Sonic X Shadow Generations announced, releases Autumn 2024

It ain't a new Sonic release if people aren't immediately jumping at each other's throats over 5 seconds of gameplay footage, lol

I'm super excited for this personally. Loved Frontiers' cyberspace segments and I adore Shadow, so I can't wait to see what a lovechild of these two would bring to the table.
I'm so happy they're going full in on the 2000s stuff with Frontiers and now this. A new release with Shadow's name on it??? What is this, 2005? Sign me the fuck up!

Gens doesn't really need to be touched up much imo, being available on PS5 and Switch is the only real noteworthy thing here. Series X and PC already play the game with a proper resolution and framerate, so I imagine not much will change here.
I would love for them to touch up the physics a bit tho. After Frontiers and Superstars had the best movement for 3D and 2D Sonic (in my opinion!), going back to the jank ass movements of Gens is going to be a tough sell.

 

Could that not be a difference in the gamma curve?

 

I highly doubt we are getting any Forces level. I'm not even sure if we could, because I don't think we've got any confirmation of when does Shadow's campaign fit in the timeline. The original Generations takes place before Forces.

And I still also doubt we are going to have these many levels. This is bigger then original Generations (well not exactly because there were always 2 acts in each level and maybe in Shadow's campaign there aren't, but still).

 

Concerns aside about Shadow's portion playing more like Frontiers than Generations...

Words cannot describe how fucking happy I am to see the ARK again. I always hated that Generations lacked late-game tech-nightmare levels like Scrap Brain and the Death Egg, especially from the later, more story-focussed games where those locations are important to the plot and characters. We could have had the Egg Carrier, the transforming flying fortress which destroyed the original Tornado, where Amy was imprisoned and turned Gamma traitor, where both Sonic and Knuckles duked it out with a near-Perfect Chaos, where Amy stops running and fights Zero one-on-one, where Gamma and two of his brothers fucking killed each other, but instead we got Speed Highway, one of four(!!!) city levels, whose contribution to the plot is 'that place Sonic kind of dicks-around for ten minutes while looking for Amy in between his two assaults on the Egg Carrier'.

Edit: Oh right and Tails races Eggman to a missile that he tried to blow the city up with. I forgot that.

 

At the same time as Sonic Generations, so no, Sonic Forces hasn't happened yet.

 

I'm glad a whole new generation of kids get to see a little girl get gunned down in a Sonic game

 

Between this and the movie, at least one of them has to fucking show it!

 

I think the absolute highest number of acts Shadow could get is seven. That's my highball guess for this game. It's enough to be a selling point, where episode Shadow was free DLC, but it's still less than half the length of vanilla Generations. Oh, and I guess since we have Biolizard and Doom here, that's two bosses, so maybe there's six acts? That feels like a good guess.

They can also stretch all this by doing what vanilla Generations does, varying the object layout and objectives for extra mission stages, while still giving each one its own identity using alternative music and lighting, but they won't. I don't know why, but they don't do that anymore. Was anyone actually bothered by that? SA2 feels like a much more substantive game than it really is just by having five missions a level and a Chao garden to sink all the spoils into, and while I don't tend to bother with them nowadays, I know a lot of people still do. This would have massively helped games like Colors, Lost World and Forces feel like you're getting more bang for your buck, since they're all pretty short (hell, Colors DS does do it). I don't get why they stopped doing this.

 

Part of the conversation I keep seeing being brought up here is how Shadow's homing attack chain is from Frontiers. And to be honest, I like it. Hear me out, Frontiers was obviously more combat oriented, unlike Generations, which is where I guess some people are taking issue. But it fits for Shadow, look at his last major role, Sonic 06, and even there his homing chain was slower and punchier. To me it makes sense. While Sonic is almost always speed orientated, focused on tearing through stages and enemies are moreso platforms than something to fight. Shadow, while fast, is more combative, striking down enemies as hard as he can because he's the Ultimate Lifeform.

 

Yea, it's a pretty easy way to "pad" out the games without it feeling forced.

 

Here's a question, does Shadow Generations count as the Shadow the Hedgehog 2 people wanted?

 

Seems to be entirely dependent on how much swearing and guns there are.

Though we don't know the price yet, or if PC users have an upgrade option, I don't think I'd be comfortable paying more than $40 for this collection. The original PC version launched at $30, and could be had for less elsewhere.

 

I absolutely disagree, for a couple reasons:

1. Neither Frontiers nor this game needed to have a big delay between attacks. In Frontiers' case, it's because the attacks are followed-up by the rest of Sonic's combat arsenal, but that still only meant that you could choose to let the animation play out, instead of the game forcing it, and there was no reason to keep it that way in cyberspace where everything dies in one hit. Moreover, you can see in the footage that Shadow's is still faster than Frontiers', so it's definitely not an intent of the devs that Shadow feel slower.

2. Whether intended or otherwise, it sucks. Sonic 06's Shadow gameplay is horrid, it's worse than Silver's in some ways by being more braindead due to the comparative lack of platforming. This is something 06 shouldn't have done, and it certainly isn't something for other games to emulate. Frontiers barely scrapes by with a slightly-similar combat system by having varied moves with different utilities and not forcing you to engage with combat most of the time.

