Is it just me or Generations isn't that good?

[dżentelmen]

So I bought Generations convinced by people before the release of Shadow Generations saying to take it while you can still buy the original. Before that, I only played Adventure DX (on a keyboard and without mods) and absolutely needed 3D Sonic. I loved the game. I've conquered all the Red Star Rings (except Planet Wisp) and played for hours. Then I caught up on Colors, Heroes, P-06, Frontiers, Shadow Generations and recently Adventure 2. I noticed one thing then: Generations pales in comparison to most of them (except for Sonic Heroes, ♥♥♥♥ SONIC HEROES). After playing the previously mentioned games, I couldn't say that Generations is that good. I saw some of the problems before, but now they started to hurt more. Terribly unresponsive controls when it comes to platforming segments (in 2D and 3D), annoying and at the same time simplistic hubworld, very little of its own character manifested mainly in the interface and the plot boring and more pretextual than in Sonic Colors (and this is an achievement). Is it all a result of how much I played the game? Or maybe there is actually something to it. Or maybe I'm just an idiot and I don't know anything about games. I don't know. Recently I also had a similar problem with Mania, but I started to play it again and the old excitement came back again. Although (HOT TAKE) I noticed one thing, and that is how bad the level of Lava Reef is (especially act 2). Musically and graphically it's peak, but playing in itself is not very pleasant.

[MetoolMan]

Oh man first off stop playing vanilla SADX on a keyboard, literally hell.

Anyways, you bring up many valid criticisms, and you're not the first too. Many are aware, and continue to love the game, because they believe the pros outweigh the cons tenfold.

I, myself, think the game is pretty darn good. I enjoy it a lot, but I wish it had a bit more content, maybe a few out-there skills to screw around with, and mabye some DLC for a few more stages. Imagine if Modern Sonic got a skill that replaced the Boost with the Spindash, that'd be fun to screw around with.

Also Lava Reef take is structurally sound, but I enjoy that stage. Maybe I'm stupid, idk.

[dżentelmen]

And would you have any ideas for DLC for the new version of Generations? I came up with the idea of adding one new level to the vanila version. Such a Mania Plus. For the classic era Quartz Quadrant, for the Adventure era Lethal Highway/Final Haunt and for the "modern" era maybe Night Palace? And for shadow generations. They colud make a DLC with Circus Park/Digital Circuit, Camelot Castle and Asteroid Coaster (Shadow was in Colors on DS which is canonical along with the Ultimate version). And when it comes to playing the keyboard, I stopped a year ago in favor of a gamepad and it was the biggest positive change in terms of comfort since I learned to walk XD

[NBOX21]

I do agree with the White Space HUB lacking personality; it doesn't have any of the great things that made Adventure's or Unleashed's HUBs interesting and immersive to hang around in. It's still better than the 06 HUBs though as it's not confusing to figure out nor does it waste your time to an unhealthy degree.

I also agree with the story, and this is where the 2024 remaster shines as the rewrites to the story actually make it better. Characters are much more concerned about the presence of the Time Eater and its influence on the timeline. Modern Sonic responds to his friends when he rescues them instead of being silent like he was in the original. Eggman's ultimate plan is no longer just about wanting to undo his previous defeats and conquer the world, rather his plan is to completely rewrite the past and reshape the current timeline to his own desire.

Originally posted by dżentelmen:

and the plot boring and more pretextual than in Sonic Colors (and this is an achievement). Is it all a result of how much I played the game? Or maybe there is actually something to it. Or maybe I'm just an idiot and I don't know anything about games. I don't know.

It's not just you. The original script was written by Ken Pontac and Warren Graff, two people that knew nothing about the franchise before they started working on the games from 2010-2019 and it really shows with how their writing doesn't do a good job fitting in with the established lore.

[itzDerrio]

complaining about generations controls & putting colors & frontiers over generations is insane . are you even a sonic fan op…

[dżentelmen]

itzDerrio No and yes. Generations is really good (on an xbox controller, because playing on Switch is painful as hell), but compared to Colors, it's just too short, has a worse story (slightly) and just its own character. It is not just a bunch of a few levels from the past. although on the defense of generations most of its levels are good or very good (but still ♥♥♥♥ CRISIS CITY) while colors also has a lot of cool and some really awesome levels but also a lot of bad and horrible ones. And as for frontiers, maybe it's just the fact that it's my first open-world game, but I still consider it one of the best in the sonic repertoire. Plus Generations (along with its brother Sonic 4) started a nostalgia-preying trend that continues to this day and doesn't do well for the series. And yes, I'm a fan of Sonic. I've watched every major Iceberg that has been made about it, I have almost 300 hours in mania and in SA, SA2, Generations 70 hours and Shadow Generations about 30 hours and I bought the Switch just to have Sonic games physically. And as I wrote now, I don't know whether to laugh or cry

[itzDerrio]

while i somewhat agree & personally always said that generations is overrated, sonic frontiers is EXTREMELY overrated; most bizarre & boring sonic game ive ever played in my life. at first it was colors being the most boring, but somehow frontiers passed it.

the fact that people praise it just means we’ll never know what it’s like to actually have a good modern sonic game, because people settle for less & mediocrity. if you actually think frontiers is good then just imagine how good a sonic game could be if sonic team actually tried & cared about this series. the only reason they even make sonic games these days is because it’s all SEGA can make money from.

