Sonic Colors Saved Sonic–And Set It Up For A Troubling Decade

Sonic Colors celebrated its 15-year anniversary on November 16, 2025. Beneath, we glance again at how the sport shifted the character of Sonic video games with new gimmicks.

Sonic Colors marked a major turning level in Sonic the Hedgehog’s gaming profession. 4 years prior, the franchise had hit a horrifying low with Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. Two years after that, Sonic started a gradual and shaky climb from all-time low with 2008’s Sonic Unleashed. And in 2010, Sonic Colors lastly introduced the blue hedgehog again into players’ good graces, changing into the best-received 3D title for the reason that Journey video games of the late ’90s and early 2000s. Issues have been lastly beginning to look brilliant once more for the franchise–but with the great got here the dangerous as effectively.

Up to that time, 3D Sonic video games had realized extra closely into their narratives, with the Sonic Journey duology and Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 standing out as important examples. For Colors, the plot was scaled again significantly, harkening again to the easier tales of Sonic’s basic video games. In truth, like a lot of the classics, Colors foregoes a gap cinematic utterly. As soon as the participant strikes past the title display, they’re instantly dropped into the primary degree. Solely then does the story start to take form: Sonic and Tails have made a visit to area to research Eggman’s Interstellar Amusement Park, a creation of the mad physician designed as penance for his evil misdeeds up to now.

Naturally, the duo is not shopping for Eggman’s change of coronary heart for a second. Their suspicions are confirmed as they virtually instantly uncover that the park is a entrance for a sinister alien-enslavement operation, during which Eggman plans to make use of their vitality to energy a large mind-control machine and–you guessed it–conquer the world. Now, it is as much as Sonic to race throughout the six captive planets that make up Eggman’s twisted amusement park and free their inhabitants from his grasp. It’s a plot ripped straight out of a goofy Saturday-morning cartoon, and a refreshing change after years of the franchise’s hit-and-miss makes an attempt at deeper and extra advanced tales.

With the extra lighthearted story got here a higher deal with comedy. To facilitate this, Sega introduced on US-based writers Ken Pontac and Warren Graff of Joyful Tree Pals fame to jot down the sport’s dialogue. The characters’ personalities remained intact, albeit with a a lot snarkier edge than they sometimes displayed. That is maybe finest exemplified in Eggman’s PA bulletins. In each degree, messages from Eggman play at common intervals over the park’s PA system. These vary from warnings to not lick the rides at Candy Mountain to the significance of holding your breath whereas in Asteroid Coaster’s harsh vacuum of area.

What made these strains work comedically was their brevity. Precise conversations between characters, nonetheless, have been a unique story. Many jokes and gags have been laboriously drawn out to the purpose that they stopped being humorous. Sonic isn’t any stranger to cracking off amusing one-liners, however a lot of the dialogue in Colors is akin to a frat boy at a celebration telling a joke that does not land, then making an attempt to clarify to his unamused viewers why they need to be laughing. If you happen to’ve ever heard the insipid phrase “Baldy McNosehair” in gaming circles and have been uncertain the place it originated, effectively … right here you go. Pontac and Graff (who, as a facet notice, had nearly no prior information of the Sonic franchise when writing for Colors) would proceed to jot down for subsequent titles up via 2017’s Sonic Forces, contributing to a robust tonal shift for the sequence that will outline that decade of Sonic video games.

For the primary time in a 3D Sonic sport, the main focus was put solely on conventional high-speed Sonic gameplay–a transfer tremendously appreciated by followers weary of the sequence’ insistence on alternate gameplay kinds. The enhance mechanic returned after its profitable debut in Sonic Unleashed, permitting Sonic to achieve blisteringly excessive speeds with a easy push of a button. In fact, with the unique Sonic Colors being unique to Nintendo Wii, a console with far decrease processing energy than its contemporaries, it wasn’t practically as flashy or exhilarating as its predecessor was on PS3 or Xbox 360, however it was serviceable sufficient. Colors additionally introduced again Unleashed’s occasional change from 3D to 2D gameplay and allowed platforming to take heart stage. Sadly, a lot of stated platforming was clunky and methodical, missing the circulate and pace that made older side-scrolling Sonic video games distinctive and enjoyable.

What was distinctive and enjoyable was the introduction of the aforementioned wisps: small alien creatures made from pure vitality that augmented Sonic’s speed-based skills. After absorbing their powers, Sonic may remodel right into a cyan laser that zips alongside pathways, an orange rocket that shoots upward destroying all the pieces in its path, a yellow drill that tears via the bottom, or perhaps a blue dice that … effectively, turns issues into cubes to hop onto (not all of them have been winners). Most of those powers felt like pure extensions of Sonic’s typical gameplay versus the drastically totally different alternate gameplay kinds of previous video games.

On the time, followers and critics alike lauded Sonic Colors, and in some respects, deservedly so. It was a refreshing, back-to-basics method that Sonic desperately wanted after years of weird experimentation with team-based gameplay, weapons, out-of-place human romances, werehogs, and the like. Then again, it was additionally a major dilution of the Sonic system that will sadly turn out to be a defining attribute of the franchise all through the 2010s. It was each a return to kind and a troubling portent of issues to come back. Fortunately, latest video games like Sonic Frontiers have despatched the pendulum swinging again within the different route, bringing onboard longtime Sonic scribe Ian Flynn and as soon as once more fleshing out the gameplay and story components. We’re at the moment in a promising new period for Sonic, however there is not any telling if we’d have gotten right here with out the large shakeup–for higher or worse–that Sonic Colors delivered to the franchise 15 years in the past.