Sonic Colo(u)rs Impressions, Help, and Discussion Topic

[canderson]

Question, HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU HOLD THE LAZER? MINE JUST WANTS TO SHOOT OUT IN 1 SECOND! BUT I SEEN PEOPLE HOLD THE LAZER TO AIM FOR SEVERAL SECONDS.

Its driving me INSANE!! :wacko:

When your controller is in the neutral position, it fires off almost immediately after you activate it. As long as you tilt the control stick in any direction, and don't let go, you can, pretty much, hold the lazer until the meter runs out.

[Aries]

When your controller is in the neutral position, it fires off almost immediately after you activate it. As long as you tilt the control stick in any direction, and don't let go, you can, pretty much, hold the lazer until the meter runs out.

Well thats annoying, thanks for letting me know guys.

Edited November 22, 2010 by Aries

[Aquaslash]

Yeah, I'd guess that's the main hurdle between what we got and a good implementation, but I don't believe it's an insurmountable one, or even an especially difficult one. They don't need to stack, first off; just switch, from Super Sonic to whatever wisp is in storage, then back when the wisp runs out. The wisp powers wouldn't inherit Super Sonic's powers (though there's no pressing need for them to do so, either), and more importantly Cube would probably need some extra modification (since you turn back into Sonic while it's still active), but here's step 2: make a copy of the code for the wisp transformations and tweak them to be "super". If Sonic is normal, use the original version, if he's Super, use the Super version. That way they can make them invincible and faster or stronger or whatever.

And sure, this is more work than what they ended up doing and time constraints etc etc, but this is something they should've foresaw early on and planned for.

[Phos]

DistantJ.

I would like to point out that Unleashed also used "little floating bricks" Except they were larger and used less frequently due to the prevalence long straightaways and drifting sections.

So basically your main problem is that Colours used too many random floating platforms instead of pasting a different skin over the top to make it look different.

It makes no difference really; whether the platforms are "little floating bricks" or anything else, as they effectively do the same thing, but with a different texture slapped on it.

[Carbo]

I don't think anyone complaining about all the little rectangles is looking for Sega to just slap a tomato texture or whatever on them. Personally, I'm wishing for more complex shapes and interactive bits (things that do things when you do things to them), and make sure that the layout of these bits doesn't force the player to tip toe around most of the time. I just game Ice Cap Zone a quick play though and was once again struck by how many unique objects there are in that level. The omnidirectional spikes, the little carriage shaped things that you spin dash into to go up, the falling icicles that you subsequently use as platforms, the freezing jets, and the stacks of Ice blocks that you can break and then use as platforms (which fall in a really comical manner). Even with all this stuff, it still doesn't feel like I have to tip toe around for fear of screwing something up.

Even more than 15 years after it came out, Sonic 3K still feels the most modern and fluent game in the franchise.

I'm fairly sure this is something most of everyone who has played Colors can agree on, but in either case no game since Advance 2 has been exempt from the problem of making unintuitive level designs. Rush comes as a case in point here, the levels feel like they're designed from someone who just got hold of an iffy physics engine in Multimedia Fusion. Its just one long trail with no fun things to go through. Unleashed sort of masks that up through various points. On the other hand, Colors has a much more fleshed out and proper design but misses Unleashed's ability of for the most of the part, hiding what flaws there are.

This is definitely just my opinion I'm stating here, but Colors feels like it does much more to the level design than any other modern-Sonic game has ever done up until this point. Although I admit, considering the recent track record we've had, thats not saying that much.

Edited November 22, 2010 by Carbo

[Phos]

It never really felt more fleshed out to me. There was just a bunch of crap in the way that I didn't want to deal with with controls that weren't particularly good at anything.

[DistantJ]

It's nice to see people are ready to start criticising aspects of the game now. What people don't get is that I LIKE Sonic Colours, I just didn't LOVE it. It wasn't what I had hoped for. However I think more people have a similar view to me than it appeared at first, just that they didn't express it in the same way as me. For me, the simple truth is, if you took all of Unleashed's daytime levels and removed everything else, the result would be a game I would love far, far, FAR more than Colours (and since I've beaten Unleashed and can play only the levels I want to, that's kinda how the game is for me now anyway).

