Sonic X Shadow Generations announced, releases Autumn 2024

kids who complain about classic sonic nostalgia pandering when shadow nostalgia pandering

 

Another masterfully executed joke Joe Senpai. A third repetition will make the audience roar.

 

quit yappin

 

I choose to be an enlightened modern era fan, patiently awaiting the Blaze pandering (yes I know she debuted the same year Shadow got his game, don’t sweat the details).

 

I'm not a huge fan of Shadow but I don't mind the new content being pure Shadow fan service, to be honest. He hasn't been in a Sonic game in a while so I'm happy for the Shadow fans getting a bone with some meat on it. And I'm one of the weirdos who really liked the Cyber Space levels in Frontiers and Shadow Generations just looks like more of that so even if the story and character are mid I think I'll get some fun out of it.

And even if it sucks, it's not going to make Generations (one of my favorite Sonic games) worse.

 

I've long stopped trying to figure out where my fandom fits in. Every time I think I know where it belongs, I have a surge of nostalgia for some other era or obscure part of the IP. And it's gotten especially weird because Sonic has only gotten MORE popular as I've aged, including some of the most hated parts of it from back in the day.

Maybe I should just embrace the weird and become a life long Nicky fanboy. Nicky's dad wears some pretty sweet boots...

 

A Shadow bonus game is great. I'm always for utilising the extended cast in interesting ways, and stories in Sonic games. Visually it also looks very nice. But what I'm concerned about is the most important factor - the gameplay itself. Forces and Frontiers Cyberspace are awful, and this looks just like that.

Generations' minimal remaster is whatever though. The game is overrated. I've not played it in a couple of years and have no hankering to do, unlike so many other games in the series. Looks like it's not getting butchered ala Colours Ultimate, but also looks hardly any different to 2011 (especially the base PC version on high settings).

 

I'm interested in the prospect of a decent port of Generations to modern consoles, along with a small bonus Shadow campaign. However, recent releases have led me to be a bit more cautious about picking up Sonic games at launch than I have been in past, so I think I'll be waiting until this one's out before deciding whether or not to pick it up. If the port looks and runs well on my chosen platform - Switch - then I'll be interested. If it ends up totally borked or the new content isn't worth the price of admission then I'll likely hold off. I already own Generations on Xbox 360 anyway, so if the new port isn't worth it I can always dig that out and rig it back up if I really have a hankering to revisit it.

Side note: While the prospect of a short Shadow game is interesting, I find it hilarious the direction they're going with it seems to be "Shadow, remember your PAAAAASST...!". He's already done that in what are probably his two most iconic starring roles - Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog - and at the end of the latter he resolves to stop looking back and move forward with his life. So having him dragged back into reliving his own past a third time seems more than a little comical to me! When Doom's Eye shows up, I'm now imagining him reacting like the memes of C.J. from GTA: San Andreas at this point - "Aw, shit - here we go again...!"

 

Is there a download link for the trailer in the highest possible video quality?

 

I think I might be easy to please here. We just finished reviewing Shadow the game last month, and our central thesis was "please replace this with a different game". Depending on how elaborate this recap is, they may be doing exactly that. It'll certainly be the best game Black Doom has ever appeared in.

Realizing Shadow is using Frontiers's homing attack with a shorter cooldown makes me slightly more confident that it's not just more of what Forces offered, but Sonic Team had FIVE opportunities to patch cyberspace to make the turning slider work in cyberspace and never did it. If this game is actually made with hindsight in mind, both to how awful cyberspace's control was and how much better Final Horizon's stage design felt, then it'll be fun. Otherwise...well, maybe I'm harder to please than I thought.

 

No... just... no - you can't polish a turd... stop remaking games that are bad to begin with. People have been asking for an Adventure remake for years, why not do that? And I mean REALLY remake it, dont just put in new 3D models, ignore all the bugs and call it a day. Or, and this is a thought thats kind of "out there": MAKE A NEW GAME?! A proper 3D Sonic platformer would be a great idea. You know, not an epileptic fever dream of a game...! I know I'm asking for much /s

 

For what it's worth, the most interesting part of the trailer was the new boss fight against the Biolizard. It's probably just gonna be a spectacle fest like most of Frontiers bosses, but it's something different from standard boost gameplay.

But yes, the excitement for this hinges entirely on how much you give a damn about Shadow and if that is enough to convince you to get this or not. Yes, I know this is Sonic Retro and most people here either hate or are indifferent to him by default.

i thought the Cyberspace levels were fine so I don't mind doing those again, but don't worry they have a whole year to disappoint us with new information if people are worried some of us are jumping the gun.

 

im just happy as a nintendo user to finally get the real version of generations. i dont count steam, cant even get it to run

 

So, Generations bad, Adventure good?
Interesting point of view.

 

Sega's burning the house with how much they're cooking with this one. Can't wait to see what's coming up next!

 

It also notes Black Doom intends to rise again: it should be "prevent his fall" if it's all timeywimey shenanigans and this is Black Doom from mid-Shadow the Hedgehog.

 

Any predictions on the levels we'll be getting? The trailer only shows Final Chase and what appears to be Radical Highway (but is honestly looking more like Westopolis), so I could see us getting one or two levels from each landmark Shadow appearance. I think the following would be a good lineup:

Sonic Adventure 2:
Radical Highway
Final Chase
Biolizard boss

Sonic Heroes:
Rail Canyon

Shadow the Hedgehog:
Sky Troops
Lava Shelter

Sonic 06:
White Acropolis
Kingdom Valley
Mephiles rival battle

Sonic Forces:
Mystic Jungle
Infinite boss

And then some variation of Final Doom as the final boss. I'm probably being overly generous here and expect we'll probably get 6 levels with 2 bosses, but with how little we've been shown, it's difficult to say at this point.

On another note, despite my ire at the usual bad omens rearing their headand the Generations remaster looking like an absolute nothingburger, I just can't get over how beautiful the Shadow stuff looks in terms of art design, particularly the stuff on the Ark. Sonic Forces had a weird mishmash of elements from Generations and Lost World with some oversimplified original stuff thrown in, Frontiers was reused stuff with the open zones being too realistic to be exciting in most instances, but this is the best showcase for HE2 that we've seen so far. The environment design is of course as strong as it was in SA2, and the use of lighting and raytracing really makes everything that much pretty. I think this is at its best in the final shot of the trailer where you can see all the industrial lights within the Biolizard shrine and how the brickwork of the area is reacting to the light being cast. Really shows you that great things are possible with this engine.

 

Black Doom doing a "I'm back baby!" wasn't on my bingo card. The new boss battles are looking really cool. 2024 is going to be a big year for Shadow.

 

All the eras in Generation have 3 levels plus 1 boss and 1 rival. So I'd imagine we'd only get 3 Shadow levels and then maybe 1-2 bosses.

 

Yea this looks like it's purely repping Shadow's game.