One of the blue blur’s best platformers, Sonic Generations returns to modern consoles (PS5, XBSX and Switch) as a content-packed HD remaster, paired with an incredible brand-new game starring fan favourite character, Shadow the Hedgehog.
Sonic Generations: Radical Reruns
In the anniversary title, Sonic Generations, the mysterious Time Eater sends the gang into White Space, a broken realm between dimensions. Now Sonic must team up with his past self and travel through time and space to save his friends.
This game remains a loving celebration of the blue blur’s history and still performs very well, retaining the solid controls that make both 2D and 3D Sonics fun to play. Classic Sonic, while not feeling identical to his original Mega Drive trilogy, still feels exciting with decent momentum and a gleefully overpowered spin charge. Modern Sonic’s 3D/2D “Boost” gameplay still makes for fast-paced, reaction-based fun, even if it’s outclassed by Shadow Generations in controls and normal movement. The remaster even gives both hedgehogs the Drop Dash from Sonic Mania, another handy way to go fast in case Modern Sonic runs out of boost energy.
The original game dynamically reimagines nine of the blue blur’s most iconic levels, all packed into 2 acts, making them stand out on their own compared to their original appearances. Most of these have a great blend of exploration and epic set pieces like City Escape’s iconic truck chase, now with buzzsaws! Even epic fights against Sonic’s past bosses (eg. Metal Sonic and Perfect Chaos) are reimagined and most of them, while not the most challenging, are well-designed, fast paced and super fun to take down (same can’t be said for the final boss, though). Reliving these moments is even better thanks to the remaster’s upscaled visuals, looking sharp, smooth, and still retaining the original’s colourful style.
The story, however, remains the weaker part of Sonic Generations due to being non-existent and not using the concept to its full potential. The remaster completely rewrites most of the cutscene’s dialogue to be more in line with the characters’ personalities compared to the original. But it doesn’t really improve what little plot the original game had and some changes even muddle certain scenes at times.
Shadow Generations: The Ultimate Lifeform Returns
While Sonic Generations’ story wasn’t great, Shadow’s mission to take down the reemerged Black Doom is far better, introducing new players to Sonic Adventure 2’s iconic antihero. His tragic backstory and relationships with Maria and Gerald Robotnik are reused to convey new emotions compared to previous games by showcasing his vulnerabilities in a whole new way. This additional game packed alongside Sonic Generations has Shadow confront his past and future in 6 extra stages found in an open-zone hub world inspired by Sonic Frontiers.
Speaking of Frontiers, that game’s Cyberspace Stages walked so that Shadow Generations’ levels can skate. These visually majestic levels are jam-packed with multiple pathways to experiment with, including the 2D stages! For example, Kingdom Valley and Sunset Heights are major improvements over their original versions in Sonic 06 and Forces respectively due to their dynamic level design and sufficient stage length. Also, those sparse moments where you’re warped to Radical Highway mid-level are jarring in the best possible way.
While Shadow and Sonic have the similar “Boost” gameplay formula, Shadow lets you stop time with Chaos Control and use Chaos Spear to stun enemies and activate switches. The real standout mechanic is the fantastically fearsome Doom Powers, genetic mutations to Shadow’s DNA. These powers distinguish Shadow from Sonic in a horrifically creative way, being satisfying to use and rewarding to master (using Doom Blast to send a Black Arms soldier flying is so gratifying). Shadow’s arsenal and the stellar level design work together seamlessly, like when Doom Surfing through Kingdom Valley’s waters and swimming like a squid on Chaos Island’s purple slime with Doom Morph.
Doom Powers are even used to fight the game’s epic array of bosses and beating the bosses with awesomely animated finishing moves, triggered by the press of a button in the game’s quick time events, makes you feel so powerful. Though, these could have involved more punishment for getting them wrong at that crucial moment to be more challenging.
Both Games: A Time-Travelling Treasure Trove
Both games together in this remastered package contain tons of missions found in the void-like limbo of White Space, exclusive for Shadow and both generations of Sonic. Collecting Boss Gate Keys now even requires beating two missions in each zone instead of three. Though mission types are copied across zones like ghost races and ring collecting, there’s still some diversity of mission types like using creative skills (which unlock after beating those missions) and team-ups with Sonic’s friends. Most of these are great fun, although there are quite a few tedious ones that disrupt the flow of Sonic’s fast-paced gameplay, like one where you grab slow-rising balloons to reach the goal – an exercise in patience after zooming along these mission types, especially when going for the best rank. Even though its main stories are relatively short, even when padded out with missions, the game’s hidden collectables provide tons of replay value far beyond beating your best time and rank at the end of stages. Sonic Generations lets you explore levels in different ways by finding hidden Red Star Rings (which give you even more collectables after leaving the level) and, exclusive to the remaster, rescuing the adorable lost Chao, three hidden in each zone act.
Shadow Generations, on the other hand, provides collectables through timed hub-world missions and treasure chests that can be unlocked through “Collection Keys” found in both its normal and mission stages. Two standout rewards that players can get are plot summaries, which recap Shadow’s history in previous games, and pages of Gerald Robotnik’s Journal, which adds brand-new lore to the Sonic universe and fleshes out Shadow’s background even further.
Verdict
Sonic X Shadow Generations combines two exciting, fast-paced, content-rich games into the ultimate celebration of both of gaming’s most iconic hedgehogs. If you missed playing as Shadow the Hedgehog or somehow skipped one of Sonic’s best outings, get your hands on this package as fast as you can. It’s one for the AGES!