All the people saying Unleashed's levels were just running forward really need to go back and replay that game beyond just Apotos. I'm not denying Unleashed could benefit from more platforming, but that doesn't mean there isn't any in the game, there's still quite a lot of it, and in Unleashed, the platforms are varied in size, shape, style and motif, and they're all big enough to land on without panicking.

I don't think anyone complaining about all the little rectangles is looking for Sega to just slap a tomato texture or whatever on them. Personally, I'm wishing for more complex shapes and interactive bits (things that do things when you do things to them), and make sure that the layout of these bits doesn't force the player to tip toe around most of the time. I just game Ice Cap Zone a quick play though and was once again struck by how many unique objects there are in that level. The omnidirectional spikes, the little carriage shaped things that you spin dash into to go up, the falling icicles that you subsequently use as platforms, the freezing jets, and the stacks of Ice blocks that you can break and then use as platforms (which fall in a really comical manner). Even with all this stuff, it still doesn't feel like I have to tip toe around for fear of screwing something up.

Even more than 15 years after it came out, Sonic 3K still feels the most modern and fluent game in the franchise.

Edited November 22, 2010 by DistantJ

[JezMM]

So hey guys I made another video talking more in-depth with examples of exactly why and what I liked about Unleashed over Colours.

I WAS gonna post it here but it'd be weird to spawn two different conversations from it so I'll just... nudge you over to the "So now you've played Colours... how does Unleashed hold up to it?" topic.

(And for what it's worth I'd have even been okay with slapping a tomato texture on the rectangles. 8( Would have showed they care a bit more about keeping it engaging).

Edited November 22, 2010 by JezMM

[Kuzu]

It's nice to see people are ready to start criticising aspects of the game now. What people don't get is that I LIKE Sonic Colours, I just didn't LOVE it. It wasn't what I had hoped for. However I think more people have a similar view to me than it appeared at first, just that they didn't express it in the same way as me. For me, the simple truth is, if you took all of Unleashed's daytime levels and removed everything else, the result would be a game I would love far, far, FAR more than Colours (and since I've beaten Unleashed and can play only the levels I want to, that's kinda how the game is for me now anyway).

All the people saying Unleashed's levels were just running forward really need to go back and replay that game beyond just Apotos. I'm not denying Unleashed could benefit from more platforming, but that doesn't mean there isn't any in the game, there's still quite a lot of it, and in Unleashed, the platforms are varied in size, shape, style and motif, and they're all big enough to land on without panicking.

Well this is coming from a guy who hasn't played HD unleashed, but keep in mind your biggest problem with the game, the controls stems from the fact that Unleashed is on the 360, a controller with a lot more control options than Colors, hence why it may feel like a better game, but that doesn't mean it was developed better. It may have been a different team who made the game, but I'm pretty sure more effort went into making Colors than Unleashed, Colors doesn't have the framrate hiccups Unleashed had. I mean, I know Colors` platforming is nothing to ring home about, but they too obviously felt "Hey we gotta put some platforming in this game, we can't just make it running all the time". I mean think about how much worse HD Unleashed would control if it had the same control scheme Colors had.

I know you didn't like Colors, but I don't wanna feel like it was a step down from Unleashed.

[speedduelist]

All the people saying Unleashed's levels were just running forward really need to go back and replay that game beyond just Apotos.

[azoo]

It's nice to see people are ready to start criticising aspects of the game now. What people don't get is that I LIKE Sonic Colours, I just didn't LOVE it. It wasn't what I had hoped for. However I think more people have a similar view to me than it appeared at first, just that they didn't express it in the same way as me.

^This. Don't get me wrong here. I really like Sonic Colors. Just not too fond of the sudden lack of control I'm getting in 3D areas, and the addition of floating blocks isn't exactly what I meant by "platforming".

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=RghR4ShliIQ

no platforming.

stage is pure running.

Yes, that's all pure running; but after the player has learned how to react to every section of the layout, so now they can tamper with the gameplay to speedrun the stages.

*Shamar - Arid Sands Act 1*

1:23 platforming.

1:32 back to on rails game play

2:09 platforming.

2:16 back to on rails game play

2:49 platforming

2:53 back to on rails game play

after calculation (about this stage) : 29 seconds platforming,

3:40 Minutes on rails game play.

