Sonic the Hedgehog has had more ups and downs than any other major console brand. Since the genesis era, Sonic has yet to have a truly successful game since the transition to 3D. With Sonic Generations, Sega attempted to win back fans new and old and while it largely succeeds, it still falls into the reoccurring traps of modern Sonic games.
Double Trouble:
The story this time around find Sonic trapped in another dimension with his friends frozen in time. To aid him he turns to his younger self (from the as mentioned genesis era) to help him save everyone.
The story is really just a way for Sega and Sonic Team to cram as much Sonic nostalgia into one product. Every level in the game is a memorable area from an older Sonic title. Even bosses like the Eggman robot from Sonic 2 and Metal Sonic made a return.
The twist of playing as both old and new Sonic comes in by the fact that you have to play every stage twice. Act 1 is for old Sonic who plays like Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Meanwhile, act 2 is for modern Sonic and consists of his move set and level design from Sonic Adventure and on.
So, while you may be running through the same level environments, the actual level design changes based on which Sonic you play as. After you beat both acts in a level, you unlock the next one until reach the end of the group of levels. At that point, challenges unlock that throw in modifiers to each level that can be attempted.
You need to do at least one challenge in each world to unlock the boss fight, beat that and you unlock the next series of levels.
On top of that, you unlock skills and skill points that can be attached to both or either Sonic that affects the gameplay. Such as increasing speed, increase the time it takes dropped rings to disappear and so on. You can only equip up to a certain amount of skills and it adds some strategy to the game.
The fan service of seeing all these classic Sonic characters and levels is one of the better parts of Sonic Generations
The other reason for attempting challenging and replaying levels is to unlock new bonus content in the form of concept art, music and so on.
The fan service in Sonic Generations is probably the best part of the game — With levels from previous games, remixed songs and more characters that I completely forgot what their names were.
But with that said Sonic Generations still slips up with the most important aspect behind a Sonic game: the controls.
Trip Up:
Despite what Sonic you are playing as, I found the controls to be not as responsive as I would like and this was playing with a gamepad.
Playing as classic Sonic, I had cases where the game didn’t seem to recognize my jump causing me to fall, or even cases where I fell through platforms. Enemies have had their size increased to the point that it made it hard to jump over them.
When moving, there was a noticeable delay between Sonic going from still, to slowly walking to full run that made it tough to make long distance jumps from stationary position.
As modern Sonic, the same issue with control unresponsiveness reared its head and I had cases where the game didn’t recognize me on a platform or I got stuck on a corner of something and fell to my death.
During the running sections the controls became very annoying as you can’t maneuver Sonic using the control stick and instead have to make use of the left and right buttons to shift his position.
However, it doesn’t work that well when moving along wide areas and it’s very easy to shift to a trajectory that you miss everything.
The level design for both Sonics didn’t feel that refined. Backgrounds were very busy and it made it hard to keep track of where Sonic was. Paths sprang up out of nowhere and leave you with a split second to make the jump needed or miss.
While the idea of hidden collectibles was nice, it clashes with the level design as Sonic games were always known for having multiple paths through a level. And it’s next to impossible to know just where you are or what path you are on and I can’t see anyone finding all the collectibles without a guide.
The skill system was interesting but for the most part, didn’t feel that important especially for older Sonic fans that are used to the series being harder. And the basic gameplay really doesn’t offer much in providing skill variety. I wish that there was more of a reason to go after the challenges or go for high grades when completing levels. As they were set up, they’re only for players who want to unlock all the collectibles and nothing more.
The skill system was an interesting idea but never really went anywhere for expert players
Lastly as more of a personal nitpick, I found the remix music lacked the charm of the original tracks.
Sonic Generations isn’t a colossal failure as previous games in the series, but even after all these years, Sonic Team has still not been able to top in my opinion their best work of Sonic and Knuckles linked with Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
Personally I think they need to go back to the drawing board, either in 2D, 3D or both and rebuild the control scheme and design from scratch. As it stands, it feels like Sonic Team is just trying to force a square peg into a round hole with the current design.
While the Sonic brand could do far worse for a game celebrating its history, it has been awhile since fans actually had a Sonic game worth celebrating and Sonic Generations may be it… for a short while.
