When I posted my review of the third Sonic live action film I mentioned that halfway through Sonic Heroes was when I gave up on Sonic games (apart from Mania) and that got a few people mortified that I hadn’t played Sonic Generations, so when the recent re-release came up on sale I thought “why not?” and brought it. After playing through both campaigns I can say that while I had fun at various points nothing about the experience made me think I’ve “missed out” if this game is heralded as the best of the latter 3D era. The experience was still more good than bad though, so let’s take a look!
Background:
Suddenly seeing the Chemical Plant Zone spread out like this was really surreal, and definitely my highlight of the game.
The original game released on November 1st 2011 to celebrate Sonic’s 20th Anniversary. It was released on PlayStation 3, XBOX 360, PC and a completely different game with the same title and concepts was released on the 3DS at the same time.
Fast forward 13 or so years and the game got a shiny new re-release as “Sonic X Shadow Generations” complete with an entirely new campaign for Shadow that’s about the size of a good DLC add-on. This version was released on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, XBOX One, XBOX Series and PC on October 25th 2024, with a Nintendo Switch 2 version coming out as a launch title on June 5th 2025.
Gameplay:
A different take of the giant Death Egg mech, but a more time consuming and less fun take…
The original Sonic Generations has two play styles, “Classic” and “Modern”, which is funny because Classic doesn’t play at all like Classic Sonic and Modern is now actually an older style of Sonic game, by all accounts. Still, at least the last bit made sense at the time! As mentioned the “Classic” levels are 2D but that’s about where the similarity to the Mega Drive classics end as the moveset is very much based on the 3D Sonic one and it controls far too floaty to feel “correct”. It’s not terrible, you do get used to it and it does at least have the spindash (not that I used it much) but I couldn’t help but feel that just keeping it to the 3D style the whole way through would’ve been better in the long run, especially as during the 3D levels you end up doing 2D segments anyway! Still, you travel to the right of the screen, jumping on enemies to kill them and platforming all while collecting rings, which if you’re not in the know are your health bar, so long as you have at least one ring you won’t die from a hit, but one hit when ringless and you’re done (same as if you fall in a pit or spend too much time underwater without getting a bubble of air for the record…) There are also the Elemental Shields as well (bubble means you can survive underwater and you can bounce upwards, lightning gives you a shield that attracts rings and allows you to do a second jump mid-air and fire makes you immune to fire and allows you to do a fiery dash) though they seem to have created one sequence where they’re useful and then they don’t really matter much again…
This was by far the worst mission in the game and took a fair few attempts to get it. You “just” jump on flying music notes and send them back to Vector the Crocodile, but the homing jumps do not lend themselves to accurate hitting…
The 3D levels have the same rules when it comes to rings for health, pits and locking on to enemies and breaking them by jumping on them and all that stuff but are obviously 3D spaces instead. You have a “boost” button as well, allowing you to go much faster but at the cost of rings, so boosting will only get you so far if you’re not collecting rings as you go. You also not only lock on to enemies but you automatically home-in on them, allowing some pseudo platforming using the homing dash to take place. There are other skills as well that appear in levels where the gameplay, like dropping directly downwards with force, or the Wisps from Sonic Colours that allow you to cling onto walls or fly upwards like a rocket (the Wisps actually come into play for both 2D and 3D levels) The bosses and “rival match ups” are often simple QTEs (don’t miss those…) or finding the right moment to jump on your opponent while doing some high-speed running/platforming type stuff. You can also unlock other moves for 3D Sonic at a shop or by unlocking them then choose which to equip, but I didn’t really play around with these though, I must admit.
There’s a hub world that’s just a 2D white void with a chunk of each playable Zone sticking out where you pick either play style and play the level in both POVs and then do a boss, after which you then have to do some missions within each level to unlock keys to fight an overall boss of each “era” that are essentially “Mega Drive”, “Dreamcast/GameCube” and “Recent (at the time of release)”, each having three Zones for a total of 9 plus the final area along with Rival levels which are essentially another boss fight but against foes who ended up allies in the end. It works well enough, and some of the missions are optional, though I did them all anyway, not to a S Rank or anything (as yes you’re graded on your performance from D to S) but I at least completed each one. Each gate with a mission behind it has a bell on top that once you’ve cleared it you can knock the bell and then have to chase a music note down and once you’ve reached the note you then unlock something (stage music, artwork that sort of thing), it’s the most pointless added step I’ve seen in a game for a long time, just unlock the bonus thing as a reward for completing the level, don’t get me to chase after it for a few seconds for no reason! There are also Red Rings to collect on every level, as well as hidden Chaos, which I believe are a new addition to the “X Shadow” version of the game.
