Sonic X Shadow Generations announced, releases Autumn 2024

I know it's a pipe dream but what stages would you want if they decided to add one more Era for the newer games?

Lost World : Honeycomb Highway
Mania: Mirage Saloon or Studiopoolis
Forces : Egg Gate or Null Space
Frontiers : N/A (I really don't know how you'd do this one considering most boost levels re use assets and I can't see how to make the open zones into boost levels)
Superstars : Speed Jungle
Boss : Infinite or a Titan (for Frontiers representation)

What about you?

 

Why would they remaster Generations?!

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Talking seriously though, these projects are clearly stop gap solutions to buy Sonic Team time for their next game. They've shifted away from putting out a new game yearly for a while now, but still support their yearly release schedules with projects like this. Why this over Unleashed? Mykonos already answered that. People liked Generations, they didn't like Unleashed. The real mystery is why SEGA is so stupid to stack these. The fully realized version of Origins could have been 2023's game, Superstars could have been 2024, and Generations should have just been 2025. They release a bunch of these so close to each other that they end up competing with each other

It's already been mentioned but accessibility is a big reason. Not just on consoles, but the PC version stinks. Crap launcher and the compatibility on hardware like the Steam Deck depends entirely on the phase of the moon on the day you decided to launch it. An updated version of a popular game for the new hardware just makes sense. I also don't think SEGA would be interested in doing a #Return To Generations campaign with a $5 sale.

That said, this will be a half ass attempt, but if your only experience is the PS3 version then it's gonna be a significant upgrade. Or maybe a downgrade if you really enjoyed using that 3D mode.

 

If it works for my Steam Deck, I'd probably get it. Provided it's a competent enough port.

 

I almost find it hard to believe we'll be getting a Generations remaster but maybe it'll play out like the Colors one (i.e., release the remaster to fill a yearly gap before the release of the next mainline game)? I feel like there's not much room to add stuff to what is an anniversary game. Plus, the original still looks very nice, especially on a modern PC.

I feel like there is more room for interpretation. But who knows? Having remade Colors, it would make sense to remake the highly-regarded follow-up entry. And it would be great to have new improvements (and, especially, new content) to give me an excuse to replay it.

 

Honestly I agree with you, I think there's other games in the series that need a remaster more than Generations. Plus despite the odd glitches, you can play the game on the newest Xbox consoles so it's not like this is a game that's truly locked behind older hardware. I know many people are indifferent about Sonic Heroes, but seeing a remaster of that game would be more appealing to me than Generations. Hell seeing a remaster of the Adventure/Heroes era of games would be more appealing in general. (I don't know how many times I've seen people asking for a Sonic Adventure/Adventure 2 remaster.) Plus remasters of these games would make more sense with Sonic 3 coming out later this year, and the film focusing on Shadow.

 

I feel like including a level from Frontiers or Superstars could cut into sales for those games. So my dream would be a “future” era with levels from Lost World, Mania and Forces.

Given this, My picks are pretty similar to yours with Honeycomb Highway and Null Space from Lost World and Forces. From Mania however, I’d like Press Garden Zone.

I also wouldn’t mind if extra levels were made with the level assets from the boss fights (such as Stardust Speedway, The Death Egg, The Ark and Eggmanland)

 

I have no reason to believe this won't be just as botched as Colors Ultimate. Which is a huge shame, because Gens is the last great-looking 3D Sonic and I really don't want any "enhancements" they do to ruin that game's visuals. What they let happen to Colors was abominable, man...

Also not a good day for modders when the Steam version gets delisted and replaced with a version of the game chock full of Denuvo. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

 

Please understand that a remaster can be as a giant overhaul or as small as increasing texture and shadow resolution, and it's never an outright remake. It also doesn't really matter how close or far from the original release it is, because GTA's original Xbox release could definitely be counted as a remaster with how much it overhauled the graphics compared to every other version of the game. It's usually never "too soon" because the original version of a game is usually watered down in some way that new hardware can offload the costs of.

The annoying part of this is that model rips of these statues specifically are more prominent than their in-game counterparts to the point where you will often see the base stand in slapdash projects like Sonic Speed Simulator's original mini levels, on the end capsules.b

 

To be honest, Colors Ultimate is the one disaster I'd be willing to give SEGA the benefit of the doubt on and say it wasn't entirely their fault. The rumor was the remaster was already a total shitfest before being delayed due to COVID. It was described as "unplayable". Which, if you look at the state the game was released in, makes a lot of sense.

Compared to Origins which was done in-house, it was a lot more *functional* than Colors Ultimate was on release. Sure it had problems but Colors Ultimate was on another level entirely, and I don't think they'd be willing to outsource a remaster again because of the amount of damage it did. So chances are this is in-house, and it won't be nearly as much of a disaster as Colors Ultimate.

Plus, Colors needed a lot more work done for modern platforms. It looked great, but it was still a Wii game at its core. Generations could maybe use a texture resolution bump, but that's about it. It still looks fantastic to this day. I wouldn't expect any drastic changes to the game's appearance.

 

I suppose this is the holiday 2024 game that leaked Sega document was referring to, it mentioned having some form of prologue like they’ve down before and is probably related to new content which will hopefully be better than their previous attempt:

 

The real fear I have is if this is another EGS exclusive like Colors Ultimate.

 

Lots of mixed feelings about this. My dream is they'll just update the original PC version to HE2 with more visual options and port that to consoles, my expectation is they'll do that but charge money for the upgrade and my nightmare is they'll SCU it. Probably won't happen again, but with Sega you can never be too sure sadly.

What's gonna happen when they run out of well-received games to remaster?

 

Do it again

 

Gimme Quartz Quadrant, Pirate Storm, Shrouded Forest, Frozen Factory, Titanic Monarch, Metropolitan Highway, and Cyber Station and boss fights with Fang and Ghost and then Generations will be perfect.

If they don't fuck it up I'll be happy. If they do fuck it up I'll be mad it wasn't Unleashed because I want to Sega to release a fucked up Unleashed port and see Sonic fans absolutely lose their shit GOD that would be so fucking funny

 

Epic stopped paying devs to do that last year. Instead, they're doing something called Epic First Run, where devs that choose to make their games EGS exclusive get 100% of their profits.

100% of nothing is still nothing, and I'd be genuinely surprised if SEGA was dense enough to opt into that shit.

 

I'm down with a Generations remaster as long as it doesn't suck and is worth spending money on. Otherwise, I'm fine with the Steam version, unless there's something wrong with it that I'm not aware of (never had an issue with it personally).

 

The ideal scenario would be a re-release of the game in a similar vein as Half-Life Anniversary, where it's a complete replacement for the original game, but you can still play the original if you so desire.

But this is SEGA, and we know that's not gonna happen

 

Like everyone here has said, if they go the route of fucking the whole thing up on launch like SCU, or hell, add Denuvo into the thing, the chances of me buying it are zilch. I want an enjoyable remaster that comes with some new levels to run through, not an absolute dog turd.