A far cry from the Wii version, this basically is a Sonic Rush style game without the mechanics that made the Rush games (well, more so Rush Adventure, I still don't like Rush) interesting. Gone is the trick system which allowed for great and seamless movement abilities and quick traversal across stages, instead what's replaced it is a mediocre rendition of Sonic's modern boost moveset. The homing attack now has a targeting reticle and for some reason is super slow with tons of endlag (This is genuinely one of the worst homing attacks in the entire series), the stomp sucks for platforming unlike Wii's godlike stomp and has this really unnecessary shockwave attack that doesn't really add anything, wall jump is once again contextual and feels worse to use than on Wii, slide only exists for the game to blindside you with slide based obstacles that you will NEVER see coming without strict memorization of the stage, and then we have the Color powers. Laser is watered down from Wii, Drill controls like garbage and is locked to 4 directions, burst is an uncontrollable mess, Void is frenzy but somehow even worse considering the game actually expects you to maneuver around instakill hazards, and rocket is the only one I would consider a step up from Wii.

The act structure is something I often hear people who prefer Colors DS claim is an improvement from Wii's over-bloated six acts per stage, but I couldn't disagree more. Sure, 6 acts per stage was arguably too much, but only 2 per zone make it way too easy to breeze through these stages considering how super short they are. And it isn't even a Sonic Generations factor where I can say that the stages were decent length and have fantastic level design and replay value to soften the whole "2 acts per zone" deal, because I don't think that's the case at all. The game takes the other acts and makes them optional side missions, which sounds good on paper until you realize that these optional missions are the definition of uninspired and draining. How would you like to bumble around a giant maze in drill or void form looking for 5 Wisps in that area in order to beat it? I certainly wouldn't.

The game's levels also have an assortment of level gimmicks, and surprise surprise they're all bad. The Jellybean rocket in Sweet Mountain is ripped straight from Sonic Rush's Dead Line rocket, and I've already stated I don't like it, plus you have bouncy jelly pads which, since they removed the trick system are not really fun or interesting and are often just a hinderance as you need to jump on them multiple times just to clear sections. You have Starlight Carnival's "mash A to progress" cannons and a...forced autoscrolling section (seriously what is it with these Rush games and forcing in autoscrolling sections? Nobody likes them, stop putting them in). You have the constant Drill sections in Planet Wisp. After you've beaten a stage with 100 rings you can play a special stage, and if you've been catching my attitude throughout this review, I don't think these are very good either. These work similarly to the Sonic Rush special stages (which I admittedly found fairly decent) except these are way too easy and just drag on for an eternity since you need to loop through and grab different colored orbs 3 times just to beat the stage, it's a slog. The music is also horrible, courtesy of the composers trying and miserably failing to recreate the Wii's grand feeling orchestra, jazz and techno through midi, bitcrushing them to hell and back and shoving them back into the DS. Honestly it would've been better if they had just made original tracks instead of trying to recreate the Wii's music. It's not Sonic Chronicles bad, but considering Rush and Rush Adventure are both on the same system, there is NO excuse as to why it sounds this bad.

Overall I ranted on for a long deal, but I don't think this game is godawful. Just painfully mediocre. Wii version is far better in so many areas.