I feel like before I get into this, I feel like I've gotta establish my history with this game, just as a disclaimer. Sonic Generations, more than probably any other game, is the game that defined my childhood. I grew up with this game, have played it countless times, know the stages inside and out, and there's no possible way that I could give an entirely objective analysis of anything in it. This really is the game that turned me into a lifetime Sonic the Hedgehog fan and is arguably the game that I care most about. I'm still going to do my level best to acknowledge genuine faults, while sing the game's genuine praises, but you've been warned.
The reason that I'm here today looking at this game once again is due to the recent remaster released as part of 'Sonic X Shadow Generations', but as the game is mostly unchanged, I'll only touch on the updates at the very end.
WHAT'S ALL THE HYPE ABOUT
Sonic Generations is a game that can best be described as a 'spectacle platformer', that being a platformer with a large focus on set pieces, visuals, and flair - as opposed to precision, or super intricate movement. You play as two versions of Sonic, one being the 'Classic' Sonic from the 1990s SEGA Genesis games, and the other being the 'Modern' Sonic, taking his playstyle from 'Sonic Unleashed' and 'Sonic Colors', the two most recent Sonic games at time of release. With both sonics you play through nine areas split into two stages each, with stage theming being pulled from each of Sonic's mainline game entries from before Sonic Generations. Along the way you'll tackle some boss fights and 'rival battles' (other boss fights), before culminating in a final showdown with Dr. Eggman(s).
This all describes the game's basic structure, but what really makes the game special to me and so many others? To put it simply, it's all down to the moment-to-moment gameplay of the game.
CLASSIC SONIC
Classic Sonic, while not controlling exactly like how he did back in the 90's, still feels great to play as, and his charge-up spin dash ability has been absolutely juiced up, to the point where he flies across the screen when it goes off, and this speed feels absolutely exhilarating. His stages all contain multiple paths that reward tight platforming precision and knowledge of the level design by replaying it, but they don't slow you down too much even on the bottom paths. Classic Sonic lacks some of the momentum-based gameplay that he's so known for, but I'd argue that the speed and tight level design more than make up for this. The stages aren't designed around a super physics-oriented character, so it all works out.
Sonic Generations, SEGA/Sonic Team
The best part of playing as Classic Sonic in this game has to be the variety of spectacle and ways that the original stages are reinterpreted for him. Unlike later entries like 'Sonic Forces' and 'Sonic Superstars', Classic Sonic's stages have a lot of spectacle, with camera angles whipping around to show more of the three-dimensionality of the environments. The stages also aren't content to confine themselves to the technical restrictions the original Classic Sonic games worked under, with stages like 'City Escape' reinterpreting the GUN truck chase from 'Sonic Adventure 2' into an entire level where you're ducking and weaving from the truck trying to collide with you. It's ideas like this that show the devs were filled with creativity and passion for the IP while designing this game, and it's absolutely wonderful.
MODERN SONIC
Now, Classic Sonic is great and all, genuinely fun to play. But anybody who's familiar with this game knows exactly what I'm about to say. Modern Sonic is the reason that anybody cares about this game. Modern Sonic is equipped with a boost meter that's able to propel him forward at rocket speeds (not quite matching the speeds he gets up to in Sonic Unleashed, but not far behind), and the level design is built around this. The name of the game here is reaction time and level memorization. Because you move so quickly, you've got to be able to react to oncoming obstacles quickly or have played the level enough to somewhat remember what's coming up next at every part of it. This leads to a playstyle that's super rewarding to replay, to come back to perfect, and to shoot for new best times in. I'd liken the level design as something closer to a racetrack than a typical platformer level, and this design methodology really brings out the speed demon in me. It's the best of an arcade game combined with the freedom and spectacle allowed by the then new hardware that we were working with.
Sonic Generations, SEGA/Sonic Team
This replayability is also due to the sheer spectacle this game is working with. Most levels contain some sort of unique set piece to visually distinguish levels from one another, from running from a giant robot fish in 'Green Hill', or the crumbling ruins you must escape from in 'Sky Sanctuary'. Even aside from this, just playing as Sonic in this game looks and feels cool, the speed, animations, area design, and camera work all come together beautifully here to create a masterclass in game design. At this point, these level designs are baked into my brain, I could probably sketch them all out entirely from memory, and they're just so fluid and fun.
I could only imagine the amount of playtesting that needed to occur to get these levels to be as tightly designed as they are. They're massive as well given the speed of the character, so the asset creation team must have been running on all-fours the whole development cycle.
CONS?
Now, for as much credit as I'm willing to give this game, it absolutely isn't perfect and has its fair share of mistakes. Pretty much all of these mistakes come down to one stage, that being the finale of 'Planet Wisp'. As Classic and Modern Sonic, this stage makes a lot of fumbles, particularly in the later half where the level design slows down and becomes more platforming oriented, which isn't in line with the rest of the game's design. It's strange too, as the first half of the level is pretty solid, and then they just drop the ball. Maybe it's just time constraints on the last level, maybe they tried to make it play like it originally did in 'Sonic Colors', who knows, but it's a bit of a sour note to end the game on.
The final boss fight is also definitely the weakest fight in the whole game, with mixed signals for what you as the player need to actually do, and repetitive dialogue from the supporting cast. It's certainly not a great ending, but I will say that I ran into less trouble with it on this most recent replay than I have in the past. Still, it's pretty embarrassing that the 3DS demake of this game has a way better final boss.
