Review: Sonic Generations (Staff Roundtable)

The team all wanted to have their say with this one, so we Blake Draco and co give their own lowdown on the 20th anniversary Sonic title.

Blake Draco

We begin with Classic Sonic going through Green Hill Zone with the classic music re-mastered, looking somewhat like it did 20 years ago, with a few additional changes. As you get further along the Eras things get reversed and it’s more modern stages that have a cut and paste vibe with some extensions on them and the Classic ones showing you how it would’ve been if it was 2-D. First thing I noticed when controlling Classic was that the control scheme, felt heavy, holding the X button spindashes? Interesting. Also you can tap it, but you have to be quick, it’s unforgiving if you’re a second slow on its account as it’ll send you rolling without much power.

You can also hold down and A to do the same, keeping the analogue stick down will give you the vintage spinning in place animation. It took me some time to get fully use to the controls, now they feel comfortable at least. Once you get through GHZ, and reach the end with the classic goalpost, you’ll be ranked, do the run flawlessly without dying (a ‘Perfect Clear’) and in time you’ll get a S-Rank.

After that we’re treated to the game’s first cut scene, of (Modern) Sonic coming to a birthday party organised by the rest of the crew, this is just before the big bad comes along taking away everyone except Sonic. Who is now controllable in the World Hub, which is all white space, including the stages.

Apparently all the stages are unknown, even the ones from the last 2 years, showing that Modern has a severe memory problem when remembering places. All acts are split into two, with Act 1 being Classic and Act 2 being Modern. Act 2 relies on Modern Sonic’s speed and boosting, like all modern gameplay so far with more platforming thrown into the mix, some of which are really tedious (mainly Seaside Hill). After doing both acts on Green Hill Zone or any zone for that matter it’ll gain it’s colour and life back and you’ll save one of the friends. First is Tails, who when asked the question if Green Hill looked familiar remarks that it isn’t to him.

In-jokes are abound in the cutscenes as well as when finishing the stage and freeing the friends as Classic you’ll get some fun poked at him, such as looking more fat and so on. Oh this is also true for a certain cutscene, where there are two perspectives but you can only unlock and watch one. Which is a shame, I thought when you view the movie again from the collection room depending on who you are at the time it should really change, but it doesn’t. As you move about the white space between levels, the music will change and it does it dynamically changing where it meets the same note in order to try blend in, speaking about music all the music has been given either a slight or full remixing and it’s quite interesting to hear.

There are three stages per area split into Eras: Classic, Dreamcast (Inc. Sonic Heroes), Modern. Each area has a corresponding Boss fight at the end of it as well as their own Rival Battles, each one holding a Chaos Emerald which is needed to progress to the final boss.  There’s three rival battles and three boss battles to be had before you can get to the end.

Unlocking the Boss Fights you must find three keys, after all the acts for that Era are cleared, challenge gates appear on top of the areas above, each of them have been given their own unique level design in order to fit in with the look of the area you’re doing the challenge in. Luckily enough though you don’t have to clear all challenges to get a key (just an achievement), only one is needed and you can do that as Modern or Classic. Rival Battles are extra battles with prominent rivals during that era. Firstly, Metal Sonic’s battle is quite the feat, it feels worthy and when you mess up it’s due to yourself, Shadow’s is completely the opposite of how it felt, very underwhelming (All Hail Shadow is in here, just if you allow him to get all the power rings before you.)

Finally, Silver’s battle if you don’t have Omochao on takes a while to figure out but in the end is very satisfying. Each of these are given a hard mode after they have been cleared to if there was something that felt too easy it can be given a little extra variety. All the boss fights feel less epic then they should be, and the platforming on some of them are more likely to kill you then the boss will.

Along with the challenges are the return of the Red Rings from Colours, both Classic and Modern have their own separate rings to collect, this time when you collect a ring or several and finish they stay gone, instead of leaving behind a ghost, this makes it easier to track down the missing one or two that you always seem to have left. Red rings are also split and can appear on the higher and lower parts of a level requiring at least two runs a level. With collecting red rings and music notes from ringing the bell that appears after completing a challenge you can gain new artwork and music to be played on any level, and all of which can be seen in the collectable room on the far left of the screen. When collecting all five, you get a giant red ring instead and unlock a new skill for that version of Sonic, which can be added via the skill customisation at the skill shop, which is also where you can purchase new skills for both Sonics at using the credits you gain, there are also purchasable lives so that the credits can always be in use.

I do have some problems with the game as in terms of how many bugs have returned for the 20th Anniversary game such as the spike bug and for the modern version having the jump stick, there are a few new things to be added as well such as managing to spindash into an enemy and have it hurt you and half the stage vanishing. As well as my unknown ability to find hedgehog size gaps to fall through on Crisis City.

By the way I wouldn’t think about switching characters on the hub world, as it tends to load in every challenge gate again, when the much simpler way is to go to said challenge gate and switch over there as it won’t induce any loading times.

The Final Boss against the Time Eater has a cutscene that ties the game in with the last making it cannon for now, and plot holes everywhere when you play through and have enough time to think about it in all honesty. Beating the Time Eater requires you to hold X and find rings… But after you have you’re treated the ending and after that you unlock Super Sonic! Super Sonic… not being so super, apparently it looks fast but really isn’t, and the Modern Super gobbles up rings like they’re penny sweets, I’ve seen no improvements in the time I can get on normal then with the time I can get with the Super versions.

Anyway with that all done it’s time to look at the Online section, which contains Time Attack leader boards and the new 30 second trial which requires you to see how far you can get in a level in 30 seconds, although sometimes getting further isn’t necessarily the faster route. There’s a weird thing about going the same distance (and sometimes further) as someone else and having that not equal the same amount which is completely ODD and has no specific reason for it as far as I can tell .

BLAKE’S OVERALL SCORE	Overall, my experience with this game has been average at best with a few positives and a few negatives, most of the bosses felt like a former shell of what they use to be, though the work they did with making the challenge levels differ is a plus, and the distance attack is an addition that could be used in the games to come if the distance problem is worked out.
		4