at its core its still DQ8, a fantastic game, but it has too many problems to ignore. some of it, i can barely blame on the game itself but rather the system its on, others... are just baffling. the graphics are the most notable part. the lower resolution and things getting downscaled, i can deal with that, what i can't deal is the absolutely bizarre choice to mess with the colors, making certain things much darker, and most other things much brighter. you can't explore the overworld without being blinded by the eye-searing grass, it actually legitimately hurts my eyes to look at. random battles were also removed, which on paper sounds fine, and it might make backtracking easier, but the game was designed for the random battles so if you decide to start skipping battles, you could more likely than not enter an area or boss that you aren't prepared for. the framerate is also chopped in half, which seems to affect your movement speed when walking, which was already slow, and overall it just feels... clunkier? idk how to describe it, but its more jank and maybe floatier. i booted up citra and pcsx2 at the same time to compare the controls, and without a doubt the movement is much more jank, and with the UI is also a bit of a mess. its uglier and more cumbersome to get through and use, and just feels very basic and barebones, it lacks any of the charm of the original
im sure there are some qol changes, and im sure the added content is cool. i aint playin the worst version of the game to experience it. if you don't wanna spend too much on a copy, the ps2 version emulates just fine and still looks gorgeous. frankly the ps2 version of dq8 is one of the best looking games ive seen imo, even to this day, i can't imagine missing out on that to play this gimped version

its whatever
its not bad, but it does feel like it was very rushed. level design could be a lot better, bosses suck, classic sonic has jank physics, graphics are something a psp launch title would laugh at, there's not many stages, the special stages are given to you for free and replayable like any other stage, classic sonic having the homing attack is weird and is one of the most jank and unreliable homing attacks in the series, and even the picks for the levels could have been better. its not a terrible game, but its just... there...

after so many mixed quality dimps games on gba and ds, i honestly didnt expect anything special out of sonic colors for ds. i was kind of worried about playing it because, well.. its a handheld version of a console game, and i was worried dimps would just make something cheap and rushed, no pun intended. what i got, might just be one of the best 2d sonic games, hell maybe even one of the best sonic games, period. i love the wii version, its a great game, but colors ds knocks it out of the park. this is the rush formula refined to its peak. no more style system, which felt weird at first and fucked me up a couple times but i got used to it. replacing it is an air-dash/homing attack tied to the jump button. now, air dash was in other dimps games, but it feels so much more natural just tied to the boost button. to compensate, you can get boost wisps throughout the level, and they're pretty common, and also enemies were made more common, but to the point that theyre everywhere. the level design is usually pretty well thought out. its very layered, with multiple paths, and in typical sonic fashion, higher = more skill and faster, lower = easier and slower, but with all the wisps, theres a new layer of depth on top of it all, levels feel like a linear maze where you know exactly where you are and where to go, if that makes sense, and the levels are big, but with a couple of exceptions, they aren't padded. an average level will take almost 5 minutes to complete, but most the time they just feel perfectly paced, and when there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it jump to an upper path, its like you can anticipate where it is and when it'll happen. the wisps themselves are used rather sparingly outside of a couple levels (aside from boost), and when they are used, its usually in a pretty okay spot, and most of em play fine. first one you get is basically a charge jump you can keep doing till the time runs out, theres rocket which just gets you higher then stops, then you got drill, which... okay that sucks, the controls are ass and you keep bumping into things, it just doesnt feel right, and the last wisp is one that just eats everything as you move across the screen. its weird to control, but neat. most of them dont really break the flow of gameplay. the exceptions being void and drill. void is slow but seeing everything get wrecked is at least cool, and they try to do stuff with the level design so youre not just eating things in a straight line (though there could be less insta-kill pits), the only real stinker is drill, and sadly planet wisp, the planet that introduces the wisp, is full of drill zones, which makes getting through the levels a pain, its easily the worst planet in the game. the bosses in this game are pretty good though. they're nowhere near as grindy as they were in the boost games, and they can get pretty creative, particularly the first final boss. the true final boss however is pretty lame and doesnt pose much of a challenge, but how often are super sonic final bosses fun, especially in dimps games. the optional missions of rush adventure are back too, and this time they're actually good oh my god. they have cutscenes for them with returning characters, they provide actually new objectives, there arent a fucking hundred of them, instead its just 3 per zone and they give you actual rewards, well kind of. also returning are special stages, but this time you just get the option to enter them automatically when you beat a level, and i think you have to be holding 50 rings too, idk. these special stages are okay, but they're kind of like an inbetween of rush's special stages and hero's, which is fine, but they're also just too easy, and the final emerald is a pain to get because of how cryptic it is. win a versus mode match against an ai while holding 50 or more rings in the game land. figuring that out was annoying. this game also adds red star rings, which i always did like in sonic games, it adds replayability to levels and allows you to learn the layouts just from the hunt. the optional missions also have their own red star rings. only 2 per mission, but i kinda don't like that they're in those stages at all.
overall, this game is some of dimps best work and they've really mastered the boost formula with this game. it may not be perfect but damn if it aint fun as fuck

