Games

Sonic X Shadow Generations Review: The Best of Both Worlds

Published

1 month ago

October 21, 2024

After years of his franchise largely remaining dormant, Sonic the Hedgehog seems to be in the midst of a full-blown renaissance. The surprise announcement of Sonic X Shadow Generations during Sony’s January 2024 State of Play event meant that fans were getting a third new Sonic game in as many years, a far cry from the 5-year gap between Sonic Mania and Sonic Frontiers. But while 2022’s Sonic Frontiers introduced some new ideas to the 3D Sonic template and 2023’s Sonic Superstars brought players back to a game reminiscent of the character’s classic adventures, neither really set the world on fire, leading players to wonder where Sonic X Shadow Generation s would fit in the new crop of titles featuring the “Blue Blur”.

While it might not reach the heights of the greatest games in the franchise, Sonic X Shadow Generations is a loving homage to all eras of Sonic’s past that, for the most part, ticks all the boxes that players would want from a Sonic game. Generations strikes an interesting dichotomy between its two competing halves, pulling in elements from across the Sonic franchise to deliver an experience that feels like a “greatest hits” cherry-picked from Sonic‘s nearly 35-year history. Though it’s not without its occasional minor frustrations, Sonic X Shadow Generations is perhaps the greatest entry in the modern trio of Sonic games and a must-play for fans of the franchise.

Sonic X Shadow Generations’ Twin Halves Take Characters on a Time-Traveling Adventure

Booting up Sonic X Shadow Generations presents players with a choice between the game’s two disparate halves, Sonic Generations and Shadow Generations. Despite their place as separate games, though, the two titles do share a story concerning time travel that functions as both a plot device and a justification for why both Sonic and Shadow the Hedgehog are traipsing through a veritable “Hall of Fame” of stages from across the Sonic franchise. Players can choose either half of the package to start with and freely jump from Sonic to Shadow Generations with just a few button presses. For what it’s worth, though, the Sonic Generations half does a good job of setting up the larger plot elements that help Shadow‘s story make a lot more sense.

Choosing the Sonic half of Generations greets players with a scene in which Sonic and his friends from across the franchise are celebrating the character’s birthday. Of course, the celebration is short-lived as a new villain called the “Time Eater” shows up and whisks Sonic and his friends away to a temporal anomaly. In this timeless void, Sonic has access to locations from across multiple Sonic games, with each Zone split into two Acts. However, unlike the traditional Sonic setup, each Act adheres to a specific era of Sonic the Hedgehog gameplay. Act 1 stages are classically styled side-scrolling stages, while each Act 2 is a full-3D level akin to what players experienced in the Sonic Adventure games (including some iconic stages from both of those Dreamcast classics).

Connecting these stages is a stark-white hub world which Sonic restores life and color to by completing zones and rescuing his friends. The hub is set up like a traditional 2D Sonic stage, complete with loops and dash panels, and players can open up more of it by defeating a series of well-designed boss battles. To unlock the gates to each boss, players must first complete Challenge Gates for each Zone that put the player to task through specific objectives.

Between the different collectibles available in each Zone (three hidden Chao in each Act as well as 5 Red Star Rings) and the ability to chase higher rankings in both Acts and Challenge Gates, there’s a lot to dig into beyond just belining it to the bosses and clearing the main story. Completing any stage with a high rank earns players points, which they can spend in the new Skill Shop to unlock helpful in-game abilities. Sonic has 5 different loadouts he can customize, rename, equip, and even specify for Act 1 or Act 2 stages, creating a lot of flexibility in how players approach the levels in the Sonic half of Generations.

The Shadow half of Generations abides by practically the same basic framework, with just a few notable exceptions. There are fewer Zones in the Shadow portion of Generations, but each (excluding the final Zone) is still split into two Acts. However, these Acts flip the design of stages in the Sonic half to have Act 1 be more reminiscent of Sonic Adventure and Act 2 take on a more side-scrolling perspective.

Further, Shadow‘s hub area takes a page from Sonic Frontiers and delivers an open world playground for players to explore. It’s still necessary to complete Challenge Gates and earn Boss Keys to open up more of the world for exploration, but this is done through acquiring new abilities that recontextualize how Shadow traverses the main hub area. It’s surprising to see a Sonic game incorporate Metroidvania elements like ability-gating, but it works to make the simple act of getting from one stage to another more exciting than it would be otherwise and also opens up access to hidden collectibles and new challenges.

