Dwyer: Sonic Colors “Not Intended to Be…Unleashed Lite”

By
Tristan Oliver
– September 24, 2010

There’s a Deliberate Difference, Says SOA Producer

Despite all the comparison being made between Sonic Colors and the daytime stages of Sonic Unleashed–and its portable counterpart being juxtaposed to Sonic Rush–Sega of America’s Keith Dwyer doesn’t necessarily want you to see it that way.

Speaking to Universal Gaming Database, Dwyer makes clear this isn’t a direct descendant of Sonic Unleashed, a title praised for its fast paced daytime stages but widely panned for the nighttime Werehog component.  That doesn’t mean some elements from Unleashed didn’t make the cut, however.

“The game is not intended to be a sequel to Unleashed or “Unleashed Lite,” but rather key elements of Unleashed form the framework for the type of gameplay experience we were looking for,” Dwyer said.  “Sonic Colors then is its own game with its own story, themes and features and the one feature that locks that in is the Color Powers.”

The same can be said for the DS edition.  Fans have jokingly called it Sonic Rush 3, but according to Dwyer, a similar philosophy was applied when working on Colors for the portable handheld.

“Those elements that made Sonic Rush such a great game form the basis for Sonic Colors DS, with the inclusion of the Color Powers and key ‘Colors’ components that make it its own game and not “Sonic Rush 3,” Dwyer said.

There may be one part of Colors that has more direct shades of history in Unleashed: its musical diversity.  Dwyer explains “logic” allows a better flow between Unleashed‘s eclectic tunes and what’s to come for Colors–though again, he is careful to distance the latter from the former:

The music in Sonic Unleashed was designed to enhance each of the different zones and give the player the feeling that they’re in whichever country or continent they’re traveling through. The music is designed to individualize the stages while providing a consistent musical theme that supports the more whimsical and fun nature of Sonic Colors. The music in Sonic Colors doesn’t have anything to do with the music in Sonic Unleashed but you can see a certain flow in the logic.

The interview can be read in full at the link cited above.

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