Wait what. The specific areas you pointed out as "on-rails" were NOT pushing you forward and you had free movement (besides the areas with the dashpads and rainbow hoops, but Colors has that too so don't even start); its just that the player knew the layout and was blasting and steering through the stage. May I ask, have you even played Unleashed?

Granted, the stages in SU360 are still too linear for my tastes and they do push you forward too much, but to say it's 90% on-rails in the 3D areas is a blatant lie. The only times it does that is during enemy/boss chase sequences, and you still sort of have control over your top speed and your steering in those areas.

[JezMM]

Shamar and Apotos are terrible example stages anyway. They're probably the most runny stages.

Mazuri, Holoska, Spagonia, Chun-Nan, Empire City, Adabat and Eggmanland all have a ton more platforming, and 50% of that selection has 3D platforming sections too.

[ChikaBoing]

Personnaly I woudn't necessarily want the Artstyle in Colours to continue. Most of the Levels have a carnival-kiddy sort of feel to them,or just are too surreal and cluttered, in that they clash multiple themes into one World, instead of taking one distinct theme/pattern of colours and Sonic-Styled it. I enjyoed Unleashed's Enviorments more. They remind me alot more more of the Classic and Adventure games in that it uses an specific color palette and managed to create Unique areas(Mazuri,Spagonia). I like Colours Worlds(except Sweet Mountain,I think they were running out on Ideas there) alot still but Unleashd's Levels made me alot more excited when they were revealed.

Edited November 22, 2010 by ChikaBoing

[Kuzu]

Personnaly I woudn't necessarily want the Artstyle in Colours to continue. Most of the Levels have a carnival-kiddy sort of feel to them,or just are too surreal and cluttered, in that they clash multiple themes into one World, instead of taking one distinct theme/pattern of colours and Sonic-Styled it. I enjyoed Unleashed's Enviorments more. They remind me alot more more of the Classic and Adventure games in that it uses an specific color palette and managed to create Unique areas(Mazuri,Spagonia). I like Colours Worlds(except Sweet Mountain,I think they were running out on Ideas there) alot still but Unleashd's Levels made me alot more excited when they were revealed.

I dunno, I like the more sureal level designs as opposed to a more realistic style, I mean I love seeing Sonic run across the Brooklyn Bridge and all, but I feel drilling through sweets is far more entertaining.

[JezMM]

I dunno. Sonic Colours' levels are colourful but they definetly each have a distinctive palette to me.

Tropical Resort is Oranges, Reds, Browns, with greens and a space background.

Sweet Mountain is Orange and Pink, with bits of white too.

Starlight Carnival is all sorts of colours, but I mostly think of it as dark blue.

Planet Wisp is mostly red and white, with a green and blue background.

Aquatic Park is Blue with bits of red.

Asteroid Coaster is Brown and Neon-Green.

Terminal Velocity is White.

There are certainly very cluttered backgrounds, but only a handful of moments I found particularly distracting from the foreground.

Oh, but I agree that I personally find it more thrilling to see familiar envioronments in a new perspective (i.e. a european city that feels familiar to me from the perspective of being traversed high and low at super speed), so Unleashed's design was awesome.

Edited November 22, 2010 by JezMM

[Carbo]

Wait what. The specific areas you pointed out as "on-rails" were NOT pushing you forward and you had free movement (besides the areas with the dashpads and rainbow hoops, but Colors has that too so don't even start); its just that the player knew the layout and was blasting and steering through the stage. May I ask, have you even played Unleashed?

Granted, the stages in SU360 are still too linear for my tastes and they do push you forward too much, but to say it's 90% on-rails in the 3D areas is a blatant lie. The only times it does that is during enemy/boss chase sequences, and you still sort of have control over your top speed and your steering in those areas.

Remember when the first Spagonia trailer of Unleashed was released and no one still knew how it controled? A good amount of people assumed the game was on-rails. Half of the game might as well have been on-rails, and probably would have worked the same considering how the levels were built.

I'm fairly sure that's what he's implying. The Unleashed stages aren't any less automated than Colors'. They're only used alot more frequently to give them enough things to work with.

Shamar and Apotos are terrible example stages anyway. They're probably the most runny stages.

Mazuri, Holoska, Spagonia, Chun-Nan, Empire City, Adabat and Eggmanland all have a ton more platforming, and 50% of that selection has 3D platforming sections too.

