One thing you can be promised in a Sonic game is that the music is always gonna be a bop.Sonic Colors is classic fun,it's full of vibrant colorful environments swarmed by cute aliens called Wisps that give Sonic all sorts of powered up abilities.The Nintendo aesthetic is strong with this game,it straight up feels like a 2D Mario platformer at times and it's not necessarily a good thing.There's a lot of 2D gameplay sections that just slow Sonic down where he has to undergo multiple platforming shenanigans,some can be fun but it also ruins the momentum of the game.Sonic is supposed to be fast and dashing through the stage as quickly as possible.It retains the Unleashed gameplay from the previous entry and some of Sonic's moves that he utilized from that game are uhh nerfed in this one.He can no longer drift or side step whenever he pleases and can only do so when it's prompted which is weird.There's less 3D gameplay which is another bummer and I'm pretty sure it's because of the wisps inclusion,since a majority of them are only able to used when Sonic is in 2D.I'm not crazy about the wisp powers either,there's a few I really like.White wisps give Sonic the power to do his iconic boost move which is something Sonic should be able to do normally but whatever.Cyan wisps give Sonic the ability to shoot himself like a laserbeam that can teleport him in an instant and bounce off of walls.Yellow turns Sonic into a drill where he can burrow underground and underwater to discover secret passages that can lead him to encounter the red rings,a collectible that can unlock levels in the game zone (A half assed arcade like side content minigane) Orange transforms Sonic into a zooming rocket that propells him skyward.Blue wisps have the ability to turn blue blocks into blue rings and vice versa which is probably the worst wisp in the game.It's so boring and the levels featuring this wisp are supposed to be a puzzle like stage but they really aren't,they're just tedious to delve into.Green wisp has Sonic become a hovering saucer that can use ring dash(an ability that Sonic has known for many years and should be able to do it without the need for an alien) Pink wisp makes Sonic become a pink spiky ball that clings to everything and you can use it to navigate places high up that you couldn't normally access and finally my favorite one the Purple Wisp,a very violent wisp that turns Sonic into a hungry hungry hippo,devouring anything in its path and the more it eats the bigger it grows.All in all the wisps are fine but they are the defining factor of the game and some of them utilize some of Sonic's past abilities that he has used in past games.Therefore some of Sonic's iconic moves such as the Spin Dash and Light Speed Dash are gone as the wisps have "stolen" them.Revisiting the same stage over and over again can also be a bit tiresome with six acts and a boss for each world,I would have enjoyed it more if there were more planets to explore since the game takes place in space.Some of the levels also don't even have wisps included in them which is a big wtf moment.They're mostly platforming specific levels but get boring fast.Sonic Colors is fine,childhood me enjoyed it way more but going back to it just felt neutral.Also why did the Wisps keep coming back in future games with little to no explanation
I also don't like the direction Sonic Team went after this game,the sonic games started becoming more kid friendly and making Sonic more comical,they also got rid of the 4kids cast that started with Sonic X and I didn't like it.Sonic Colors is a solid Sonic entry into the franchise that the younger version of me appreciated more