Sonic X Shadow Generations Review

Sonic Generations was a title that bucked trends with its release all the way back in 2011 – being that the game was actually well received, giving many fans of the blue blur a well-earned sigh of relief. Finally, a game that didn’t get endlessly memed on or posture itself as yet another suffering of all things quilled and speedy. Fans and fence sitters alike enjoyed a simple clip-show-like experience of Sonic’s greatest hits, all stunningly rendered on modern hardware across every essential platform of that time – life was good. So yeah, it almost felt criminal that so many years passed before any kind of continuation was even remotely considered. Until now.

It feels disingenuous to call Sonic X Shadow Generations a sequel – because by all rights, it really isn’t one. It’s one part remaster, two parts expansion – and in my personal opinion, ends up being something far more fitting – a neat concept of how to revisit a beloved title without simply marching out a remaster or a remake. It probably felt pretty obvious to Sonic Team when they were approaching the idea of revisiting Sonic Generations – what the heck was Shadow the Hedgehog doing during Sonic’s wibbly-wobbly time adventure?

Shadow Frontiers is everything I dreamt of

For those familiar with Sonic Generations, the Shadow side of the story is a funny one – with the grumpy arsehole opting to skip Sonic’s birthday party for the sake of investigating The Ark – the orbital space station that serves as his birthplace – to investigate some weird readings. Suddenly, the same wibbly-wobbly temporal bullshit impacts Shadow, and he is dragged into an all-too familiar ‘greatest hits’ offering of fun Shadow stages and characters as a foe from his past enjoys the narrative freedom to pretend he was never defeated.

And these stages are no slouch, all seeming to be far girthier than the classic blue-flavoured analogues. I was actually quite surprised to find my average time in these stages to be pushing six or seven minutes, as their expansive layouts offered a shedload of alternate paths and Shadow-centric mechanics to fiddle with. While speed is still absolutely a centrepiece of blasting through these spaces, I found that there was a lean towards some precision platforming that felt more at home with Shadow’s unique abilities – particularly Chaos Control’s time manipulation giving you a greater edge to buffer your high speed shenanigans and thwart hazards designed to pump the brakes or even murder you entirely.

This is hilariously appreciated when Shadow strays from his own path and sets foot into environments that were never part of his story – such as the Sonic Frontiers section ‘Chaos Island’. I loved Frontiers, but even in my review, I pointed out a few thorns that made its breakneck fun err on the side of frustrating – and I guess in the spirit of keeping things accurate, those same burrs are present for Shadow. The key difference is that the unique tools in Shadow’s bag of tricks make them far more palatable.

Sonic got a skateboard, so Shadow got a …venomised manta ray

Shadow’s stages also have an impressive visual gimmick, where the level geometry and path will at times morph into a Dr. Strange-like nightmare – with buildings and roads twisting like a kaleidoscope as an envoy of Doom makes an appearance and allows Shadow to give chase. Navigating these sections is challenging in the sense that you are battling your own sense of wonderment to stay on task – what is happening on screen is incredible to behold, but you still need to keep steering your dark hedgehog forward.

Like Sonic, Shadow spends his moments between stages in his very own desaturated void – only the design here is far more free-form and open. In fact, it feels downright Frontiers’y with its explorative elements and neat movement puzzles to figure out. It’s another notch on the post for the Shadow’s portion of the game, feeling like a logical progression and improvement over what Generations offered. In many ways, it makes me pine for some kind of Shadow Frontiers release to properly fill out the potential – the extra abilities and navigation desperately want to be unleashed elsewhere.

It’s hard to get work done with a perpetual sky pervert

As you restore colour to White Space, elements unlock to allow further exploration, revealing boss doors, goodies boxes and even boss key challenges to add layers and layers of replayability. You’ll find yourself jumping into past levels with unique objectives like using time freeze to beat an oppressive level timer or completing a run with only a single ring to your name. These challenges are delightfully simple in concept, but devilish in execution – just about the only thing I didn’t enjoy here were the aggressive help dialogue items that are puzzlingly set up to interrupt what you are doing when you touch them – which is all the more fun when you are falling through them and they can fire off multiple times.

As for the ‘Sonic’ part of Sonic X Shadow Generations, it should come as no outward shock that the rest of the game on offer is …a modern release of Sonic Generations. The content is all here and remains as snappy and familiar as ever – although when viewed alongside Shadow’s newer nifties, you can tell it is more of a quick polish than a proper remaster. Some geometry yearns for more polygons, the odd environmental doodad does seem to look native to Xbox 360 hardware, and the gameplay experience is still very intact, warts and all. The failings of Sonic Generations are meagre ones, with the odd underwhelming modern Sonic level and bang-average boss fights – revisiting Egg Dragoon’s tunnel prompted a visceral recollection of the last time I battled through it – but the overwhelming good on offer easily balances it out. It ends up being the perfect other side to Shadow’s coin and easily spotlights how when Sonic is good, Sonic is timeless.

Oh right, yeah, the other guy is in the game too

Final Thoughts

As a package for fans and newcomers alike, Sonic X Shadow Generations represents that creative method of revisiting a game by souping it up and expanding it for a new audience in a new era. Taking a solid (but slightly light on content) title from ages past and dropping it at a reduced price point with a deluge of new content is a wild outcome in a time where gaming consumerism seems hellbent on offering people nothing. Maybe in another ten years, we can look forward to Sonic X Shadow X Blaze X Big The Cat Generations – and with this formula, I’ll be supremely on board.

Reviewed on PS5 // Review code supplied by publisher

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