While Unleashed does get more varied once it reaches Adabat, it, much like Colors, does so only in favor to enforce its stereotype. Empire City, Adabat and Eggmanland have some pretty damn notorious moments a bundleload of people went on to classify as cheap and terribly unforgiving. In a sense Unleashed is already unforgiving from the start but that has more or less to do with the idea of the game not rewarding your efforts but instead going on a backwards notion of your results being based for the most of the part on how fast you got through your level. When it comes to all the levels come Empire City though, they really start cutting the bullshit in the game's own perception of challenge. I never minded its layouts, QTEs and unforgiving design, in fact I found it grand fun because what people concieve as trial and error is something I love conquering, and I can also see why people would find its design fun to play due to the thrill factor Unleashed has (Colors has a thrill factor to, but as you said in your video in the other topic, it's not nearly percieved as often as in Unleashed) , but its not really a design choice that I preffer or find incredibly appealing to me looking back at it in retrospect.

I'm not going to say that Colors is exempt from that problem. The levels do get alot more "platforms" as it progresses, no lie about that, and the design does leave alot of room for improvement, especially the 3D sections. What I will say though is that as far as Unleashed goes it never reaches a balance on what it wants to do apart from Mazuri and Shamar, maybe possibly Holoska. In the beginning of the game most of it is easy straight-forward lane, in the later levels it switches back and forth with what it tries to do and gets confusing.

As for the whole talk about stage themes, I need to give points to Unleashed for that because it had a fun twist to real world locations, but the way I see it, its something that I think I'd only like to see that once from Sega. It was a fun one-time concept which worked great but it doesn't leave that much room to the future for some of the twistingly fun theme designs that was in Heroes (this is the only positive point I will ever bring up for that game) and Colors.

Edited November 22, 2010 by Carbo

[Blue Blood]

I'd like a to see the levels have some more patterns, like the striped cakes in the background of SM or the Palmtree Panic-motif soil in TR. There wasn't enough of that in the game, and maybe they could add some more scenery up close to Sonic rather than have it ALL in the background, but really I like the style. The style used in AllStars Racing/Heroes is better but this one works too. It works really well. Kinda like how Unleashed's art style was brilliant even if everywhere was realistic- Sonic never looked out of place.

I think that was Colours really excels in artistically is varying the scenery in just one area. In AC you go from an asteroid belt, to a cave with this neon-green water to what looks like a secret base. That's absolutely fantastic. The locations don't get boring. Even in SM you end up in an over-sized, industrial bakery. It's great.

Edited November 22, 2010 by Blue Blood

[JezMM]

Yeah I certainly agreed that there's no going back from surreal levels here on out. Doing Unleashed again would basically be using all the countries they didn't use before... which are basically... the less interesting ones, lol. Only unique theme I can personally think of would be some english countryside, but Black Knight kinda had that one covered.

Aquatic Park though... yeah, great design indeed. It takes a little bit of the familiar (the ancient Japanese housing style) and wraps it up in surreal (the awe-inspiring dome and by plonking half the buildings deep under water).

More of that would be great. Mixing together Techno and Ruins was another good example in Sonic Adventure 2's desert stages actually.

[Tiller]

Another knock to the 3D sections, but it's as if they were afraid to even attempt them because "3D SONIK IS BAD GAIZE." They're scarce, bland, and straight. Only a few reallly shine.

It's not that they're all mostly straightaways, but there aren't even branching paths or split paths to take. You'd think they'd throw in something easy like but even a little bit of diversity like that. Unleashed handled this a little better, but not much better.

Also played through Aquatic Park act 6 3 times, and found different routes every time. It's my favorite act in the game.

Edited November 22, 2010 by Tiller

[Octarine]

While I far prefer Colours' surreal levels to Unleashed's real world-inspired levels, a compromise would be ideal to me. Adventure 2 wasn't a terrible example of that: it managed to mix a modern city and some fairly generic forest and badlands areas with Halloween-themed mountains and Eggman-ized Egyptian ruins. It leaned a little too heavily on the side of realism for me, but I still loved being able to see both types of aesthetic in a single game. I hope we get some more of that in the future.

