Sonic X Shadow Generation needs some explaining. Of course, if you’re a series fan who’s been following the marketing beats, you probably already know that – but I’ve realized over the past few weeks that a lot of people are blissfully unaware of what this actual package is. Is this a new game? Remastered version? Well, the answer is somewhere in between.
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The release features a remake of 2011’s Sonic Generations, a nostalgia trip where old meets new, pitting the 2D game’s chunky, lovable “classic” Sonic against the lanky, chatty modern version – Players will have an amazing time traveling with both characters through levels throughout Sonic’s history. But there’s Shadow – who will star in his own standalone new adventure as part of this remake.
Hence the name “Sonic X Shadow Generation”. While it cleans up the Google results for “Sonic X Shadow”, it’s also an accurate description – the game basically includes Sonic Generations and shadow generation. The concept of both games is the same—a brief rollercoaster ride through the history of its namesake character—but they’re also very different.
Like the dramatic orchestral version of “Live and Learn” from the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie trailer, much of Sonic X Shadow Generations feels laser-aimed to stir up nostalgia among Dreamcast-era fans feeling. The original Generations was a series-wide celebration, but it felt like it traded the most on the return of “classic” (by which we mean Mega Drive era) Sonic. Here, the focus subtly shifts to the Dreamcast era.
When you launch the game, the Game Selection screen gives you a choice between Sonic Generations and Shadow Generations, which are described as two different games. The Sonic game features a new remix of the Sonic theme song “It Don’t Matter” from the Dreamcast game, but using retro synthesizers to reflect the classic yet modern nature of the story. Shadow Generations is represented by a new remix of “Throw it All Away,” Shadow’s original theme song from Sonic Adventure 2.
As someone who was 12 years old when SA2 was released (young enough to be a huge fan and old enough to browse eBay and beg my mom to import the game with a credit card so I could play it months in advance), it’s a palpable nostalgia that’s exactly what It’s the kind of nostalgia that makes the hairs on the back of your neck tingle.
Obviously, it’s not all aimed at older fans. It’s telling that when you open the Shadow Generations menu, the first option isn’t to play the actual game – it’s to watch a short retrospective movie that briefly tells Shadow’s origin story. This project exists just like it did for the first few generations. On the one hand, it really wants to make the hearts of those who remember the original work get a little faster; On the other hand, it’s a history lesson and a timely introduction to Shadow’s “lore” for the kids who will meet him in the third movie a few months later.
Pay special attention to the new Shadow Generations section of the product, which is an amazing experience. In a parallel story to Sonic Generations , Shadow is also sucked into a monochromatic space made up of his memories. Sonic was 2D, but Shadow appropriately gets 3D explorable spaces – like the minimalist Peach Castle in Mario 64. The space is very sparse and, to be honest, feels a bit like a development environment, but it connects the stages well enough.
Starting with Sonic Adventure 2’s space colony Ark, each stage represents a period in Shadow’s history. As with the base generation, your mileage in stage selection will vary. Among them are two levels in “Sonic Adventure 2” (“Radical Highway”, which can be said to be Shadow’s “Green Hill”, as a theme throughout), as well as “Sonic Heroes”, “Sonic 2006”, One level each from Sonic Forces and Sonic Frontiers.
The last two are interesting because neither shadow phase is actually played By – despite his connection to them. Sonic Frontier’s Chaos Island is the most curious, as it reimagines one of the game’s open-world areas as a more traditional and linear Sonic level. I really enjoyed every stage, and they even evoked feelings of nostalgia for some of the original games that I wasn’t too fond of.
I don’t know if Sega announced this and I just forgot, but from my preview of the game I wasn’t even aware of the 3D Sonic gameplay and it feels like a ‘Boost’ style as well as a take on Sonic here A modern interpretation of Adventure 2 and Sonic ’06, there’s also a semi-2D ‘Act 2’ for each Shadow level. Of course, Shadow has never appeared as a strictly 2D character, but these stages imagine what it would be like if he did. . It is very concise and retains the structure of Generations.
Shadows has been a lot of things over the years – Sonic clones, yes, but also ones that hold guns, teleport and drive vehicles. We don’t see Glock in this game, and Shadow doesn’t ride a Harley, but different aspects of his character are represented in “Doom Powers,” special abilities that gradually unlock and change his character in each game. stage navigation. Of course, some powers are cooler than others. I love this power that allows you to launch an enemy into another enemy and then teleport to follow them – it can be used to skip most stages if you’re smart. Other abilities are progression controlled, such as the ability to water surf.
Honestly, it’s all good. I thought the stage was well built and there weren’t that many “Oops, fell off the level!” Stuttering often occurs in Sonic games. The final scenes, arguably the most ambitious, are the only ones I’ve ever experienced in the Shadow section. There’s a sense of sophistication and style that the Sonic series hasn’t always favored – it feels like the team both enjoyed making a more restricted, smaller experience but also clearly really, really loved the character of Shadow.
All in all, this is a very valuable addition to the Sonic Generations offering. As Wells Sr. said, brevity is the soul of wisdom, and it is not popular. Focusing on shadow content, I saw all the core content in the product in three to four hours. If it were a full-priced game in its own right, that would be a tall order – but of course, it’s being released alongside the Sonic Generations remaster.
By the way, the remake is not bad. On PS5 it looks good and runs well, although I noticed that fans of the leaked Switch version reported that the version was stuck at 30 fps. Apparently the game has some subtle, strange story changes as the Sonic series has grown over the past decade. Become cleaner and neater. There have been more Sonic titles since Generations that focused more on 2D physics; Sonic Mania is clearly better. That being said, Generations is arguably one of the best Sonic games of the modern era, if not the best Sonic game, and it’s well worth a remaster.
If I could be picky – and I would – I’m still disappointed that this version didn’t become the final version of Generations.
Back in 2011, Generations was released in two formats – PC and console versions and a handheld version on 3DS. The 3DS game features a different set of zones, with only Green Hill shared between the two zones – and this remaster would be the perfect place to revive and upgrade the 3DS levels, which will double the nostalgia factor. This kind of thing has been done before, like how Super Smash Bros. Ultimate unified all the levels from the 3DS and Wii U versions of the previous game. I’d love to see that here, but that’s not the case – Generations here is functionally identical to past console versions, without the 3DS bonuses. This is a shame and a missed opportunity.
However, some will argue that these resources would be better used to build something completely new within the Shadows story – and I get it. In fact, one of the 3DS-exclusive levels (Radical Highway) is shown as one of Shadow’s levels anyway. So, I digress – this is my nerdy Sonic fan nitpick. Really, I just want Mushroom Mountain and the Emerald Coast.
All in all, this feels like a solid product from Sega and the Sonic team. Generations remains a perfect history lesson for young fans, while The Shadow’s new narrative provides a tantalizing introduction to the character before he hits the big Hollywood stage just before Christmas. This is one of Sonic’s best recent releases Better – You can’t really complain about that.
Sonic X Shadow Generation will be released on October 25 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and PC.
This review was written based on the PlayStation 5 version of the game, with code provided by the publisher.