Sonic Generations from 2011 was a solid game, elevated by the almost consistent failures of other entries in the Sonic franchise. As despite some positivity with Sonic Colours and even early positive reactions to Sonic 4: Episode I (which became quite disliked in retrospect), Sonic as a series was in a pretty bad spot. In 2024 the situation has changed quite a lot as while there’s still a lot of criticism directed to first party developed Sonic titles, fans finally got some great entries as well – Sonic Mania (2017) possibly being the biggest highlight. Sonic X Shadow Generations is an expanded and enhanced version of Sonic Generations that contains the original game with some updates and changes and a completely new game called Shadow Generations. And as such, it provides a look at what people called a good Sonic game in 2011 and what might be considered a good Sonic game in 2024.
In case you have somehow avoided playing or even seeing any of the Sonic games, I’ll try to quickly explain what they are generally about. These are platforming games that always had quick movement speed and required fast reaction times from the players as they took you on the journey through multi-layered but linear levels. Usually, even if you’re not looking for hidden secrets and collectables, the levels have multiple routes you may take, all of which are valid and not always better or faster than the others. Meaning that no matter how ready you to catch a new path as it appears for a few moments on your screen as your rush through the level, you have equal chances at finishing the level with someone who’s reaction times are faster. But, you might miss secrets or get a lower rank, which may motivate you to replay the level and explore more of its paths. There have been exceptions to this general structure in the series, but Sonic X Shadow Generations sticks to it.
Sonic Generations is a somewhat frustrating game. I was irked at it back in 2012 when I first played it, and revisiting it now only reawakened all of the frustrations. The general idea of the title is curious – you get two Sonics. The classic 2D one and the modern 3D one that first appeared in Sonic Adventure. And you go through a collection of levels through most loved and known entries of the franchise since its inception til 2011, with one level representing the entire game, as both Sonics. 2D Sonic plays the levels in 2D perspective and retains his moves from the classic games. 3D Sonic plays like a “modern” Sonic, with 3D levels, focus on boosting and auto-aiming at enemies and different devices that help you move through the level faster and he gets a lot of the moves from this current era of the franchise. With the cool bit being how you revisit the first 3 games with the 3D perspective as a modern Sonic and how the classic Sonic plays in the Adventure-based and later levels.
When you complete the main level, you unlock a bunch of “challenge levels” which are usually more condensed versions of the main level with some unique twist thrown in. Maybe the level plays at 2x speed, maybe a lot of the level is now covered with springs that bounce you around, maybe you must utilize a power-up to get through the entire level. Or sometimes it’s a race against CPU to finish the whole level first. Finishing any one of the challenges unlocks a key that you must use to fight a boss and unlock the rest of the game. While doing more challenges will unlock some bonus materials, like music, artwork and the like. Or “skills” that you can equip to slightly modify how each Sonic operates, but only in the main levels. Original release of the game also contained “Lives”, just like in the classic games, but the remaster by default disables them, as they are completely absent from Shadow Generations (you can enable them if you want, though).
Sadly, the Lives thing is one of the very few changes that Sonic Generations gets. Many frustrating elements of the game remain completely unchanged, some of the challenges are just dreadfully designed and remain as such and even the visuals are exactly the same, as Sonic Generations doesn’t even use the newer version of the engine that Shadow does (on PC it literally launches a separate game). The changes that are here are nice (even some cutscene moments, translation and voice acting have been updated), but it’s not enough.
Because ultimately, Sonic Generations is not as fun as it could be. Classic Sonic, for example, lacks a lot of things that made the classic games fun – there are no power ups (with few exceptions) or secrets on the levels and for whatever reason you can spin dash (that’s when classic Sonic turns into a ball and speeds up) towards the screen if you start doing it before fully turning to the left or right. Modern Sonic still can control very poorly because the mix of the auto-run design and free controls doesn’t work all the time and you can press forward and boost only to be thrown somewhere to the left instead for unclear reasons. The fact that you need to constantly mentally jump between two very different types of gameplay doesn’t help either, as they are not complimentary at all. And the last 3 main levels (based on Sonic 06, Unleashed and Colours) are absolutely horrid, each in their own way, with only the Unleashed level being at least somewhat fun.
Shadow Generations, on the other hand, feels incredibly comprehensive and thought out. It still suffers from some of the typical modern Sonic woes with auto-aim and on-rails aspects and on top of that throws in some completely unnecessary QTE elements, but overall playing as Shadow feels much nicer.
General structure of the game remains the same – you get a collection of levels from previously released Sonic games, except now they start with Adventure 2 and continue up until Frontiers. Each level still has two Acts, with one being 3D and the other 2D, but you now always play as Shadow who retains the exact same moveset between the acts. Once a set of main levels is completed, challenge levels unlock, but there are now just 4 for each main level and you must complete all of them to get boss keys. And once the boss is beaten, more of the world is unlocked. The world itself, however, is now a fully playable 3D space with its own secrets and unlockables, unlike a very simple level selection in Sonic Generations. And while some of the exploration of this world can be tedious and not fun, it’s quite fun in general.
Despite drawing from the less liked period of Sonic and having considerably less nostalgia aspect, most of the levels and challenges in Shadow Generations are really fun to play. There are poor choices, QTEs feel unnecessary and the final boss fight is quite bad (especially since it has QTE moments that don’t explain what they want you to press). But in general, this game feels a lot stronger than Sonic Generations. Granted, the incredible edginess of the character is still quite hilarious and Shadow still feels like it’s written by an 9 year old who created his Sonic original character based on Batman, so taking anything in this game seriously is very hard. But I guess that’s just what the plots of Sonic franchise became and the important part is that the game plays really well.
As a total package Sonic X Shadow Generations is very good. I wish, Sonic Generations would’ve gotten more tweaks and improvements instead of remaining mostly unchanged. But it’s still a solid game, if flawed. While Shadow Generations is a genuinely good modern Sonic game. If you’ve been avoiding Sonic 3D games, might as well check this one. Maybe it will still not be for you, it is definitely one of the better ones.