This also suddenly happened in one of the levels…
That’s about it for the original Generations. It was fun dipping in and out of it but definitely got less fun once I reached the levels I have zero attachment to as they were very plain and samey (a lot of realistic cities and buildings rather than the more fantasy-like zones I prefer with my Sonic), and the enemy designs really took a nosedive post Mega Drive, all just generic humanoid robot designs with little variety.
As for the “Shadow Generations” part, it’s quite a bit different actually. Okay, the set up is the same in terms of a white void, levels from past games, challenge gates (with pointless note chasing) and keys to get to bosses before a final zone, but the white void hub is entirely 3D and has all the Sonic Frontiers style free-roam grind rails and stuff all around to get about plus a tonne of hidden collectables to find. During the levels you also get special powers as well, including Chaos Control where you can stop time briefly or new ones where Shadow can surf on water, travel within ink like he’s in Splattoon, and even get a set of wings towards the end. They add a bit of variety to the gameplay, which while more spacious than Sonic Generations does still share a bit of level philosophy with it in terms of boosting and enemy behaviour. There are obviously fewer levels overall and they’re nearly all from games I’ve never played so I wasn’t super-invested, but that mattered less as the Shadow part will only take you a few hours and the gameplay was a lot more fun. The production values are much higher in this game as well, there really are some great moments of eye candy and fun set pieces to play with.
Look at all that detail going on… Also “Metal Overlord”?
If future Sonic games play like Shadow Generations but full length and with Sonic and his pals as the central focus I think they could be on for a winner. Don’t know if I’ll play it, but I might be tempted, which is more than I can say for most Sonic games recently, Sonic Frontiers aside (and that I was disappointed with after a few hours and returned…)
Graphics and Sound:
Even the original game still has some wow moments, graphically.
The Sonic Generations part is fine, does its job but it is an upscaled and new lighting-engine’d version of a seventh gen game, so it’s not a technical powerhouse, nor was it ever going to be. The Shadow Generations part is impressive, with a lot of detail, draw distance and action on screen with little to no slowdown.
Sound is good, the voice acting is cheesy without being too bad on the ears (with a few cast members being the exceptions) and the soundtrack is good, a pair of remixes of relevant background music on each level for both play styles and some more cheesy American rock stuff for the modern levels / new Shadow levels. Gets the job done.
Story:
I mean… he’s not wrong.
Not a lot to say here. Sonic is celebrating his birthday with all his pals until a “Time Eater” arrives and sucks everyone up. Sonic soon meets his younger self from the original games (who is entirely mute, despite original games Tails speaking perfectly fine…) and together they free their friends and unlock more areas by beating levels and missions until they find out that the Time Eater had been tamed by Dr. Robotnik and his future Eggman self, and together they try to use it to beat the Sonics only to lose to them as per usual. Everything then goes back to normal, with the two Robotniks arguing with each other when they’re left behind. In terms of excuses to have a revisit to old levels it works well enough.
Shadow Generations takes place during Sonic Generations and has Shadow in his own Time Eater void where he meets Gerald Robotnik and Maria, the two who essentially raised him and in the latter’s case whose death drove him to despair. He also meets the Dr. Claw soundalike villain Black Doom, who was really responsible for creating Shadow and wishes to push him to the peak of his power so he can have his perfect creation but Shadow resists the pull of evil and eventually beats him back, having to say goodbye to Maria and Gerald as they head back to their proper place in time at the end. Again, it works well as a framing device but obviously beyond the basic backstory of Shadow from Adventure 2 none of it meant anything to me, and honestly I could not take Black Doom seriously with such an OTT cartoon villain voice. I enjoyed it DUE to its cheesiness, but it certainly drained the dramatic scenes of all tension.
Downloadable Content:
Shadow catches some surf… in a tunnel with no waves…?
There is a DLC level featuring Shadow from the Sonic The Hedgehog 3 movie, complete with Keanu Reeves voice work, though I skipped it personally.
Thoughts Now:
Flying between buildings not-at-the-speed of sound, got places to go, gotta follow my colourless-rainbow!
Being essentially a strictly 2D kind of Sonic gamer who quite liked the Adventure games I will say I quite liked Generations as well, both of them. For something to just dip in and out of on my PS5 while playing other things it was fun, especially the nostalgia of the opening quarter of the game (loved seeing Chemical Plant Zone in 3D, a very odd experience!) but the 2D gameplay just doesn’t work and some of the 3D levels got quite dull towards the end. The Shadow part bounced back a bit by offering a lot more variety in gameplay and had some fun level design, so the overall package I will admit was more good than bad and while if I do dip into Sonic it will be one of the 2D games, I can’t say I’ll never touch this again. It does deserve more praise than a 3 at the very least.
Hogan Reviews 