Megathread MT | Sonic Colours Ultimate

[VO.SUPER]

2 hours ago, Zoomzeta said:

All right, I'm just going to throw this out and see what other's responses are: How has the remake performed commercialy thus far? Mostly out of curiosity.

Early signs aren't great but the immediate success hasn't been gleaned yet. 

Amazon shows that the only version to actually reach the top 20 around the first two weeks was the Switch version, and it dropped off very quickly to the bottom 80s after the whole "seizure" fiasco cut off a lot of its early marketing. 

 

[Sonicka]

1 hour ago, JezMM said:

Are you sure you weren't just playing without the Music Pack add-on installed? (Which comes as standard with Digital Deluxe but has to be paid for extra with the physical edition).  The 3 bonus songs from this "add-on" are the Planet Wisp remixes, and without it, Planet Wisp uses the original songs for all 6 acts.  I've just updated my digital version of the game on PC, and the new remix is still playing on Act 1 for me at the very least.

Oh wow... I actually didn't know this (nor looked into it as I forgot about the existence of the DLC packs).

I just assumed they'd switched 'em around in an update as preview videos I had watched online for Planet Wisp played the new remixes... but, now I think about it I didn't hear the new mixes during my play through at all.

What a bizarre (and random) choice of tracks to lock behind paid DLC. 

I'm also going to revise/update a few thoughts from my earlier post regarding glitches playing on the PS4Pro:

- There are definitely audio bugs - the missing wisp music has become more noticeable the longer I play the game
- As mentioned above, the aim for the Laser Wisp is buggered. About 75% of the time I can't even see a line in which to aim - let alone track where Sonic bounced. This used to be a satisfying Wisp to use in the original, but its damaged goods here.
- Weird pop-in for certain artefacts directly ahead of you in one level I played, they just blink in and old of existence... not dissimilar to NES games.
- Frames of animation just stop from the models in Gameland's selection screen
- The "path" for Sonic to walk along on the Map between Act 2 and 3 in Aquarium Park initially failed to load. If I didn't already know where to direct Sonic I would have assumed I hadn't finished Act 2 correctly.
- The "you're underwater" blue blurry effect just covers the entire screen the moment you hit or go slightly under the water... which is distracting, especially during the gravity pools of water. 
- There are certain scripted sections which either don't work (usually n shaped curved ceilings with boost pads) or areas that have thrown me out of bounds through no input on my part.
- The Ring Bloom, fucking hell. They are basically a piercing Terry's Chocolate shade of orange in this game!

I think, as I previously said, the game is good, the game appears on the surface to "run" well or faster than it's Wii counterpart... but there is a real lack of polish the more I play this which I becoming glaringly noticeable.

TBH, I think as a new player a lot of this stuff probably wouldn't be noticeable. But as a Wii player... that game feels much less "Solid" than before... Like I can trust what I'm doing in the Wii game, but have to sometimes hope for the best that some shit doesn't fuck up here in the port. 

To be clear, It's nowhere near SADX or Sonic "06 levels of buggy hell. But it does lack... integrity? If that's the right word. It's kind of like saying that whatever held the game together originally (well... the engine) got busted up a bit during the upgrade. I really hope they sort some of these minor quibbles. As I am still enjoying my time... but the "ultimate edition" is still the Wii Version of this game IMO. 

[JonoD]

This is driving me a little crazy. (Possible music spoilers for those who want to experience the remixes fresh)

Spoiler

Nega Wisp Armour Phase 2. Brilliant song, and for the most part, what they've done with the remix is nice... With one exception.

 

I primarily noticed it when listening with headphones, but listen to how the choir kicks in. Did they really just cut off the start of it? It sounds like the song skips!

Just confirmed this is in-game too. That's... Pretty poor - 

 

 

[Graystripe2000]

Despite being delayed by nearly a month, the physical release of thr game made #3 in the uk Charts. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-10-03-fifa-22s-boxed-launch-down-35-percent-over-fifa-21-uk-boxed-charts

[Red Hot Jack]

I'm not surprised as UK seems to love Sonic but do we know how it did in the US and EU?

I don't care about Japan though, Sonic always bombs there.

[Graystripe2000]

Not yet. We’ll get that info later this month from the NPD.

[VO.SUPER]

https://www.gematsu.com/2021/09/famitsu-sales-9-6-21-9-12-21

Well, I was curious about the Japan performance. 

And its baaaaaadd. 

In its debut week. SCU debuted at #27 of the famitsu sales charts with the Switch version, at just below 3,000 units.

After that, it disappears from the charts. 

That is how dire Sonic is in his home country. 

[Soniman]

9 hours ago, VisionaryofSUPER said:

https://www.gematsu.com/2021/09/famitsu-sales-9-6-21-9-12-21

Well, I was curious about the Japan performance. 

And its baaaaaadd. 

In its debut week. SCU debuted at #27 of the famitsu sales charts with the Switch version, at just below 3,000 units.

After that, it disappears from the charts. 

That is how dire Sonic is in his home country. 