this game is a mess. as with most sonic games, especially the handheld ones, it's a good game deep down, but chained to its bullshit.
at its core, its still sonic rush, and that should be fine, the levels are solid and at times are even better than the first, though overall less memorable. the bosses can be fun, though some do get annoying due to just going on for way WAY too long (the first had a similar problem, but it's even worse in this game, at least if you play on normal). and that should be that, right? good stages, good controls, (mostly) good bosses, good music. so it's good, right?
well... that's when you get to actually play the levels. let me do a rundown for you. first off, the game loves to pause for its story every ten seconds, and while i dont mind usually, the cutscenes drag. skipping is an option, but i prefer to see things through. i don't think the game shouldn't have a story, it just had a problem where it popped up too frequently and dragged too long. this is sonic, not persona. (insert fursona joke)
but that's not really the only problem of course, and certainly not the biggest.
so, after you get through the zones, beat the boss, skim the dialogue, you then have to get to another island. this is where the problems begin.
see, to get to an island, you need a vehicle to get there. to get the vehicle, you need materials to build it. to get the materials, you must replay levels. better the rank you get at the end, the more materials you get. this game has crafting and grinding. now, if you A or S ranked everything your first go at these levels, you might have enough materials for your first vehicle, the jet ski. but lets face it, you probable got all Bs and/or Cs, maybe an A if you're lucky. so back to the farming mines for you, grind monkey! okay, you got your jet ski, now you gotta do a minigame to the next island, it's this game's equivalent to special stages. because there are no special stages in this game, which probably begs the question; what about the chaos emeralds? well, you gotta race a character named johnny for that, he's the antagonists right hand man basically, but he's introduced before you're even introduced to the antagonist. all he's really there for is to race for chaos emeralds, but finding him can be a bitch. they practically give you the first emerald, but the other ones you need to find yourself by exploring the map and just making a blind path until you find either johnny or a hidden island. but you're not gonna do most of that on your jet ski. that thing can barely take you anywhere, no to explore more, you're gonna need a boat, or a hovercraft, or even a submarine, each with their own minigames you have to go through every time you use them. none of them are fun. you have to craft all of them by grinding more materials when the story prompts you to. they also all have 2 upgrades that you have to do one by one, and you can't choose which to upgrade. the only upgrade that really matters are the jet skis, because some of johnny's races are literally impossible until fully upgraded, which is very annoying, especially when you have to upgrade 3 other less important vehicles to get to the jet skis second upgrade. blaze is also in the game, and she has to get sol emeralds. to get the sol emeralds, you first need to find certain hidden islands, complete the level, talk to an NPC, go to marine and then you need to complete the same level again, with no difference, so the second time is just poinless filler. this brings me to the next issue with the game, and just how poorly it's paced. there are 100 optional missions, and most of them either have you going through a level you've already done, or a boss you've already beat. sometimes there's an objective, like collect 100 rings, or get to the end before time runs out, but sometimes it won't even have that. sometimes it will literally just be "heres the same level or boss again with nothing different about it", which gets especially annoying when they force you to do the seven minute final boss again for a sol emerald. the missions that don't give sol emeralds are pretty much pointless though, as they don't even give materials. most missions give music, so i guess theres that. some missions will make the island look nicer. some missions will unlock a cutscene for you to rewatch. marine's missions give "medals" which seem to just not have a purpose at all, other than "you can look at it". most of them are optional, but they really could have more of an incentive to do them, like if they gave a couple random materials each time you completed one or something, since for whatever reason you don't get materials from these missions, and can only get them from actually replaying stages. it just bloats the game up so much. when you're not doing the ocean stages, you're replaying levels with no variety just so you could craft more/better vehicles, just so you can do more ocean stages. rise and grind, gamer.
so you've gone through all the zones, beaten the final boss, watched the credits, got all the emeralds and its time for the true final boss as super sonic and burning blaze. how is it? it's okay. one of the better super sonic final bosses i guess, they've never been a strong point for the games, as the balance always feels out of whack. either too easy or too hard. all things considered, this one does get the balancing kind of right. vertical bullet hell was an odd choice for a final battle though. the real problem though, and this somehow even more of an issue than it was even in the first game, is the screen gap. the rush games account for the screen gap in the bulky original ds by just having dead space where you can't see anything, and that is legit a problem in some boss fights, particularly in another vertical focused fight agains whisker and johnny where there's just an entire blind spot you can get stuck around, its very poorly thought out.
it's a legit shame too, because i feel like this game does have its minor improvements in gameplay and overall level design are a step up from the first game. these levels, for as much as you are forced to replay them a dozen times over, may not be as memorable as the first game's, but they do feel better to get through if that makes sense. the bosses are hit or miss, but they're not bad. had this game been level-to-level, like the first, i could maybe see it being better. but the quality is hidden behind so much bullshit that i don't even know if i can recommend it. it feels like 70% of this game is just either ocean stages or replaying levels you've done before, which ironically kills any replay value this game might have had. it's not the worst handheld sonic game, but you can do a helluva lot better.

