Sonic Colors Ultimate Review Scores Thread

[Jango]

"Happy birthday, Sonic! Hope you like this!"

[Rabbitearsblog]

18 minutes ago, Jango said:

"Happy birthday, Sonic! Hope you like this!"

Well, he didn't really have a horrible birthday. There was the Sonic Symphony and the announcement of the new Sonic game. So, not everything turned out bad.

[Red Hot Jack]

This release is really depressing, always problematic when a Sonic game releases and I am starting to think Sonic is better as a media icon than a videogame sadly.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

48 minutes ago, Jango said:

"Happy birthday, Sonic! Hope you like this!"

What's even the joke? He didn't even have a horrible birthday.

[VO.SUPER]

1 hour ago, Jango said:

"Happy birthday, Sonic! Hope you like this!"

Frankly... I can't say it goes that far. Its embarrassing as far as looks go, but I can't see this damaging the series rep outside of the fanbase. 

 

[Sonicka]

So the thing that gets me here is… if the glitches or bugs are this bad (yes I have watched the video) …are we just inane as hell to notice or be bothered by stuff like this? Or did reviewers genuinely not have these problems during playthrough or care enough that it still deserved the 7 or 8 out of 10’s? 

I’m not saying patches shouldn’t be incoming, but is it THAT bad that it’s constantly unplayable… or just slightly annoying sometimes and these bugs are just being overhyped from being highlighted in videos.

Are some of these issues confirmed to be specific to certain platforms too or is it across the board?

Still, quite by luck I keep finding and changing my preorder to be cheaper and cheaper to the point that I basically bought it for little over £20 now - so if it does turn out to be a hot mess - it won’t be a very expensive hot mess.

[Rocketjay8]

2 hours ago, Shaddy Zaphod said:

Really cool of you to reply to a post I made days before we had actual documentation about the buggy switch version.

I hadn't realized this when I posted this comment. Apoligies. 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

20 minutes ago, Son-icka said:

So the thing that gets me here is… if the glitches or bugs are this bad (yes I have watched the video) …are we just inane as hell to notice or be bothered by stuff like this? Or did reviewers genuinely not have these problems during playthrough or care enough that it still deserved the 7 or 8 out of 10’s? 

I’m not saying patches shouldn’t be incoming, but is it THAT bad that it’s constantly unplayable… or just slightly annoying sometimes and these bugs are just being overhyped from being highlighted in videos.

Are some of these issues confirmed to be specific to certain platforms too or is it across the board?

Still, quite by luck I keep finding and changing my preorder to be cheaper and cheaper to the point that I basically bought it for little over £20 now - so if it does turn out to be a hot mess - it won’t be a very expensive hot mess.

It seems like most of what people are posting is from the Switch version, while the review copies were all the PS4 version, which it seems is the most stable.

A lot of Sonic fans are Nintendo fans, so you're seeing more glitch coverage from them than more official review sites for that reason.

Anyway, yeah, patch the game, SEGA.

[Celestia]

Yeah the absolute most chaotic shit seems to be exclusive to the Nintendo version, at least as far as I've seen all those clips have had a handy #nintendoswitch tag.

I'd wonder if the review copies already had a patch, except a day one patch happened already even on the Switch so that wouldn't make much sense short of a really bizarre mistake. The other explanation, particularly regarding Nintendo focused outlets reviewing the game without mentioning all of this, is they just happened to not run into the same problems, or wrote them off because lolSonic, or got paid to not say anything.

[NoKaine]

SEGA doesn't have the money to pay reviewers to say nice things about a Sonic game (or no Sonic game would have bad reviews)--if they were negative, then they would make a review embargo like they did with Rise of Lyric and I think Forces.

There is no way reviewers would choose to ignore glitches in a Sonic game, especially legitimately harmful glitches that may cause seizures. 

Besides just not having those problems, the only real alternative is that they were promised they would be fixed before release, which I doubt. That was the case for one review for '06. But usually in those cases, it's like, the review mentions glitches and the editor would remove the references if and when the issues are addressed--not flat-out not alluding to the problem at all.

Metacritic only has two reviews for the Switch version: one from Nintendo Life at 8/10 and one from another review site with 6/10 that explicitly mentions technical issues. 

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

Colors Ultimate is terrible. During most of my runs, I had sound glitches. I don't know if they changed the drill music, but it was quiet as a mouse and different to the original. In fact I've rarely heard any wisp sounds throughout my runs. Also sometimes, no BGM plays at all after restarting a level or dying.

My Egg Shuttle runs the game froze on me twice - during Sweet Mountain and Starlight Carnival. I screamed in anger on the second freeze. That was 20ish minutes wasted right there.

Graphical issues. Sometimes when Sonic gets hurt, he disappears completely and I die because I don't know where he is. When I start my laser I temporarily see two Sonics.

