My review on the Switch version

[todpolle]

Story:

I wasn’t planning on talking about this since I thought this wasn’t going to be an issue, but why on Earth was the base game rewritten? I admit the plot was just an excuse to go through old levels, so why bother when A: you give up halfway through and waste your time. And B: the most you do is piss off the Amy fans. Like me. I’m aware Ian Flynn was writing this and with this simple decision, he’s lost my trust with remasters. If he decides to rewrite a nothing plot like Generations and fill it with even more nothing, imagine what he’ll do if gets his hands on a plot that’s good like Unleashed, or Secret Rings or Black Knight. Cause lets be honest, changing a few lines doesn't fix anything.

As for the Shadow story, while on a mission for GUN for reason’s that’ll never make sense to me, Shadow encounters his evil father Black Doom and they both end up in the white space. Black Doom is up to something with some kind of evil moon thing and offer’s Shadow gifts to tempt him to the dark side. But Shadow must soldier on and stop Doom from taking advantage of the Time Eater’s mischief.

I haven’t watched the Shadow animated shorts or read Gerald’s journal yet so I’m judging this plot on its own merits and on its own, it’s good...but could’ve been great. Shadow was okay and Black Doom has shown he can work in a good story, and Maria for what little screen-time she gets has three of the best moments in the plot. And she’s my biggest issue with this story, she feels so underused.

Shadow and Maria are suppose to have this deep friendship to the point you could call them siblings. Imagine if she was the first person Shadow encountered in White Space and this was a journey they had together. Maybe some tension and drama with Shadow knowing her fate. Plus she can be a great shoulder Angel against Black Doom’s Shoulder devil routine.

And beside’s Gerald who provides some exposition and Orbot and Cubot with their sidequest, the other characters Shadow meets don’t do anything. In the base game, at least that was a rescue mission and each friend gave hints and tips about each level and had two challenges each. Here, there just cameos that could’ve been cut.

Gameplay:

Okay. We’re jumping straight into Shadow. He has Sonic’s main moves like the boost and homing attack, but he also has that chaos control power to slow down time and a range attack to stun enemies. And over the course of the game Black Doom has left behind an upgrade spear attack that hits up to five targets, a surfboard power to traverse water, a blob form which I’ll talk about later and the advertise Doom Wings which I was disappointed early on since you get a taste of them in the second level and their like an aerial boost, but you only unlock it for real at the final level and it turns out to be the games super form.

These skills are not only integrated into the levels and bosses, but help you navigate the hub world which is filled with goodies and challenges that require this new moves to find. However, if I may start my criticism, I hate the Doom Morph. The charge attack barely works and I hate the swinging which doesn’t help if that’s the two main things it does. The only time I enjoyed it was during the Mephiles boss fight.

You know, this expansion is oddly padded. I mean, six zones and four bosses is a healthy number for a sonic game(even if Chaos Island and Metal Overload make no sense to me when Asteroid Coaster and villains like Infinite and the GUN Commander were right there.) but as you get the boss keys, you notice that you have to do ALL the challenges to reach the end. In the base game, you just need to beat every main level and boss and complete ONE challenge from each zone to beat the game. No such freedom here. You have to do all of them or the game would feel too short. And let's not forget you have to reach each Boss gate twice. Once to unlock the challenges, the second to fight the boss.

And there’s friend challenges to make use of the tag-alongs that appear like there’s no challenge where Omega fires you out of a cannon, or where you challenge Big to catch the most fish or a level where you throw Maria at Black Arms and kill them with her love and kindness. And no Doppelganger races where you reach the end before a ghost version of you wins. Then again, Black Doom would have ruined three of those races when he takes you to Radical Highway and ruins the flow and pacing of the level. The first time he does it is fine cause it introduces the main villain, the second and third time were just bad and the second time made me realise I’ll need to do that level again to pick up something for the final boss.

Honestly, even with the great hub world and the final boss which is Top 5 for a 3D Sonic game, I still find Sonic Generations to be the better experience. Mainly for the freedom of choice and variety of challenges, unlockable upgrades you can receive and knowing Shadow won’t have these new moves again.

Presentation:

Okay. Either Amy needs a new voice actress or needs better direction cause where’s the energy she usually has.

Besides the remastered music and graphics for each level which keeps the upbeat energy, the hub world looks amazing and addresses the bleak blandness of Frontiers levels, with its whites and golds and castle-like design for the hub. Plus completing each level adds a little bit more colour to the area.

But one level isn’t a 1 to 1 in theme and that’s Radical Highway since it’s not just a highway any more, but a distortion version of it, chopped up, gave purple highlights and turned into the hardest collection of platform challenges in the game.

Verdict:

You know what’s missing. Shadow needs to shoot guns on the surfboard.

8/10

[mdesaleah]

Better script (even if it’s hard to tell since original Generarions script was so unmemorable and it’s best parts were carried over)

The point wasn't to make Sonic Generations side of the story a masterpiece or anything, it was just to clean up the writing to make it better. Remove some inconsistencies, make the characters behave more in-character.

The new script does all that, but it also keeps the actual story the exact same. So goal accomplished. But turning Sonic Generations into a completely different story with completely new scenes was just never going to happen.

Unleashed would actually also benefit from some minor script changes, but much less. Not really on main cutscenes, but for NPC text in the hub areas. That game always felt like a weird soft-reboot that wasn't fully a soft-reboot, so having some text to say that GUN is having trouble handling the situation of the planet breaking would add some nice continuity.

(And I think you already misunderstood Shadow's story, at least the beginning. He's not on a mission from GUN. He's on the Ark after having repeated Black Doom-related nightmares. This is shown in Dark Beginnings, which you haven't seen. Those shorts aren't technically required, since the first cutscene also has Shadow tell Rouge that he's on the Ark for his own reasons, but they are there to make the story better. And they’re included in the PS5 version, so Sony probably paid them for that

Maria also couldnt ever really have a "journey" with Shadow. Not only does she not have powers, but she's also terminally ill on top of that. She already plays the role of support when she does appear, and she's probably the most important character in the game outside of Shadow and Black Doom. Her and Gerald also do later figure out that Shadow is from a future where they are gone, but its left heavily heavily implied instead of outright said. And there is the tension of Shadow trying to save them without having them realize what happened)

[mdesaleah]

If you want a “Ian Flynn” and modern take on Amy, I do recommend the IDW comics.

The games currently are in a position where they haven’t gotten the opportunity to really show her off. And it’s also a post-Black Knight character development instead of just repeating the past

Frontiers is excellent with her, but the tone of that game is more reserved and introspective. So that rubs off on the characters (so they aren’t their usual selves on purpose).

And Sonic Generations treats every side character with one or two lines only.

So they haven’t really had much outside the IDW series and some side material to show her in a usual situation

[Mez Koo]

Originally posted by todpolle:

As for the Shadow story, while on a mission for GUN for reason’s that’ll never make sense to me, Shadow encounters his evil father Black Doom and they both end up in the white space.

I haven’t watched the Shadow animated shorts or read Gerald’s journal yet so I’m judging this plot on its own merits and on its own, it’s good...but could’ve been great.

Its not a short, its a full anime prologue made specifically to lead directly into the game, there's a reason its called a prologue and its included on the game disc, take 14 minutes to watch it now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZK8bse3Quo