I'm not one to beg for remakes (in fact, i'm usually against them), but if i could choose to have one game remade, it would very likely be sonic rush, as i like this game quite a bit. good levels, good controls, good music, good bosses, good special stages, etc, all culminating in what should be the best 2d sonic game... but it's not quite there, and i partially blame the ds. for a game like this, the ds's screen makes it feel very cramped, like you can barely see whats ahead, and the utilization of both screens is interesting but flawed. the game accommodates for the bulky original ds's screen gap by just having this distracting invisible gap. i remember it not being that bad on ds, but its super noticeable and distracting when emulated. that coupled with being a very "portrait view" sidescroller on such a cramped screen make this a tad more unpleasant to play than need be. that being said the level design is at least good despite the cramped screen. not quite the auto scroller of advanced 2, but it can still feel very "boost to win" from time to time. the special stages kinda suck when emulated, but i can't fault the game for that. i've played on an actual ds before, it legit does feel good to play on the actual system, and theyre some of the best special stages in the series. the real crux of the game is its bosses. they start out pretty good, simple bosses, even impressive for the system with cool lookin designs, but quickly wear out their welcome with a much larger hp pool than necessary and the occasional frame perfect precision you'll need to even hit some of them, which just felt out of place and unnecessary. and the bosses just love doing their attacks where their vulnerability isn't exposed by the end of it. it just pads the bosses out for much longer than necessary, and well long enough to get on your nerves. bosses should not be longer than actual levels in the game.
it wasn't until after i beat sonics campaign with all emeralds that i noticed there was an easy mode in the options menu. far as i can tell, all it does is remove a small chunk each bosses health and makes their patterns less erratic and might also increase their vulnerability period, which is about all i wanted from the bosses. it seems less like an easy mode and more like the actually balanced mode. dont think it does anything for the levels themselves though, oddly. maybe it makes special stages easier or something idk. as of writing this, i've only beaten the game as sonic on normal, with all emeralds. i wasnt sure if i had it in me to do it all over again as blaze, but seeing this easy mode, i might just take the hit to my pride and do it
Edit: after playing the game on easy for blaze, the bosses do improve significantly and are less of an annoyance, but also, blazes levels seem identical to sonics, but minus the special stages, which is disappointing, i really wish she at least got remixed levels, not completely new or anything, but different enough in layout to feel new and blaze doesn't even have special stages at all. i feel like she should have gotten her own kind of special stages, separate from sonics. since sonics is based on sonic 2, maybe she could have hers be based on sonic 1's special stages? like i wouldnt want double the half-pipe special stages, but something would be nice. the other problem with having the same stages is it really highlights the flaws some stages have. anytime they have a stage exclusive gimmick, the sand temple level being the worst as you just wait on a slab that takes you through the level as sometimes a rock will fall or a generic enemy that dies in one hit, and it just goes on and on and on, and then they do it again for act 2 and its just boring. they do something similar with an air glider section in 2 acts of another zone, and you can just hang out at one side of the screen and not get hit. theres also a rocket that one zone likes to use over bottomless pits and while its only used for a couple seconds at a time and its not everywhere, its overly sensitive and seems to just have inverted controls everytime you go on one, and over a bottomless pit it can be insufferable. i cant really name other gimmicks off the top of my head, but those are the ones that really stood out. also the final boss with super sonic and burning blaze in space just sucks. its too specific with how sonic has to push projectiles into eggman, then too easy with how blaze can just hadouken the boss and get over with in a second, and when you spend like 5 minutes trying to hit eggman as sonic, it just feels weird how easy blaze is in comparison, especially with how you alternate every 2 hits and swap screens. it just feels half-assed.
But overall its still a great game, just held back by some flaws.


knowing sonic fans, there's probably some nut out there working on some kind of remake of this game that makes it single screen and hd. and to you, i say godspeed, make my dream come true, give this game what it deserves

not as bad as people say. its still not good, but its far from being one of the worst sonic games, when its not even the worst one on game gear. the levels can be annoying but you dont lose all your rings on hit and you have a double jump, so its also pretty forgiving. the bosses are solid enough, and some of them are pretty good actually (though the true final boss can go suck dick). the art style does suck tho. it's also annoying how special stages will only get you an emerald on act two, but finding the special stage ring isnt too hard and the stages themselves are mostly easy but may require a redo or two. but like most sonic game gear games, theres really not much to say. they're just more 2d sonic games that aren't as good as the console games.
at least its better than 3d blast