replayed using the Sonic Colors DX and Better Colors Materials mods, aside from a few hiccups it was pretty damn smooth, gonna be the way I tackle this game from now on

Retrospection hasn't been too kind to Sonic Colors, especially with the botched released of the Ultimate 'remaster', which is a bit of a shame since I still find it to be a pretty fun experience all things considered.

Now, I definitely have my share of criticisms about the Happy Tree Friends' writing during this era of Sonic games, but I'll defend Colors a bit by saying the massive step back to a simplistic plot structure and setup was a necessary evil. Between Unleashed's Werehog and Gaia stuff, as well as the Storybook duology, I don't exactly blame the people at Sonic Team for taking all the complaints about how all over the place the blue blur was at the time, to try and focus on something more concise. Now granted, I do like Unleashed and especially Black Knight's writing and consider it far superior to this game (and well, any game AFTER those two's release), but we're talking about back then, not in the now where the opinions have shifted.

That said, writing is still pretty bleh. Admittedly Sonic and Tails don't act too out of character this time - though there's still some moments where my eyebrows raised up, such as Sonic just, being weirdly rude to the villains (like yes he has an attitude, but it's a more playful type, in this game he can come across as an asshole sometimes), as well as an obnoxious reuse of jokes and one-liners. I actually do enjoy Orbot and Cubot and thought they were a pretty good fit for the overall large roster, but their routine here made my eyes roll pretty hard a couple times. I get Sonic is, a franchise geared towards kids, and judging it as a 23-year-old is Looking Too Deep, but I dunno I can only see the very young ones getting anything out of the humor, it's rather C-Tier Saturday Morning stuff.

Eh still, this is a Generations case where I'm wiling to accept the mediocre writing cause the actual game part's fun, though not to the same intensity as given the score. Getting the elephant out of the room now, this has a skewered balance of 2D stages, to the point I'm even willing to say Forces had a better management of this as far as layout is concerned. Granted, I found a good chunk of them to be pretty fun, but there's a select few that're just awful pacebreakers. Starlight Carnival is particularly bad about this, only two whole stages actually plays with the idea of using the 3D element, the rest is just trite block-based platforming, or really dumb gimmicks like an autoscroller where you have to use a spring to get from one area to the next - this one you do multiple times across the different worlds, unfortunately. Half of Asteroid Coaster also suffers from this, hell one of the stages there is just a setpiece you did a couple times beforehand. And if it isn't platforming, there's sections where you just have to wait for things to unlock or have shifted around just to progress, which gets a fair bit annoying. Legit, and this is something I'm majorly disappointed the aforementioned remaster didn't try and do, some of these stages should've been after the world's boss fight, they'd fit more within the spectrum of special, optional mission stages, especially considering 6 Acts + Boss is uh, rather excessive despite the stages being so short.

On the note of bosses... jesus I forgot how much of a pushover these were. Like, we're talking "Egg Drillster" level of pushovers. Doesn't help they reuse the same design philosophy for each one twice and not be any harder than before. I don't even have much else to say with one exception I'll say near the end, as well as wondering why this era of Sonic containing such pitiful bosses.

I know that was a good amount of negatives to list off and probably makes it sound like I find this middling, or even just barely decent, and not at all a good game like my score indicates, but Sonic Colors is a game I genuinely enjoy playing despite the dumb shit it contains. There were numerous points my Sonic Game Itch of "I want to grind this particular level out to get a fantastic score out of it" was getting activated numerous times. Plus, even with this being more of a 2D game than a 3D one, Planet Wisp and Aquarium Park contained some of my favorite moments in a Sonic game period, and I get a good kick out of Tropical Resort, and Sweet Mountain. Not to mention, of the 3D Sonic games I've replayed so far, this has that "kinetic flow" I talked about in spades, Sonic - in both planes of dimensions - feels pretty damn good to control, making it easy to chain homing attacks, boost launches, rail grinds, and anything else to a T. I feel like how the wisps are unlocked definitely harm some of the experience for casual playthroughs, cause if you take the time to go back and use each new powerup available, the stages and overall flow of them becomes more open to varying degrees. Speaking of, I still really like how they're implemented here. A majority of them never break up the sense of progression and pathing, and instead give you a new tool to use to do some Sick Shit as much as possible, special mention going to Laser, Drill, and Spikes, as awkward as the latter is to handle. Even the ones that do tend to be slower by design, such as Hover and Cube, at least can be mitigated to keep the action going (Hover having what's essentially a Light Speed Dash from before, and Cube being able to activate quickly when on the ground).

Not to mention, to this day, it looks incredible. I know I listed a disclaimer saying I used an HD overhaul mod, but even then it's not hard to see how the team behind this poured out as much as they possibly could with the Wii's hardware specs. I already mentioned my grievances with Starlight Carnival, but the spectacles it contains are almost enough to make its dumb 2D sections worth it... almost. Asteroid Coaster does get salvaged by this though. Coupling this with one of the best scores in the franchise's history, and it's easy for me to get soaked in with all the ongoings and sheer scale this has to offer.

The biggest thing that really affirmed my liking of the game, was the final boss. I dunno if I'd call it a top 10 favorite in the franchise, but it's definitely up there. It's not hard, but the scale and presentation of it, the way the music kicks you into gear, Final Color Blaster - which the JP version promptly transforms into a Kamen Rider W reference - it's an easy way for me to get into Hype Mode all the same. I don't even have that much nostalgia for Sonic Colors, for those wondering. I mean, I did play and beat it before when it came out, but I traded it at some point in middle school with a classmate for a copy of Super Mario Galaxy since I lost my own, so the Wii Sonic game that I have the biggest case of rose-tint shades for is the aforementioned Black Knight. Despite replaying some stages two years ago, this is my first time in a long while I actually got to finish it in its entirely, and yea... after all these years, it's about as good as I can remember it being, despite the hiccups. Just wish the remaster was launched in a better condition.