Wisps

are an fictional extraterrestrial alien race from the Sonic the Hedgehog series that first appeared in Sonic Colors. A diminutive, yet playful and powerful race, the Wisps originate from Planet Wisp, but can also be found on other planets in the universe.

The Wisps' peaceful existence came to an abrupt end when Doctor Eggman kidnapped the Wisps' homeworlds, along with all the Wisps on them, and dragged them to his interstellar amusement park above Earth, where they were harvested for their Hyper-go-on to power Eggman's Mind Control Ray. As the Wisps were on the brink of extinction, however, they were all freed from their enslavement by Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower.

Since their first appearance, the Wisps have become a stable in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, having appeared in several major games since their debut. In gameplay, the Wisps can give Sonic different Color Power to help him in the game's levels; the type of power depends on the Wisp's color. Their Hyper-go-on energy can be used once Sonic collects a Wisp from a Wisp Capsule.

Anatomy
The Wisps are similar in overall appearance and motion to underwater cephalopods, such as squids. Regular Wisps come in nine known natural variants, each with their own unique skin color, body shape and number of eyes (ranging from one to three). However, regular Wisps all share common physical characteristics, such as having a single head with no mouth, three tentacles stemming from the bottom of their head, and are not much taller than half a meter. The Nega-Wisps, however, while having a head with three tentacles and same size as regular Wisps, lack any eyes and possess wide mouths with sharp teeth.

Mother Wisp is a type of unique Wisp that is different from regular Wisps in appearance. She is foremost much bigger and taller, standing almost eight meters tall, and also resembles more that of a jellyfish, with four very long tentacles.

Characteristics and Culture
The Wisps are an halcyon and social species, and are as much sentient beings as the dominant races on Earth, such as humans. While each type of Wisp tend to lean towards certain personality characteristics, the Wisps are overall peaceful, playful and friendly of nature, and enjoys spending most of their time playing with others.

The Wisps seemingly appear to possess no form of technology and only have an extremely minimal level of urbanized civilization, such as simple tree slides. Instead, the Wisps live a simple and naturalistic lifestyle that is completely in harmony with the nature of their homeworld.

The Wisps have their own unique verbal language that they use to communicate between themselves with, which comes off as an incomprehensible, warbling sound.

Powers and Abilities
Though small and harmless of nature, the Wisps are an extremely powerful race when working together. All Wisps are able to float in midair at will, which serve as their main method for movements.

Each Wisp has the natural ability to to generate and store Hyper-go-on, an extremely powerful energy source that is said to be greater that those of the Chaos Emeralds, inside their own bodies, which is their life source. Each type of Wisp generates it own unique version of this energy.

When combining their collective Hyper-go-on when cooperating as a whole, the Wisps are capable of unbelievable feats, such as carrying objects through levitation, move at nearly unreachable speeds, undo the mutation on Nega-Wisps, restrain and extinguish black holes made from negative Hyper-go-on, and even teleport objects the size of planets over incredible distances. On their own, regular types of Wisps can enter the body of other beings, as if they are intangible, and lend their Hyper-go-on to the being in question, granting different special powers called Color Powers, with the type of power depends on the Wisp's type.

Origin
While much of the Wisp race's past is unclear, it is known that all Wisps originate from one progenitor Wisp, known as Mother Wisp. This single Wisp gave life to all the individual types of Wisp and raised them as her children. The Wisps then came to live on Planet Wisp, a small planet created by Mother Wisp as well, which served as their homeworld, though the Wisps eventually also emigrated to populate other planets and areas of space, such as Sweet Mountain, Starlight Carnival, Aquarium Park and Asteroid Coaster.

Enslavement
A short time prior to the events of Sonic Colors, the Wisp race came under attack by Doctor Eggman and his forces. The doctor (whom the Wisps refer to as Baldy Nosehair), having discovered that the Wisps' Hyper-go-on power could be used by him to create a Mind Control Ray that would let him enslave Earth, managed to kidnap the entire population of Wisp on their planets by dragging their entire homeworlds to Earth with his tractor beam generators, and chained them to the Tropical Resort to make Dr. Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park, leaving the Wisps trapped in the space above Earth.

