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The game of the month for November 2024 is Sonic X Shadow Generations. This is a bundled package remaster of Sonic Generations from 2011, and the new Shadow Generations, available on Steam and most Generation 8 and 9 consoles. To appreciate the impact of this release and what it represents to the Sonic fan community, you need to know a little bit about how Sonic as a franchise is perceived among its fan community and critics, a Venn diagram that often appears as a perfect circle.
The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is generally seen to have three to four “eras.” Sonic Generations, and now Shadow Generations, is a celebration of the various eras of Sonic.
The Classic Era starts from the original Genesis games through to the Saturn games and is defined by 2D platforming and momentum-based traversal. The Adventure Era covers Sonic Adventure through Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, defined by free-range 3D movement with homing attack and a stronger emphasis on “serious” storytelling. The tail end of the Adventure era is also seen as the “dark age” of Sonic in terms of popularity.
The Boost Era had a soft start with Sonic and the Secret Rings, solidifying with Sonic Unleashed, and continued up until recent releases like Sonic Forces. It is largely defined by a drastic change in story tone from the Adventure Era and a reliance on the boost mechanic through straight path level design. Many of the games in this era were well received, but not enough to shake to reputation built up from the dark age (“I think we’re at the point where we need to admit that this was never really a great franchise,” said IGN’s Brian Altano in 2016.)
Sonic Frontiers, along with Sonic Mania and the Paramount movie releases, present a drastic enough change in game mechanics, story tone and popularity that it is seen as a new era of the Sonic franchise that has yet to be properly defined. (“I am sorry for saying that Sonic was never good. That was wrong. That was incorrect,” Altano said in 2022.)
Anyone familiar with boost formula Sonic already knows what Sonic Generations is about. The Time Eater has kidnapped all of Sonic’s friends and nine select levels from his past games, drained them of color, and placed them in a timeless void referred to as white space. Modern (Boost Era) Sonic teams up with Classic Sonic from the past (or another dimension depending on which retcon you follow) to speed through levels. This restores the levels, and Sonics’ friends, back to vibrancy. Collect the emeralds, beat the big bad, then go back and spend 40 hours S-ranking every level and challenge stage before discovering that the online leader boards have been thoroughly compromised by cheaters.
This original 2011 release was incredibly well received by the community as the one Sonic game that every camp liked, with plenty of mods to redeem the less well received games, such as the Unleashed Project.
The 2024 re-release of Generations touches up on graphics, gives both Sonics the drop dash ability introduced in Mania, adds three lost chao per level as an additional collectible, and comes with some new celebratory skins as DLC. The dialogue has been rewritten by Ian Flynn, veteran Sonic comic and game writer, to remove some of the less well received jokes and add in a few new references and callbacks to improve the coherence of the extremely light plot of Generations.
One downgrade is that the D-Pad no longer controls classic Sonic, an oversight easily fixable in Steam with community controller layouts. The game is largely similar to the original Generations and serves as a definitive edition if you somehow do not already own it.
Shadow Generations is a brand new adventure starring Shadow the Hedgehog, introducing multiple new mechanics, revisiting a new set of levels from Shadow’s past, and delivers a story serving as an epilogue to the plot points of Shadow the Hedgehog (2005.) The story is introduced in a surprisingly well animated three-part miniseries, Dark Beginnings.
Shadow has premonitions about the space colony Ark, driving him to return to the place of his creation and prevent whatever threat is lurking there. At the same time, the events of Sonic Generations are happening. Black Doom returns as a consequence of the Time Eater’s actions, and Shadow must work behind the scenes to prevent Black Doom from starting another invasion while Sonic restores his friends and fights the time eater.
Shadow controls notably different to Sonic. They both boost on demand, but Shadow’s boost meter seems to deplete faster than Sonic’s and doesn’t replenish with defeated enemies. Shadow does not get homing attacks without enemies to home in to, removing it as a traversal option in most cases. Instead, he gets a double jump and a whole host of alien traversal powers unlocked via game progression. Most of the powers flow well as you run through the levels, with only the Doom Morph overstaying its welcome as a gimmicky mechanic similar to Splatoon or some of Colors’ wisp powers.
The whole campaign takes about four hours to beat if you’re out of practice. This game is harder than Sonic Generations, and S ranks are not given as freely. A welcome challenge to a Sonic game veteran.
Once Black Doom is defeated and Shadow returns to help Sonic with the Time Eater, then the real game begins. S ranks are earned by optimizing paths through fantastically designed and generously sized levels based on locations from Sonic Adventure 2 through Sonic Frontiers.
Coming from recent Sonic games, there are a shocking number of alternate path options, hidden shortcuts, and speed running opportunities in each of the levels. Levels haven’t felt this open since Sonic Adventure. When not speed running, the 3D white space area is filled with collectibles and traversal challenges, much like Frontiers, that will keep you busy several times longer than the campaign’s story.
I am currently 16 hours in with only 75 percent of collectibles unlocked and challenge stages completed.
Overall, Sonic X Shadow Generations is a good game that gets better with repeated playthroughs. Fans of the Adventure Era story telling will appreciate the closure that Shadow Generations provides to the Shadow and Maria story. Collectibles and speed running will keep you busy for a good while as you enjoy the newly arranged music based on previous fan favorites.
Catch my frankly embarrassing first playthrough of the game. Then watch me redeem myself on Dec. 13 when the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Movie Pack comes out, featuring Keanu Reeves as Shadow.
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