Anonymous edits have been disabled on the wiki. If you want to contribute please login or create an account.

Sonic Colors: Ultimate

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Sonic Colors: Ultimate
Sonic Colors: Ultimate cover
Developers
Original Sonic Team
Ultimate Blind Squirrel Games
Publishers
Sega
Engines
Godot[1]
Hedgehog Engine[1]
Release dates
Windows September 7, 2021
Reception
OpenCritic 74
IGDB 74
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, DLC
Modes Singleplayer
Perspectives Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Platform
Series Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic Colors: Ultimate on HowLongToBeat
Sonic Colors: Ultimate on IGDB
Sonic Colors: Ultimate guide on StrategyWiki
Sonic Colors: Ultimate on MobyGames
Sonic Colors: Ultimate on Wikipedia
Sonic the Hedgehog fangames (series)
Sonic CD 1995
Sonic's Schoolhouse 1996
Sonic 3D Blast (series)
Sonic & Knuckles Collection 1997
Sonic R (series)
Sonic Adventure (series)
Sonic Heroes 2004
Sonic Mega Collection Plus 2006
Sonic Riders 2006
Sonic Racing (series)
Sonic the Hedgehog 2010
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine 2010
Sonic Spinball 2010
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 2011
Sonic 3 & Knuckles 2011
Sonic Generations 2011
Sonic CD (2012) 2012
Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I 2012
Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II 2012
Sonic Dash 2014
Sonic Lost World 2015
Sonic Mania 2017
Sonic Forces 2017
Sonic the Hedgehog (Mobile Decompilation) 2021
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mobile Decompilation) 2021
Sonic Colors: Ultimate 2021
Sonic Origins 2022
Sonic Frontiers 2022
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog 2023
Sonic Superstars 2023
Sonic Dream Team 2023
Sonic X Shadow Generations 2024

Sonic Colors: Ultimate, also known as Sonic Colours: Ultimate in the PAL region, is a singleplayer game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series and an HD remaster of the Wii game, Sonic Colors.

The game was first released worldwide on September 7, 2021 to lukewarm reception due to the issues it introduced compared to Wii version. It has since recieved several patches, with the latest being released on December 15, 2021.[2]

Although the game has been patched numerous times, many of the issues from release version are still present in the game.

Key points

Unfavourable to the original Wii version in many ways, with this version hosting worse lighting and bugs, many of which weren't in Wii version. See the essential improvements section for various improvements.
Limited graphical options.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Epic Games Store
Epic Games Launcher
Digital Deluxe Edition also available. Playable offline.[3]
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Digital Deluxe Edition also available.
Windows
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Digital Deluxe Edition also available.
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Digital Deluxe Edition also available.
Windows
All versions require Denuvo Anti-Tamper DRM.

Monetization

Type Notes
DLC DLCs add new cosmetics and music remixes.
One-time game purchase The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Music Pack Adds 3 exclusive remixes for Planet Wisp. Included in the Digital Deluxe Edition.
Windows
Ultimate Cosmetic Pack Adds new cosmetics for Sonic. Included in the Digital Deluxe Edition.
Windows

Essential improvements

HedgeModManager is required for many of these mods.

Gameplay & UI Fixes

This mod fixes the game's UI and restores cut features from Wii version such as the life system.

Sonic Model and Animation Fixes

This mod tunes Sonic's model and fixes broken animations present in the game, most notably the infamous Starlight Carnival Act 3 intro.

Aquarium Park Act 1 Distance Fix

This mod fixes the infamous bug in Aquarium Park Act 1 where objects too far from Sonic won't load and will appear black instead.

Improved Lighting

This mod fixes the strange choices made with the lighting and makes Sonic and other objects look a lot less flat.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Epic Games Launcher %APPDATA%\Sonic Colors\app_userdata\Sonic Colors- Ultimate\savedData
Steam %APPDATA%\Sega\SonicColorsUltimate\Steam\<user-id>\savedData
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2055290/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Epic Games Launcher %APPDATA%\Sonic Colors\app_userdata\Sonic Colors- Ultimate\savedData
Steam %APPDATA%\Sega\SonicColorsUltimate\Steam\<user-id>\savedData
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2055290/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Epic Games Launcher
Sometimes when saving to the cloud the save game will NOT be restored when switching computers or deleting the save file.
Steam Cloud

Video

Video options
Video options

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
Game is locked to 16:9 normally. See Ultra-widescreen for a workaround.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
1x MSAA.[4]
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Capped at 144 FPS. Some gameplay elements such as Sonic's jump height and the turn angle of the Drill Wisp are dependent on frame rate.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Ultra-widescreen

Edit Sonic Colors - Ultimate.exe with a hex editor
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\SonicColorsUltimate\rainbow Shipping and open Sonic Colors - Ultimate.exe in a hex editor, such as HxD.
  2. Search and replace both instances of 39 8E E3 3F for 8E E3 18 40.

This is for 21:9, might work for other aspect ratios by replacing 8E E3 18 40 for the correct hex for your aspect ratio found from the WSGF's Common Hex Values but haven't tested. UI seems fine but cutscenes are stretched.

Input

Control options
Control options

Audio

Audio options
Audio options

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
5.1
Subtitles
The subtitles language can be set independently of the spoken language.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish and Russian subtitles are synched to the English voices, while the Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean subtitles are synched to the Japanese voices.
Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Supported by the game despite not being listed on store's page.[5]
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Fan translation is available here. HedgeModManager is required for this translation's installation.
Russian
Spanish
Castillian

Issues Unresolved

Stuttering

Game may stutter when played on a slow hard disk or USB drive. Upgrading to an SSD fixes the issue.
Contrary to popular belief, Denuvo is not to blame for such stuttering, as this issue can also occur on console versions with slow drives.[6]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 11
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Physics PhysX [7]
Audio Criware [8]
Cutscenes Criware [8]

System requirements

Windows
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10
Processor (CPU) Intel Core i5-6600
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
System memory (RAM) 8 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 26.5 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti
AMD Radeon HD 7790
2 GB of VRAM
DirectX 11 compatible
A 64-bit operating system is required.


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/2055290/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (2055290) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Sonic Colours: Ultimate Tech Review - Eurogamer.net - last accessed on 2022-12-12
    "When you fire up the remaster for the first time, you're presented with a logo trumpeting the use of the Blind Squirrel Engine but what does this mean? Well, according to 'Skyth', who did some digging into the game files, it still uses the original C++ code and the Hedgehog Engine but the graphics backend is handled by the Godot Engine. Godot is completely free and open-source under the very permissive MIT license."
  2. Sonic Colors: Ultimate update out now (version 3.0), patch notes - last accessed on 2023-07-20
  3. Verified by User:Clya9001 on 2022-08-22
    Game looks for Denuvo offline token only when offline.
  4. Verified by User:Fds29 on 2022-12-10
    Checked by examining video settings through the debug menu.
  5. Verified by User:Itzrealkardi1 on 2023-07-27
    SteamDB lists it on game's depot page. It's also possible to choose the language in-game.
  6. Verified by User:Clya9001 on 2022-08-19
    Tested with both external hard drive and SSD. The game doesn't stutter when using SSD but stutters when using the external hard drive. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PruxX9ujmDA for an example of stuttering on the PS4 version. Video by The-Buzz-Show.
  7. Verified by User:Fds29 on 2022-12-10
    Seen in the credits (as Nvidia GameWorks). PhysX libraries are present in the game's executable folder.
  8. 8.0 8.1 Verified by User:Fds29 on 2022-12-10
    Seen in the credits. Examined the files in PCCriPak.cpk.