was not ready to come out, it should not have come out.

[KHCast]

So the issue has apparently gotten so mainstream in the gaming sphere you got influencers like HMK weighing in on the topic, and, unfortunately, aiding in spreading the idea that all of the big issues are actually fabricated/done through the illegal versions. This certainly will play out well

 

 

 

 

[Blue Blood]

30 minutes ago, Nix said:

Honestly, the Mass Effect remasters are actually pretty good though. I'd recommend the remastered ME1 over the original any day.

I don't even play Mass Effect but it's plain as day why the remastered versions are contentious on a visual level at least. Blind Squirrel's claim to fame is for producing ports that are of very questionable quality. @azoo makes a very point about this game in particular. We know with like 99.9% certainty at this point that Colours Ultimate was supposed to be released in 2020 (or at the very least announced then) before being delayed for a long time before it was even announced. Yeah, the pandemic probably influenced that quite a bit. But SEGA have adopted this policy of delaying several Sonic games by not insignificant amounts of time in recent years, when it used to be a rarity. Boom FI was delayed by about a year IIRC, Mania got at least a three month delay (plus a Switch port by a previously uninvolved developer), TSR for delayed by several months and now Colours Ultimate. Other than S4E1 which got delayed for because of fan pushback and leaks, I don't think SEGA used to delayed Sonic games much for just reasons. They would push the games out in whatever state it was in.

@Wraith Sure. SEGA probably didn't do that bad thing, but that simply means that they did the other bad thing instead. Lol 

[Wraith]

9 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

 

@Wraith Sure. SEGA probably didn't do that bad thing, but that simply means that they did the other bad thing instead. Lol 

Exactly. People keep trying to make simple shit complicated

[Sean]

Not a big Colors fan but it's unfortunate the port turned out this way. My optimism dropped to zero when I heard Blind Squirrel were on it, but it's still on Sega for shipping it out at all. I just hope that eventually the PC version can get fixed up to some degree and that there will be some incentive for me to pick it up on sale.

[Cube]

7 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

I don't even play Mass Effect but it's plain as day why the remastered versions are contentious on a visual level at least.

The visuals and upgrades were pretty much universally praised. For remasters (and not remakes), Mass Effect 1 is easily the best one. It turned a game that I enjoyed for the story, but trudged through the gameplay just to get to the other games, into a game I fully loved, with visuals which are absolutely beautiful (and with the photo mode, I ended up taking nearly 200 screenshots). I didn't realise Blind Squirrel were involved, it's a phenomenal port.

Sonic Colours Ultimate is a bit lesser on the improvements, but still has nicer graphics and runs better (in my experience, anyway). 

[azoo]

8 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Exactly. People keep trying to make simple shit complicated

I'm just tryin to make it more clear what happened is all. lol Of course Sega fucked up, there's no denying that.

[JezMM]

5 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Interesting fact - the Cutting Room Floor found three cut achievements from the game, one of which is a staggering exclusion:

• Who Ya Gonna Race? - Beat the time of Any Ghost Racer
• So... Metal - Complete all of Metal Sonic's Rival Challenges
• Ghost in the Machine - Upload a Ghost

The first and third achievements are pretty whatever - most would agree online trophies in Sonic games like Gens had are ultimately pointless inclusions that serve to put a timegate on how attainable the achievement will be.

However - the lack of achievement for completing all of Metal Sonic's races is absolutely baffingly, given that it's the only real main feature Ultimate itself brings to the table.

I'd actually put the focus the other way around here.  A lack of achievement for beating all the Metal Sonic races doesn't mean anything to me - just an arbitrary tickbox achievement for something that most players who care about the game on anything above the most casual level will do anyway.

Unless they're absent from the PC version so it's gone over my head - there is no online functionality in the game at all right?  I haven't seen anything about uploading or racing ghosts.  I was actually thinking about it when flicking through the score screen yesterday - the original had online leaderboards where you could compare with your friends (very cumbersome leaderboards since you had to manually connect to a server and wait every time you wanted to update them, but leaderboards nonetheless).  Nothing of the sort here, which honestly makes the player icon being 1/5th of the cosmetic options all the more meaningless.

[Strickerx5]

1 hour ago, Nix said:

Honestly, the Mass Effect remasters are actually pretty good though. I'd recommend the remastered ME1 over the original any day.

To be fair, from what I can gather the ME Remasters had a couple of hands in the pot for them, including even Bioware. It is hard to say which party did what and how much though.

That said, like everyone else has already laid out, the blame isn't really on BSG. At the very worst in their regard, Sega should've known not to go to them in the first place. Really though, it's on Sega for putting out the game in this state at all.

 

But if I'm being honest here, I still struggle to think that this will even matter. Sega is likely still going to sell a bunch of copies of this anyway. It's already gotten favorable scores. Even if they don't patch it (and I do hope that does happen), I'm pretty sure any quotas they have are going to be met.

[azoo]

Nahnahnah it's definitely on Blind Squirrel too.

Sega hired developers who couldn't get it together, and Sega felt the need to release it anyways for whatever reason (the sunk cost fallacy or whatever, as mentioned earlier, is my guess), yes. They're ultimately responsible for this happening. But Blind Squirrel were also given pretty ample time and assets to not mess it up and.. well, they did. Really, really badly. In basically every way.

In other words, the answer to "who's at fault" is yes. The answer is yes. lol

[Strickerx5]

7 minutes ago, azoo said:

Nahnahnah it's definitely on Blind Squirrel too.

Sega hired developers who couldn't get it together, and Sega felt the need to release it anyways for whatever reason (the sunk cost fallacy or whatever, as mentioned earlier, is my guess), yes. They're ultimately responsible for this happening. But Blind Squirrel were also given pretty ample time and assets to not mess it up and.. well, they did. Really, really badly. In basically every way.

In other words, the answer to "who's at fault" is yes. The answer is yes. lol

Honestly, it's hard for me to point blame on devs flat out these days. Call it bias due to my CS major but coding is fucking hard lol.

In BSG's case, I'd argue that we really don't know what decisions were from the higher ups at Sega and what BSG knew couldn't be done in that time.

Wait, as I type this out, I recall that I'm acting like BSG doesn't have their own management too that probably didn't help. Forgive my rambling, it's past late here.