[Blue Blood]

While I far prefer Colours' surreal levels to Unleashed's real world-inspired levels, a compromise would be ideal to me. Adventure 2 wasn't a terrible example of that: it managed to mix a modern city and some fairly generic forest and badlands areas with Halloween-themed mountains and Eggman-ized Egyptian ruins. It leaned a little too heavily on the side of realism for me, but I still loved being able to see both types of aesthetic in a single game. I hope we get some more of that in the future.

I'll let Colours slide for being so far out there being as it's all set in a space amusement park, but you're kind of right. ShTH for all that it did wrong actually handled environments kind of well. The cities and bases were realistic with an cartoony flare (I can't pinpoint it) and there were still some creative and interesting environments. Heroes style is better though. But still, the art style of Colours really worked and captured the essence of Sonic. Asteroid Coaster and Tropical Resort most of all.

Edited November 22, 2010 by Blue Blood

[ChikaBoing]

Kinda like how Unleashed's art style was brilliant even if everywhere was realistic- Sonic never looked out of place.

Personnally I think Sonic looked a bit more out of place in Colours than in Unleashed. I mean I get still some kind of a Sonic Team kind of vibe, as if you could fit Nights or Ristar in some levels,and it would fit. But I found Unleashed's and Heroes/Allstars Style where something that only Sonic would fit in the best . Most of the old games had Sonic replications of typical locations..at least 3&K anyway.

This Area,without the Red-White constructions and the purple poison areas, is something what I want out of a original Sonic Level.

[Scar]

So from what I can gather we can all pretty much agree that we want to be able to run on everything we see, instead of just having a floating track placed upon a beautiful backdrop.

Yeah I can definately agree with this. It would be awesome and really fun to play.

There is however a problem with this.

Levels would have to be fucking huge. Seriously, they'd need to be massive on a scale we've never seen before.

This is where we'd probably encounter many memory limitations. The game would most probably need to be on multiple disks just to be a worthwhile length. This isn't an issue on the the 360 because you can install to hard drive and non-existant on PS3 because of Blu-ray's massive Memory capacity, but the Wii would struggle to be able to cope with such huge levels.

If someone could correct me on this, I would appreciate it.

[JezMM]

So from what I can gather we can all pretty much agree that we want to be able to run on everything we see, instead of just having a floating track placed upon a beautiful backdrop.

Yeah I can definately agree with this. It would be awesome and really fun to play.

There is however a problem with this.

Levels would have to be fucking huge. Seriously, they'd need to be massive on a scale we've never seen before.

This is where we'd probably encounter many memory limitations. The game would most probably need to be on multiple disks just to be a worthwhile length. This isn't an issue on the the 360 because you can install to hard drive and non-existant on PS3 because of Blu-ray's massive Memory capacity, but the Wii would struggle to be able to cope with such huge levels.

If someone could correct me on this, I would appreciate it.

Every Sonic platformer up to this point had no trouble with it really. 8(

Honestly I'd even be happy with SA1/2006 style incremental level loading pauses if it meant for funner stages (though obviously only if they're quick loads - 5 seconds tops).

[DistantJ]

Wait what. The specific areas you pointed out as "on-rails" were NOT pushing you forward and you had free movement (besides the areas with the dashpads and rainbow hoops, but Colors has that too so don't even start); its just that the player knew the layout and was blasting and steering through the stage. May I ask, have you even played Unleashed?

Take speedduelist's video posting with a pinch of salt, he's never played Unleashed HD, just has watched videos of it, so he can't be sure what the player is in control of and what is on rails - similarly to how a lot of the automated parts in Colours looked playable in the preview vids.

While I far prefer Colours' surreal levels to Unleashed's real world-inspired levels, a compromise would be ideal to me. Adventure 2 wasn't a terrible example of that: it managed to mix a modern city and some fairly generic forest and badlands areas with Halloween-themed mountains and Eggman-ized Egyptian ruins. It leaned a little too heavily on the side of realism for me, but I still loved being able to see both types of aesthetic in a single game. I hope we get some more of that in the future.

I think I agree - I like to start with the crazy patterned bright colourful stuff and then move in the direction of your standard quasi-realistic ice/lava/desert worlds and finally to epic Eggmanland world, and shove a crazy, seizure-inducing casino level somewhere in the middle (seriously, the Sonic & SEGA All Stars Racing take on Casino Park was just amazing to look at!).