Each Zone in both halves of Sonic X Shadow Generations is an iconic locale from across the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and they’re beautifully recreated here using 3D visuals that dynamically switch between a 2D and 3D plane of perspective. These revisits to past locations aren’t simple rehashes of their original layout either, with even the classic Green Hill and Chemical Plant Zones from Sonic 2 delivering all-new thrills to the most seasoned Sonic fan.

And it wouldn’t be a Sonic game without a tremendous sense of speed, which Sonic X Shadow Generations dutifully delivers in both halves of the experience. That said, there were times in the more classically-styled side-scrolling stages where the sense of speed was so overwhelming that it was common for the camera to lose sight of Sonic and result in an unfair death or off-screen hit and loss of rings. Ultimately, though, the sense of speed and velocity in the Shadow stages serves as a reminder that few studios understand how to create seamless lightning-fast arcade-style thrills in the way that Sega does.

Controls and Physics Are an Unfortunate Speed Bump on Sonic X Shadow Generations’ Thrill Ride

Both halves of Sonic X Shadow Generations are chock-full of peak Sonic gameplay, but that also means they’re unfortunately subject to the same minor frustrations that have plagued the series for years. For a franchise built on speed and momentum versus precision platforming, it’s a shame to report that Sonic X Shadow Generations has some floaty physics and minor control issues that hinder an otherwise excellent experience. The biggest offender in this regard is the somewhat wonky target detection, which results in a non-trivial number of unfair deaths when trying to jump from one lock-on to the next at blisteringly fast speeds.

The same gripe applies to boss battles as well. Both Sonic and Shadow’s halves of Generations feature some excellent boss fights that rank as perhaps the best in the series, but the wonky hit detection and floaty physics often result in these encounters boiling down to trial and error. In these instances, what should feel like a triumphant victory over a fun and challenging boss battle instead feels like a relief that you’ll never need to attempt it again. Factor in the need to complete some truly difficult Challenge Gates to even attempt fighting the bosses, and it’s obvious that some more fine-tuning on how both Sonic and Shadow move and control would have gone a long way toward smoothing out some of the few weak points in an otherwise top-notch Sonic game.

Sonic X Shadow Generations Offers Plenty of Bang for the Buck

Minor mechanical gripes aside, Sonic X Shadow Generations offers one of the greatest value propositions of any major AAA release in 2024. With two full games in one single package, there are hundreds of collectibles to seek out and obtain, optional Challenge Gates to complete outside what’s needed to obtain the necessary Boss Keys, S-rankings to chase in each stage and Challenge Gate, and additional secrets and activities to keep players busy in both games’ hub worlds long after rolling credits on the main story. Further, each stage is so well-designed and enjoyable that they merit playing and replaying well beyond what’s necessary to beat each half of the game.

After completing
both halves of
Sonic X Shadow Generations

, my total playtime clocked in at 19 hours according to the PlayStation 5’s “Hours Played” tracker, and that’s with a fair amount of time spent trying to chase down collectibles and S Ranks on some of my favorite stages. The
Shadow
half of
Generations
is somewhat shorter than the
Sonic
half and took roughly 8 hours to complete, with the
Sonic
half taking up a bit more time thanks to featuring more stages and more bosses to challenge, including some excellent surprise cameo bosses necessary to collect all the Chaos Emeralds.

Sega could have easily released each half of Sonic X Shadow Generations as its own standalone title, but that both experiences are contained within a single product makes it a no-brainer for Sonic fans. An initial playthrough will take anyone 15-20 hours, and that’s without factoring in the potential for dozens of additional hours necessary to obtain all collectibles and reach the highest rank on each stage, Challenge Gate, and boss battle.

Last year’s Sonic Superstars had the unfortunate luck of releasing the same week as Super Mario Wonder, the franchise’s latest entry quickly becoming overshadowed by its oldest competitor. Sonic X Shadow Generations has a similarly unfavorable position of releasing in the wake of Team Asobi’s Astro Bot, begging the question of how the year’s two biggest platformers stack up against one another. Even in a post-Astro Bot world, Sonic X Shadow Generations serves as an epic reminder of how untouchable both Sonic and Sega can be when they’re firing on all cylinders, and its treasure trove of content and top-notch presentation make it an easy recommendation, regardless of it not being a blemish-free experience.