Sonic Colours 3DS brings Sega’s colourful 2010 platformer to Nintendo 3DS

Sonic Colours never officially made it to Nintendo 3DS. The Wii had its version, the Nintendo DS had another, and years later Sonic Colours: Ultimate brought the game to newer hardware. Now an unofficial project is tackling the obvious gap by asking what Sonic Colours might actually look and play like if it had been built for the 3DS. Sonic Colours 3DS is a fan-made reinterpretation of Sega’s 2010 platformer, designed around Nintendo’s dual-screen handheld rather than presented as a straightforward port of either original version. The Nintendo DS release of Sonic Colours was already quite different from the Wii game, so there isn’t really one portable version for the project to copy. Instead, the developers have room to take the main ideas behind Colours – fast stages, Wisps, boost mechanics and Eggman’s interstellar amusement park – and reshape them around the 3DS.

Sonic Colours was already two different games

Sega released Sonic Colours in Europe on 12 November 2010 for Wii and Nintendo DS. Both games followed the same basic setup. Dr Eggman has built a huge amusement park in space and claims he’s turned over a new leaf. Sonic, unsurprisingly, isn’t buying it. He and Tails soon discover that Eggman is capturing small alien creatures called Wisps and using their energy for his own plans. The Wisps became the game’s big mechanical hook.

Picking up different Wisps gives Sonic temporary Colour Powers. Cyan Laser fires him rapidly across stages and through certain objects. Yellow Drill lets him burrow through terrain. Other abilities change how Sonic reaches platforms, finds shortcuts or gets into areas that aren’t accessible through normal running and jumping. On Wii, Sonic Colours mixed 3D movement with side-on platforming and the boost-heavy style Sega had been developing in games such as Sonic Unleashed. The DS game took another route.

It played much closer to Sonic Rush, with fast 2D stages spread across both screens. It kept mechanics such as boosting, homing attacks, sliding and stomping, but rebuilt the stages around a portable format. It also included different content from the Wii release. So Sonic Colours was never one identical game running on two machines. That gives this 3DS project a useful starting point.

Why the 3DS makes sense

There’s a fairly obvious reason Sonic Colours fits a handheld. Its stages are compact. Runs are quick. Levels encourage you to replay them, find another route and shave time from previous attempts. You can get through an act in a short session without needing to commit to a huge chunk of the game. That works nicely on portable hardware.

The visual design helps too. Sonic Colours doesn’t depend on realistic scenery or tiny environmental details. Eggman’s amusement park is built from oversized structures, bright surfaces, loops, rails and very clearly defined routes.

Areas such as Tropical Resort, Sweet Mountain, Starlight Carnival and Planet Wisp all have strong visual identities. You usually know where you are almost immediately. That matters on the 3DS, where resolution and screen size put a harder limit on how much information can comfortably sit in front of the player.

Sonic also moves quickly, which makes readability more important than raw detail. Platforms, enemies, rings and hazards need to stand out before the player reaches them. Pretty scenery isn’t much use if you’ve already crashed into a wall.

The Wisps are the bigger challenge

Getting Sonic moving convincingly is only part of the job. Sonic Colours also needs its Wisps. These aren’t simply power-ups that hand Sonic another attack for a few seconds. The original stages were built around them. A Colour Power could open a shortcut, reveal a hidden section or completely change the way Sonic moved through part of a level.

That means recreating the basic look of Sonic Colours wouldn’t be enough. The level design has to support those abilities as well. The 3DS format also raises some obvious questions.

How much use will the project make of the second screen? Will the stages lean towards the DS game’s 2D structure, or borrow more from the Wii version? How many Wisps will make the transition? And how closely will the finished stages follow the originals? Those details will become clearer as development continues.

Not Sonic Colours: Ultimate

It’s also worth separating this project from Sonic Colours: Ultimate. Sega released Ultimate in 2021 as an updated version of the Wii game for modern systems. It improved the presentation, added new features and brought that particular version of Sonic Colours to newer hardware. Sonic Colours 3DS is something else entirely.

It’s unofficial, and it’s being built specifically around Nintendo’s handheld rather than modern consoles or PC. The interesting part isn’t simply seeing Sonic Colours running on another device. It’s seeing how the game’s mechanics can be adjusted for hardware Sega never gave its own dedicated version.

There’s already precedent for that approach. The DS edition showed that Sonic Colours could change substantially while keeping the same characters, setting and central mechanics. Now the 3DS project is taking another shot at the same idea. Not another remaster. Not quite a port either. It’s a different version of Sonic Colours for a machine that never got one.

Spread the love

Sonic Colours was already two different games

Why the 3DS makes sense

The Wisps are the bigger challenge

Not Sonic Colours: Ultimate

MORE AMIGA & RETRO NEWS