Sonic x Shadow Generations (2024)

Genuinely the most compelling the franchise has been in a long time.

First things first, Sonic Generations is still excellent. A wonderful tribute to the series. Would have liked to see maybe a few new stages made for this to represent games since Generations but let's be real, what are they gonna rep? Sonic Boom? Sonic Forces? Too recent to be a laughing matter to Sega like Shadow the Hedgehog and Big the Cat is. Regardless, it's an excellent remaster and it adds drop dash so it's the definitive version as far as I'm concerned.

Now on to the main event. Shadow Generations was the big draw of this. Remastered Generations is good and all but you can still play that game on current gen with the Xbox backwards compatibility.

No, you're here to see what Sega are going to do with Shadow, the black sheep of the Sonic family. Introduced to allow for newer, edgier games and stories in the franchise. Shadow had a pretty compelling story in Sonic Adventure 2. A tragic backstory being the creation of a scientist trying to find a cure to his granddaughter's disease, he quickly becomes a part of their family, only for it to all be torn away by a military agency who decided he was too dangerous to live and now that he's free after 50 years, what should he do about it and how should he live his life after everything was taken from him through no fault of his own?

It's a really interesting story and to me that kind of underpins what made the Adventure series good. The games were trying to explore more complex and interesting character motivations and more melodramatic stories. It may not be for everyone but it absolutely hit with 10 year old me. So after a decent success with SA2, it was time for his own standalone game.

And it was kind of a disaster. Semi-fondly remembered now by people charmed by the mid-2000s edge but at the time, it was seen as a huge step in the wrong direction. Edgier and grittier stories are fine but your first foray out of very child friendly Sonic is to give the main character a gun?!?! It's like going from Barney to Doom.

Well if only... I think if they really leaned into it more and gone all out with the edge, it might have just been shocking, experimental, bold enough to be at least a decent hit. The main issue is that it toes the line so hard. It wants so bad to be hardcore and edgy but it's so scared of being rude. The highlight being Shadow saying "Where's that damn fourth Chaos Emerald!". Shocking, I know. It's like Sega and Sonic have a reputation to protect, huh?

Regardless, it flopped and it was seen as a joke and by many, the first real crack in Sonic's armour. While development for many of the games was never easy, the games that did come out were usually high quality. It may have taken 5 years to get a new Sonic after Sonic 3 & Knuckles but it was damn good at least. Shadow was really the first main game in the series to come out and be kind of bad. The combat is boring, there's less of a focus on speed and tedious amounts of searching around levels. It almost makes up for it with the poor attempt at edge just coming off as camp.

Since then, Shadow has mostly taken a backseat. A new Sonic rival who shows up every so often. Relegated from main cast to side character.

Until now! Shadow is given the spotlight in his very own Generations. Revisiting some of the locations from Shadow's past and a few old friends along the way, Shadow Generations celebrates everyone's favourite Edgehog in spectacular fashion. Bringing back Black Doom from Shadow the Hedgehog shows firm commitment to embracing that campy edge that was an embarrassment at the time. Helped along with a simple narrative that shows Shadow having to defeat his old nemesis as time is slowly breaking down. He's not alone in this as he's assisted by his best friend Maria and creator, Gerald Robotnik. A simple but decent story.

But how does it play? Sonic Generations was a long time ago now and they've seemed to only get worse at both boost and classic gameplay. Does it live up to the original? It does not. It surpasses it in basically every way. Shadow has excellent new Black Doom based abilities that gives him unique mechanics to stop him feeling like a skin for Sonic. He also can use Chaos Control which stops time for 5 seconds. All of these abilities are welcome additions, they add a lot of variety to the game.

As for the stages, I'm genuinely impressed how good they are. I did not realise going in that in addition to the boost gameplay stages, they'd made classic-like levels for Shadow. I was worried about this as Sonic Team had really struggled to recreate the Sonic Generation physics since but they delivered. The boost stages are some of the most fun in the franchise to date. Genuinely feels like they've learned a lot as I was starting to think that "modern" Sonic gameplay had outstayed its welcome. Oh how wrong I was, turns out that it can still be great if focused on designing tight, mechanically interesting stages that don't just require you to hold the boost button to win.

Graphically, you'd think this game would be on par with Generations from over a decade ago.

No.

This game is beautiful. Genuinely incredible looking and far, far more ambitious than Generations ever was. Incredible scenes of the levels twisting and warping as Black Doom comes to visit Shadow during the stages. A lot of incredible effects and close ups of our main character. It's one of the first times that I've ever felt really badass in the Sonic series. Shadow Generations is about as close to perfect direction for this series as I've seen since Sonic Adventure 2.

There has to be a few cons and here they come. I wish the game was a bit longer. The fact I finished both Sonic Generations and Shadow Generations in one sitting is telling. I don't mind a shorter game but this might be asking a little too much for what I get. There's plenty of bonus stuff to do for the 100% but even then, I feel like that adds a couple hours at most.

And honestly that's kinda it for my complaints. The game certainly isn't flawless but I can overlook those smaller things because for the first time in a long time, it feels like the Sonic series has a clear sense of direction and understands completely what fans of the franchise love about it. It feels like Sonic is in excellent hands right now and I can't wait to see what the future holds.