Certainly there are other Sonic games getting a lot of attention this week. Whether it’s the Kinect-powered Free Riders, the retro-tastic Sonic 4 or the coming-in-September Sonic Adventure Dreamcast port. But Sonic Colors is an interesting specimen itself.
Not that there’s really any innovation here. It feels a lot like things we’ve played before, and Sega couldn’t resist adding new little characters to interact with and use to drive the story. All that aside, it’s a pretty good mix of things we’ve seen before.
Essentially, the game combines Sonic Unleashed’s 2D areas and Sonic Adventure 2’s speed-filled 3D Sonic areas into various stages, with classic-looking 2D bosses at the end of each stage. Don’t worry, there’s no wolf or anything. (At least in the demo.)
The precision of the platforming leaves a bit to be desired when compared to Sonic 4, but it’s serviceable, and the 3D areas don’t get bogged down.
Sonic Colors looks to be the best attempt at a full console Sonic since the Dreamcast days. We’ll see how the final product turns out later this year.