With their homeworlds no longer safe, the Wisps were overrun by Eggman's forces, and they were scattered all over Dr. Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park in the following frenzy. The Wisps were then slowly, but steadily, captured by Eggman's forces. so they could be drained of their Hyper-go-on in the doctor's base on Asteroid Coaster, to create fuel for Eggman's global Mind Control Cannon. The process of harvesting of Hyper-go-on from the Wisps, however, created a new sub-breed of Wisps called Nega-Wisps, a violent type of Wisps that were forced to carry out Eggman's plans.

In the Nintendo DS version of Sonic Colors, it is revealed that Mother Wisp were captured and drained of her Hyper-go-on as well, transforming her into the Nega-Mother Wisp. However, the Nega-Mother Wisp was too unruly to be controlled. She eventually managed to escape captivity and went into hiding.

Sonic Colors
At the beginning of Sonic Colors, many members of the Wisp race had been captured in Wisp Capsules and thousands of Nega-Wisps had been created, though the remaining free Wisps were still scrambling around to avoid capture. Fortunately for the Wisps, Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower arrived at Dr. Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park to foil whatever evil plan they thought Eggman was up to. When Yacker and a Cyan Wisp were about to be captured by Orbot and Cubot, Sonic managed to save the two Wisps, before the Cyan Wisp granted Sonic his first Color Power.

After having been saved by Sonic, Yacker came into contact with Sonic and  Tails, where Tails tried to turn his Miles Electric into an translator for the Wisps' language, while Sonic went out to rescue more Wisps and discover Eggman's plans. Eventually, Tails had his translator ready (though with a few bugs). Yacker then informed the two heroes of what was happening to the Wisps, while pleading them to save them, to which Sonic and Tails agree to.

Sonic, Tails and Yacker began traveling across the trapped homeworlds for the Wisps. looking for clues to Eggman's plan and how to free the Wisps, all the while freeing any Wisps they met along the way, while the Wisps in turn aided Sonic in his quest by granting him their Hyper-go-on for new Color Powers. After inadvertently destroying two tractor beam generators that kept two of the kidnapped Wisp worlds trapped, Sonic learned from Yacker that destroying all the generators would cut Eggman off from the Wisps, thus allowing the Wisps to escape captivity and go back home with their worlds.

After discovering the factory in the Asteroid Coaster that drained Wisps of their Hyper-go-on and turned them into Nega-Wisps, Sonic managed to destroy the generator and freed the trapped planet, ensuring that no more Nega-Wisps could be created.

After all five tractor beam generators were destroyed, the Wisps regrouped in Tropical Resort where they met up with Sonic and Tails, now happy to go back home and celebrating their freedom, while expressing their gratitude to Sonic and Tails for saving them. As soon as the Tropical Resort began to implode due to a black hole created from Eggman's malfunctioning Mind Control Cannon, however, the Wisps quickly escaped.

When Sonic was later caught in the Hyper-go-on induced black hole, Yacker and a small group of Wisps managed to save Sonic's life and bring him back to Earth, while the rest of the Wisp race joined their powers together to keep the black hole expanding. Yacker and his friends then joined their kind in returning all the Nega-Wisps to normal and in extinguishing the black hole before it could destroy the Earth. Yacker and few more Wisps then quickly returned to Earth and exchanged some heartfelt farewell to Sonic and Tails, before rejoined the rest of the Wisp race, as they all returned the kidnapped planets to their original place in the universe.

In the Nintendo DS version of Sonic Colors, the Nega-Mother Wisp appeared and went on a rampage after Dr. Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park was destroyed. Fortunately, she was stopped by Sonic, who used the Chaos Emeralds to become Super Sonic, and was returned to normal.

Sonic Generations
In Sonic Generations, Wisps appear in both Acts of Planet Wisp/Tropical Resort, which is the last stage. On the console and PC versions, the only playable Wisps are the Orange Wisps (Modern Sonic only) and Pink Wisps (Classic Sonic only). In the 3DS version, the only Wisps that are playable are the Cyan Wisps (Modern Sonic only) and the Red Wisps (Classic Sonic only). Both Wisps are used in almost the exact same way as they were in the original Wii/DS version. White Wisps also make a cameo in the opening of Planet Wisp.

