Sonic X Shadow Generations announced, releases Autumn 2024

I'll say it be about 8 hours long

 

I would guess, if it's Shadow Generations, a level from the games Shadow was playable in up to when Generations came out:

• An Adventure 2 level (I'd guess Radical Highway based on what was shown in the trailer)
• A Heroes level (no idea)
• A Shadow the Hedgehog level (based on the trailer, I'd guess Westopolis)
• An '06 level (one of the locations shown in the trailer kinda looked like Aquatic Base to me?)

Expecting about two, maybe three hours worth of content. I don't expect a very long game out of this, especially given that Generations is already pretty short.

Yeah, this is mainly what I was referring to -- I think a lot of people don't really understand that much of Sonic stories/scripts are outside of the credited writers' control. My understanding is that Sonic Team comes up with a story after outlining all the levels, and the story mainly exists to justify why Sonic and co. are in this location at this time. I know that even before Graff came out recently he and Pontac were open in interviews that Sonic Team and Sega provided the plots for the games they wrote and required them to approach the material with a jokey/lighthearted tone. (I believe the only time they had any sway over the actual story was Lost World.) It's the same with Ian Flynn and Frontiers; the writers are turning everything Sonic Team's thought out into a tangible script, their goal is not to put their mark on the franchise.

And it's not like Sonic is the only franchise this happens with. So many major franchises have strict mandates and creative restrictions for the writers/artists. It's why, for example, virtually every writer's run on Batman has to end with something that re-establishes a familiar status quo; you can't veer too far off from the brand image the IP owner wants to maintain.

 

I still do not expect it to take place during Sonic Generations. I expect it to vaguely follow the same idea but the execution to be entirely different.

 

I've got very low expectations for the amount of Shadow content.

In Generations, each era only had 3 levels. So I wouldn't expect Shadow to get any more than that. Although given the warping effect that is used in the trailer, it might even just be one big level, that has subsections for the Ark and a city stage.

Sonic Origins felt like it was to cash in on movie 2. And the stuff Sega did in-house for it was bare-bones effort (The only things that had effort in them were the things Sega outsourced like S3&K and the animations). Sonic X Shadow Generations also seems like it exists to cash in on movie 3, and the Shadow content has probably been tacked on so it has some connection to the movie. As it seems to be an in house project, I am not expecting it to have much substance to it. It'll probably recycle assets heavily from Frontiers.

 

aaah I'd hope not, it was already a level in a version of Generations (the 3DS one if I recall; there's a remix of the Radical Highway theme on the OST).

 

Sonic Generations was a pretty short game to begin with, only about 6 hours long (according to HowLongtoBeat) so the idea that Shadow Generations will be just one long continuous level seems pretty likely to me, I can't really see it being anything more than that. I think I'm fine with that tbh.

 

I don't think that makes sense given that we know the Biolizard is a boss fight, and the mere presence of Doom means he almost certainly will be too. Plus, "the length of episode Shadow or shorter" would be a hard sell It would be like if Colors Ultimate mentioned Metal Sonic in the title. as the central marketing draw of an otherwise bare-bones remaster. The second word got out of exactly how insubstantial it was, the game would be a laughingstock.

Given that we know this is on Frontiers's engine, maybe something more like Cyberspace is a reasonable expectation, where they take a few level themes but make a higher number of stages out of them.

 

Overlord basically stated what I am expecting as bare minimum

 

Personally, I'm only in it for Shadow's campaign. I don't exactly care enough (or at all, really) about Generations itself to even touch the main game again. Well, unless I actually have to in order to unlock it. In which case, I'm just gonna go through it as fast as I can. It's not exactly a long game and considering the absolutely nothing story it's not like I'm gonna get any mileage out of the cutscenes. In the case that I do have to play through it again... Uggghhh, I'm gonna have to fight Time Eater again. Well, at least now thanks to Superstars Time Eater is no longer the worst final boss in the series, so it could've been much worse.

 

My realistic expectation is 4 levels, 2 boss fights, and a handful of side missions for each level.

 

My very reasonable expectation is 28 levels, 46 new boss fights, 8 new playable Shadows, and the game also rewards you with real life Chaos Control powers when you beat it.

 

FIXED

 

Ah, the good ol Episode Shadow from Forces treatment.

 

This is it, imo. Maybe split into two boss fights

 

I feel like the Shadow portion is being severely underestimated. Beyond the fact that it was most likely a standalone project at some point (e.g. the website name in the trailer), SEGA is probably gunning for a $60 price tag on this whole game. Considering normal Gens is $20 right now, the new content needs to be worth $30-40.

"Worth" is totally relative and subjective, but one of SEGA's go-to tactics to justify the price of something, is to make it long or pad things out. Most recently, we saw this with Sonic Superstars where you had to play the game twice for the true ending.

At the bare minimum, I expect 2-3 hours of content on a first playthrough (gameplay and cutscenes). They may reuse assets if need be.

And with regards to Episode Shadow from Forces, that was a free dlc. Shadow Generations is, for all intents and purposes, not a free dlc add-on for a Sonic Generations remaster. It's the main event of this release. There's no justification for it being only 15-30 mins, or just 3 stages and a boss.

 

Sega does not feel need to justify their prices. Origins consists of 3 free to play mobile games (Maybe $6 to remove ads) and maybe a $10 port of S3K if you want to be generous, and that was $40 at launch was there really $24 worth of menus in that?

 

But the new missions!

 

The real question that needs to be asked is would SEGA have made Origins cost $60 instead if there was a 3 stage 1 boss Shadow campaign added on.

And yes, I am presuming they will price SxSG like that. At the very least, I will be very surprised if it's below $50.

 

That's still better value than a Nintendo remaster or simply port. I get sick and tired of SEGA or Sonic always being called out, while Nintendo can happily charge full price for a basic port of Cube or Wii Zelda games and hide them behind a £20 Amiibo to unlock all the content too.