Sonic X Shadow Generations announced, releases Autumn 2024

Nothing to worry about I think, Gens had parts of its levels that were damn near copied and pasted from the originals and Shadow Gens seems to be just in line with it. Likely focused on similarities to match the theme of the trailer.

 

Shoutouts to 3DS Generations' Mushroom Hill Act 1 copying the checkpoint from the original S&K when it was entirely unnecessary.

 

Feel like they're taking the time they have now to polish the rest of the game.

 

Rail Canyon? I love rail canyon lets goooooo!!!!

 

Also watching this trailer it really puts into perspective how fucking slow Shadow was in 06. Almost seems like they stretched out sections of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Gens to get the timings right now accounting for Shadow actually being able to move at a decent pace.

 

That Bullet Station remix is kinda meh. I'm not a fan of this dubstep direction Sonic's been going in since Forces at all.

Is this how Classic Sonic fans felt when Sonic had a lot of butt rock during the 2000s?

 

One thing I will say is that Shadow Generations definitely seems to be going out of its way to pick stages with more varied themes - I don't think there's really any overlap between stages from what we've seen so far. In contrast, the original Sonic Generations had a lot of repeated stage themes, to the point where we ended up with four separate city stages, nearly all in a row! Crisis City was probably the most memorable due to at least having the post-apocalyptic fire/lava theming going for it, along with the Iblis creatures which were more unique enemy-wise.

On that note, I'm glad to see that even if it's a smaller game than the original, Shadow Generations is still keeping the era-appropriate enemies for each stage. Newer assets for some of these existed already in Sonic Generations, but there's a good amount of "new" enemies in the footage we've seen too, including the Rhinobots and trains in the Rail Canyon/Bullet Station stage, and Eggman's robots from Sonic '06 in the Kingdom Valley stage. Makes me hope we'll see a stage that's explicitly from Shadow the Hedgehog, too - the Black Arms aliens would add even more variety to the game's rouges' gallery...! I'd love to see the GUN soldiers too, even though they almost certainly would be NPCs/allies rather than enemies if they appear in this game.

 

The irony in this is that when it comes to Shadow, Radical Highway is his defining stage. Had Generations 3DS not already used it and if Generations had not featured so many city levels off the bat either, it would almost certainly be taking a more central role in Shadow Gens too. As it stands, Radical Highway in SXSG is being represented as some sort of warped illusion within another level. It's a great idea. And they chose to use the Ark levels as their focus instead, which are just as iconic and more important plot-wise. Not to mention it was always a shame that it dusky get a full level in Generations originally.

The levels they've picked for SXSG so far all seem like good picks so far. All are plot relevant to Shadow, and like you say they don't encroach on each other at all. The overlap in Generations back in 2011 was so gut-wrenching.

This is a minor thing that I never see mentioned, but Seaside Hill in Generations actively uses the wrong enemy in one case and it really annoyed me. Instead of Egg Flappers (the flying Egg Pawns), it has Spinners. I don't mind them adding new twists to existing enemies or adding new/existing enemies to fill a niche where applicable, it just seemed like a lazy oversight. Shadow Gens has already fixed this for Rail Canyon/Bullet Station fortunately.

 

I understand and agree with the critique of the high volume of city stages in original Generations, but it's never particularly bothered me because I do think they all have different vibes - Speed Highway has this neon nightlife kind of vibe with Sonic high above the city, running across and through skyscrapers and ending up on the highways; City Escape is of course downtown San Fran, with lots of downhills and taking place exclusively outdoors, with much more greenery than any of the other cities, and of course has the truck chase setpiece going for it; Crisis City is of course Crisis City, and Rooftop Run is the most tightly packed of any of these stages, of course taking place primarily on the rooves of Spagonia but also having a light festival atmosphere with all the confetti and balloons, not to mention the clock tower set piece in both Acts. Of this group, I think City Escape and Rooftop Run are certainly the most similar, but they're still different enough experiences for me that it's not an issue. That said, I do agree that it's great to see them branch out (even if I do think these are the natural picks - which isn't a problem, mind).

I think it was less of an oversight and more a conservation of resources, as well as allowing them to use Electro-Spinners. Off the top of my head, the Egg Flapper doesn't have an equivalent variant, and it would've looked odd mixing the two. I also think it keeps the enemy variety within Seaside Hill pretty fresh, with badniks from Sonic 1, Adventure and Heroes all in the mix. Again though, I agree that it's nice to see Flappers back in action - I'm a sucker for the Heroes/Shadow/Rush Eggman robots (Rush in particular had a bunch of great picks - Egg Wizard, my beloved), so seeing them better than they've ever been is a treat.

 

So I'm a bit confused about The Ark. I always figured the Final Chase/Rush level was under the Ark, but here it's not? It's in the background of the beginning of the level. Am I missing something here?

 

I thought that too, assuming the tall structures were hanging down from the "face" area on the ARK's surface. In Sonic Adventure 2, the only ARK stages of this style all occur after the ARK's lower half has broken open - the only ARK-based stage preceding this event is Lost Colony, and that's set entirely within the station's interior. So I think that seems to have been the intention in the original game at least.

I think I'm right in remembering that the ARK-based flashback levels in Shadow the Hedgehog are also both interior-only - all the ones showing the exterior and the blue tower-like structures are again set in the present day, long after the colony was broken open.

Meanwhile, in Sonic x Shadow Generations, all the platforms/towers etc. seem to be floating in space, some distance away from the ARK itself. Unelss stated otherwise in the game itself, my headcanon is now that these bits fell off the colony on its FinalHazard-guided approach to Earth, and have been floating in orbit ever since...!

 

It's simply an inaccuracy in this game. In SA2, all of the levels set in the exterior of the Ark basically took place underneath it. All of the tall building-like structures were the underside of the Ark. For whatever reason, that detail was overlooked and the SXSG version is completely disconnected from the main structure of the Ark, even though there are portions when Shadow goes inside.

 

The answer is that they wanted to make a cool establishing shot of Shadow grinding away from the ARK in the background, not caring about the inconsistency since it doesn't affect the level design anyway.

A stylistic choice that will likely have no explanation or weight in the narrative because it really isn't that important.

I do prefer the aesthetic of the stage being on the "buildings" of the ARK and the contrast between the darks light of the ARK above and the blue Earth below but I can also appreciate eschewing consistency for one moment for the sake of the "Rule of Cool".

 

Speaking of polishing, unless Black Doom drained the whole level, please don't forget to add back water to Kingdom Valley:

 

No, butt rock was the natural evolution of classic Sonic music. Especially when you consider the TV shows.

 

If you consider two of the three American TV shows' theme songs to be more representative of "classic Sonic music" than Dreams Come True's jpop, or anything from CD, 3K, etc. sure, I guess?

 

Japanese cover available by popular demand

https://x.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/1814329356610920514

 

and so is electronic. all of Sonic CD JP, the MJ Ice Cap Zone, Sonic R, even Sonic Adventure, are right there as well as tracks with breaks being pretty common in racing music for the past 20 years.

 

Regarding the direction of the music, I actually think that it makes a lot of sense. 99% of Shadow's tracks in SA2 were electronic music after all.

 

And that trend didn't even started with Sonic Forces by the way, it started way back in Sonic Generations. But yeah, even before that, Sonic already already had EDM / eletronic music.

Sonic soundtrack have been always ecletic.