I heard from a few people that the previous patches improved Colors Ultimate a fair bit, but I was still pretty skeptical and not super willing to part with $40 to find out. Fortunately, the recent sale has dropped it down to about $12 and I can say the game, while not perfect, is much better and more stable than at launch. It's faster to load, runs at 60 FPS, and feels better than I remembered! The Jade Ghost Wisp is also less shoehorned in than I expected and adds new sections of level design, both to increase replay value, and skip over some parts of slower-paced levels. I can honestly say I had a good time!

Most of my complaints were either nitpicks, like sound effects not consistently playing for some things or Starlight Carnival's color palette looking duller than it used to. The only major complaints I have with Colors Ultimate partially stem from issues I had with the original release not being fixed, such as the Double Jump and Homing Attack being on the same button, which led to some collectibles being a pain. The Homing Attack ALWAYS takes priority over the Double Jump, which gets frustrating at times, and I was really hoping there would be an option to separate the two, but no such luck. Another issue I have is that they didn't fix the audio issue from the base game with Eggman's PA Announcements. Despite Colors having my least favorite Sonic script (until we got Lost World), the PA Announcements were the one thing I could always count on for a good laugh, but they're just as hard to hear as they were before unless you stand still and do nothing in certain spots, but who the heck wants to do that in an action game, much less a Sonic game? That shouldn't be a thing you have to do.

The only other complaint I have, and it's also true of the original release, is the scoring system in Colors is DUMB. Man alive, as someone who struggles to find any sense of purpose or use for score in 99% of the video games I have played, this game did NOT do anything to change my stance on it. I say this only because I actually put effort into getting all the S Ranks in Asteroid Coaster, which is my favorite zone from this game, and a few other specific levels from different locales.

The best way to rack up points in most of these levels I've attempted seems to be to spam Wisps and stay in their forms (excluding the one-and-done Wisps like Rocket and Laser) for as long as possible without going over the time limit. This means you're hovering near the goal ring a decent amount of the time either sitting around doing nothing or going in circles with the Drill Wisp. If a level or boss has a quick step gimmick in it, you're spamming left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right over and over and over again and it looks so weird and unnatural. You HAVE to do it, too, if you want S Ranks on the Frigate bosses and the Final Boss, and man does it take you out of the fight something fierce. This is not a competent way of handling things, it doesn't feel good or look good. Just... no. Ignore score, you get nothing out of getting all the S Ranks besides some achievements. It's not needed, useful, or fun.

Honestly, for the price it's at now, I think it's a worthwhile experience. I think enough has been improved that I'm willing to stick with this over the original release, though I admit I didn't have much attachment to the game before my recent playthrough, which I had a shockingly good time with compared to when I played the Wii release at launch! I think Colors holds up better than I remembered. It's not clearing any of my favorites, but it's still a mostly fun time! I'd call it an 8/10.

I heard from a few people that the previous patches improved Colors Ultimate a fair bit, but I was still pretty skeptical and not super willing to part with $40 to find out. Fortunately, the recent sale has dropped it down to about $12 and I can say the game, while not perfect, is much better and more stable than at launch. It's faster to load, runs at 60 FPS, and feels better than I remembered! The Jade Ghost Wisp is also less shoehorned in than I expected and adds new sections of level design, both to increase replay value, and skip over some parts of slower-paced levels. I can honestly say I had a good time! Most of my complaints were either nitpicks, like sound effects not consistently playing for some things or Starlight Carnival's color palette looking duller than it used to. The only major complaints I have with Colors Ultimate partially stem from issues I had with the original release not being fixed, such as the Double Jump and Homing Attack being on the same button, which led to some collectibles being a pain. The Homing Attack ALWAYS takes priority over the Double Jump, which gets frustrating at times, and I was really hoping there would be an option to separate the two, but no such luck. Another issue I have is that they didn't fix the audio issue from the base game with Eggman's PA Announcements. Despite Colors having my least favorite Sonic script (until we got Lost World), the PA Announcements were the one thing I could always count on for a good laugh, but they're just as hard to hear as they were before unless you stand still and do nothing in certain spots, but who the heck wants to do that in an action game, much less a Sonic game? That shouldn't be a thing you have to do. The only other complaint I have, and it's also true of the original release, is the scoring system in Colors is DUMB. Man alive, as someone who struggles to find any sense of purpose or use for score in 99% of the video games I have played, this game did NOT do anything to change my stance on it. I say this only because I actually put effort into getting all the S Ranks in Asteroid Coaster, which is my favorite zone from this game, and a few other specific levels from different locales. The best way to rack up points in most of these levels I've attempted seems to be to spam Wisps and stay in their forms (excluding the one-and-done Wisps like Rocket and Laser) for as long as possible without going over the time limit. This means you're hovering near the goal ring a decent amount of the time either sitting around doing nothing or going in circles with the Drill Wisp. If a level or boss has a quick step gimmick in it, you're spamming left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right over and over and over again and it looks so weird and unnatural. You HAVE to do it, too, if you want S Ranks on the Frigate bosses and the Final Boss, and man does it take you out of the fight something fierce. This is not a competent way of handling things, it doesn't feel good or look good. Just... no. Ignore score, you get nothing out of getting all the S Ranks besides some achievements. It's not needed, useful, or fun. Honestly, for the price it's at now, I think it's a worthwhile experience. I think enough has been improved that I'm willing to stick with this over the original release, though I admit I didn't have much attachment to the game before my recent playthrough, which I had a shockingly good time with compared to when I played the Wii release at launch! I think Colors holds up better than I remembered. It's not clearing any of my favorites, but it's still a mostly fun time! I'd call it an 8/10.