3. The effect is totally negated in any case by what I call Werehog's syndrome. This is when a character intended to feel stronger has to showcase their strength through flashy combos and attack animations. But because this results in said character taking longer to defeat enemies than standard Sonic, it gives the impression that they're much weaker, typified by Unleashed, where werehog Sonic would fight some of the same enemies as daytime Sonic, but they're given giant chunky healthbars whilt boost-to-win boy runs through them without a second thought. This is also why Silver will never feel up-to-par with Sonic or Shadow no matter how hard Project 06 tries, because he needs a total retool in order to not feel comparatively sluggish.

We'll have to get more information to find out. I'm hoping it recaps enough things to function more as a replacement you can tell people to play instead of slogging through Shadow the game's awful campaign. But it could be Shadow 2! Depends again on how much is here. We've never had a Sonic re-release quite like this.

 

Colors did side missions too. It just labeled them as main acts and made them mandatory to pad out the campaign.

As for Lost World, it was a bit of a spiritual successor to Colors, so it followed its formula of having only main acts but making many of them gimmicky like side missions.

 

I noticed that Shadow's animation before his Homing Attack is Sonic's parry animation from Frontiers.

Having his Chaos Powers in the Biolizard fight means his combat probably will be inspired by Sonic's from Frontiers.

So... a skill tree?

 

Not a good way to define any of those things. Colors, yes, reused level geometry with different object layouts, but no, I don't think those are the same as SA2's missions or most of Generations', which typically had some kind of further stipulation than just being more level (also, if we consider that Forces does this too, is the "main act" Sunset Heights or Park Avenue?). I always thought the criticism of this was overblown anyway, since it was about an extra five minutes per world. Frankly, maybe Forces should have shoved its bonus/secret acts in the main campaign somewhere, since it clearly couldn't afford the length of the campaign it had.

Lost World also isn't a good example at all. Levels having gimmicks doesn't make them not mainline levels. It's not like there's an easy obvious separation between all four Windy Hill acts, or a way to say that the Casino Act is a "side mission" but the owl stealth level in Silent Forest isn't, especially when the game itself distinguishes these by having bonus acts and an entire special world exclusively for gimmick stages. It also doesn't work in the Colors comparison, because other than the shameless duplication of the grind and floating levels, these are all totally unique stages with their own visuals and geometry. The snowball level isn't very fun, but it's not less of a stage in the game because of that.

 

I count Colors' search for the red rings as side missions because they were really fun.

 

I guess I just classify "side missions" as separate from the idea of getting chaos emeralds. Like, I can go select the time trial for Metal Harbour in SA2, and it's the fourth option on the stage in the menu, with its own rank and goal. Or I can go look at that Generations mission with the huge enemies and you're racing Knuckles. I can't really do that for all the Lost World/Forces "missions" since that's just a list of basically achievements that you get from doing normal-ass shit in the levels.

Colors' game land is basically just special stages with a really long and different unlock process.

 

I'm very late to the party (2 pages) but I was out all day and only just finished breakfast once this started up...

"Finally a game to explore Shadows character" Are we... sure about this? Based on the descriptions so far, this feels like a regression than a development.

In SA2 Shadow is... well... I'm gonna keep that to myself since I have a really big video coming out exploring a bit of a new idea about his character so... subcribe to Badnik Mechanic (thumbs up) lolz, anyway... Shadow in SA2, you all know what he's like...

Heroes, the question was "Was this Shadow? Was it a robot? A Clone etc..."

Shadow the Hedgehog: Ok this is the real Shadow... but how is he gonna go? Is he gonna go along with Maria's wishes, or the revenge destruction route.... Then at the end of the game he declares "I've put my past behind me!" And decides to go his own way...

Then we get to Sonic 06, and... Shadow has a criminally under-discussed idea about him which... isn't fleshed out too well... but it could have been amazing...

"You may have put your past behind you, but everybody else saw you stand on the Golden Gate bridge threatening everyone, we all saw you try to destroy our world, and now you want us to trust you? No, you may have put your past behind you, but we don't trust you!"

Shadow has put his past behind him, but people still do not trust him, he's got too much baggage and potentially that's something which could impact him. Mephelis is able (off screen) to get the future citizens to blame Shadow quite easily for the Flames of Disaster) we don't really know the details, but it's something that happened and it seems it was enough to 'end him' in the future timeline...

Anyway...

Since Sonic 06, Shadow appears in Boom as... well... that... Apparently he was mind controlled or something but... Good lord the story.

Mainline games he... just... sorta is there... he doesn't really have much of any development? Even in Forces, he doesn't really go through anything? Am I forgetting something significant that impacts his character?

But now we have Shadow Generations! We're going back through Shadows past! Black Doom will torture Shadow with painful memories! My God the drama! ... .. .... .. We've already moved on from this guys even before Sonic Generations came out!

Shadow himself moved on from his past making him vulnerable. It just feels a bit.... I dunno... like a huge regression if we're going back to Shadow being a post SA2 "I'm still bothered/affected by my memories" narrative?

 

I'm not interested in debating the merits and faults of Colors' approach. I was simply answering the question of why Colors and SLW didn't do it.

Colors specifically turned its side levels into main acts to make the campaign longer, and SLW was designed in Colors' mold of having more main levels instead of side missions. In the latter case the game was designed to have only main acts since the beginning, so it doesn't suffer from gimmicky acts as badly as Colors.

And Colors might not have had written "stipulations", but its gimmicky acts still played like side levels and in many cases followed unwritten stipulations, like that Aquarium Park act in which Sonic is inexplicably surrounded by a school of fish that protects him from damage and drowning. If it was Generations, it would have been a side mission with a stipulation saying something like "Use the school of fish to reach the goal".