Sonic Makes An Epic Comeback Thanks to Shadow: A Sonic X Shadow Generations Review

By Teepu

Players: 1
Platform: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC (Steam & Epic Games Store)

When one hears the name Sonic the Hedgehog, one usually thinks of mediocre games, edgy attitudes, and lots of speed. That is not too far off the mark for a franchise that has only hit a few highs during its lifetime. Do not get me wrong, I find enjoyment in most of the games, but many of them are also poorly made. Sonic X Shadow Generations promises to change the pattern (Sonic Frontiers recently already helped in that regard), but did it keep that promise?

Sonic X Shadow Generations is most comparable to Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury. I know some may say comparing Mario to Sonic is blasphemy, but hear me out. It includes a slightly touched up and remastered version of the original Sonic Generations game, as well as a brand new, modern expansion called Shadow Generations. For the Sonic portion of the game, besides higher resolution, it also offers an unlimited lives mode. This is a very welcome addition to a game where you go extremely fast, which inevitably leads to many mistakes and deaths. Sonic has always been about learning how to juggle momentum, speed, traps, and platforming together in a satisfying way, which makes deaths unavoidable. Having unlimited lives alleviates the unnecessary punishment and frustration that comes with losing all your lives, and makes learning the game significantly more satisfying and streamlined.

In the Sonic portion of the game, the nearly non-existent plot pushes you through a celebration of Sonic’s history up to the original release of Sonic Generations in 2011. Throughout the nine zones, you visit a highlighted zone from nine different games in Sonic’s history. It is not just a simple matter of transposing the original games levels into a collection though. Rather, every single level is completely re-done to be as polished and optimized for fun as possible. Even the most recent stage, from Sonic Colors (again, recent for the original release of this game), has been tweaked and modified to attempt to remove some of the frustrating level design of the original version. All-in-all this allows for some of the best representation of what a Sonic game can be that the franchise has ever seen. To top it off, every zone has two acts: the first act takes the design principals of the 2D Sonic games, cranks it up to 11 and designs the entire stage’s theme around that; the second act similarly takes the design principals of the 3D Sonic games and does the same. One of my favorite moments, for example, is the way they took City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2 and doubled down on the GUN truck chase as the theme of the entire "classic" Sonic version of the stage. It allowed for some highly creative level design that was an absolute blast to play through, while still preserving the feel of the 3D Sonic game the level hails from. It is too bad that six of the nine zones are pulled from the 3D games, as it would have been nice to see a better balance of 2D and 3D origins, but it is a minor complaint when most of the stages are designed quite well. On top of this, as you do everything in the game you can use your currency to unlock modifiers to tailor how your character controls, which allows you to enjoy the game how you want to enjoy it.

On top of that, there are a bunch of challenge scenarios for each zone if you want some extra things to do aside from the admittedly short main story. The challenges almost double the gameplay length of the game. There are also various collectibles in each zone. Importantly, a lot of the most memorable boss fights in the franchise are only memorable because of the scale and aesthetics, and usually have shoddy controls and poor design. Well, they took six iconic fights from the franchise and redid them to be more functional, fun, and exciting. Veteran fans may remember horrifying experiences of facing the Death Egg Robot in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 without rings after having just faced another boss also without rings. Here, they completely re-imagined the fight into a multi-phase experience that gives you rings, controls better and makes things more interesting. In many ways Sonic Generations makes it hard for me to go back and play the older games, which is how much everything is improved upon. It is unfortunate that the final boss reverts to the old design principles of "let’s make it pretty and epic, but horrible to control, and totally unfair." Honestly, the final boss is an odd blight on an otherwise fantastic experience.

As far as the remastering goes, the game does look and run better, though it is just some upscaling and adding the unlimited lives option. They also added a new collectible in the stages, but it is hardly anything to write home about. This is largely the same Sonic Generations we played in 2011. The game still looks great though and sounds amazing. There are so many good music tracks that are remixed on top of being able to select from a wide selection of classic tracks while playing. Overall, Sonic Generations still holds up 13 years later as one of the best Sonic experiences to date.