[dżentelmen]

I don't want to offend you, really, but by saying that Colors and Frontiers is boring makes me not quite able to take your opinion 100 percent seriously. I understand that sometimes games are liked or disliked because yes. I have it myself. But Colors has really good music, visuals (stylistically because technically it's really poor because WII), good level design (mostly) and very non-standard level themes. Frontiers, yes, it looks and often sounds very mediocre (I'm looking at you Ouranos Island) but the exploration of these areas, combat, movement and the BOSSES are just great.
And as for the fact that Sonic Team is not trying and that Sega still wants more money from this franchise, then you are somewhat right, but it has always been like that, unfortunately. I think that the biggest problem of the Sonic series is (ironically) the rush to produce and the character of Sega. I don't know if you can talk about the nature of corporations, but without a doubt Sega likes to experiment and I think they still have a grudge for the console war. That's why in my opinion, Superstars came out the way it did. They wanted to fight Mario again, but as a consequence, they crashed even more. And if they can finish the next Sonic mainline game with peace of mind, it will work out very well for them. At the end of the day, they did Rush, Colors, Unleasched, Frontiers, Adventure, Adventure 2 and Generations. And for these games (except for Unleasched because I didn't have the opportunity to play) you can forgive their less successful games. And this seems to me unique in the Sonic series, each game is an unknown and if it comes out well, it will be another game to the collection, and if it comes out badly, we will be able to appreciate what was good even more.

[MetoolMan]

Originally posted by itzDerrio:

while i somewhat agree & personally always said that generations is overrated, sonic frontiers is EXTREMELY overrated; most bizarre & boring sonic game ive ever played in my life. at first it was colors being the most boring, but somehow frontiers passed it.

the fact that people praise it just means we’ll never know what it’s like to actually have a good modern sonic game, because people settle for less & mediocrity. if you actually think frontiers is good then just imagine how good a sonic game could be if sonic team actually tried & cared about this series. the only reason they even make sonic games these days is because it’s all SEGA can make money from.

Frontiers is saved by it's incredible array of mods. A game being extremely moddable is a huge saving factor for me. Otherwise, Frontiers is a really eh Sonic game for me. The Open World concept is fine but they need to expand on it. Honest to God perfect time to bring speendish back :)

(As for the edit, don't worry I just added an "of" where it was missing)

[dżentelmen]

MetoolMan I agree about Spindash 100%

[MetoolMan]

Originally posted by dżentelmen:

MetoolMan I agree about Spindash 100%

I love having conversations with people of opposing or dissimilar views but dang it's nice to just have a guy who agrees with me on the net

[dżentelmen]

MetoolMan Oh yes. It's a nice feeling

[NBOX21]

Originally posted by dżentelmen:

That's why in my opinion, Superstars came out the way it did. They wanted to fight Mario again, but as a consequence, they crashed even more. And if they can finish the next Sonic mainline game with peace of mind, it will work out very well for them.

Basically this.
There are 3 major problems I had with Sonic Superstars that very likely what resulted in the reputation the game currently has right now:

1. Co-op
Sonic games have never been particularly great at co-op (except Advance 3) and Superstars was no different. They made such a big deal out of it with the marketing, but it's insanely broken and frustrating, it's better to just play it solo. The game even has levels and modes that cannot be played in co-op, as well as the entire post-game content (Trip's Story and the Last Story) which cannot be played in co-op at all. There's also no online co-op in the main campaign even though other games in the genre have had this feature. Basically, it felt like it was only there just because Mario's 2D offerings had it, without understanding why it worked there but not for Sonic.

2. Lack of Identity
Most 3D games, like it or not, have a unique identity of its own that sets it apart from the other games in the series, whether that's Heroes' team gameplay, Shadow's guns, Unleashed's werehog, Generations' Anniversary celebration or Frontiers' Open Zone format. The same can be said about the 2D games - 2 introduced Tails, 3&K had Knuckles, CD had time travel, Advance 3 had the partner system, Rush was the first game to use boost, Rush Adventure had island hopping and both versions of Colours had the wisp powerups. Superstars doesn't really have a unique identity to call its own; it was pretty much just Mania, but with modern graphics and not nearly as good gameplay-wise.

3. The Price Tag
Superstars costing as much as Frontiers and other AAA games is a massive rip-off if you ask me. Other games at that price had far more content at much higher quality (including Frontiers). By comparison, Mario Wonder on Switch is actually cheaper, and people love to complain about Nintendo games being as expensive as they are when in this case Sonic actually had it worse. That game had co-op that actually worked, and even had online co-op which Superstars lacked. Even when excluding that, there are much cheaper alternatives on Steam with more content at higher quality.

[MetoolMan]

Point regarding 2. Lack of Identity-
Idk man, it introduces individual Chaos Emerald powers and Trip the Sungazer. I think it gives it an identity of some sort.

[NBOX21]

Originally posted by MetoolMan:

Point regarding 2. Lack of Identity-
Idk man, it introduces individual Chaos Emerald powers and Trip the Sungazer. I think it gives it an identity of some sort.

Meh, they didn't really do much for me.
While a cool idea, the emerald powers were extremely underutilised to the point where I barely used them. Liquid, for example, was basically useless as there's so few levels you could even use it at all. Trip, aside from having a separate campaign with harder stage layouts, is just another character with a double jump ability (like Amy) and the wall rolling ability that's just the Pink Spike Wisp from Colours Wii and Generations.

Even Advance 1 had a playable Amy Rose who was drastically different from everyone else, with the inability to roll into a ball and requiring her to defeat enemies with her hammer thus changing the way you approach the levels should you choose to play as her.

[dżentelmen]

NBOX21 I love the fact that the discussion about Sonic Generations not being that good turned into a discussion about why Superstars failed (not that it bothers me). And as for the Superstars themselve, I think you're right (maybe except for the lack of identity, because emerald powers is something that distinguishes this game, maybe not positively, because I don't think anyone uses them, but still). I would just add that it seems to me that the expectations have also done their job. The fact that Mania was the last classic Sonic game and was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ perfect didn't help, because the next game could either be just as good or even better.