There's a lot more but I couldn't be asked to detail them all. And while some of the remixes are alright, I still miss the original soundtrack. The opening and ending are worse. The remixes have full dominance over the original and that's sad. Did people complain about the original soundtrack? I know I have said this a few times before but it is so damning to me because I played the original and the original touched me way better than this port, and the soundtrack played a part in it.

But this is typical SEGA, you can't even port a well done game right. Please I beg you Sega, if you are going to port other Sonic titles in the future, TAKE YOUR TIME WITH IT and don't change things that don't need changing. I don't mind you adding things on top on the original, like that Sonic customisation feature and park tokens (never used it though) and Tails save - but don't replace things from the original. 

Worst port for a Sonic game. With SDX, they only changed the character models from the original and the bugs weren't as bad as I've seen in Colors Ultimate. I mean, on my first run on Aquarium Park Act 1, within a few seconds of starting I died. Never happened to me before in the original.

4/10.

[pppp]

Not that I ever took this much seriously but yeah these statements haven't aged well:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/06/sega_placing_huge_emphasis_on_quality_with_future_sonic_titles

https://www.sonicstadium.org/2020/05/sega-planning-longer-development-higher-quality-for-future-sonic-games/

Looking forward to Rangers most likely coming out rushed, followed by "We'll do better next time we swear" for the tenth time.

Here's basically SEGA nowadays:

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Can I just say - screw the Big Chasers in this version of the game. They took an annoying enemy from Colours as is, somehow managed to make him more annoying (If you dash ahead in certain sections, you can have the camera outpan him so you can see his attacks any longer), and sometimes he just gets random speed boosts out of absolutely nowhere so he can still land a hit on Sonic even if boosting - this actually lost me my S-Rank on Terminal Velocity Act 1 due to him managing to hit me literally as the level faded out and I was boosting at that, making me lose my ring bonus.

Worst of the lot however is a graphical bug in Terminal Velocity Act 1 where - once you get to the section where you have to outrun Big Chaser while Motobugs flood the screen, one of the lasers will glitch out and not show any visuals, making it a complete and total guess as to where he's going to hit. This means it's practically RNG at the last section of the level, and if you die, you redo the entirety of it all over again. This sucked in the original game, and it's even worse now.

[Rocketjay8]

It looks as though some of the seizure Visual Bugs may be due to running it on the Yumu Emulator.

Would be really messed up if that's true.

Edit: Ok, while it looks like some people faked thier glitches others have proof that their game is running on official hardware

 

[Cube]

The one there looks like a missing/unloaded texture. Their other glitches also look like fairly normal glitches. They don't seem to have encountered any of the "seizure" ones.

 

The ones that look like the kind of glitches you'd get from faulty hardware have been baffling me as to how those are happening, but an emulator does make sense.

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

7 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Can I just say - screw the Big Chasers in this version of the game. They took an annoying enemy from Colours as is, somehow managed to make him more annoying (If you dash ahead in certain sections, you can have the camera outpan him so you can see his attacks any longer), and sometimes he just gets random speed boosts out of absolutely nowhere so he can still land a hit on Sonic even if boosting - this actually lost me my S-Rank on Terminal Velocity Act 1 due to him managing to hit me literally as the level faded out and I was boosting at that, making me lose my ring bonus.

Worst of the lot however is a graphical bug in Terminal Velocity Act 1 where - once you get to the section where you have to outrun Big Chaser while Motobugs flood the screen, one of the lasers will glitch out and not show any visuals, making it a complete and total guess as to where he's going to hit. This means it's practically RNG at the last section of the level, and if you die, you redo the entirety of it all over again. This sucked in the original game, and it's even worse now.

...just use Super Sonic on that stage (Terminal Velocity) if you want to S rank it.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

I hope @Badnik Mechanicdoesn't mind me borrowing his Retro post, but since we're on the topic of the "seizure glitch"...

Quote

So I've been watching this whole thing quite closely.

 

The first of the big seizure glitches came to light yesterday, only it was 1 person reporting it and offering no explanation how you trigger it.

 

Since then nobody has been able to re-create it.

 

Then someone else managed to trigger it, again no explanation as to how they did it.

 

So even yesterday conversation was circling along the lines of "Yeah these are serious, but how easy are they to trigger if literally only 2 people have publically posted them?"

 

Well about 9 hours ago, someone was practically blasting the Switch version for a T-pose glitch, and as you say, turns out they were emulating the game and manipulating their tweets to make it seem like it was actual Switch hardware.

 

So instantly the conversation is "Well nobody on PC/PS4/Xbox has recreated this? Are we sure the other glitches are not caused by emulation?"

 

Well as of half an hour ago... someone has FINALLY shown how to make the seizure glitch.

