Shadow Generations Gives Me Hope

 

    

Sonic x Shadow Generations was released and I don’t think I’ve been this excited for a sonic game ever. Sure, I may have clowned on the idea of a generations release when the rumor was floating around and didn’t have too much faith in shadow generations after the previous game but to my surprise, sonic team really knocked it out of the park this time around. As the marketing ramped up it really felt like this was sonic team showing that they had been given actual time to develop the game into what they wanted it to be. I hope that this is the start of something great for this franchise, because it felt good to be unequivocally excited for a sonic game.

Shadow Generations starts off with an optional recap of Shadow's story so far, which was really nice to have as a refresher. Afterwards you have a cutscene that explains the premise of the game: Shadow was chasing a weird reading on the ark during sonic’s birthday party, he eventually finds out it’s black doom and chases him down, then all the time eater shenanigans happen, pretty typical generations stuff. Throughout the game you get to meet characters from Shadow's past like Maria and Gerald, which made for some really good cutscenes between the 3 characters. During the course of the game, you’re given new powers by black doom and use them to traverse the levels in the game, building up to the final confrontation with devil doom and neo devil doom.

The gameplay of Shadow Generations is probably the best the franchise has seen since the original generations in my opinion. There’s only 6 levels but each level is composed of two acts, with act 1 being fully 3D and act 2 being fully 2D which is something I feel the original game should’ve done.  The 3D levels remind me a lot of the adventure level design, which is something I’ve sorely missed. It makes it feel like a merge between the two gameplay styles, something that I’m willing to accept as long as the level designs remain fun. These levels are huge too, having numerous ways to traverse them and having collectables along the side routes to encourage exploring them. There’s one level in particular that I want to highlight and it’s none other than kingdom valley, which is my personal favorite stage. This stage feels like the perfect example of how to reimagine a stage for a different gameplay style. I love all the little references to the original’s level design while still feeling fully original. The amount of open areas makes every run feel unique too, there’s so many options here it’s such a fun level to run through. The speedrun is also super satisfying to do, with me and my friend spending a couple hours just routing the stage on our own without looking at an actual speedrun. Definitely the shining example of how to redesign a level. 

The 2D levels are just as good too, with them probably being the best 2D levels the franchise has seen. It can feel a bit too much like frontiers 2D at times but most of the time it feels perfectly fine. They even managed to make rail grinding in 2D fun with well designed levels, something I never thought they’d do. It’s so good that one of my favorite levels in the game is rail canyon act 2, something that would normally sound insane to think. However, it does make it really jarring to jump between this game and sonic generations.

The boss fights are great this time around too, with them learning a lot from the titan fights from frontiers. I feel less like I’m on autopilot or just spamming attacks until I win, these feel like actual fights and I’m very grateful for it. The spectacle is really great too, with my personal favorite either being metal overlord or mephiles. Speaking of mephiles, I love how they handled him in this game. Getting a clear answer to what happened to him after 06 and getting a pretty good conclusion to his story; the timeline of 06 was erased and mephiles was essentially sent to purgatory and I guess time eater being time eater gave him a chance to escape before shadow put an end to that plan. I also love the way this fight references the original fights too, with phase 1 having you defeat a bunch of enemies to spawn the orb, and phase 2 having the big laser guy along with all the mephiles clones you have to destroy. The final boss, Neo Devil Doom, had an attack that confused me at first but once I figured it out it became a really fun fight to play through, with it using most of the doom powers in it.

Speaking of the doom powers, they’re probably my most major complaint. A lot of them feel too gimmicky and/or situational for how hyped up they were. Doom spear feels the most guilty of this, with it not really being useful outside of forced segments and using them as a speedrun tool. Doom blast is a neat concept but is used fairly sparingly, making me forget it exists sometimes. Doom surf is probably the most used of the abilities, with it auto activating whenever you touch water. It had a weird learning curve but once I used it more I liked it more. Doom morph is the weakest of all the powers, with it having an even weirder learning curve and not being particularly fun to control. It suffers a lot from being introduced so late into the game you can’t really use it in any stage besides chaos island. Doom wings act as the super form and while they’re neat, I never find myself using them. They’re not unlocked until you’re at the final level in the game and just allow you to fly over everything, something I don’t find as fun, even though it’s really cool.

The remixes are high quality much like the original generations. My personal favorites are sunset heights act 1 and the orchestral version of all hail shadow that plays during the neo devil doom fight. I never knew I needed that song until I heard it and I’m still in love thinking about it writing this script. The only remix I’m still mixed on is kingdom valley, I’m still not totally sure if I love the electronic instruments added to it or not.

The visuals I think are the best they’ve been since generations, with all the level visuals feeling very faithful to their source material. I think shadow himself has some weird visuals though, with him looking like he’s made out of felt at times and this weird glow being on some enemies. Some of the cutscenes also have this really weird issue where they’re just stretched for some reason and I still don’t know why this happens.

Y’know, I feel like there’s something I’m forgetting. Something I haven’t seen in… generations. Oh right! Included in this brand new video game is a remaster of sonic generations, and it’s still sonic generations. There’s not really much to say here, the visuals are better, the ui is better and the controls are better. The PC port is finally fixed after 12 years, which is cool. Some of the cutscenes got re-wrote, which is a whatever change. They added the drop dash but implemented it really weirdy? So modern sonic’s version is baked into his moveset, meaning he can do it in the hub and missions, but for classic sonic they made it a skill... meaning you can’t use it in the hub, and you have to sacrifice 30 skill points to use it which is just… baffling to say the least. Don’t know why they did that, but okay. You got an adventure skin for pre-ordering which is pretty funny. Poor dude can’t even wink properly it’s peak.

Overall, I think this game is a perfect representation of what I want in a boost formula game. I can only hope that sonic team is given the time to cook for their next game because this game had everything I wanted and more. It feels so good to be excited for this franchise again, with the 3rd movie coming out soon and the prospect of future games being this good. Stay hydrated and take care.

 

    video link:  https://youtu.be/01gNXZPQ6po?si=gbn2ZpHihx0m5ob0

 

      short director's commentary: this video was fairly rushed as i had given myself a very dumb deadline of ~2 weeks to make the entire video. this video went through 2 drafts but thankfully was easier to put together due to it being smaller in scope. however i do regret the decision to not go more in depth, because long after the deadline passed i found myself disappointed with the video compared to the tfs video. maybe one day in the far future if i ever decide to cover the sonic franchise i'll revisit it, but for now it'll remain as is. sadly i'd get very sick after this video was posted so i'd ended up not uploading for the rest of the year, but it wasn't due to a lack of ideas. in fact, the same month this video was posted i got a pretty big idea, but the scope would end up being far greater than i anticipated.

word count: 1,408
video length: 9:44