Sonic Lost World
Wisps return in Sonic Lost World. So far, only the Cyan Wisp, Orange Wisp, Pink Wisp, and the Yellow Wisp are confirmed to be returning. New Wisps include the Indigo Wisp, which allows Sonic to transform into the Indigo Asteroid; the Crimson Wisp which transforms Sonic into the Crimson Eagle; and the Magenta Wisp which turns Sonic into the Magenta Rhythm Color Power.

In the Wii version, the Wisps are only referred to by their true name in the Hint Rings and once by Tails in a cutscene: everyone else simply refers to them as aliens.

Color Powers
are a special powers used by Sonic the Hedgehog. It first appeared in Sonic Colors, and has since reappeared in Sonic Generations, and is set to appear in Sonic Lost World as well. They serve in the gameplay as power-up gimmicks that are needed to either traverse the Acts or performing unique attacks fitting a given situation.

The Color Powers are the power of the Wisps' Hyper-go-on unleashed that Sonic can harness by temporarily absorbing a Wisp, which grants him new powers and abilities.

Description
Color Powers are unique abilities for Sonic that are unleashed when he harnesses the power of a Wisp by temporarily absorbing it. After absorbing the Wisp in question, Sonic is able to tap into the Wisp's innate reserves of the powerful energy known as Hyper-go-on, allowing him to use the Wisp to grant himself new abilities and/powers that he would otherwise not have, such as shooting himself forward as a laser, create explosions of fire or even manipulate certain objects within the area. When using a Color Power, Sonic only need to harness a fraction of the Wisps' total of Hyper-go-on reserves. Color Powers can only be maintained for a short period of time, however, meaning that their effects will only last for a short while, and constantly requires more Hyper-go-on from the Wisps to be maintained.

Each type of the Wisp Sonic can absorb, grants him a different type of Color Power with its own unique abilities; the Yellow Wisps grant Sonic the Yellow Drill, the Green Wisps grant Sonic the Green Hover and so forth. Most Color Powers cause Sonic to physically transform into a new form that is better suited for the Color Power's abilities, while others simply allows him to execute powerful attacks, such as the Boost or the Final Color Blaster. After a Color Power runs out, the Wisps will pop back out of Sonic, unharmed.

When activating a Color Power in gameplay, an in-game announcer will say the second word of the Color Power, such as "Laser" for the Cyan Laser, "Drill" for the Yellow Drill, or "Hover" for the Green Hover.

Combined Form
In the 2 Player mode in the Wii version of Sonic Colors in Eggman's Sonic Simulator, two players are able to combine the Acts Color Powers with each other by activating the two Color Powers at the same time when they are within a certain distance, to create a new special Color Power move, with the combined effects of both Color Powers. However, not all Color Powers are compatible, resulting in separate effects. The Color Powers that can be combined and their effects are:


 * Cyan Laser + Cyan Laser: Two lasers that shoot in a specified direction, spiraling around each other
 * Yellow Drill + Yellow Drill: Two drills that steer cooperatively, spiraling around one another with magnified power, while attracting Rings.
 * Pink Spikes + Pink Spikes: Two spikeballs that are connected by a white beam of light, which destroys any enemy upon contact.
 * Yellow Drill + Cyan Laser: A drill that can turn into a laser before the Color Power ends.
 * Yellow Drill + Green Hover: A drill that can drill through air as well as it can water, attracting nearby Rings.
 * Orange Rocket + Cyan Laser: A rocket that can turn into a laser before the Color Power ends.
 * Yellow Drill + Orange Rocket: A drill that can rocket upward. This Color Power ends once aboveground.
 * Green Hover + Green Hover: Creates a white beam of beam between the two player which can be used it to knockout enemies when they come in contact with it.

Sonic Colors
The Color Powers first appeared in both versions of Sonic Colors and serve as the games' main gimmick. Each version of the game have its own unique Color Powers, such as the Blue Cube, Green Hover, Purple Frenzy and Pink Spikes on the Wii version, and the Red Burst and Violet Void on the Nintendo DS version.

To activate a Color Power (besides the Boost granted by the White Wisps) in the Wii version, the player has to shake the Wii remote, and on the DS version, the player has to press the X Button.

The player can obtain a Color Power by collecting a Wisp from a Wisp Capsule. The Color Powers' duration is determined by the remainder of energy in the player's Wisp/Boost Gauge. Activating the Color Power will cause the Wisp/Boost Gauge to be used, and once it is depleted, the Color Power will end, and the player will have to collect a new Wisp to activate a Color Power again. While the Color Power is in effect, collecting a new Wisp of the same kind will replenish the Wisp/Boost Gauge and extend the duration of the Color Power.