I imagine for Sega this is business as usual when it comes to Sonic and Japan 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

9 hours ago, VisionaryofSUPER said:

That is how dire Sonic is in his home country. 

So, business as usual.

[Zoomzeta]

Anything on America?

[Graystripe2000]

32 minutes ago, Zoomzeta said:

Anything on America?

We’ll find out later this month via NPD.

[Milo]

Looking at the Game Data Library (giant historical database for videogame sales in Japan)...the Switch debut for Colors Ultimate seems to be a borderline case of "wow, even for the series' low standards; this is quite particularly weak."

Compared to other Switch Sonic releases in the database (Forces, TSR, Tokyo 2020) it's easily the worst of the four; and going from Forces > TSR > Colors Ult shows a trending decline. (Tokyo 2020 is an outlier since that's M&S, which has historically  always done better than Sonic games.) The only Switch title that likely had a worst OW is Mania Plus, and that's only because that never charted at all; so that might as well be a participation trophy.

When looking back at other Sonic releases spanning back ten years, it's also the worst debut since the Wii U JP release ASRT, back in 2014. (Boom: Rise of Lyric arguably did worse, but again; that never charted at all, consolation prize.) And speaking of going back ten years--when compared to the original Colors, for both the Wii and DS. Neither one had any data for its debut week, but they each still ended up with a LTD number of 11K+ copies respectively; so it looks likely that Colors Ultimate will lowball that, since it has yet to get back on the charts.

I've also read how quite a few of the previous weeks in Japan have had either nothing but Nintendo releases (and even nothing but Nintendo Switch releases); stacking the top charts demonstrating a near-total collapse of sales of PlayStation games/SKUs in the region--and the PS4 version of Colors Ultimate failing to chart only re-affirms that mindset. So it looks like the Switch SKUs will have to do all the heavy lifting for sales of Origins, 2022/Rangers and any other future Sonic games for the time being.

---

1 hour ago, Zoomzeta said:

Anything on America?

The US doesn't provide weekly sales charts, just a monthly sales chart provided by NPD. Sonic has historically never gotten into the Top 10 for overall releases, and is lucky to even slide into the Top 20 of platform-specific releases; so I would not hold your breath. As for Europe, thanks to the delay of the physical releases to October 1st, we're only now going to see how it will perform on the charts.

And at least for the UK so far, some good news. GamesIndustry.biz just reported yesterday that Colors Ultimate rounded out the region's top three games sold in its debut week, behind FIFA 22 (#1) and MK8 DX (#2). The Switch version made up a little more than half of the sales at 53%, followed by the PS4 version at 32% and the XONE version at 15%.

[BadBehavior]

Can't wait for Sega to look at that and think "people will buy the worst version in droves, let's see how bad we can make Rangers and get away with it.". Not the 2000's nostalgic throwback I was hoping for.

[Red Hot Jack]

On 10/5/2021 at 12:04 AM, BadBehavior said:

Can't wait for Sega to look at that and think "people will buy the worst version in droves, let's see how bad we can make Rangers and get away with it.". Not the 2000's nostalgic throwback I was hoping for.

You mean "can't wait for fans to assume SEGA will do the worst possible thing after seeing Sonic sells a lot on Switch". That is more likely.

Anyways, I think this is good news personally, it obviously means people are interested in more remasters and remakes, and SEGA will hopefully capitalize on this desire by giving us more old games revisited, and I really hope they don't fuck up again but listen and plan better.

Unleashed I don't think will get a remaster though, it was badly received, I said this multiple times, it was a controversial game for the Werehog and its slow and repetitive gameplay, they would need to do a lot of rework to make it worth playing, and the game was already played by many because it was released for a lot of consoles, same for Generations, which was received well but I think people played it already and it's still recent, it doesn't really warrant a remaster for now.

For me, SA remakes would be more necessary, young folks haven't played those I think.

[VO.SUPER]

Spoiler

Rank	Last Month Rank	September 2021 Top 20 Games (Physical and Full Game Digital from the Nintendo eShop, PlayStation, STEAM and Xbox platforms for publishers in the Digital Leader Panel) ranked on dollar sales	Publisher
1	1	Madden NFL 22	Electronic Arts
2	NEW	FIFA 22	Electronic Arts
3	NEW	NBA 2K22*	Take 2 Interactive (Corp)
4	NEW	Tales of Arise	Bandai Namco Entertainment
5	NEW	Diablo II: Resurrected	Activision Blizzard (Corp)
6	NEW	Deathloop	Bethesda Softworks
7	3	Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War	Activision Blizzard (Corp)
8	2	Ghost of Tsushima	Sony (Corp)
9	5	Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales	Sony (Corp)
10	NEW	Life is Strange: True Colors	Square Enix Inc (Corp)
11	6	Mario Kart 8*	Nintendo
12	NEW	Diablo Prime Evil Collection	Activision Blizzard (Corp)
13	NEW	Sonic Colors: Ultimate	Sega
14	8	Minecraft	Multiple Video Game Manufacturers
15	NEW	WarioWare: Get It Together!*	Nintendo
16	9	Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla	Ubisoft
17	11	Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*	Nintendo
18	14	Animal Crossing: New Horizons*	Nintendo
19	12	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)	Activision Blizzard (Corp)
20	16	Mortal Kombat 11	Warner Bros. Interactive
		* Digital sales not included

So the NPD sales came in, with SCU at #13. Which is better than I expected, but worse than it should be.

