Ask any video game fan today and they'll tell you that Sonic the Hedgehog's glory days were back in the 90s, when the Blue Blur was ripping it up in 16-bit goodness on the Sega Megadrive. Sonic was always great moving from left to right, but with time comes change, and aside from Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast, Sonic's 3D escapades on newer consoles have been about as successful as British poll tax.
Over the past decade the Sonic franchise has been in decline, as SEGA continue to think that its fans want to see Sonic participate in banal ventures such as painting him black and red and handing him an uzi, pitting him against his greatest rival Mario in a series of niche sporting events when people would rather watch the two of them pulverize each other, or attaching the hedgehog to a hoverboard WHEN HE RUNS AT LIKE 750 MILES PER HOUR. However, as his 20th anniversary approaches, Sonic has been spearheading a comeback with back-on-form titles such as Sonic Rush, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and, most recently, Sonic Colours.
Colours is, as far as I can tell after four and a half hours of gameplay, a successful blend of 3D and 2D platforming. I'd estimate that it's perhaps a 60/40 split so far. The level is by and large excellent, with only one or two pieces of frustrating 3D platforming where I've died several times in a row trying to negotiate a particular jump on a lateral plane. You know this is a Sonic game worth playing when you're loving zipping around the greatly-varied stages and finding yourself legitimately and pleasantly surprised at some of the designs that they have come up with. The boss battles are fun and I enjoy the physically huge ones the most, their scale providing a sort of epic quality to the foray with the comparatively-dwarfed blue hedgehog.
Graphically it's as good as you'll get on the Wii. It's bright, cartoony and colourful, as all Sonic games should be. Sonic looks good in his current character design, modernized so he is not too lanky but neither is he the pudgier version from the Megadrive days. It seems to be a satisfying middle ground between the two extremes. The music is as good as ever, and the sound effects relatively pleasing too- some of them may sound familiar to fans of the classic Sonic games (i.e. the Star Posts/checkpoints and the signature ring chime) and have not lost their charm despite their age.
My only real gripe must be the cut scenes. At times they're not too bad, with Sonic not coming over as annoying in his dialogue and on the ocassion somewhat humorous in a child-like sort of way. I guess the real problem is that these cut scenes are aimed at younger children- something that, in my mind doesn't make sense, when you consider that most Sonic fans are going to be of a similar age to myself (around the 18-25 mark), and therefore would perhaps hope for Sonic to age with them. That was my hope too- but I suppose the Wii's core demographic really is the younger generation; hence in that respect it makes sense.
Sonic Colours is colourful, boasts clever and thoroughly enjoyable level design, sounds great and looks great and is overall a great experience if you're either a fan of platforming games or a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog. I do wonder how Colours would be on a real next gen console, like the PS3 that I own too. here's hoping that I get a similarly-pleasing experience from the to-be-released Sonic Generations, which I understand will be on PS3 and Xbox 360.
The game's going cheap, so if you have a Wii and aren't sure whether Sonic is any good these days, pick this up and see if I'm wrong.
I award Sonic Colours for the Nintendo Wii an impressive four out of five brains.
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