Then we move on to Shadow Generations. If you plan to play the Sonic portion of the game at all, I highly recommend you do that before tackling the Shadow portion. The reason for this is that the Shadow portion is better in every way imaginable, and makes the Sonic portion feel extremely dated despite it having aged well. If Shadow did not exist the Sonic portion would be fine, but the Shadow portion, for lack of a better word, absolutely shadows the base game. First off, the game is significantly prettier and smoother. Everything is so flashy and visually appealing that it makes the Sonic portion look ancient (that is a bit of an exaggeration, but the point remains). Of note is that I played the game on the PS5, so I am not sure if the Switch version holds up quite the same.

The gameplay for Shadow plays like Sonic but enhanced. Instead of a 2D hub world, now you have a fully explorable 3D hub world that is surprisingly large and full of secrets to find. It also fully embraces Shadow’s unique mobility which makes running from section to section extremely satisfying. And I will tell you right now, Shadow’s mobility and abilities makes him far more fun to play than Sonic. As you get further into his story, you will constantly unlock new things, such as a surfing mode or the ability to fly. The game constantly upgrades you with these powers so that as you play through the story it never feels stale, you constantly feel like you are getting more powerful, and you get satisfying new ways to progress through levels. It makes Sonic’s simple run/jump/homing attack gameplay feel very juvenile in comparison.

They also, in my opinion, did a much better job selecting stages to re-do in this game. This is, of course, completely my opinion, you may love or hate the stage selection in the base game. For me, I was unhappy with almost half of the selection (the quality was still good though). Oddly, there is a stage from Sonic Frontiers here, despite Shadow having nothing to do with that game, but considering Shadow only really has relevance in three games, it is understandable. Which, if you have been counting, means there are four zones. That makes Shadow Generations just shy of half the length of the base game. It is surprisingly large, but also over far too quickly for my tastes. The stages are top notch though, as are all the boss fights (even the final boss, thankfully). Like the base game, there are also some challenges to do, both in the hub world and the individual stages. While Shadow lacks the customization of Sonic, he makes up for it in his ability progression. In some ways, I feel like Sonic's customization is there to make up for his lack of flexibility as a character. Shadow, on the other hand, gains more flexibility as you play, so there is no need to insert equippable abilities for him.

When I said it improves on the base game in every way, I meant it. The controls also feel fantastic and very tight. Imagine the great controls from Sonic Frontiers, but even better and more responsive. It helps that Shadow runs slightly slower than Sonic, which allows for some more control from the player and less twitch gameplay. It makes the player feel more in control of their wins and losses instead of the classic "Sonic is running too fast, and I ran off the edge because I couldn’t see it coming" the franchise often suffers from. The story is also a lot more interesting, relevant, and heavy than the base game. With the return of Black Doom (the villain responsible for Shadow existing), you end up exploring Shadow’s past and having him reconcile with his inner demons. It is quite touching and gives some much-needed closure to Shadow’s past that the franchise has left hanging for far too long. There are even collectibles you can find that will give you a summary of his story from various games so you can catch up without having to play those archaic and hard to play games. In short, Shadow Generations takes all the great ideas from Sonic Generations, polishes them, perfects them, and then applies them to Shadow.

When it really boils down to it, my main complaint about the base game is the same one I had over a decade ago: the odd way it ignores so much of the franchise. Representation of the portable games is not there, nor is Sonic CD (outside of the Metal Sonic race) or the storybook games. It ignores a huge chunk of Sonic’s history. I do understand that it does not want to get to the point of being bloated, but it is a bummer all the same. They could have had side-quest stages that are not required to beat the game or something similar. My only complaint about Shadow though, is that it is too short, I want a full game that plays like that starring Shadow.

Sonic X Shadow Generations is Sonic the Hedgehog at its absolute best. Despite it being both a remaster of a 13-year-old game and a modern expansion, it holds up well, plays well and is the best representation of how good a Sonic game can be if done right. Whether you are a Sonic fan or not, it is a fantastic momentum-based platformer that I recommend you check out if you can.

Check Out Sonic x Shadow Generations on PlayStation:
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/sonic-x-shadow-generations/

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Story: B-
Gameplay: A+
Graphics: A
Music/Sound: A+
Value: A+

OVERALL: A+

Pros:
+ Despite its age, the base game holds up as a fantastic experience.
+ The expansion is not only peak Sonic gameplay, but some top-notch 3D platforming overall.
+ Full of some of the best video game music that exists.

Cons:
- Shadow Generations is over too soon.
- Odd lack of representation of most of the Sonic’s history.
- The final boss of Sonic Generations is still utter garbage.

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Not this guy again!