Sonic Generations
The Color Powers returned in all versions of Sonic Generations, though only in the games' final regular Acts, namely Planet Wisp on the console/PC version, and Tropical Resort on the Nintendo 3DS version. Also, the console/PC version only featured the Orange Rocket and the Pink Spikes, while the 3DS version featured only the Cyan Laser and the Red Burst.

To activate a Color Power in the console/PC version, the player has to press the Y/triangle Button, and on the 3DS version, the player has to press the X Button.

The player can obtain a Color Power by collecting a Wisp from a Wisp Capsule. In the console/PC version of Sonic Generations, the Color Powers' duration is determined by a set time limit rather than an energy gauge. Once the time runs out, the Color Power will end, and the player will have to collect a new Wisp to activate a Color Power again. While the Color Power is in effect, collecting a new Wisp of the same kind will increase extend the duration of the Color Power. On the 3DS version of Sonic Generations, however, the Color Power's duration are determined by remainder of energy in the player's Boost Gauge. Once it is depleted, the Color Power will end, and the player will have to collect a new Wisp to activate a Color Power again, like in Sonic Colors. Also, like in Sonic Colors, while the Color Power is in effect, collecting a new Wisp of the same kind will replenish the Boost Gauge and extend the duration of the Color Power.

Sonic Lost World
"New and improved" Color Powers are set to appear in Sonic Lost World, such as the Indigo Asteroid, Crimson Eagle, and the Magenta Rhythm. A few returning color powers will make an appearance too, such as the Cyan Laser , Orange Rocket, and Yellow Drill .

Trivia

 * The Red and the Violet Wisps are not shown in the announcement trailer. This is most likely due to the fact that those two Wisps are only exclusive to the DS version.
 * On the cover of the Wii version of Sonic Colors, the Blue, Green, Purple, and Pink Wisps are shown. On the DS cover they are replaced with the version exclusive Red Wisp and Violet Wisp.
 * Despite being only exclusive to the Wii version, the Blue, Green and Pink Wisps appear in a few cutscenes from the DS version and in the final cutscene in the Wii version Red Wisps and Violet Wisps are seen.
 * Once Sonic transforms into the Purple Frenzy, he is able to attract rings.
 * According to Cubot, the Wisps "smell good", despite the fact that he's a robot and unable to smell.
 * The Purple Wisp is the only Wisp that doesn't appear in the Sonic Simulator.
 * Since White Wisps spawn from badniks occasionally, it can be assumed that the White Wisps captured by Eggman were used as a power source for some of the enemy robots.
 * The Violet Wisp is not present in the Sonic Colors comic adaptation in Archie Sonic the Hedgehog Issue 219..
 * According to Doctor Eggman in a deleted voice clip, the Wisps' Hyper-Go-On power is even more powerful than the Chaos Energy. As Chaos Energy and Hyper-Go-On have never been compared, this has never been officially confirmed.
 * The Red Burst bears some resemblance to the fiery head in the Sonic Battle logo.
 * In Sonic Colors, certain Wisps allow Sonic to use abilities similar to past abilities that he was able to do in past games on his own. For example, the Green Wisp allows Sonic to do the Light Speed Dash, and the Pink Wisp allows Sonic to perform the Spin Dash.
 * The Wisps reappeared in Sonic Generations in the Planet Wisp stage, but only the Orange and Pink Wisps are usable in PS3/Xbox/PC Version, while the 3DS uses Tropical Resort and the Cyan Laser and Red Burst. Also, in the PS3/Xbox/PC version, White Wisps make cameos at the beginning of both Classic and Modern Planet Wisp.
 * The Blue Cube is similar to the P-switch from the Mario franchise, as both change collectibles (rings or coins) into walkable surfaces (cubes or blocks) and vice-versa.
 * The only time they appear to speak English is in the cutscene "A New Sonic Legend Begins" when Yacker is telling other Wisps about Sonic (DS version only). However, this might be in Wisp language translated into English for the player, as Tails is not there.
 * The Purple and Violet Wisps are the only Wisps without eyes.

Credit:
Original Pages: http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Wisp http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Color_Power