[Blue Blood]

It's a sloppy port of a "yeah its alright" Wii Sonic game. I don't know how much better it "deserved" to do. 

[Red Hot Jack]

I am still on the side that thinks if a Sonic game underperforms it's bad news for the next releases, it means budget will decrease consistently, which along with an already sloppy quality makes for a dreadful mix.

[Wraith]

It's hard to gauge without numbers/what SEGA expected from the title, but it seems good to me. It even beat out a new title released that month.

More data stolen from Retro:
 

Quote

In addition, Colors Ultimate also rounded out the PlayStation Store's list of the Top 20 Most Downloaded PS4 Games in the US at #20 for last month (it didn't appear in the EU-adjacent chart); and landed 13th on a list of Europe's Top 15 most downloaded games on the Switch in September as well.

 

[Kuzu]

These honestly aren't bad numbers at all, they're mostly pretty high. Which is pretty good for a Sonic game that most mainstream media consider to actually be good, and one the less vocal parts of the fandom find to be decent at the very least. 

 

It's pretty easy to forget, but Sonic Colors IS legitimately one of the better games in the series even if it doesn't do much to set itself apart from it's predecessors and set an unfortunate precedent for the last ten years. But that that speaks more on how most of the main games in the series in general is filled with mediocre games. 

[Milo]

For anyone curious, here's a list of the NPD charts for Sonic games that I spent last night scrounging around; going back the past twenty years (no M&S/Sega crossover games included); and you can see how Colors Ultimate compares to NPD debuts for other titles.

Sonic Colors Ultimate - #13 (General Top 20, September 2021); #10 (Top 10 - Nintendo Switch, September 2021)
Team Sonic Racing - #19 (General Top 20, May 2019)
Sonic Forces - #7 (Top 10 - Nintendo Switch, November 2017)
Sonic Generations - #9 (Top 10 - Nintendo 3DS, February 2012)
Sonic Colors - #9 (Top 10 - Nintendo DS, January 2011)
Sonic and the Black Knight - #10 (Top 10 - Wii, March 2009); #13 (Top 20 - Wii, April 2009)
Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis - #8 (Top 10 - Game Boy Advance, January 2009)
Sonic Unleashed - #7 (Top 10 - PlayStation 2, December 2008)
Sonic and the Secret Rings - #13 (General Top 20 - February 2007), #4 (Top 10 - Wii, February 2007); #17 (General Top 20 - March 2007); #3 (Top 10 - Wii, March 2007); #7 (Top 10 - Wii, March 2007);
Sonic Rivals - #10 (Top 10 - PSP, December 2006)
Sonic Riders - #13 (General Top 20, March 2006), #1 (Top 10 - GameCube, March 2006); #1 (Top 10 - GameCube, April 2006); #6 (Top 10 - GameCube, May 2006)
Sonic Rush - #7 (Top 10 - Nintendo DS, December 2005); #9 (Top 10 - Nintendo DS, January 2006);
Shadow the Hedgehog - #5 (Top 10 - GameCube, November 2005); #3 (Top 10 - GameCube, December 2005); #8 (Top 10 - GameCube, January 2006) / #11 (Top 15 - Gamecube, 2005; 260K copies sold)
Sonic Gems Collection - #5 (Top 10 - Gamecube, August 2005); #3 (Top 10 - Gamecube, September 2005)
Sonic Advance 3 - #6 (Top 10 - GBA, June 2004); #8 (Top 10 - GBA, July 2004); #9 (Top 10 - GBA, August 2004)
Sonic Heroes - #6 (Top 10 - Gamecube, April 2004); #9 (Top 10 - Gamecube, May 2004) / #5 (Top 10 - First quarter of 2004, GameCube ver.)
Sonic Mega Collection - #4 (Top 10 - Gamecube, May 2004); #6 (Top 10 - Gamecube, June 2004); #6 (Top 10 - Gamecube, July 2004); #6 (Top 10 - Gamecube, August 2004); #7 (Top 10 - Gamecube, September 2004)

[BadBehavior]

Heh, even Sonic Forces outperformed Colors Ultimate. That is depressing.

[Wraith]

31 minutes ago, BadBehavior said:

Heh, even Sonic Forces outperformed Colors Ultimate. That is depressing.

Colors was able to make it on the general releases chart, so this probably isn't true.

[Shiny Gems]

Say, has the patch for the PS4 version come out yet? Just wondering.

[Rabbitearsblog]

Will Sonic ever perform well in Japan?

[Wraith]

12 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Will Sonic ever perform well in Japan?

They could turn it around if they made some changes, but the games do well enough in the US/EU for now so I don't think they will.