(This review is based on the Wii Game, DS evaluation will be added later) After years of awful flop titles, lame gimmicks, poorly conceived and developed games Sonic the Hedgehog seemed like a lost cause franchise. Then 2010 promised us Sonic the Hedgehog 4 which was good but unfortunately has it's gaping design flaws, and of course Sonic Colors which was scoffed at but actually turned out to be the better of the 2010 releases.

I'll admit I scoffed and rolled my eyes when I saw the preview for this game as it looked like Sonic Team was up to its old shenanigans again with more silly gimmicky games. But on a friend's recommendation I picked this up and I was beyond impressed. Everything from level design to game to story was spot on perfect even enough to outrank the DreamCast/GameCube Adventure series games.

The positives of this game: The game play provides classic Sonic style speed and adventure with old time platforming. Sonic Team managed to avoid getting too hard too quickly like they did in Sonic 2006. The camera is probably the best its ever been in any Sonic 3D game ever. Camera screw was so magnificently avoided in this I was impressed.

The platforming arenas still managed to balance out the difficult with the ease that old platform lovers will enjoy the challenge of and non platform lovers won't want to throw their controller at the TV screen.

But no doubt the best aspects are the 3D speed stages with just good old fashioned running and jumping. While there is the homing attack in this it is much more refined than it has been in the last few years but still somewhat glitchy as I'll get to in my flaws section.

Storyline is pretty simple and strait it has cut scenes with new voice actors but in the Wii version far fewer characters than recent games. (DS will have more). You stick with Sonic through the whole game play and don't alternate to other terrible characters. (like Silver) (again based on Wii play) The writing is quirky and funny and aimed for a younger crowd but takes me back to the old Adventures cartoon series of the 90s (Both SatAM and Weekday). The game physics aren't screwy and work well with the Game Cube Controler and I suspect they will work just as well with the Wiimotes.

The whisps are fun to play, like Saw, Laser, Rocket and drill. The underwater stages, wow the underwater stages were the most fun I've ever had in any water stage in any sonic game ever. In past games from Genesis to Present Sonic has been slow in water making water stages pure nightmare fuel. However Sonic has gained super jumping skills allowing you to jump high and fast through the water. With enough Speed you can also run right across the water making it unnecessary to go under. But should you go under the classic air bubbles are back complete with the fun sound effect from Sonic's old school games. And yeah the drowning music is even back too. In this game the score cards at the end of the stage are interactive and can be used to gather extra lives and rings.

Now the flaws? So few but I got to say once again the homing attack is not as good as Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. It's better than it has been. Homing attack is a bit uneven unless you are button mashing that will send you into the bad guys losing your rings. Alternatively you can use the Speed Dash which gives you a nice boost of speed. This time around 100 rings does not give you extra lives. You have to rely on playing with the score board at the end to hopefully drop a few lives (and you will shed a fair few). But be quick because Sonic eventually gives a pose leaving you unable to scoop up lives on the other side of the screen. For the final boss you want to rack up lives and doing it in this game is pretty tough.

If you played/like Sonic Unleashed but hated the wearhog aspects this game will be your fancy. Before I'm ready to call Sonic is making his comeback I'm going to wait to see what future games hold.

This game is just AWFUL, it plays it so dang safe, the levels are so dang linear,there is barely any 3d, 80% of the game is 2D,the level design sucks in both 3D and 2D, the wisps just steal the abilities of sonic's friends, hover is tail's flying and sonic's light dash,drill is an enhanced sort of knuckles, the purple wisp (the one that eats crap that i dont care about its name) is just knuckles punching etc u get the deal, the story is hot garbage, the voice cast is awful, roger craig smith sucks as sonic cause sonic is a 15 year old blue hedgehog and he makes him sound like a 30 year old man, kate higgins is honestly amazing as tails, no complains about her, mike pollock sucks as eggman since he just doesnt fit him, he never sounds threatening at all, this game is the most overrated sonic game i have ever seen, 5.5 out of 10, dont bother

Alright after having to endure torture that was Sonic 06, Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic Chronicles, and Sonic and the Black Knight, with only Sonix Unleashed being OK, most fans were coming to admit Sonic was gone and this new sonic game called Sonic Colora would be still bad. How wrong they were.

Story: One of the best in the series and one I didn't mind Characters: Sonic and Tails are awesome as always and the wisps are really helpful Graphics: despite the Wii being less powerful than the 360 or the ps3, this game was beautiful for Wii standards. Soundtrack: AMAZING AS ALWAYS

Overall Sonic Colors saved the Sonic Franchise. If it didn't do well, then Sonic wouldn't still be here today. I thank Sonic Colors ans the Wii for that. We sonic fans owe you one.

I strongly (and very seriously) believe that Mike Pollock is building his voice acting career in Los Angeles now. And in my opinion, the decision that he should stay as Dr. Eggman's voice actor influenced voice actress Veronica Taylor's move to Los Angeles. But... I wonder why the people from Sega decided that the recording of Dr. Eggman's voice for this and further video games starring Sonic the Hedgehog should remain in New York City? Was this happened because the 4Kids Entertainment's voice talent pool's work was going to go extinct? Anyway, I seriously wonder about this incident. Regarding Mike Pollock as Dr. Eggman, is this video game (and the further ones) starring Sonic the Hedgehog still in "the 4Kids Entertainment era"? On the bright side, like David Kaye who was a voice actor based in Vancouver and who moved to Los Angeles after he was Optimus Prime in "Transformers Animated" (2007), Pollock became a voice actor involved in Los Angeles-based voice acting projects after it was decided that he should stay as the voice of Dr. Eggman.