 

And boy does it fall into VERY specific requirements territory.

 

At the hub world menu, select a planet, back out to hub menu. Select a planet, back out to hub menu.

 

Repeat the above very very quickly, like don't even give the game time to display the planet world map. And repeat it multiple times with different planets.

 

Then select a stage and enter the Matrix.

 

So far it's confirmed on Switch to work. And yes it's serious and yes it absolutely needs patching but... my God... those are some very specific things you have to do.

Now this isn't me saying it's not a problem or shouldn't be fixed, but I've seen a lot of people claiming this is a health hazard that one can simply happen upon incidentally during a playthrough, and uh...no, not really. You'd have to actively try to make this happen.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

2 hours ago, Shaddy Zaphod said:

I hope @Badnik Mechanicdoesn't mind me borrowing his Retro post, but since we're on the topic of the "seizure glitch"...

Now this isn't me saying it's not a problem or shouldn't be fixed, but I've seen a lot of people claiming this is a health hazard that one can simply happen upon incidentally during a playthrough, and uh...no, not really. You'd have to actively try to make this happen.

I’ll also add - there’s a video on YouTube by TWIP showing how to activate the bug on Switch.

Testing this out on the PS4 version of the game, using the exact same methodology as he did in his video, as well as going even faster than he did, I was completely unable to replicate the bug. From what I can see, this isn’t an issue on the PS4 version, and I imagine the same goes for Xbox.

The only thing I could imagine makes Switch stand out more is that the ridiculously long loading times compared to PS4/Xbox, which seems to indicate more effort on its part to load levels, so perhaps the seizure bug is related to that? The map changing rapidly like this being the cause of the bug tends to indicate the game is confused and doesn’t know what assets to load in, at least. That or all the rapid loading causes the game to corrupt the textures/assets.

[Wraith]

The seizure bug is speculated to be due to a memory leak. Making the game load a lot of objects really quickly could cause that, hence why it comes up when you snap back and forth between maps...but memory leaks can also happen due to long play sessions. That's probably why some Sonic fans have fumbled into it and reviewers haven't. Sonic Colors is possible to play in one sitting if you're willing to sit down for a longer session to do it, so I could believe someone did that and had that happen to them as they came up on the end of the game.

Either way, I think a seizure risk is something that should be scrutinized pretty heavily no matter how small the chance of it happening actually is. It could have life altering affects if the wrong person is exposed to it.

[Red Hot Jack]

37 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Either way, I think a seizure risk is something that should be scrutinized pretty heavily no matter how small the chance of it happening actually is. It could have life altering affects if the wrong person is exposed to it.

Then why bring it up at all if it can cause people to have seizures when looking at it?

I don't think anyone would have noticed the seizures glitches if they weren't triggered on purpose.

I am trying not to give a generalized opinion on this matter but man, it could be a problem that didn't exist and now it is a problem, this situation is such a mess I don't even want to be online to witness it.

Edit: this is just about the fake glitches, eh, the remaster on Switch is still a buggy shit.

[McGroose]

3 hours ago, Shaddy Zaphod said:

I hope @Badnik Mechanicdoesn't mind me borrowing his Retro post, but since we're on the topic of the "seizure glitch"...

Now this isn't me saying it's not a problem or shouldn't be fixed, but I've seen a lot of people claiming this is a health hazard that one can simply happen upon incidentally during a playthrough, and uh...no, not really. You'd have to actively try to make this happen.

Here's a video showing off exactly what you were talking about here:

While this is definitely something that needs to be patched ASAP, I doubt most people will find this acid trip glitch unless they are actively trying to find it. With that being said, If one person found it by accident, I'm sure some kids goofing off in the menu can also find it, so it's best that this gets fixed immediately. 

[Zaysho]

1 hour ago, Jack-al said:

Then why bring it up at all if it can cause people to have seizures when looking at it?

Because it can still happen on real hardware. Sega may not have any idea of this happening and it would need to be addressed because it's a health hazard. It doesn't matter how small that risk is because someone could trigger it accidentally. You don't have to watch the videos to get an idea of this stuff.

This isn't falling through the floor level stuff, man.

[Badnik Mechanic]

The Glitch is Very unlikely to be triggered accidentally...

However, menu hopping is something people can and will do randomly just out of boredom. Or if someone is going for 100% completion so the risk of someone randomly finding it is there.

Now if this were a case of just a bit of slowdown then it really wouldn't be too alarming. But since it can cause people's brains to explode... probably needs to climb up the fix priority list. 

[Graystripe2000]

On Xbox, this causes freezes instead of seizures. 

 

[Zoomzeta]

10 minutes ago, Graystripe2000 said:

On Xbox, this causes freeze so instead of seizures. 

 

Upgrade..?