Sonic Colors Ultimate gets new trailer showing off HD improvements, new features

Bobby Mills July 9, 2021

When Sonic Colors: Ultimate was first revealed, a subsection of ‘hog fans were left underwhelmed. And I, eternal cynic and miserable old duffer that I am, was among them. Sure, it’s lovely and all that SEGA are revisiting such a firm favourite, but based on the initial trailer, things looked… barebones. Jaggy. And, I might venture to say, a tad unimpressive. Many a moment passed where I thought to myself: “OK, but – Dolphin can do what you SEGAren’t.”

But huzzah! Like a very literal bolt from the blue, Sonic Team have dropped another trailer that goes at least a little of the – admittedly long – way to rectifying those fears. Alongside debuting some awesome new music, it shows off the improved HD visuals, which it claims will be “4K 60FPS.” Mm-hmm. Methinks a little asterisk will need attaching to that, and then to the asterisk will need attaching: “but not on Switch, sorry gents.”

You can check out the trailer below, so you can enjoy the ever-so-slightly crisper look at such locales as Starlight Carnival and Planet Wisp:

I’m not the only one who, from a distance, reads “NO VISUAL IMPROVEMENTS” in the lower left, right?

Aside from the eye candy, the video also sheds light on some of the promised new modes and features we’d been teased about before. One of them appears to be a new store – absent from the original – in which you can spend ‘park tokens’ to glam up Sonic with fancy shoes, cuffs and some skins clearly not lifted from Brawl. See, if only my local theme parks accepted tokens for their awful plastic tat. You can shove your £15.99 plastic dinosaur down your long, pink throat, Flamingo Land.

Also arriving is a ‘Rival Rush’ mode, which pits you against everyone’s favorite robotic knockoff Metal Sonic in a race to the goal. Metal wasn’t present in any capacity in the Wii version, so I wonder if the narrative is being tweaked somewhat? Ooh, and perhaps winning all the races unlocks a playable Metal, a la Sonic Adventure DX! The trailer does, after all, promise rewards for clearing the mode, and purists will note we haven’t been able to play as the ‘bot since Sonic 4 (discounting spinoffs). The mind, she races! Super Sonic races.

And by ‘playable’, I mean ‘do the same awful stages again but backwards.’

Other new additions shown off are customizable controls, a ‘Tails Save’ feature for the babbies (which will allow the fox to rescue your sorry blue butt from bottomless pits a certain number of times), and most interestingly a new Wisp, the Jade Ghost. Well, not new new, per se; it was in Team Sonic Racing. Here, it appears to function like a bit of a cheat mode, allowing you to float over obstacles and pass through walls intended to keep you from collectibles. I imagine it will blow the speedrunning scene wide open; get the popcorn ready for GDQ 2022.

Sonic Colors: Ultimate launches September 7, 2021 for all major platforms.

Are you excited for all these new features? Will you be double dipping on Colors? Let us know below!