BOSSES
Now, on the note of bosses, we've got some good variety here. All three main bosses are solid re-interpretations of their originals, with the 'Egg Dragoon' boss fight being a total reworking, and bringing it more in-line with the bosses that you'd fight as Sonic in that game (The fight was originally fought as the 'werehog' in that game) which is a nice touch. The 'rival fights' are an additional set of three fights that are all pretty solid as well with Sonic's various non-Eggman villains throughout the series. Great callbacks all around, and I loved seeing that each of these bosses had their own unique encounter arena (except Silver, RIP). They're nothing special here, but they did a pretty solid job of incorporating the main playstyle of the characters, rather than having them stop in their tracks to fight in an arena, they're pretty much all on-foot.
PRESENTATION
Sonic Generations also knocks it out of the park when it comes to presentation. The visuals are gorgeous, with environments being rich and full of life. Of course, being a spectacle platformer, the visual appeal of the game is half the battle, and this is a battle that the game definitely won. I'd say compared to many of its console contemporaries, it really does knock them out of the park. And it's not just visual style that's on point, but the tech behind it too. These levels are almost unbelievably large, and the fact that they pulled it off on this hardware is a miracle. The lighting is also quite nice, being done with the in-house Hedgehog Engine, developed by Sonic Team. It's a little technical for my tastes, but from what I understand the engine is able to 'pre-bake' global illumination (that is to say, light reflecting off of other objects around it, often casting more realistic, colored shadows), which lends a great amount of realism and dynamic lighting to the game.
Sonic Generations, SEGA/Sonic Team
The soundtrack is also just bonkers good. So many fantastic remixes of previous Sonic tracks here. They brought together a ton of Sonic soundtrack legends to work on this, and it shows. Jun Senoue, Cash Cash, Richard Jacques, Tomoya Ohtani, the works. I'll throw some of my favorites down below:
The narrative of this game is probably its weakest element. Really and truly, it's just there to push the game along, with decent performances by the voice actors, and lackluster cutscene animation. Run-time wise I'm pretty sure there's less than 20 minutes of them, so they make very little impact on the game overall.
THE 100% EXPERIENCE
To 100% Sonic Generations you'll have a few tasks. The simplest one is to get an S-Rank on every main level in the game. These are, regrettably, insanely easy to accomplish. I've often gotten them after literally goofing off in the level for over two extra minutes. I wish they'd be tighter to incentivize more skilled play, which this game has a very high ceiling for.
You'll also need to hunt down 5 Red Star Rings in each level, which is a really tedious hunt. Believe it or not but finding small items in a game where you run at 100 miles per hour can be quite tricky. The internet is a big help in finding these, but they aren't too well hidden, so finding them isn't too bad if you're willing to slow down (I'm not). I wish there were better criteria for getting 100% in these levels, maybe some sort of 'collect X rings' style missions, similar to how they were done in 'Sonic Frontiers'.
Finally, and largest of all, are the optional challenge gates. These remix the levels in certain ways to challenge you (and extend playtime of what is a very short game). Each zone gets 10 of these for a total of 90, and some of these are actually really fun, and ask you to play the game in a different way. Some don't change much (which is fine by me), and some are kind of boring, and that's the worst you can say about them. They're a pretty inoffensive way to extend playtime, and they're almost entirely optional, which is how I like things like this.
HOW MUCH LONGER CAN I GO ON FOR?
There's so much more that I could say about this game, so many details that I've omitted from this, I truly do love this game to bits. It's a great time that I'd recommend to any Sonic fan, but more so I believe it to be a great starting point for new fans of the series like I once was. It's a true exploration of all parts of Sonic's history, especially if you take a look at the collection room after nabbing a bunch of collectables. Please give this game a shot, especially if you can grab it with the additional Shadow Generations which I'll be talking about here soon.
APPENDIX: SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS
This game was recently rereleased as part of 'Sonic X Shadow Generations', with some minor changes, I'll quickly talk about those here.
They rewrote the cutscenes, redubbed them, and slightly changed animations in the cutscenes. The writing is fine, but the redub is slightly worse than the original, and the cutscenes aren't reanimated enough to fully fit all of the lines which makes it feel a little clunky. The story isn't this game's allure though, so it's a pretty minor change.
The 'drop dash' move was added for both Classic and Modern Sonic. For classic, this is a good change to bring him in line with his most recent entries, and it feels pretty natural. For Modern, why did they even bother? I never need to use this, and I accidentally hit it more often than anything. It doesn't feel good, but it doesn't get in the way often.
The hidden chao added to each stage are just another collectable to find in the stages. Big whoop, but they're cute, I just wish they'd replace the red rings instead of being required in addition to them.
The low-poly Sonic skins are amazing 10/10. I played the whole game with these and don't regret it.
The 60 FPS boost and resolution bump are great (playing on XBOX Series X), although I noticed sometimes the game wouldn't be super responsive to my inputs. Perhaps this is a console, controller, or port issue, but I've never noticed it in the past, just figured I'd note it.
FINALLY, HE'S DONE TALKING
Sonic Generations is absolutely worth your time and money. Please, above just about any Sonic game, try this one out. If you've got any attachment to this game as well, or you've just tried it out with 'Sonic X Shadow Generations', let me know your thoughts in the comments. Until next time, never forget to play without limits.
-Blue streak, speeds by, Mikey the hedgehog
Sonic Generations - 13 Years Later