The 2011 release of Sonic Generations was one of the best games the series had received in years and served as an effective celebration of the Blue Blur’s 20th anniversary. Though the 33rd anniversary is much less of a milestone birthday, Sonic Team carried forward that legacy with a solid remaster of Sonic Generations. However, rather than simply polishing old decorations, Sonic Team gave fans new ways to celebrate with a superb second campaign starring Sonic’s most popular rival, Shadow, creating a compelling package well worth speeding through.
This new campaign, Shadow Generations, feels right at home in the bundle thanks to its emphasis on revisiting key stages and boss fights in Shadow’s history. Through various modernizations, it showcases the series’ recent evolution. Shadow’s stages are blisteringly fast and full of diverse action, and since Shadow debuted in Sonic Adventure 2, all of the stages in Shadow Generations are from the Modern era. I enjoyed revisiting iconic locales like Space Colony ARK, Rail Canyon, and Radical Highway. Even Kingdom Valley from the much-maligned Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) received an excellent facelift for this remastered bundle. Sunset Heights from Sonic Forces and the Tokyo DLC stage inspired by the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie offer some of the coolest set-piece moments in franchise history.
Speed is every bit as important in Shadow Generations as in any Sonic game, but I love how Shadow is much more offense-oriented than his blue counterpart. Using his Doom Powers, he targets multiple enemies with projectiles, glides across the top of the water, and even sprouts wings to soar through stages. Though not all of these powers are as smooth as I’d like and some are extremely situational, I never tired of using Chaos Control to freeze objects in the environment to open new paths.
Some stages in Shadow Generations veer close to the source material while others feature mind-bending sequences where Shadow runs through a warped version of Radical Highway in the middle of another stage, flowing seamlessly between the levels and awe-inspiring cinematic moments. Shadow Generations also adds several boss fights that are largely more enjoyable than those found on the Sonic Generations side of the fence. I had so much fun using Shadow’s suite of powers to face off against Metal Overlord from Sonic Heroes while Crush 40’s “What I’m Made Of” blared in the background. I won’t spoil the character you fight, but a battle against a face we haven’t seen in nearly 20 years was a highlight of the campaign for me.
The piece of Shadow Generations that showcases the most franchise progression is its hub world. Shadow Generations mimics the all-white aesthetic of Sonic Generations’ level select area, but rather than presenting it in a linear, side-scrolling fashion, Shadow Generations borrows the format from Sonic Frontiers. The open-zone design of Frontiers showed a sturdy foundation for the concept but had various navigational and technical speed bumps. In Shadow Generations, Sonic Team demonstrates growth in this design; elements don’t pop in nearly as much as in Frontiers, and I was stumped less at how to reach my destination. Sonic Team’s approach to big, open areas still has some wrinkles to iron out, but this bite-sized sophomore effort shows encouraging signs.
On the Sonic Generations side of this package, the original story is back, delivering a sprint down memory lane for longtime Sonic fans. Improved framerate and increased resolution make this 13-year-old game look right at home alongside Sonic’s latest adventures. Spanning Sonic 1’s Green Hill Zone through Sonic Colors’ Planet Wisp, Sonic Generations gives players a greatest hit package of the franchise’s first 20 years. Playing through half the stages as Classic Sonic from the side-scrolling perspective and half in 3D as Modern Sonic keeps the experience fresh as you blast through these modernized versions of throwback stages.
Replaying through Sonic Generations 13 years after its initial release, I admire how it served as a turning point for Sonic Team’s 3D level design. After the 2D Genesis games established the branching paths convention, where players’ mistakes are punished often not with death, but with a slower, more enemy-laden path through a stage, Sonic Team truly seemed to figure out how to better implement that design style for 3D levels with Sonic Generations. Thanks to that, the levels are not frustrating deathtraps as found in earlier 3D Sonic titles, but rather branching stages that follow through on that classic design style.
Though some stages, particularly Planet Wisp and Crisis City, still possess annoying stage design elements, the Sonic Generations campaign has aged quite well. However, the boss battles are hit or miss, chock-full of frustrating controls and awkward routes to victory. The final boss of Sonic Generations, outside of being an entity devoid of personality, was an absolute mess in 2011, and it remains an infuriating, tedious slog that takes most of the air out of the story’s climax. It’s disappointing that Sonic Team didn’t take this remaster as an opportunity to fix this fight.
For Sonic’s campaign to not receive any updated stages from after the original game’s release is also a missed opportunity. When Generations launched, it had 20 years of levels to pull from; today, it has 13 additional years of adventures Sonic and his friends have gone on. Though some of the games in that period were not well received, I would have enjoyed some additional content in Sonic’s campaign. Thankfully, Shadow Generations works around that gap of new content by adding stages from Sonic Forces, where Shadow was only playable through DLC, and Sonic Frontiers, from which he was absent. However, I still would have preferred to have those levels tacked on at the end of Sonic’s story. Sonic Team modified some cutscenes in Sonic Generations for this release, so it wouldn’t be unheard of to add these, even if they were simply bonus stages that don’t fit into the main story.
The potent combination of Sonic and Shadow Generations makes a strong case for being the best package of 3D Sonic content we’ve ever seen. It’s simultaneously a celebration of the series’ past while hinting at the exciting future on the horizon. Back in 2011, when Modern Sonic told Classic Sonic “Enjoy your future. It’s gonna be great!” it felt hollow given the then-recent state of the series. In 2024, however, the future feels bright for the Sonic franchise, and Sonic X Shadow Generations is the latest, and possibly greatest, indicator of that notion.
